When you enter the mountain village of Pera Melana on Greece's southern Peloponnese peninsula, you're likely to hear the rumble of scooters as they drive down the narrow roads and the chirping of birds stealing ripe fruit from the trees.
But if you approach the cafe in the center of the village, you will hear a rather unusual sound.
It is the murmur of elderly fellow citizens talking in a 3.000-year-old language called Cakonika.
The speakers are linguistic descendants of ancient Sparta, the legendary Greek polis (city-state) and an integral part of the rich cultural heritage of a people called the Tsakoni.
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Toma Kunia, known as the "Empress of Tzakonika" because of her exceptional command of the language, tells her friend about the bread she baked that morning, but my Greek translator does not understand her.
Instead, Kunia translates to him in Greek, and then he translates to me, like in a game of Chinese Whisperers.
I'm enchanted.
These women are some of the last fluent speakers of one of the world's oldest living languages.
It is the only continuous legacy of the ancient Spartans and one of the oldest languages in Europe.
Today, only about 2.000 of the 10.000 Chakons, mostly elderly people, still speak Chakon at all, and the language is limited to 13 towns, villages and hamlets around Pera Melana.
Although Greek is the official language of the region, Chakonika is often spoken here at home and casually in public.
And yet her future remains uncertain.
"We are losing education without authentic teachers," says Kunia.
"I have been trying to preserve it for the last 40 years. That's my duty."
Cakonics is not only important for the identity and culture of the Cakons, it is also the only continuous legacy of the ancient Spartans.
It is also the oldest living language in Greece - older than modern Greek by about 3.100 years - and one of the oldest languages in Europe.
When we go to Sparta, we feel at home
"If we lose our language, we will no longer be able to claim to be Tsakonians," explains Eleni Manu, a Tsakonian teacher and author from the nearby town of Leonidio, the de facto capital of Tsakonia.
Tsakonic is based on the Doric language spoken by the ancient Spartans and is the only surviving dialect of the Western Doric branch of the Hellenic languages.
Unlike it, Greek originates from the Ionian and Attic dialects of the eastern branch.
Although they all use a similar script, Chakonika has more phonetic symbols and differs in structure and pronunciation.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Chakonika is closer to ancient than to modern Greek, but neither of these languages is mutually intelligible.
The creator of the famous laconic expression was Leonidas I, king of the Spartans, in 480 BC in the Battle of Thermopylae, when he led 300 of his men and about 1.000 other Greeks to fight against 500.000 Persians.
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Bearing in mind the unequal balance of power, the Persian commander demanded that Leonidas hand over all his weapons or die. Leonidas replied in laconic: "Come for them!"
Laconian was a Doric dialect spoken in the Spartan state of Laconia and in the Middle Ages it became known as Caconian or Cakonika.
"Cakonika is the main proof of our Spartan connection," points out Manu.
“And as for the heart, we are their direct descendants.
"In my case and in the case of many Cacones, when we go to Sparta, we feel at home."
Although Pera Melana and other villages where Tsakonic is still spoken are located about 55 to 100 kilometers northeast of ancient Sparta, their geographical distance from the capital that once ruled them actually helped to preserve the language.
After the Visigoths sacked Sparta in 396 BC, the city was eventually abandoned and the remaining Spartans fled and settled in these mountainous areas.
Over the centuries, Chakonika was preserved in those isolated farming settlements that quietly passed the language from generation to generation.
These communities remained relatively separate until after the Greek War of Independence (1821-29), which led to mass education and improved infrastructure.
"The construction of roads and ports allowed people to leave the villages," says Kunia.
"Many villagers never returned."
The introduction of electricity in all Cacon villages in the fifties of the last century and exposure to national broadcasters further connected the inhabitants to the outside world.
Many moved to other countries in search of better jobs.
One of them is Panos Marneris, now a Cakonika teacher, poet and songwriter who runs the Cakonika language website.
"Until 1970, when I left for the United States, Tiros and other villages in the area where I grew up spoke 100 percent Chakon," he says.
"But every year when I came to visit, more and more people didn't speak it, and that worried me.
"The road from Astros to Leonidio was built in 1958. Twenty years later, people stopped speaking Chacon."
About 5.000 people still spoke Chacon in the late XNUMXs, according to Eleni Manu.
But this number further decreased by more than half in the following decades when modern Greek became the national language in 1976 and teachers from outside came to Tsakonia to teach it.
In addition, Cakonika is stigmatized as a "peasant language".
As a result, Eleni Manu's father, whose mother tongue it was, refused to teach his daughter Zakon because he considered it unnecessary and shameful.
What's more, his generation largely suppressed it in their children - a decision many regret today, as UNESCO has listed Chakonika as a "critically endangered" language.
Until the nineties, Tzakonika was still taught alongside Greek in some local schools, but then it became purely optional.
Today, there are hardly any schools left in these aging villages because very few children live in them.
"There are only 12 children living in my village today," says Kunia.
"It's a big problem to pass the language on when you don't have younger generations."
Although the long-term sustainability of caconique is highly questionable, its former stigma has long since disappeared.
"In the XNUMXs and XNUMXs, there was a change in attitude towards cakonika as something to be preserved instead of hidden," says Manu.
"Furthermore, many young Chakons were angry at their parents and grandparents for not speaking to them in Chakon.
"I begged my father to tell it to my children, but he refused. Now this language is fashionable among the younger generation."
Today, teachers, philologists and politicians are dedicatedly trying to revive this language.
At the very least, they show the Chakoniki the respect it deserves as the language of King Leonidas instead of the language of the peasants.
Visitors to Leonidio are greeted by bilingual inscriptions in Chakon and Greek.
One proudly announces: "Our language is Chakonika." You ask people to speak it to you."
Cakonika also appears in the city's Cakon museum; in the Caconian Archive, a heritage club founded in 1954 to preserve written Caconian; and at the annual Melicac festival every summer.
The latter offers Cacon music, dance, carpet weaving, stone architecture and a sweet, local variety of eggplant.
The word "Laconian" comes from Laconia, whose inhabitants were known for verbal brevity and terse expressions
"Today, it's a shame if you don't speak Tsakonian," says Haralambos Lisikatos, mayor of South Kynouria in Leonidio, who is very proud of Tsakonian origins.
"My dream is to be spoken by most Cacones."
Historically, Tzakonika was an oral language; according to their austere, simple way of life, the Dorians used language only out of necessity and wrote nothing down.
Moreover, the word "Laconian" originates precisely from Laconia, whose inhabitants were known for their verbal brevity and succinct expression.
And that's why there are relatively few words in Tsakonian - an estimated 8.000 to 10.000, compared to up to five million in modern Greek.
"That's why there is no Tsakonian literature," says Maxim Kisilier, head of the Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies Department at St. Petersburg State University in Russia, whom the Tsakoni celebrate as one of their best speakers.
"But there are declarations of love."
"Quality takes precedence over word quality in Chakon," jokes Kunia.
The greater challenge is to preserve the written language
The lack of vocabulary is not a problem, because Tzakonika borrows words it does not have from Greek and even a handful of them from French. The greater challenge is to preserve the written language.
"Chakonika has very specific phonetics and it is difficult to write it down typographically," says Kisillier.
The best attempt to date is a three-volume dictionary published by Kunija's uncle in 1986.
Now several speakers want to update and republish it online.
The municipalities of South and North Kinuria and the Cakon Archive morally support this initiative, but they do not have the means to implement it.
"What is not written down disappears," says author Sotiris Steniotis, who has begun collecting words for a new dictionary of Tzakonika.
"In this era of information with the Internet, we should not lose our language.
"Each Chakon village should have a Chakon center for its residents and Chakon classes should be held in Sparta and Athens."
Petris Dimitris, the mayor of Prastos, intends to open one such center in a closed tavern in his almost abandoned village.
Currently, only the Cacon Archives and a few other locations offer live caconics classes.
This year, Covid-19 inspired Eleni Mana to offer chaconics classes online for the first time, opening up a great opportunity to expand learning.
She also hopes to start a regional radio show that will unite Chakonika-speaking areas.
The digital revolution has even reached the dusty Caconian Archives, which plans to preserve all its Caconian publications in digital format.
"More people have to participate, especially young people - I keep asking them to get involved - in order to preserve this language," urges Marneris.
In the hearts of the Cakon, their language will survive, but it will be an uphill battle.
Modern, digital dictionaries may preserve the last words of the ancient Spartans, but only if, in the words of Leonidas, the Tsakoni themselves "come for them!".
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