“My father told me I am "N'alberu de volìa capisutta" - an overturned olive tree - the roots are strong but they travel. Not that I was unhappy a Zollino, but since I was a young girl I was intrigued to discover how others lived, how they saw life. I graduated in languages in Lecce ”. Thus begins Manuela Pellegrino, griko expert anthropologist with masters and doctorate in anthropology from University College of London. During his career he taught anthropology at the Brunel University of London. Currently a fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS, Harvard) in Washington with a project on protest movements against the environmental crises afflicting Salento and Greece. Together with her we will go on a 'journey' to discover this important linguistic minority to be protected.
Is Manuela the griko "a language that dies or a monument that lives"?
Griko does not die despite the chronicle of his death announced since it was 'discovered' by linguists in the nineteenth century. Languages are not people who die, nor species to be protected. These metaphors applied to languages are misleading, cloud the social dynamics that lead people, through troubled choices, not to talk to them / teach them to their children. I deal with linguistic ideologies, with the ideas, visions, conceptions, perceptions, feelings that people manifest with respect to griko, specifically.
It is clear that these are multiple, which change over time, interacting with the surrounding reality. There would be a lot to add, but I come to the reference, to the griko "As a living monument of Hellenism". My Greek friends who are passionate about griko often define it like this "ena zondanò mnimio tu Ellinismù". For many of them the fact that griko has 'survived' for a millennium or millennia becomes proof of the value of Hellenism, a reason for national pride.
Montinaro argues that "bilingualism was almost certainly the tool that allowed griko to last over time". What does it mean?
Many mistakenly think that every modern nation-state has always had a language. Montinaro rightly recalls the phenomenon of bilingualism; the linguist Child speaks of coexistence, of symbiosis of Greek / Latin first and griko / novel dialect from the Byzantine period (historical bilingualism). This does not mean, however, a widespread, undifferentiated use of the two languages, let alone that all were bilingual. Surely the prolonged contact has led the two languages to influence each other. Do you think that griko was mistakenly called 'bastard' precisely because of the influence of the dialect.
As communications between countries improved from the XNUMXth century onwards, griko speakers were led to learn and use the dialect more and more. Thus comes the expression "People with languages" then transformed into the stereotype "People with languages and faces", people you can't 'trust'. Bilinguals have been led to think that speaking and / or teaching their children two languages was bad. Today, the ideology that celebrates linguistic diversity is leading to the positive reappropriation of expression 'people with languages'.
Manuela you are a well-known anthropologist in your field. But beyond your studies, how was griko transmitted to you and what does it represent for you?
I actually became an anthropologist to tell the griko story, first of all to myself. Anthropology was a tool, but griko remains above all the voice of people I love. Just think that when I was in middle school I was already transcribing the phrases my grandmother Lavretana used to say who lived long periods with us. My parents used it only when they didn't want to be understood by us daughters; these episodes are common to many.
However, I remember that I tortured my father in search of the 'rules' of griko, imitating the French textbook. I then learned it as an adult, with my young old men - the Ndata Marianna, the Antiminu - and with mine. Then it is clear, I completed it by studying it also on the various grammars. For over a decade, as an anthropologist, I have been writing about griko, his people, I take it with me talking about it around the world at conferences. But to experience it, I just need to breathe it, talk about it with my old folks, with fans of Griko, but also writing poems and short stories, reciting in griko.
Can you tell us a saying, a phrase, a song or a poem that you have often heard in your family or that you particularly like?
I'll reveal to you a poem that my father Niceta (who left us in 2014) he dedicated to his mother, to his grandmother Lavrètana when she died (at the age of 104). He tells of his sadness as he passes in front of the maternal home. He says that sometimes he seems to see the door open, to see his mother with a child in her arms and that so her soul stops being sad. Iavènno sti strada / panta prikò / jatì 'e' torò / 'i' mànammu / echi tosso cerò / kamìa forà torò / 'i' porta anittì / mu fènete ka torò / 'i' mànamu / sta chèria ena petì / ce i scichèddamu / 'en ene pleo' prikì /.
How will the griko continue to live?
Languages are breathed, they live through people; people live with griko. They do this by talking, writing, acting, singing in the language, even discussing how to say something or how it is best to write it. Griko came to us also thanks to the activity of documentation of the scholars and passionate; each of our villages counts them, even if they contributed in different ways and times. There it came through their poems, the music. No one can deny that griko 'survives' today as a language of communication for a minority in the minority, but it is also one cultural resource.
It's tool of cultural relations, beyond local borders. We get closer to griko over time, each with their own, for a kind of emotional echo. Then there are those who approach out of intellectual curiosity, those who need to identify themselves. Today there is a widespread interest in minority languages, intrigue. I hope that no one falls into old traps that would lead to its commodification, and / or to a false representation of reality. We let that the griko re-sounds, as he knows how to do i glosses pu simèni!
Are there any projects to safeguard griko?
Individual connoisseurs and enthusiasts have always been involved in griko, associations since the seventies. With the national law 482 of 1999 is that regional of 2012, the projects have multiplied. But what it means to 'safeguard' the griko or how to do it, is the subject of heated (ideological) debates. There is discussion about who has authority over the griko and how to define it; how to teach him, how to write / transcribe him, if and how to enrich his vocabulary. Whoever writes it is accused of not speaking it, whoever speaks it is reprimanded if he is not a native speaker. In short, griko unites, but unfortunately it can also divide, igniting parochialism, envy, conflicts, on access to the resources - material and symbolic - it offers.
