Griko people in the context of "Salento"

Greeks in Italy have been present since the migrations of traders and colonial foundations in the 8th century BC, continuing down to the present time. Nowadays, there is an ethnic minority known as the Griko people, who live in the Southern Italian regions of Calabria (Province of Reggio Calabria) and Apulia, especially the peninsula of Salento, within the ancient Magna Graecia region, who speak a distinctive dialect of Greek called Griko. They are believed to be remnants of the ancient and medieval Greek communities, who have lived in the south of Italy for centuries. A Greek community has long existed in Venice as well, the current centre of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy and Malta, which in addition was a Byzantine province until the 10th century and held territory in Morea and Crete until the 17th century. Alongside this group, a smaller number of more recent migrants from Greece lives in Italy, forming an expatriate community in the country. Today many Greeks in Southern Italy follow Italian customs and culture, experiencing cultural assimilation.

Griko (endonym: Griko/Γκρίκο), sometimes spelled Grico, is one of the two dialects of Italiot Greek (the other being Calabrian Greek or Grecanico), spoken by Griko people in Salento, province of Lecce, Italy. Some Greek linguists consider it to be a Modern Greek dialect and often call it Katoitaliótika (Greek: Κατωιταλιώτικα, lit. 'Southern Italian') or Grekanika (Γραικάνικα). Griko and Standard Modern Greek are partially mutually intelligible.

Italiot Greek, also known as Italic-Greek, Salentino-Calabrian Greek or Apulia-Calabrian Greek, is a pair of varieties of Modern Greek spoken in Italy by the Griko people.

The Italiot Greek varieties are spoken in areas of southern Italy, a historical remnant of Magna Graecia. There are two small Griko-speaking communities known as the Griko people who live in the Italian regions of Calabria, the southern tip of the Italian peninsula, and in Apulia, its southeasternmost corner. These varieties too are thought to have developed on the basis of an originally Doric ancient dialect, and have preserved some elements of it, though to a lesser extent than Tsakonian. They subsequently adopted influences from ancient Koiné, but became isolated from the rest of the Greek-speaking world after the decline of Byzantine rule in Italy during the Middle Ages. Among their linguistic peculiarities, besides influences from local Romance languages, is the preservation of the infinitive, which was lost in the modern Greek of the Balkans. Like Greek dialects in Asia Minor, the adjectival syntax of demonstratives is being lost in Italiot Greek.

Calabrian Greek (endonym: Γκρίκο, Griko; Italian: Grecanico) is the variety of Italiot Greek used by the ethnic Griko people in Calabria, as opposed to the Italiot Greek dialect spoken in the Grecìa Salentina. Both are remnants of the Ancient and Byzantine Greek colonization of the region.

Calabrian Greek is mentioned in the Red Book of UNESCO on endangered languages, together with Griko. In addition, Euromosaic analyses and recognizes it as being an endangered and minority language in the European Union. It is mentioned by Ethnologue as a dialect of Modern Greek in the sense of a modern vernacular language of the Hellenic family (as is the case with Pontic and Tsakonian Greek).

Grecìa Salentina (Griko for "Salentine Greece") is an area in the peninsula of Salento in southern Italy, near the town of Lecce which is inhabited by the Griko people, an ethnic Greek minority in southern Italy who speak Griko, a variant of Greek.