Insan wrote:This is almost same for TC dialect. Greek(the Greek dialect of Rums) has much influence on TC dialect. A similar sounding dialect can be seen in Aegean region where once mostly Greeks(Rum = Ottoman Greeks) were living.
The term “Rum” in Turkish derives from the Greek term “Romios” which was the name that was used to once describe the Greek-speaking citizens of the Byzantine Empire. This term, in its turn, originates from the times of the Roman empire during which, every person living within it’s boundaries was called a Roman Citizen.
With the split of the Roman Empire into two parts, i.e. between the West Roman empire with Rome being it’s capital and the East Roman Empire, later renamed as Byzantine, with Konstantinoupolis being it’s capital; all the Greek speaking citizens of the later, retained from the previously used term “Roman citizen,” or in Greek “Romeos Politis” which was reduced to term “Romios,” or “Rum” in Turkish.
During the period of the Ottoman Empire, all the Greek speaking /Christian Orthodox people living within it’s boundaries were called “Romie” (plural of Romios,) and “Rum” in Turkish. All such people of today’s mainland Greece, Asia Minor (Anatolia,) Konstantinoupolis, Cyprus, the Balkans, etc., were called “Romie” or “Rum.”
With Greece independence from the Ottoman Empire after 1821, the people of the newly founted state (modern Greece) begun to be called by the Turks with a new name as “Yunan” which derives from “Iones” or “Ionian” in English, which ironically is one of the many ancient Greek “tribes” that used to live on the Ionian coasts of Asian Minor (hence the term Ionian Civilisation.) On the other hand, the Greeks of Asia minor (Anatolia) who remained under the Ottoman Empire and theoretically were the descendants of the Ionian Greeks, remained to be called “Romie,” since they were still under the Ottoman empire.
Now, the term Greeks that is used in most western languages, i.e., English, French, German, Italian, etc, comes from the name or term “Gregos” or “Gregie,” which was the name of another of the ancient Greek “tribes” that used to live in nowadays central Greece.
In Greek language, classical and modern, (with the exception of the periods of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empire in which they were called “Romeie” or “Romie” or “Rum,”) all the Greeks (all the various “tribes,”) are called “Hellen” or “Hellines.” In Cyprus there are references of Achaean, Mycenaean, Arcadian Greeks, etc.
In Cyprus, in a similar fashion like the rest the Greek speaking or Orthodox people living under the Ottoman Empire, the Ottomans called GCs “Rum”, a termed remained in the Turkish language during the British Empire and even after independence in 1960. The British never used this term (i.e. “Romie,”) but instead they adopted the term Greek Cypriots (GCs.) Greek Cypriots, after Greek independence in 1821, gradually abandoned the term “Romie” and adopted the term Hellenic Cypriot or Hellino-Kyprios in Greek.