Griko people

The Griko people (Greek: Γκρίκο), also known as Grecanici in Calabria, are an ethnic Greek community of Southern Italy. They are found principally in the regions of Calabria and Apulia (peninsula of Salento). The Griko are believed to be remnants of the once large Ancient and Medieval Greek communities of Southern Italy (the ancient Magna Graecia region), although there is some dispute among scholars as to whether the Griko community is directly descended from Ancient Greeks, from more recent medieval migrations during the Byzantine period, or a combination of both.

A long-standing debate over the origin of the Griko dialect has produced two main theories about the origins of Griko. According to the first theory, developed by Giuseppe Morosi in 1870, Griko originated from the Hellenistic Koine when in the Byzantine era [...] waves of immigrants arrived from Greece to Salento. Some decades after Morosi, Gerhard Rohlfs, in the wake of Hatzidakis, claimed instead that Griko was a local variety evolved directly from the ancient Greek.

Greek people have been living in Southern Italy for millennia, initially arriving in Southern Italy in numerous waves of migrations, from the ancient Greek colonisation of Southern Italy and Sicily in the 8th century BC through to the Byzantine Greek migrations of the 15th century caused by the Ottoman conquest. In the Middle Ages, Greek regional communities were reduced to isolated enclaves. Although most Greek inhabitants of Southern Italy were Italianized and absorbed by the local Romance-speaking population over the centuries, the Griko community has been able to preserve their original Greek identity, heritage, language and distinct culture, although exposure to mass media has progressively eroded their culture and language. A recent study on the genetics of Calabrian Greeks from Aspromonte found them to be isolated and distinct from other populations of southern Italy. Furthermore, both the Griko and other southern Italian populations were found to have ancestry from the ancient Greek settlement of Magna Graecia.

The Griko people traditionally speak Italiot Greek (the Griko or Grecanico dialects), which is a form of the Greek language. In recent years, the number of Griko who speak the Griko language has been greatly reduced; most of the younger Griko have shifted to Italian. Today, the Griko are Catholics.