View source for Urums

{{Short description|Turkic-speaking Greek Orthodox group}}
{{Infobox ethnic group
|group=Urums
|population= >192,700<ref name="a" >{{Cite web |title=Urum |url=https://www.ethnologue.com/18/language/uum/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190412200305/https://www.ethnologue.com/18/language/uum/ |archive-date=12 April 2019 |website=[[Ethnologue]]}}</ref>

|popplace= [[Greece]], [[Russia]], [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], [[Ukraine]]
|langs=[[Urum language|Urum]], [[Tsalka language|Tsalka]]
|rels=[[Eastern Orthodoxy]]
|related_groups=Other [[Ukrainian Greeks]], [[Pontic Greeks|Pontics]], [[Caucasian Greeks]], [[Crimean Tatars]], [[Crimean Karaites]], [[Krymchaks]], [[Meskhetian Turks]]}}
{{Greeks}}
'''Urums''' ({{IPAc-en|ʊəˈr|uː|m}}, {{IPAc-en|ʊ|ˈ|r|uː|m}}; {{langx|el|Ουρούμ}}, ''Urúm''; [[Turkish language|Turkish]] and [[Crimean Tatar language|Crimean Tatar]]: ''Urum,'' {{IPA|tr|uˈɾum|IPA}}) are several groups of [[Turkic languages|Turkic]]-speaking [[Greek Orthodox Church|Greek Orthodox]] people native to [[Crimea]]. The emergence and development of the Urum identity took place from 13th to the 17th centuries. Bringing together the [[Ukrainian Greeks|Crimean Greeks]] along with Greek-speaking [[Crimean Goths]], with other indigenous groups that had long inhabited the region, resulting in a gradual transformation of their collective identity.<ref name="Stearns_7">Stearns 1971:7.</ref>

== History ==
There are two main theories covering how the Urums may have originated. One hypothesis is that the Urums arose as a result of some [[Crimean Greeks]] converting to using the [[Crimean Tatar language]]. Another theory is that the Urums arose as a result of the adoption of [[Christianity]] by a group of [[Crimean Tatars]].<ref name="b">{{Cite web |title=Mariupol Greeks |url=https://bigenc.ru/ethnology/text/2186217 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210527170408/https://bigenc.ru/ethnology/text/2186217 |archive-date=27 May 2021 |website=Great Russian Encyclopedia}}</ref> Some also speculate that the Urums from Crimea/Ukraine and Georgia have the same origins from [[Anatolia]], with some even going as far to say that the two Urum groups speak the same language; however, the latter is not supported with the available linguistic data.<ref name="c">{{Cite book |last=Skopeteas |first=Stavros |title=The Caucasian Urums and the Urum Language |publisher=Bielefeld University |year=2013}}</ref>

== Etymology==
The term ''Urum'' is derived from the [[Arabic language|Arabic]] word {{lang|ar|روم}} (''[[rūm]]''), meaning ''Roman'' and subsequently ''[[Byzantine]]'' and [[Greeks|''Greek'']], with a [[Prothesis (linguistics)|prothetic]] ''u'' in some Turkic languages. In [[Ottoman Turkish language|Ottoman Turkish]] under the [[Ottoman Empire]], ''Rum'' denoted [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox Christians]] living in the Empire; in [[Turkish language|modern Turkish]], ''Rum'' denotes [[Greeks]] living in Turkey and Cyprus. The word "Urum" involves a prothetic ''u-'' that generally appears in [[Turkic languages|Turkic language]] loanwords initially starting with a ''r-.''<ref name="c" /> The common use of the term ''Urum'' appears to have led to some confusion, as most [[Turkish language|Turkish]]-speaking Greeks were called Urum.

The term is used by the following sub-ethnic groups of Greeks as a way of ethnic self-identification:

* Crimean-Tatar speaking Greeks of [[Azov Sea|North Azov]] ([[Ukraine]]) ([[Crimean Greeks]])
* Turkish speaking Greeks of [[Tsalka]] ([[Georgia (country)|Georgia]]) (see [[Caucasus Greeks]])

== North Azovian Urums ==
[[File:Греки Приазовя2.jpg|thumb|A group of Urums from [[Donetsk Oblast]].]]
The Greeks of Crimea (and later of the adjacent Azovian region; present-day [[Donetsk Oblast]], Ukraine) were represented by two groups: the Hellenic-speaking [[Romaioi]], whose dialect is known as ''Rumeíka'', a.k.a. [[Mariupol Greek]], and the Turkic-speaking Urums (also called Graeco-Tatars).<ref name="b" /> Both groups populated the region over the course of many centuries, and consist of both the descendants of the ancient (4th century BC – 4th century AD) Greek and Byzantine Christian Greek colonizers of the northern shores of the [[Black Sea]] and interior of southern Russia and Ukraine, and also of [[Pontic Greeks]] who fled as refugees or economic migrants from northeastern Anatolia between the fall of the [[Empire of Trebizond]] to the Ottomans in 1461 and the [[Russo-Turkish War (1828–29)|1828-29 Russo-Turkish War]]. Some Greek settlers of the Crimea region gradually adopted the [[Crimean Tatar language]] as a mother tongue.

In 1777, after the [[Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Empire|annexation of Crimea]] by the [[Russian Empire]], Empress [[Catherine the Great]] ordered all Greeks from the peninsula to [[Eviction of Christians from the Crimea (1778)|settle]] in the [[North Azov]] region around [[Mariupol]], and they have been known as the North Azovian Greeks (''приазовские греки''{{\}} ''priazovskie greki'') henceforth. Some linguists believe that the dialect spoken by the North Azovian Urums differs from the common Crimean Tatar language on a more than just dialectical level and therefore constitutes a separate language unit within the [[Kypchak languages|Kypchak language sub-group]] (see [[Urum language]]).

Urums practice [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox Christianity]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Кафедра общего языкознания СПбГУ |url=http://genlingnw.ru/index.php |access-date=2022-05-11 |website=genlingnw.ru |archive-date=2022-05-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220526200954/http://genlingnw.ru/index.php |url-status=live }}</ref> Throughout history, they represented an isolated cultural group and rarely settled in towns populated by the Romaioi, despite sharing Greek heritage with them.<ref name = "genling">[http://www.genling.nw.ru/Ethnolin/ethnosite/situation.htm Ethnolinguistic Situation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120205211022/http://www.genling.nw.ru/Ethnolin/ethnosite/situation.htm |date=2012-02-05 }} by Elena Perekhvalskaya (in Russian). Retrieved 2 October 2006</ref> Unlike Greek, Urum has never been a language of secondary education in Ukraine. [[Turkologist]] Nikolai Baskakov estimated that by 1969, 60,000 people spoke Urum as a native language. According to the All-Ukrainian Population Census of 2001, only 112 of the [[Donetsk Oblast]]'s 77,516 Greeks listed languages other than [[Greek language|Greek]], [[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]] and [[Russian language|Russian]] as their mother tongue.<ref name = "ukrcensus">[http://www.ukrcensus.gov.ua/rus/results/nationality_population/nationality_popul1/select_51/?botton=cens_db&box=5.1W&k_t=14&p=25&rz=1_1&rz_b=2_1%20&n_page=2 The All-Ukrainian Population Census of 2001: The distribution of the population by nationality and mother tongue] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080218064221/http://www.ukrcensus.gov.ua/rus/results/nationality_population/nationality_popul1/select_51/?botton=cens_db&box=5.1W&k_t=14&p=25&rz=1_1&rz_b=2_1%20&n_page=2 |date=2008-02-18 }}. Retrieved 2 October 2006</ref>
[[File:Crimean_Urums_with_Greek_flags.jpg|thumb|A group of Urums from Crimea waving Greek flags.]]

== Tsalka Urums ==
Tsalka Urums are sometimes referred to as the [[Trialeti]] Greeks or the Transcaucasian Turcophone Greeks, [[Pontic Greeks]] and [[Caucasus Greeks]], or ''{{lang|el|Τσαλκαλίδες}}'' (''{{Transliteration|el|Tsalkalides}}''), a name that refers to the Georgian town of [[Tsalka]], where Urums once made up the largest ethnic community.

Between the fall of the [[Empire of Trebizond]] to the Ottomans in 1461 and the [[Russian annexation of Georgia]] in 1801 there had been several waves of [[Pontic Greeks]] who left the eastern [[Black Sea]] coastline and the highlands of the [[Pontic Alps]], and then settled as refugees or economic migrants in Georgia and the [[South Caucasus]]. The largest and most recent waves came in the late 18th and especially the early 19th century, when the South Caucasus experienced mass migrations of [[Ottoman Greeks|Greeks from the Ottoman Empire]], mainly from the region of [[Pontus (region)|Pontus]], as well as the vilayets of [[Sivas]] and [[Erzurum]] in northeastern Anatolia. This wave of Pontic emigrants is particularly associated with the [[Russo-Turkish War (1828–29)|1828-29 Russo-Turkish War]], when many [[Pontic Greeks]] collaborated with or welcomed the [[Imperial Russian Army|Russian army]] that had occupied the region and then, to escape likely Turkish reprisals, followed it with their families when it withdrew back into Russian territory.

Many Pontian Greeks spoke Turkish either as Greek-Turkish bilinguals, or as a mother tongue due to linguistic assimilation processes that isolated groups of the Anatolian Greeks were exposed to.

According to [[Andrei Popov (writer)|Andrei Popov]],<!-- why "according to"; is this disputed? --> throughout the 19th century hundreds of Turkish-speaking Greek Orthodox families from [[Erzurum]], [[Gümüşhane]] and [[Artvin]] moved to Southern Russia and settled on the [[Tsalka Plateau]], in present-day Georgia.<ref>Popov, Andrei. ''Pontian Greeks''. [[Krasnodar]]: Studia Pontocaucasica, 1997. Retrieved 17 July 2005</ref> During the Soviet era they populated over 20 villages in Georgia's [[Tsalka]], [[Dmanisi]], [[Tetritsqaro]], [[Marneuli]], and [[Akhaltsikhe]] regions. In 1926, there were 24,000 Greeks living in [[Tiflis]] and the neighbouring area with 20,000 of them being Turcophone.<ref>Volkova, Natalya. ''The Greeks of the Caucasus''. Krasnodar: Studia Pontocaucasica, 1997. Retrieved 2 October 2005</ref>

[[Tsalka language]], the dialect spoken by the Tsalka Urums, is similar to that of the Meskhetian-Ahiska Turks, an Eastern Anatolian dialect of Turkish, which hails from the regions of Kars, Ardahan, and Artvin. The Turkish Meskhetian-Ahiska dialect has also borrowed from other languages (including Azerbaijani, Georgian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Russian, and Uzbek) which the Meskhetian-Ahiska Turks have been in contact with during the Russian and Soviet rule.<ref>{{Citation|title=Sürgünün 75. Yılında Ahıska Türkleri Belgeseli| date=10 December 2019 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHjDxo71Rk0 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211219/uHjDxo71Rk0 |archive-date=2021-12-19 |url-status=live|language=en|access-date=2021-03-28}}{{cbignore}}</ref> However some linguists, like [[Nikolai Baskakov (linguist)|Nikolai Baskakov]], classify it as a separate [[Oghuz language]] due to differences in phonetics, vocabulary and grammar.<ref>[http://etheo.h10.ru/turk01.htm Turkic Languages] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080928045356/http://etheo.h10.ru/turk01.htm |date=2008-09-28 }}. Classification by [[Nikolai Baskakov (linguist)|Nikolai Baskakov]]. 1969. Retrieved 2 October 2006</ref> Present-day Tsalka language is also thought by some to be phonetically closer to [[Azerbaijani language|Azeri]] than to the literary Turkish, which leads them to believe that it is rather a dialect of Azeri.<ref>[http://www.geogen.ge/indexen.php?lang=en&id_menu=22&id_menu_up=4&abc=0&fr=&srch= Azerbaijanis in Georgia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720103328/http://www.geogen.ge/indexen.php?lang=en&id_menu=22&id_menu_up=4&abc=0&fr=&srch= |date=2011-07-20 }}. Retrieved 2 October 2006</ref> Late Soviet censuses also showed Azeri as the mother tongue of the Tsalka Urums, however this may have been done simply due to the Soviets' somewhat unfavourable attitude towards Turkish culture. No secondary education in Urum Turkish has been available; its speakers attended schools where subjects were taught in Azeri and later in Russian.<ref>Наталья Волкова. [http://history.kubsu.ru/pdf/kn6_15-43.pdf "Греки Кавказа"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150824031329/http://history.kubsu.ru/pdf/kn6_15-43.pdf |date=2015-08-24 }}.</ref>

The Tsalka Urums themselves call their language ''bizim dilja'' (turk. 'our language') or ''moussourmanja'' (turk. 'Muslims' language). Nowadays, the majority speaks Russian. Also starting from the 1960s, there has been a modest cultural revival among the Turcophone Greeks. Historian [[Airat Aklaev]]'s research showed that 36% of them considered [[Greek language|Greek]] their mother tongue despite not speaking it; 96% expressed a desire to learn Greek.<ref>Aklaev, Airat. ''Ethnolinguistic Situation and Ethnic Self-Identification Features of the Georgian Greeks''. Soviet Ethnography, #5, 1988. Retrieved 2 October 2006</ref>

A documentation project on the language of Caucasus Urum people compiled a basic lexicon, a sample of translations for the study of grammar, and a text collection. The website of the project contains further information about the language and the language community.<ref>Urum documentation project at {{cite web |url=http://urum.lili.uni-bielefeld.de/ |title=Archived copy |access-date=2012-01-04 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120426091722/http://urum.lili.uni-bielefeld.de/ |archive-date=2012-04-26 }}</ref>

After the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]], serious migration did take place, so Greeks are no longer the largest ethnic group in Tsalka. Between 1989 and 2002, their population declined from 35,000 to 3,000. Many emigrated to [[Greece]], particularly [[Thessaloniki]] and other parts of [[Greek Macedonia]] in [[Northern Greece]], and also to the relatively near the [[North Caucasus]] region of [[Krasnodar Krai]] and other parts of [[Southern Russia]] (particularly the cities of [[Krasnodar]], [[Abinsk]], [[Sochi]], and [[Gelendzhik]]).

== Religion ==
By religion, the majority of Urums are [[Greek Orthodox Christians]]. Urums tend to practice their religion in Greek, [[Georgian Orthodox Church|Georgian]] or [[Russian Orthodox Church|Russian]] Orthodox churches. Despite there not being any liturgical practices in the Urum language, 60% (18/30 respondents) of native Urum speakers reported that they use Urum in praying. 23% of Urum vocabulary in the field of religion or belief are said to be loanwords - much less than the average across world languages, being estimated to be 43%.<ref name="c" /> According to legend common among the Urums of Georgia, long before they left Turkey, the Orthodox Greeks were forced to make a choice between their language and faith. Being devout Christians, they chose to keep their Orthodox faith and thus relinquished their language. However, most historians consider this to be a myth.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Eloeva |first=Fatima A. |title=Turkic-Speaking Orthodox Greeks: The Conflict of Faith, Mentality and Language. |pages=407}}</ref>

== Language ==
{{Main|Urum language|Tsalka language}}
The language of the North Azov Urums is a Turkic language belonging to the [[Kipchak languages|West Kipchak branch]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Johanson |first=Lars |year=2021 |title=Turkic |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=63}}</ref> It has been written with the [[Greek alphabet]], and between 1927 and 1937 it was written with [[Yañalif]], and it was taught in some schools.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Urum language, alphabet and pronunciation |url=https://omniglot.com/writing/urum.htm |access-date=2022-10-08 |website=omniglot.com |archive-date=2022-10-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221008185604/https://omniglot.com/writing/urum.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> After Yañalif's replacement by the [[Cyrillic script]] in 1940, the Urum language was to only be written in Cyrillic.<ref>{{Cite web |title=THE LATIN ALPHABET – THE ALPHABET OF REVOLUTION |url=https://e-history.kz/en/news/show/7620 |access-date=2022-10-08 |website=e-history.kz |date=18 August 2018 |language=en}}</ref> Urum is considered by some to be a dialect of Crimean Tatar.<ref name=":0" />

Much of Urum's religious vocabulary is descended from words of Turkic origin, for example, {{lang|uum-latn|Allah}} for ‘God’ or {{lang|uum-latn|cänäm}} for ‘hell’ (compare Turkish allah, cehennem). However, Russian loanwords are restricted to narrow Christian terms, e.g., {{lang|uum-latn|gimn}} meaning ‘hymn’, derived from Russian ''gimn (Гимн)'' and {{lang|uum-latn|episkop}} meaning ‘bishop’, derived from Russian ''episkop (Епископ).''<ref name="c" />

The [[Tsalka language|Tsalka Urum language]] belongs to the [[Oghuz languages|Oghuz branch]] of the Turkic language and displays substantial similarities with the [[Turkish dialects|Turkish dialects of Anatolia]] (e.g. in vocal harmony), but also with [[Russian language|Russian]] (e.g. in the use of subordinate clauses).<ref name="c" />

== See also ==

*[[Greeks in Georgia]]
*[[Demographics of Ukraine]]
*[[Demographics of Georgia (country)]]
*[[Greeks in Russia and the Soviet Union]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

{{Greek diaspora}}
{{Indigenous peoples of Russia}}
{{Peoples of the Caucasus}}

[[Category:Ethnic groups in Ukraine|Urum Greeks]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups in Georgia (country)|Urum Greeks]]
[[Category:Black Sea]]
[[Category:Pontus (region)]]
[[Category:Pontic Greeks]]
[[Category:Greek minorities]]
[[Category:Peoples of the Caucasus]]
[[Category:Turkic peoples]]
[[Category:Turkic peoples of Asia]]