What do greeks think of the greek speaking turk of pontius ?
In order to ensure that this mail is in good faith, I assume this is about the few remaining Romeyka speakers in Pontos, Turkey and It's not a misnomer for the Pontic Greeks (sorry if I am being paranoid but whoever knows anti-Greek propaganda will understand).
So, if it's about them, then quite possibly many Greeks aren't aware of their existence because they have in their minds the greater picture of entire eradication of Greek presence in Turkey.
Now, Pontic Greeks or knowledgeable Greeks on the matter will probably tell you that they are Turkish people of Greek ancestry or, if they are feisty like Greeks often are, they will tell you they are Greeks and they just don't know it.
I don't see a way in which most of this is not true at some large scale. This is not an "everyone is Greek" type of argument, no, I am just saying it based on simple logic. The 20th century was not a good time to be a Greek in Turkey, let alone a Pontic Greek, so there's no way the ancestors of these Romeyka speakers started speaking Greek because the Greeks were super prosperous and they got assimilated or they learned the language for business etc. And even if they did, they would simply not pass the language to the next generation, once the Greeks were deported or killed. The Greeks in the 20th century were persecuted, so the last thing a non-Greek would choose to do would be to adopt qualities associated with the target group.
This leaves as the only explanation the possibility that these people are descendants of Pontic Greeks who, unlike other Pontic Greeks who ended up displaced or worse, chose to adopt a Turkish identity and convert to Islam in order to survive and stay at their homes, so they were assimilated.
As for today's people, whatever we think, ultimately it's what they will decide to feel for themselves because if the sense of identity and belonging is gone, what's the point, right? Some of them may think exactly this, that they are Turks with some Greek ancestry. Some may think they are Greeks but are too scared to say it as, yeah, even in nowadays Turkey I don't think it's exactly safe to claim such a thing. Some may reject the possibility of any Greek lineage entirely, doing all sorts of mind gymnastics to explain why they are the very few speakers of a language of a people long present yet now pretty much gone from the region.
I will say three examples I have come across on the Internet (as I have no personal real life connection):
A Greek woman once recounted her experience visiting Pontos , where she found some local and they were able to communicate in the same language (I suppose she was of Pontian ancestry herself). The woman then told them they were a Greek as well, since they were speaking in the same language. The local became extremely agitated, fiercely denied this and abruptly ended their interaction with her.
The Romeyka Project instigated by Greek Dr Ioanna Sitaridou under the aegis of the University of Cambridge and the British Academy tries to raise awareness for the severely endangered state of the Romeyka variety of Greek and she tries to work with the local community to save the language. I suspect that for this to work smoothly in Turkey and under the aegis of British institutions, the characterisations and identifications associated with the language that are used must be very cautious and generic. Sitaridou interviews an old lady from Pontos, who says that she is happy that she could speak in her language with "a person from a different country". You can see that she completely avoids to name the country and express any sort of potential connection of hers to that country or the interviewer. I think since the lady obviously knew the head of the project was Greek and collaborated with her just fine and had her interview published, the reasons she was being vague was out of fear rather than out of conviction that she has no association to Greeks at all.
I was on youtube watching some video a few months ago, it was some Greek related video but I don't remember the exact topic, maybe something about Byzantine culture / heritage. As I was reading the comments, I saw that a man had written that he was a resident of Pontus, he said something like "we know who we are, we are Greek Rums, we are still here, please don't forget us". I felt for that guy.
So as you see, there are various different beliefs and identifications and approaches on the matter in the community of the Romeyka speakers and the opinions of the Greeks also reflect that range.
