What is "sille"

Sille can mean:

• Sille (name)
• Sille (village), a village in Turkey
• Sille (dance), a dance historically associated with that place
• Sille (Belgium), a watercourse running through Silly, Belgium
• Sille River (Turkey), a river in Turkey
• the Sille Dam in Turkey

The name Sille [pronounced Si-l:e] is a female (occasionally male) name, that is mainly used in Scandinavia. The name is thought to originate from Cecilie, a variant of Cecilia (a female version of the Roman name Caecilius), and from Silvester. In English, the name translates as "flat-chested one".

Category:Scandinavian given names

Sille Subaşı is a small Turkish village, near the town of Konya.

Sille Subaşı was one of the few villages where the Cappadocian Greek language was spoken until 1922. It was inhabited by Greeks who had been living there in peaceful coexistence with the nearby Turks of Konya for over 800 years.

The reason for this peaceful coexistence was Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, who was the witness of a miracle that happened at the nearby Orthodox Christian monastery of Saint Chariton. In the Turkish language the monastery is now called Akmanastir and is translated as, "White Monastery". Jalal al-Din Rumi constructed a small mosque inside the Saint Chariton monastery;. It is also notable that Jalal al-Din Rumi wrote Greek poems using the Arabic-Turkish scripting, which is why the Greek Sille villagers wrote Turkish using the Greek alphabet scripting. This form of writing spread across the region and was commonly known as Karamanli Turkish writing.

Mevlana asked the Turks never to hurt the Greeks of the village, and assigned to the Greek villagers the task of cleaning his own tomb. The Turks respected his commandment. In turbulent times, several firmans from the Sultan were sent to Konya Turks, which reminded them of their promise not to hurt the Sille villagers. The coexistence of Sille Greeks with the nearby Turks remained peaceful, which is why the villagers managed to preserve for over eight centuries both their native Greek language and their Orthodox Christian religion.

In the population exchanges between Greece and Turkey (1923), Turkey and Greece decided to exchange population based on religion. After 1924, all Greek population had left the village.

Currently, the village is protected and renovation efforts were conducted for preservation and touristic purposes.

The (Greek) Sille dances are ceremonial, most of them are performed by two persons facing each other. There is a dance, performed by women only, which is similar to the 19th- or 20th-century BC Phaistos cup that professor Doro Levi found at the cave of Eileithyia, which presents the figures of two women dancing around a snake goddess or priestess (Kerenyi Eleusis, p. xix-xx). Another dance is performed by men only, facing each other and carrying short swords. Unfortunately it is unknown what those dances represent, and the ex-inhabitants of Sille could not give more information about the meaning of the women's dances and the movement of their hands, neither can they explain the men's sword dance. There is also another dance which can be found also in other Cappadocian villages, where the dancers are carrying wooden spoons.