The Greek dialects Griko and Grecanico of Italia's Magna Graecia

Griko is the dialect of Italiot Greek spoken by Griko people in Salento and Calabria. Some Greek linguists consider it to be a Modern Greek dialect and often call it Grekanika, whereas its own speakers call it Greko or Griko. Griko and Standard Modern Greek are partially mutually intelligible. Dimitra Melissaropoulou, Professor of Linguistics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, talks to SBS Greek's Panos Apostolou.

Map of Magna Graecia and the Ancient Greek Temple of Agrigento. Source: Wikimedia

Two small Italiot-speaking communities survive today in the Italian regions of Calabria (Province of Reggio Calabria) and Apulia (peninsula of Salento). The Italiot-speaking area of Salento comprises nine small towns in the Grecìa Salentina region (Calimera, Martano, Castrignano de' Greci, Corigliano d'Otranto, Melpignano, Soleto, Sternatia, Zollino, Martignano), with a total of 40,000 inhabitants.

The Calabrian Greek region also consists of nine villages in Bovesia, (including Bova Superiore, Roghudi, Gallicianò, Chorìo di Roghudi and Bova Marina) and four districts in the city of Reggio Calabria, but its population is significantly smaller, with around only 2000 inhabitants.

Professor of Linguistic at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Dimitra Melissaropoulou. Source: Supplied

When Benito Mussolini and the Fascists rose to power in Italy in the early 1920s, some of their earliest measures to expand and solidify their grip on the country involved censorship. Mussolini’s government was nationalist to the extreme, promoting “Italianization” in everything to “avoid polluting the Italian culture.” So, on July 23, 1929, not even 70 years since the country was first unified, the Italian government banned the use of foreign words. One the first 'victim' of Mussolini's censorship was the Greek dialects of southern Italy.