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Category: Modern Greek
What’s the meaning of the Greek expression: “We called Him John, but we did not see him yet”?
Contra Konstantinos Konstantinides, I’m assuming the expression intended is Ακόμα δεν τον είδαμε, Γιάννη τονε βγάλαμε “We have not seen him yet, (but) we have named him John.” It refers to jumping to conclusions, making premature moves—just as it would be premature to name a baby before it is actually born (in traditional society, with […]
Are there any Crimean Gothic loanwords in Pontic Greek?
Are there any Crimean Gothic loanwords in Pontic Greek? Actually, OP, you mean Mariupolitan Greek. The answer is, I’ve read a fair bit on Mariupolitan, and I haven’t seen any mention of it anywhere. That’s the answer. Now the background. The Goths of various vintages are an important part of the history of Europe, and […]
What’s the slang word for “blowjob” in your language or country?
In Greek, pipa “smoking pipe” (cf. Blandine Meyrieux-Lefevre’s answer for French), or tsimbouki “hookah pipe” < Turkish çubuk. That was a Google Image search for “hookah pipe”. Let’s just say that doing a Google Image search in a public place for τσιμπούκι was a mistake… As τσιμπούκι – SLANG.gr informs me (Hi, Melinda!), the Turkish […]
Is it correct that only Orthodoxy kept the Greek language alive? Were non-Christian Greeks not speaking Greek up to the 1900s?
It’s only correct that Orthodoxy kept the Greek alphabet alive; scripts in the Ottoman Empire were associated with creed. Thus, according to the creed of the Greek speaker, Greek was written in Greek script (Orthodox), Latin script (Catholic: the Franco-Levantines, including many works of the Cretan Renaissance, and in the Aegean sponsored by Jesuit schools), […]
What Greek dialects sound Italian?
Lara Novakov and Konstantinos Konstantinides are both right. The dialects of the Ionian islands have had the longest exposure to Italian (from 1200 through to 1800), and has substantial Italian vocabulary. This performance of Petegola from Corfu (Mardi Gras skits) may exaggerate the intonation as vaudeville, but exaggerated vaudeville is probably the closest you’re going […]
How is being drunk perceived in your culture?
I don’t know that you’ll find many cultures that think getting blotto is a wonderful thing, but Greek traditional culture is one of many that tut-tuts public drunkenness. The maxim my father used to warn me with was, να το πίνεις [το κρασί], να μη σε πίνει: “You should drink it [wine], you shouldn’t let […]
Tear it down, Elias!
Contemplating the follies of Quora, as I am wont to do, is an often dispiriting exercise. An Existentialist Parable, as I have called it. An exercise that can made one go all nihilistic. I’m already warning friends to intervene if they find me muttering “Tear it down, Elias!” To help them do so, I need […]
How would modern Greek language sound to an Ancient Greek?
— … By the twin gods, Autolycus! —What then, O Charaxus? —Hear you what a curious speech it is, that this strangely dressed individual utters? —It is indeed passing curious. —Some words sound like words of our common Hellenic tongue. —Indeed so, O Charaxus. —Yet there is a harsh deficit of diphthongs in his speech. […]
What is the difference between Rum, Urum and Yunan, and Yunanistan?
Rum < Roman is the traditional Ottoman designation for Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire, inherited from the self-description of the Byzantine Empire, and it continues to be the Turkish designation for ethnic Greeks, living in Turkey and Cyprus. Urum is a variant of Rum, and is used as the self-designation of several Turkic speakers […]
Why is computer called υπολογιστής instead of κομπιούτερ in modern Greek?
Everyone else has said the ‘what’. As to the ‘why’: Formal Greek is resistant to Latin-based loans, and routinely translates them into Greek morphemes whenever it can. The resistance was always lesser in informal Greek, and in the last decade or so, the floodgates have opened up for technical terminology in English: Hellenic coinages often […]