In Eastern Peloponnese, in a remote region in the shadow of Mt Parnon, live the Tsakonians, a stubborn group of native Greeks. For 3,000 years now, they have been speaking an ancient dialect, the only surviving representative of the Doric language. They never abandoned it, not even when the Attic-based Koine (from which Modern Greek derives) became the first common dialect of all Greeks and the lingua franca of the entire Mediterranean.
