Sfakians - The Sfakian Dialect

The Sfakian Dialect

The Sfakian dialect is much like any other Creten dialect, and yet it is also quite different. Like many other Cretan dialects, /k/, /ɡ/, /x/, and /ɣ/ before front vowels become, and . However, one oddity present in the Sfakian dialect is how it treats /l/. Before an /il or an /e/, ⟨λ⟩ is a lateral . However, before an /a/, /o/, or /u/, it becomes an approximant, much like the English "r" sound. For example, "θάλασσα" (thalassa, meaning "sea") is pronounced by a Sfakian as, but πουλί (pouli, meaning bird) is, closer to standard Greek. This feature is not shared anywhere else, except for certain villages in the Aegean, including the village of Apiranthos on the Cyladic island of Naxos. Indeed, the Sfakians believe that hundreds of years ago, probably after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, a group of Sfakians left Crete and came to Apiranthos on Naxos. The cultures of Sfakia and Apiranthos bear many striking similarities, not least of which includes the aforementioned dialectal peculiarity.