Vowel variation in the Mišótika Cappadocian of Mandra (Larisa)

Nicole Vassalou¹, Dimitris Papazachariou² & Mark Janse³

University of Patras^{1, 2} & Ghent University^{1, 3}

The aim of this paper is to discuss the changes in the vowel system of contemporary Mišótika Cappadocian as it is spoken in Mandra (Larisa). Our study is based on recordings of 10 native speakers of Mišótika (5 male, 5 female) from Mandra, a mixed speech community, where descendants of refugees from Misti live together with locals who speak the dialectal variety of Larisa. We analyse the characteristics of the Mišótika vowel system, taking mechanisms of language contact and linguistic change into consideration (see, e.g., Trudgill 1986; Hickey 2010; Chambers & Schilling 2013).

The Cappadocian vowel system, before the population exchange in 1924, consisted of eight vowels, aligning it with the vowel system of Turkish, i.e. /a, e, i, o, u, œ, y, ɯ/ (Dawkins 1916; Janse 2009). According to our findings, however, the current vowel system of Mišótika speakers from Mandra seems to diverge significantly from the older one.

Remarkably, a previously unrecorded vowel /æ/ that does not exist either in Modern Greek or in Turkish, is now prominently present in words of both Greek and Turkish origin. Moreover, the ‘Turkish’ vowels [œ, y, ɯ], which do not exist in Modern Greek, are at the stage of elimination, due to contact with Modern Greek through a levelling process, something has also been found in previous studies of the vowel system of other Cappadocian communities in Northern Greece (Vassalou et al. 2019).

At the same time, the ‘Greek’ vowels [i, e, a, o, u] present a different distribution, since it seems to be assimilated with the phonetic realizations of the vowels of the local variety of Larisa, because of the close contact between the Cappadocian and local communities.

To conclude, the study shows that the Cappadocian native speakers from Mandra use a variety that is not identical to the older one, with changes that indicate long-term accommodation and levelling.

References

Chambers, J. K. & N. Schilling (eds.). 2013. The handbook of language variation and change. 2^nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell.

Dawkins, R. M. 1916. Modern Greek in Asia Minor: a study of the sialects of Sílli, Cappadocia and Phárasa with grammar, texts, translations and glossary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hickey, R. (ed.). 2010. The handbook of language contact. Malden & Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Janse, M. 2009. Greek-Turkish language contact in Asia Minor. Études Helléniques. Hellenic Studies 17: 37–54.

Trudgill, P. 1986. Dialects in contact. New York: Blackwell.

Vassalou, N., Papazachariou, D. & M. Janse. 2019. Variation in the vowel system of Mišótika Cappadocian: findings from two refugee villages in Greece. In M. Chondrogianni, S. Courtenage, G. Horrocks, A. Arvaniti & I. Tsimpli (eds.), Proceedings of the 13^th international conference on Greek Linguistics, 276–285. London: University of Westminster.