Pontic Greek - Geographic Distribution

Geographic Distribution

Though Pontic was originally spoken on the southern shores of the Black Sea, substantial numbers migrated into the northern and eastern shores (into the Russian Empire of the 18th and 19th century); Pontic is still spoken by large numbers of people in Ukraine Mainly Mariupol, but also other places in Ukraine such as Odessa and Donetsk), Russia (around Stavropol'), and Georgia, and the language enjoyed some use as a literary medium in the 1930s, including a school grammar (Topkhara 1998 ). After the massacres of the 1910s, the majority of speakers remaining in Asia Minor were subject to the Treaty of Lausanne population exchange, and were resettled in Greece (mainly northern Greece). A second wave of migration occurred in the early 1990s, this time from the former Soviet Union.

In Greece, Pontic is now used mainly emblematically rather than as a medium of communication.

• Greece: 200,000 speakers (2001)

mostly in Macedonia (East, Central and West)

• Turkey: ~4000 speakers
  • Çaykara: Multiple villages
  • Dernekpazarı: (13 villages)
  • Kars: Multiple villages and provincial capital.
  • Of: multiple villages
  • Maçka: No information
  • Rize İkizdere: (21 villages)
  • Sürmene: (6 villages)
  • Tonya: (17 villages)
  • Torul-ardasa, Yağlıdere-kromni, Santa, Imera: (no village)