” ΚΑΛΑ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥΓΕΝΝΑ “
Τίτλος: The Tsakonian Dialect: A historical journey through Antiquity until today. The language planning policies and Educational Reforms required to be made by the literary elite that will enable the dialect surviving alongside the international language, English.
Εισηγητής: kolendrianos Nikolas, Dip. Of Teaching, Bach. Of Education, Masters in Modern Languages, Masters in TESOL (Teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages), Cert. IV TAE (Training & Assessment) – University of Melbourne
Περίληψη Εισήγησης για το 8ο Τσακώνικο Συνέδριο
In this paper I make a historical journey of the Tsakonian dialect throughout the centuries and examine the various linguistic influences and changes made by the various foreign invaders in the region throughout time. It examines how this dialect was spoken by the natives and was able to survive the Ottoman occupation and beyond. My paper will look at both the language-planning policies of the Greek state (status planning) and the standardization efforts of literary elites (corpus planning), in the context of the competing varieties of Greek and of the other languages that were spoken in areas which Greek culture was prevailing during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Of these, Turkish (in the Ottoman Empire) and Italian (in the Ionian Islands) were languages of political authority at the time and the other languages named above were for most part confined to the status of local spoken languages of the region, while the status of Greek was somewhere between the two.
At the centre of the Greek language question was the desire to develop a written language that would replicate an ideal national image that would in turn represent and convey the relationship of the modern Greeks to the ancients. The problem that arose from different members of the Greek elite entertained different versions of this national image. ‘Archaist’ and ‘purists’ claimed that the best way to demonstrate the modern Greeks’ connections with the ancients was to imitate Ancient Greek linguistic models (chiefly in vocabulary and morphology), while speakers of the ‘everyday’ language (later known as demoticists) argued that they could best reveal their direct cultural descent from the ancients by writing in a variety of Greek that was as close as possible to the spoken tongue, since, they asserted, the spoken language was the outcome of the natural and continuous development of the Greek language from ancient to modern times.
The paper gives the psycholinguists’ insight of how a language is acquired both for a child’s first or native language and the acquisition of a second or foreign language by children and adults. In this instance how the Tsakonian dialect is acquired by the younger generations in the Kynourian region and abroad. This paper attempts to give an explanation of the various problems faced by a newer problem known as globalisation and international English, which will affect many dialects around the world including the Tsakonian dialect. It is predicated by many linguists that many dialects and languages will cease due to this threat. This paper attempts to give an explanation of the various bilingual education systems and the modes of integration between language and content, currently known as CLIL or (Content and Language Integrated Learning) in Europe and the rest of the world. Specifically, this paper will highlight and addresses the following issues: The multicultural situation in Greece and the discourse on intercultural education, the difficulties and various obstacles which are currently present in the Greek Education System and in the implementation of CLIL in the classrooms. Finally, this paper will give some recommendations of the implementation of CLIL in the Greek Education System which will hopefully help improve students’ acquisition of the Tsakonian dialect and its survival in the world dominated by international English.
Λέξεις κλειδιά: Tsakonian Dialect, Linguistic influences, Literary elites, Language-planning, National image, Ancient Greek, CLIL (Content & Language Integrated Learning), Multicultural, Greek Education System, International English
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