Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Qrikolar" in Azerbaijani language version.
Griko Milume - This reaction was even more pronounced in the southern Italian communities of Greek origins. There are two distinct clusters, in Apulia and Calabria, which have managed to preserve their language, Griko or Grecanico, all through the historical events that have shaped Italy. While being Italian citizens, they are actually aware of their Greek roots and again the defense of their language is the key to their identity.
THE GREEK SALENTINE – The Greek Salentine is a historical oddity, left over from a time when the Byzantine Empire controlled southern Italy and Greek culture was the order of the day. It is a cluster of nine towns – Calimera, Castrignano dei Greci, Corigliano d'Otranto, Martano, Martignano, Melpignano, Soleto, Sternatia and Zollino – in the heart of Terra d'Otranto. Why this pocket of Apulia has retained its Greek heritage is not altogether clear.
Mass media has steadily eroded the Grecanico language and culture, which the Italian government — despite Article 6 of the Italian Constitution that mandates the preservation of ethnic minorities — does little to protect.
Griko (also called Italiot Greek) Italy: spoken in the Salento peninsula in Lecce Province in southern Apulia and in a few villages near Reggio di Calabria in southern Calabria. Griko is an outlying dialect of Greek largely deriving from Byzantine times. The Salentine dialect is still used relatively widely, and there may be a few child speakers, but a shift to South Italian has proceeded rapidly, and active speakers tend to be over fifty years old. The Calabrian dialect is only used more actively in the village of Gaddhiciano, but even there youngest speakers are over thirty years old. The number of speakers lies in the range of 20,000. South Italian influence has been strong for a long time. Severely Endangered.
In Calabria, a Greek-speaking population existed in Aspromonte (even until recently, a small Greek-language community survived around Bova) and, even in the thirteenth century, this extended into the plain beyond Aspromonte and into present provinces of Catanzaro and Cosenza.
Although Bari, the last Byzantine outpost, fell to the Normans in 1071, the Normans took a fairly laissez-fair attitude to the Latinisation of Puglia..
Certainly Roger's attempt to install a Latin archbishop on the overwhelmingly Greek population at Rossano in 1093 was a complete failure. His nominee waited a year without receiving consecration, seemingly because of local opposition, and then, needing the support of the inhabitants against a rebellious Norman baron, the duke backed down and allowed the election of a Greek archbishop.
Latin bishops replaced Greeks in most sees, with the exception of Bova, Gerace, and Oppido. The Greek rite was practiced until 1537 in the Bova cathedral and until the 13th century in Santa Severina. In Rossano, in 1093, a riot kept a Latin bishop from being installed, and the see remained Greek until 1460. In Gallipoli, a Latinization attempt also failed in the early 12th century, and that see was occupied by Greeks until the 1370s. The Greek rite was practiced in Salento until the 17th century.
... Greek was also heard at Melpignano, Curse, Caprarica, Cannole, Cutrofiano, and at a more remote period at Galatina.
It began to dwindle in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when the South became more and more Italianized and the Greek civilization of Calabria no longer found moral and political support in Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire.
