Adem Ekiz, a Muslim Greek-speaker from Köprübaşı in Pontos on Turkey's eastern Black Sea coastline, dedicated an extremely moving and touching song to his father, sung entirely in Pontian Greek, also known as Romeika.
"I cry and mourn for you, I mourn for you," the Pontian Greek-speaker, with a lyra in hand, sings in evident anguish for his father.
In speaking about the song, Ekiz says "love and respect your parents because you never know which day will be your last to see them."
Thousands of Turkish citizens continue to speak Romeika, however Turkey does not allow them to open schools to ensure that the language survives in its native homeland.
Ekiz sings in Romeika whilst playing the lyra on YouTube and Facebook, thus continuing Pontian culture in its native homeland.
The Pontian Greek-speaker dedicated another song to the non-functioning Greek Orthodox churches and monasteries in Pontos.
Christian life in Pontos was exterminated during the Ottoman-Kemalist perpetrated Greek Genocide (1913-1923).
353,000 Greek Christians were killed in Pontos, with the rest of the population either transferred to Greece in 1923-24, or Turkified-Islamised.
READ MORE: 10 Facts: Greek Genocide in Pontos.
