Ἡλληνιστεύκοντος

Updated post on the etymology of βύσσινο “sour cherry”

By: Nick Nicholas | Post date: 2019-01-22 | Comments: 1 Comment
Posted in categories: Uncategorized
Tags: etymology

I have expanded my old Quora post http://hellenisteukontos.opoudjis.net/2016-04-13-what-is-the-etymology-of-the-russian-word-vishnya-cherry-there-seems-to-be-a-connection-to-the-turkish-word/ and just had it published in Greek on Nikos Sarantakos’ blog: https://sarantakos.wordpress.com/2019/01/21/nikolaou

Yes, this does mean I’m coming back. Eventually.

fufuðion

By: Nick Nicholas | Post date: 2018-01-12 | Comments: 10 Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Mediaeval Greek, Modern Greek

In my time at the TLG, there was many a mediaeval Greek word that was not in the main dictionaries—Lampe, Trapp (which was not yet complete at the time), and Kriaras (ditto); and I would expend pleasant and assiduous effort in trying to track those words down elsewhere.

One such word was the Byzantine Greek word for brocade, φουφούδιον. It’s in Trapp’s dictionary now that Vol. VIII has appeared (after the end of my time at the TLG):

φουφούδι(ο)ν, τό. Brocade. -ιν TestBoil 23, 131. -ιν AIv 47.37 (a. 1098). -ια APantel 7.12. -ιν 18 (a. 1142). -ιον OktoEng 40.15. -ιν 19. φοφόδην FalkSing 450.6.—Car[acausi], TestBoilP 157, ByzAD.

φουφουδοτός (corrct to: -ωτός) Decorated with brocade. DucApp I. s.v. ῤένδα: Cod. Reg. 2437 (= Par. 156).

φουφούλιον, τό. Brocaded garment. -ια EpBib 5,2. φουρουλ( ) (?) μετὰ σταυρίου ὀξέου “with a purple cross” Typ.Kechar 152,28.—LexPont -ιν; cf. Φουφούλης Car, φουφούλα Stam[atakos].

So we have fufuði(o)n, in one text fofoðin, ¹ attested in various monastic texts of the 11th through 13th century. We have the related adjective fufuðotos, attested (mispelled) in the appendix to DuCange’s 1688 Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae Graecitatis (presumably from a manuscript no longer available). And we have the variant fufulion, attested in the 10th century Book of the Eparch of Leo the Wise, as well as the 12th century typikon of the mponastery of Theotokos Kecharitomene. The latter word survives in Pontic Greek as fufulin, and in standard Greek as fufula (Stamatakos is a Modern Greek dictionary): per the Triantafyllidis dictionary fufula refers to “the lower hind part of islander breeches (vraka), which is puffy and has folds; breeches by extension; pantaloons for women and children, held up by suspenders”.

Trapp’s volume wasn’t out at the time I came across the word in the TLG. But other sources had already published fufuðion.

Such as Girolamo Caracausi’s Lessico Greco della Sicilia e dell’Italia meridionale (secoli x–xiv), a dictionary of the monastic documents of southern Italy, where it is glossed as “a kind of cloth”, with Falkenhausen’s example and two others, and with the contemporary Latin phrases from the same region, fuffude rossa et citrina (1065) and uno fuffudi citrino et nigro (1088). I had in fact gone through Caracausi for words for the TLG, but for some reason I had missed φουφούδιον.

A source I did come across when researching φουφούδιον was ByzAD: Artefacts and Raw Materials in Byzantine Archival Documents, which has an extensive article on the garment and its attestations, and renders it as “silk fabric, samite (?)”. The article posits that the name is “doubtless of Iranian origin”, and associates it with Leo VI the Wise’s fufulion, where the editor believes it is a kind of baggy pants. It also notes that fufula has survived into Modern Greek ByzAD is an online database, so I did eventually find it there.

That isn’t where I first found it either though.

I first find it through the word’s transmission into Russian. The word shows up in Old Russian as fofudja; and because of the delay in getting the lexicography of Byzantine Greek up and running, the only source Vasmer had access to in his etymological dictionary of Russian (where it is glossed as “precious fabric for imperial clothes”) was the 1688 attestation of fufuðotos.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say abut the Russian version of the word:

The word was quite obscure and was not included in several editions of orthographic dictionaries either in Ukraine or Russia.

According to the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, fofudja (Russian: фофудья, Greek: φουφουδότης) [which is presumably a distortion of DuCange’s φουφουδοτός] is an oriental precious cloth woven with gold thread and often used in ceremonial garments in the Byzantine Empire during the time of Kievan Rus and similar to an ephod. Fofudja was was mentioned as a form of payment in the 12th century birch bark documents found in the Veliky Novgorod excavation. Fofudja was mentioned in the Radziwiłł Chronicle in the 13th century when Leo VI the Wise rewarded Oleg of Novgorod with gold, fofudja and other items. The term is mentioned again when Vladimir II Monomakh distributed fofudja, among other goods, to the people on their way to the church.

Note that Leo VI the Wise was the 10th century emperor to whom the Book of Eparch was attributed, which had fufulion. The fufuðion was expressly mentioned as Byzantine in the Russian sources, and is mentioned over the same period it appears in Byzantine sources, 11th through 13th centuries.

Fofudja/Fufudin passed out of use in both the Greek-speaking and the Russian-speaking world, though the related fufulin clearly survived in Greek. There are two paradoxical survivals of Fofudja/Fufudin though.

There’s a reason I was able to find mentions of fofudja online so easy:

Fofudja (Russian: Фофудья [fɐˈfudʲjə]) is an internet and social phenomenon in the Ukrainian segment of the LiveJournal community. While its name denotes a piece of religious clothing, it has been used lately as a satirical protest against Russian imperialism, xenophobia, ukrainophobia, antisemitism and religious intolerance. By application of reductio ad absurdum this phenomenon involves people assuming comically exaggerated xenophobic and antisemitic views with the aim to mock them. As such, members of the Fofudja community sarcastically purport to be members of the supposedly oppressed Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine suffering from nationalist and Zionist oppression.

[…]

The theme of this phenomenon can be traced back to another widely popular Ukrainian Internet creation — a novel “The City of Lvov”. [started 2006–02–20] This satirical Internet novel written by “Professor” Ivan Denikin (a pen name of an unknown joker) deals with a few Russians traveling to Lviv and on their way encountering “unspeakable suffering” of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine brought on by Ukrainization.

[…]

The main symbol of this phenomenon is the fofudja itself. In the view of some observers the name was probably selected because of a number of factors: because of its obscurity, because it sounds similar to a piece of clothing called fufaika, and also due to its Byzantine origin and orthodox symbolism. Members of the community sarcastically position themselves as semi-underground Russian minority in present-day Ukraine, proud Russian patriots and devout Orthodox Christians.

[…]

Fofudja as a piece of religious clothing is meant to be a symbol of Russian Orthodoxy and of Russian culture. Participants believe that they will be persecuted by Ukrainian authorities for wearing it in public as a piece of national Russian costume. In fact, the leader of Ukrainian communists Petro Symonenko was asked in an Internet conference the following question:

“Hello, I am from Kherson oblast and I am an ethnic Russian. My daughter was prohibited from wearing a fofudja at school, a symbol of Russian culture — on the grounds that the state language is Ukrainian. I just wanted to ask you, Peter Nikolayevich, for how long [will it last]?

Unsuspecting of being a victim of a practical joke by members of the fofudja community and willing to profit on the sensitive inter-ethnic question Mr. Symonenko promised to “look into it”.

[…]

The symbol of “fofudja”, the catchphrase “доколє” (“for how long” “until when”, an archaic question word), the Russian-Ukrainian letter mix and the Imperial Cyrillic — these are the distinctive features of this Internet phenomenon that spread beyond the Live Journal blog and into the wider community in Ukraine.

Hence, the fofudja in its natural contemporary habitat, as a meme accompanied by the archaic and plaintive доколє “for how long”:

The Greek survival of fufuðion is somewhat less spectacular. On the other hand, if you’re a dialectologist, it’s arguably more spectacular.

Nikolaos Pantelidis is a dialectologist at Athens University, and he has been researching dialects that have gotten short shrift in Modern Greek dialectology, notably Peloponnesian. In Το παλαιοαθηναϊκό ιδίωμα: Πηγές, μαρτυρίες, χαρακτηριστικά, he assembles all available sources to date on the Old Athenian dialect—which, thanks to two recently published 19th century plays, are a lot more sources than we used to have. The dialect has gone from almost unattested, to attested enough for him to extract a basic grammar. (And for me to formulate an impressionistic description of it as a Tsakonian-flavoured Cretan.)

Of the two plays, Gynaikokratia (1841) has a brief speech in Old Athenian, written by Dimitrios Byzantios/Hatziaslanis, the same playwright who wrote the renowned satire of Modern Greek linguistic diversity Babel. The second, with a more extensive speech, is Sotirios Kourtesis’ 1862 Ο Καρπάθιος ή ο κατά φαντασίαν ερώμενος “The Carpathian, or the Imaginary Lover”.

(You’ll find very few traces of Kourtesis online, but one trace you will find is that this particular play was an imitation of Molière. A second was that he was the first to satirise the Piraeus toughs, the Koutsavakis/Mangas, as far back as 1868.)

And in the very end of the old native Athenian woman’s plaint on modern female fashions in Kourtesis’ play, in the second last page of Pantelidis’ article, right before the use of που after a dubitative verb that I wish I had been aware of for my doctoral thesis (τιγάρις θάρρευγες που σε γέλαγα—cf. A Survey of Modern Greek Dialectal Complementation), she says:

Εµείς, τσυρά µου, τα ζιπούνια µας, τα σταµπόσιαλια, τα επαίρναµε προιτσιό, τσαι πάλι τα δίναµε στα παιδιά µας, τσαι εσάς δε σας φτάνουνε δυο-τρία φουστάνια το µήνα, τσαι για τούτο δε θα κάµετε προκοπή ποτές, µε τούνα δά τα φουφούδια που φορείτε.

My lady, our waistcoats, our Istanbul shawls, we received as dowry, and we handed them on to our children; and as for you, two or three dresses a month are not enough for you, and that’s why no good will ever come of you, with these fufuðia you’re wearing.

The word clearly does not refer here to pantaloons, but to fancy clothes; so in fact it is closer to the fufuðion than are the pantaloons and breeches of fufula, which we know survived in Greek.

Old Athenian was a notoriously archaic dialect; it’s almost too good to be true to find a Byzantine survival like fufuðion in Athens, which was isolated from the remainder of the Greek-speaking world by Albanian incursions in the 14th century—right after fufuðion is no longer attested. And maybe the word was used more widely after all.

A look at Google Books shows that it was. In Rhodes, fufui < fufuði refers to boils on childrenʼs heads; the form is reported by Agapitos Tsopanakis in an article in Hellenika in 1985, and he also reports that he had already derived it from *ὑποφῴδιον “under-blister” in 1940. So it’s unrelated.

This snippet from the journal of the Greek Philological Society of Constantinople journal (Σύγγραμμα Περιοδικόν, vol. 17) of 1882–83, on the other hand, very much attests the word: it’s a song lyric that goes

Κάποια Μέρισα, κάποια Μεροδοπούλλα,
εροθύμθησε πα’ ’ς τογ ’γιαλόν να πλύννη
τα φουφούδια της και τα μεταξωτά της

A Merisa (?), a Merodopoulla/Merodian (?) girl,
went down to the beach to wash
her fufuðia and her silken garments (p. 224)

Mercifully the Internet Archive has also digitised that volume; the song is from Symi, the next island up from Rhodes. (So that Rhodian word for boils might somehow be related to fufuðia after all.)

The word also shows up a fair way away from Symi, in Missolonghi, in the local paper citing Akakia Kordosis’ 1998 Μιλήστε Μεσολογγίτικα “Speak Missolongian” (which is available in an earlier edition here):

Αναφουφουδιάζω (απ’ την λέξη φουφούδια που λένε για τα φρεσκοπλυμένα ρούχα). Φρεσκάρω. Αναφουφούδιασα τα σκουτιά.

…

Φουφούδι, το. Καθαρό, ωραίο. Τα ρούχα γίνανε φουφούδια απ’ το πλύσ’μο.

anafufuðiazo (from the word fufuðia which is used to refer to freshly washed clothes). To freshen up. “I anafufuðiazo the clothes.”

fufuði neut. noun. Clean, beautiful. “The clothes have become fufuðia through washing.”

So the original Byzantine garment, the brocade awarded to the Rus, turns up in Symi, Missolonghi, and Athens, as a description of nice dress—clean clothes in Missolonghi, fancy clothes in Athens, precious clothes in Symi.

(I’ve also seen an instance of contemporary usage of fufuðia to mean “nonsense”, and some other scattered instances whose meaning I can’t work out; e.g. from a childbirth forum, εμενα μου την εβαλε γιατρος και μαια που με ειχαν στα φουφουδια που λεμε…με εξτρα ζελε και ξυλοκαινη-σουπερ περιποιηση “I had [the catheter] inserted by a doctor and a midwife, who had me, as the saying goes, “in the fufuðia“, with extra jelly and xylocaine: they were wonderful to me”.)

So the survival of fufuðia in Old Athenian is not as unique as I’d thought an hour ago; but it’s still a survival that (as far as I can tell) has not been linked to the Byzantine garment before.)

Kaliarda XXXIV: Miscellanea from Kaliarda

By: Nick Nicholas | Post date: 2018-01-05 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

The following words mainly illustrate the interesting ways Kaliarda implements its schematicism:

aðelfula: cat: “little sissy” (gays identifying with cats)
anemoviva: soul: “wind life”
adikotos: distant: “un-seen”
astedupuros: director: “‘That’s how I want it!’ old man” < Arvanitika është dua “that’s how I want it” (also used in mainstream slang)
atsarðo: countryside: “houseless”
axatozo: interior, Greece: “here-ness”
axatobenama: gesture, signal: “here saying” (“hither signal”)
virdzinoskriva: stenography: “virgin writing”
ɣiðaru: wandering seller of greens: “goat chick” (since goats eat greens)
ɡuda dzorna: Good Day (English + Italian)
ɣorɣori: slap < “swift”
ɡrifopsipsizo: to scratch: “nail pussycat”
ɡrosokuakis: frog: “large quack” (note that the Greek onomatopoeia for frogs is koaks)
ɣuɣuloxalo: to bite: “wolf eat”
ɣrasiðopaɡru: cotton: “grass fleece”
ɣirozaru: casino: “go-around dice chick” (alluding to roulette)
ðantela: binding, knot < “lace”, hence ðanteliazo “to tie”
ðikelomantio: window, cinema: “looks oracle” (because seeing through window or cinema lets you know something far from your physical presence?)
iðolo: striking makeup < “idol”; iðoliazo “to portray”
zuzunosoɣi: candle: “bug light” (i.e. light using an insect product, wax)
imandes baka: sister: “our belly”, i.e. “from the same belly”
kanɡurosalo, kanɡurosoliasma: snot: “nose saliva”
kapaki: cap (headgear) < “cap, lid” (the conflation is alien to mainstream Greek)
kart-kaliard: photograph: “card ugly”, in pseudo-French, by analogy with kart-postal “postcard”, kart-vizit “calling card”
keriazo: to melt: “to candle”
kokaloviviazome: to die: “bone live” (cf. Standard meno kokalo “to stay bone = to be stunned”)
kokalomutsuna: pose: “bone face” (again, in the notion of someone stunned)
kolkana: coquettish: “arse leg” (from how she walks)
kolotsitsirizo: to torment: “arse singe”; hence kolotsitsiri “pest”
komatoksilu: card playing: “piece of wood”
kula de pari: bullshit!: “shit of Paris” (in pseudo-French)
kunelokreatakis: soft to the touch: “rabbit meat”
lakˈrimo: rain < ˈlakrimo “tears”
latsoðikelma: meeting again: “good seeing”; sto latsoðikelma “see you soon”
latsodup: massage: “good beating”
luaxatozo: abroad: “there-ness”
madam benavia: chat < benavo “to talk”
molomuxlo: vinegar: “mold water”
musandodup: threat: “fake beating”
mustakolesu: brush: “mustache filth chick”
mus-flori: nylon: “fake flower” (from plastic flowers)
baloɣuɣulfo: bear: “fat wolf”
balokarna: cow: “fat beef”
balofusfusis: elephant: “fat fus-fus” (onomatopoeia for trunk? fus-fus means “train”)
baloxorxora: bomb: “big fire”
dulotsarðo: mansion: “rich hut”, but basdulotsarðo “chief rich hit” = “bank”
bilokomondi: cherry: “tomato marbles”
bladosfinaki: mosquito, gnat, bedbug: “blood wedge”
bon kates: Mister (used as title), (rarely) sir!: “that good one”; fem. bon kate “Mrs”, (almost never) “madam!”
burobutoni: doorbell: “singing button”
butotekna: school: “very children”
damiradamis: blood brother, close friend: “hashish blood-brother” (both from Koutsavakika)
dikostos: teacher < dik “look!” or “opposite”
duranasama: courage: “hard breathing”
ksekifino: work: “un-drone”
ksekolupsa: farewell: “unstuck + byebye!”
ksenokudzinos: cousin: “stranger brother” (kudzinos comes from Italian cugino “cousin”, but means “brother” in Kaliarda)
ksinospiru: lemon: “sour seed”
paksimaðiazo: to soften: “to rusk” (because rusks were softened in water to make them edible)
pisketoɣutsa: second (of time): “kid hour” (literally “biscuit watch”)
plataxronos: the past: “wide, flat (?) time”
purke de skende?: why should that happen? Pseudo-French (pourquoi “why”)
presoɣotsaro: to delay: “to press the watch”; sbroxtoɣotsi “shove watch” = “delay”
rizotsarðo: foundations: “hut root”
rizofitros: deep: “rice planting”
rozofuska: tomato: “red balloon”
rosomolo: vodka: “Russian drink”
siðeromol: steam engine: “iron water”
sik ala tsai nanai: very politely (pseudo-foreign)
sik ranse: great dignity: chic rangé “dignified chic”
skampazokuto: tape recorder: “know-how box”
skiorampo: cimena: “shadow stage”
skilosvolo: worry beads: “dog ball” (Koutsavakika “dog” = “tough guy”)
skilosteki: café: “dog hangout” (Koutsavakika “dog” = “tough guy”)
sukrovaizo: chocolate: “black sugar”
sukrozuzuni: bee: “sugar bug”
suravli: cable: “flute”
susta: nerve: “spring” (springs proper are called sinda)
spasiba: expulsion: Koutsavakika spase! “break” = “get lost”, conflated with Russian spasiba “thank you”
staroafru: beer: “wheat foamer”
staromol: beer: “wheat drink”
stenoxoro: ring: “tight”
latsokazanto: fortune: “good ending-up”
stravokazantia: povery: “crooked ending-up”
strofolinga: translation: “turn language”
strofopensaro: to regret: “turn think”
sferoklaru: billiards: “balls twig” (i.e. billiard balls and cue stick)
sfina: “wedge”, extended to any sharp object (e.g. needle, key)
sfinofera: shovel: “iron wedge”
tapsi: mirror: “baking dish”
teknoɣutsa: minute: “hour child”
teknoskrivu: note: “writing child”
teknoskrudza: thumbtack: “screw child”
teroɣonia: step in staircase: “land angle”
dzornoɣiros: year: “day cycle”
dzornokiklos: watch: “day circle”
trixoberdes: cloth: “hair curtain” (?)
tsarukosok: hiccup: “larynx shock”
tsitoxaus: smile: “stretch mouth”
fiɣiozo: notebook: “leaf-full”
fonokuskus: telephone: “voice gossip”; hence fonokuskusolista “telephone list” = “phone catalogue”, fonokuskus komandaris “telephone commander” = “head of the telephone company”
xalematobomba: tin of food: “food bomb”
xorxorobladis: fever: “fire blood”
xorxorotrima: spice: “fire powder”
xrisospiru: orange: “golden seed”
*karnosfilatso: sinew, nerve: “flesh rope”

Kaliarda XXXIII: The Context of Kaliarda

By: Nick Nicholas | Post date: 2018-01-05 | Comments: 3 Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

A number of Kaliarda words contain allusions to contemporary or older history and literature; Kaliarda speakers were clearly well-read:

aɣiosaviatiko: crab (Agios Savvas’ cancer hospital; Greek karkinos “cancer” and Latin cancer both originally mean “crab”)
vavelo: someone knowing foreign languages < Babel
varavotekno: criminal: “Barabbas child”
venizeloðosmeni: Constantinople: “given away by Venizelos”
ɣerako: bracelet: from the folk song Gerakina, with the chorus “drung drung drung, her bracelets clang”; ftinoɣerakines “cheap bracelets” are handcuffs
ɣi eliniki: soldier: “Greek soil”
juðas: policeman, informant, spy: “Judas”. Hence juðu “Judas chick” = “police”, juðaðiko “Judas shop” = “Ministry of Public Order”; juðaro = “to betray”
ɡodoafiona: religion: “God opium” (Marx: “Religion is the opium of the people”)
etruska: Kaliarda: “Etruscan”
zuzunosailok: ant: “bug Shylock” (i.e. thrifty insect)
ilioɣaza: light: “sun gauze” (according to Petropoulos, from Varnalis‘ verse “O saffron-coloured gauze of dawn”)
iraklopriko: spices: “woman dowry” (spices used to be expensive enough to use as dowry)
iexoviazo: refuse to bear arms: “to Jehovah” (Jehovah’s Witnesses were the best known class of conscientious objectors)
kazeini: malicious gossip; tuberculosis: “casein” (strong glue: gossip and TB both stick to someone)
keaðas: brothel: “Kaiadas, the gorge where Spartans threw their disabled children”
kaliostraro: to enchant (18th century magician Cagliostro)
kameliodona: tuberculosis (allusion to Alexandre Dumas fils’ La Dame aux Camélias, whose protagonist died of TB)
katelanos: tough man: “Catalan”, from the persistent negative memories in Attica of the 14th century Catalan Company, which Petropoulos indicates had been revived in Athens as a gang name
kukuvaɣia: undercover policeman: “owl” (nighttime bird, and regarded as foreboding death); also Ancient Greek ɣlauks and derived ɣlaukos
katsikes: left-hand: “goatish”, and provates right-hand: “sheepish”: from Matthew 25:33 “And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.”
kerveru: trustworthy, trust: “Cerberus”. Hence kerveropuros “Cerberus old man” = “trustworthy” and kerverotekno “Cerberus twink” = “trustworthy young man”
kuasimoda: hunchback: “Quasimodo”
lanaradzis: worker: Lanaras factory, or lanari “carder”
libro d oro: police record: Libro D’Oro, the catalogue of Venetian nobility
luivraxnos: radio announcer: “Louis hoarse”, alluding to marathon runner Spyros Louis (so someone who talks as fast as Louis ran, and who is hoarse). The proverbial expression “become Louis” = “disappear by running fast” survives today.
markomixelu: madness: from Markomichelakis’ clinic in Neo Faliro
bairaktarizo: to punish (Bairaktaris, the notorious police chief of Athens)
bairon: polite, well-dressed, well-bred gay: Lord Byron; also filelinas “Philhellene”, which is how Byron is known in Greece
bakoloneslonakis: admiral: “ship Nelson guy”
batistakis: butler: Battista is a stereotypical Italian butler name
biskototekno: supporter of dictator Papadopoulos (from Papadopoulos biscuit factory)
blakis buropombonaris: Louis Armstrong: “black player of brass/wind instrument”
boðoseika: public toilet: from Bodosakis fertiliser company
nemroði: hunting: “Nimrod”
davelakis: criminal: robber Christos Davelis (died in 1856, remained renowned in folklore) (But davelo also means “to take” in Kaliarda.)
doɣis: deceased friend: “Doge”
okioluis: hare: “ears Louis”, alluding to marathon runner Spyros Louis (so someone who runs as fast as Louis, and has big ears). The proverbial expression “become Louis” = “disappear by running fast” survives today.
oktaris: member of parliament: “eight-er” (allusion to salary of 8000 drachmas a month)
oriental: luxurious, magnificent
piuso: bread, from epiousios “daily, supersubstantial” in the Lord’s Prayer (“Give us this day our daily bread”). Hence piusopuros “bread old-man = baker”, piusotrima “bread shavings = flour”, piusotsarðo “bread hut = bakery”
posiðonitsa: twenty drachma coin: “little Poseidon chick” (Poseidon being depicted on the twenty drachma coin between the World Wars)
puki: fairy: “Puck” (formerly rendered in Greek translations of A Midsummer Night’s Dream orthographically as Puk, now rendered phonetically as Pak)
rampa tu mola: Karagiozis, shadow puppetry: “Mollas’ Stage”, alluding to Karagiozis-puppeteer Antonis Mollas (1871–1949)
renotsarðoruna: gendarme: “queen hut cop”, since the palace was guarded by gendarmes
rovespakis: republican < Robespierre; hence rovespu “republic”
rozorovespakis: communist: “red republican, red Robespierre”
sailokiazo: to be a miser < Shylock; sailakumba “Shylock put-down [money]” = “money deposit”; sailokoboksas “Shylock bundle” = “jewelry box”; sailokopuro “Shylock old man” = “old miser”, sailokotsarðo “Shylock hut” = “Postal Savings Bank”; sailotezoriazo “to Shylock treasure = “to save up”
siðeromol tu lui: express train: “Louis steam engine”, alluding to marathon runner Spyros Louis (so a train which runs as fast as Louis ran).
skrudzo: miser: Scrooge
solonakis: prudent, wise: “little Solon”
dzasrovespakis: fascist: “away with republicans” (Robespierre)
dzidzis, dzidzikis: carefree, bohemian: “grasshopper”, from Aesop’s tale of the Ant and the Grasshopper
fariso: hypocrite: “pharisee”
fula: fat prostitute: proper name Foula; Petropoulos proposes as its referent the wife of Dimitris Athanasopoulos, who murdered him in 1931 in a notorious criminal case
frosaropuri: shrew, malicious woman: “Frossard old woman”, Frossard being the protagonist of Les Deux Orphelines (1875) by Adolphe d’Ennery
xitleropulo: goose: “Hitler bird” (alluding to goose-stepping, and punning on similarity to mainstream xina “goose”)
xristomol: vinegar: “Christ drink” (since Christ was given vinegar to drink on the cross)
*nifokukula: Turkish coffee: “bride hood” (allusion unknown, unless this is an allusion to the comical coinage nifokokozomon “sober bean juice” in the play Babel (1836), satirising in that instance pedantry)
*dzas dzuzis: Adolf Hitler: “away Jesus” = “Antichrist”

Some Kaliarda words involve derogatory attitudes towards other social groups. (Shared oppression has not traditionally led to notions of allyship—although the Roma do appear to have been exempted from venom, with the benign tsinganoromvia “Gypsy barrel organ = tambourine”:

ketseðomura: ugly old woman “felt face”
koen-sapuni: pogrom, persecution of Jews: “Cohen soap” (from the notion that Nazis made soap from Jewish corpses)
lakirovizu: TV anchorwoman: “speech boobs”
marioneta: paraplegic: “puppet”
olio koen: soap: “Cohen oil” (from the notion that Nazis made soap from Jewish corpses)
teknoxavro: crowd, jostling: “child synagogue” (mainstream Greek uses xavra “synagogue” < Hebrew chavurah to refer to jostling)

Geographic terms, referring to ethnicities or locations, are also often derogatory:

aðerfoxori: London: “sissy-ville” (from the reputation the UK had in the 1960s as a pioneer of gay rights)
asprokoli: Acropolis: “white-arsed” (soundalike)
vlaxoxilari: from Rumeli (Central Greece, mountainous): “hillbilly [Sir Edmund] Hillary”
vrakokopeli: Cretan: “breeches kid” (breeches are Cretan traditional dress; kopeli is Cretan for “lad, kid”)
ɣermanoɡreka: Syntagma Square, tourist haven: “German Greek”
ɡrekoturkemenos: Anatolian Greek: “Greek turned Turk”
ɣrekokaθiko: Athens: “Chamberpot of Greece” (Athens is in a geographic basin)
zimarosolinas: Italian: “dough tube guy” (i.e. pasta)
turkual, ismir-turkual: grotesque oriental jewelry: “(Izmir) turquoise”, with turquoise distorted to look even more like “Turkish”
ismir-patsul: heavy cheap perfume: “Izmir patchouli”
kanulu: Omonia Square: “Waterjet chick” (from the fountain there)
karaɡunotsarða: Thessaly: “Karagounides huts” (Karagounides were the farming population of Western Thessaly)
karamarmaru: Athens Stadium: “Marble (augmentative) chick”
karamudzu: [cis female] prostitute: “pussy (augmentative) chick”
katsikaðeros: from Rumeli (Central Greece); katsikaðero (neut): hillbilly, rustic < “goatish” (cf. Koutsavakika vlaxaðero “hillbilly” < vlaxos “Vlach; hillbilly”)
kuelorosola: Klafthmonos (“Lamenter”) Square: “tears”; the square was in fact named so for the protests of civil servants who were fired each elections—the square used to be the site of the Finance Ministry
marmaro-aθlopatsia: Athens Stadium: “marble athletics-square” = “marble stadium”
misofesu: Thrace: “half fez” (i.e. half-Turkish)
blakobubulo: black race: “black crowd”; xionobuluko white race: “white crowd”
musandopalikaru: Crete: “fake brave place” (from Cretan pride in their bravery)
mudzotopos: Paris: “Cunt-ville” (renowned for beautiful women, opposed to London)
deska: Germany < Italian tedesco “German”
kseroskatu: Epirus: “dry [your own] shit place” (proverbial attribute of misers, who would dry their own shit to eat as rusks later)
pitsun siti: Peristeri (“Dove”), suburb of Athens: Italian piccione “pigeon” + English city
protopresvira: Thessalonica: “First Elderwoman”, because the archbishop of Thessalonica is addressed as His All-Holiness, like the Patriarch of Constantinople is
renoɣlastra: Athens Royal Gardens: “Queen’s Flowerpot”
romanas: Roma, Gypsy; romano kilibe was a kind of belly dance done by gays in their tavernas
simito: Epirus: Bagelland (from proverbial notion that newborn boys in Epirus are slapped on the neck and told “may you be a bagel-seller in Constantinople”, άντε και στην Πόλη σιμιτζής)
sfazofesas: Armenian: “massacred by fezes (= Turks)”
terogamila: Central Greece: “land camel” (because it is mountainous)
teromudza: Peloponnese: “land moudza” (insulting gesture with spread palm)
dzinavotopos: London: “in-the-know (i.e. gay) place”
dzordzis o kavalitos: Lycabettus Hill: “George (English) the rider”, after the church of St George there and the rhyme of “rider” with Lycabettus.
tiraxosevas: Sevastakis shoe store: “Shoe Sevas(takis)”
tiraxostoun: Petridis shoe store: “Shoe Stone” (Petridis < Petros “Peter” is derived from petra “stone”)
turistovraxos: Hydra, Mykonos (often), Spetses (occasionally): “tourist rock”
turistofaka: The Acropolis: “tourist trap”
turkokutrukelo: Smyrna, Izmir: “Turk ?”
faflatoθalasoskatas: Cretan: “poltroon sea shit”
felaxoblakoskinis: black: “fellah black skin”
fesas: Turk: “fez wearer”; fesovakuli “Turkish church” = “mosque”
fterokapakis: Italian: “feather cap”, referring to the uniform of bersaglieri and other units in the Italian army
xionu kustoðia: white race: “(snow-)white guard”
*adzemakis: Persian < adzemis < Turkish acem
*grandabota: Italy: “big boot” (from the shape of the country)

Petropoulos said there were around forty words for gay (bottom) in Kaliarda; this is what I found:

anemi: mincing gay: “spinning wheel”
anemomilos: mincing gay: “windmill”
vlaxodana: provincial gay: “hillbilly whore”
ɣiðoteknosintiriti: provincial gay: “upkept by goat children”
ðiapompu: gay surrounded by young men: “publicly ridiculed”
ðiskos: switch: “LP record” (having two sides)
epitafios: gay surrounded by well-dressed young men: “Epitaphios” (funeral procession ritual on Good Friday, when churchgoers put on their best clothes and walk around the church)
zuɡlolubina: out gay: “jungle queer”
kapa: gay, from kappa, first letter of kori “maiden”
karalubu, karalubo: malicious gay: “queer (augmentative)”
kek: uninitiated young boy, courted by a top: “cake”
kluva: street quean: “police van”
kotula: young top who occasionally is a bottom: “young chicken”
kof mesik: notorious gay < kofa < kufala “hollow” (i.e. “slut”, of woman) + me sik “chic”
krifi: closeted gay: “hidden”
krotalo: street quean: “noise chick” (she is accompanied by outcry)
laterna: made-up gay: “barrel organ” (because barrel organs were heavily ornamented)
leði: bottom: “Lady” (as title of British nobility)
lubina: gay < Romani lubhni “whore”; variants: luba, lubesko, lubunia, lubo
misoɣunu: gay who has done hair removal: “half fur chick”
modernotekno: young gay: “modern (= anal sex) child”
bairon: polite, well-dressed, well-bred gay: Lord Byron; also filelinas “Philhellene”, which is how Byron is known in Greece
bidzanu: starving gay
dovas: hated and repulsive gay
kseskismeni, kseskistra: street quean: “ripped apart woman” (referring to sex)
ksefonismeni: poor gay: “shouted down”
plen lubinia: notorious gay: “full queer”
sikia: gay: “fig tree” (derogatory mainstream Greek term)
siko: underage gay: “fig” i.e. immature counterpart of sikia “fig tree” = “gay”
tarafoluba, tarafolubesko: out gay, clearly initiated gay: “guild queer”
teknitsa: young girl; young gay, twink: diminutive of tekno “child; twink”
dzazkarabazu: mincing gay: “unscrewed”
ipsometru: provincial gay: “altitude” (alluding to them being from the mountains)
fiongos: bottom presenting like a top: < dzidzifiongos “dandy”, lit. “pretty ribbon”; having sex with a bottom presenting like a top is called “binding a ribbon” (ðanteliazo, ðeno, avelo fionɡo)
fransi: gay: French français “French”?
psoraðerfi: poor gay: “louse sissy”
*karabines: outrageous gay: “queer (augmentative)”
*lutrokabines: gay owner of an apartment: “toilet and bath” (from wording of to-let notices)
*neroxitis: gay employee of straight brothel: “kitchen sink”
*damdelari: gay cruising the streets: French dame de la rue “lady of the streets”
*ksekoliθra: horny gay: “arse-out socket”

These are the remaining words to deal with sex and sexuality that I have gathered:

atmokavlu: steam bath, Turkish baths: “steam horny”
afroðito, karafroðito: prostitute < Aphrodite, afroðisios “venereal” (kara- “augmentative”)
adzinavoto feɣi: third gender (in the 60s, referred to the conflation of homosexuality and trans gender): “unknown leaf” (pun on feɣi < French feuille “leaf”, Greek φύλλο, used for its homonym φύλο “gender”)
axarnoeleni: old prostitute: “Helen of Acharnon St”
vatikano: gay brothel: “Vatican”
vekogrekiotiki partuza: switching in gay sex: “Ancient Greek gangbang”
vromadroðo: syphilis: “stinking venereal”
ɣamias tis pinas: pimp: “hunger fucker”
ɡazoza, ɡaza: enema: “lemonade”
ɡazozu: nurse, maid in brothel: “enema chick”
ɡuniota: lesbian < French?
ðelta: vagina: “delta”
ðiakopes sto portofino: stay at Syngrou hospital for venereal diseases: “holiday at Portofino”
ðiplo batimani: lifting legs during sex; sexually experienced gay: “double battement” (ballet move involving lifting one leg); batimaro is “to kick”
ektrosi: anal douche after sex: “abortion”
elko-afroðo: syphilis: “ulcer venereal”
iraklota: “feminine”: supine, face up
kalderimi tis xaras: cruising by top: “cobbled street of joy”
kaloɣeroɣlikes: horniness: “monk’s sweetness”
kaloɣerokendima: masturbation: “monk piercing”
kapiazo: to feel up < kapi “spoon” (English cup?); kutalia “spooning” means the same in both Kaliarda and Koutsavakika
normal: “normal”: prone, face down
karafroðitobaro: venereal disease: “prostitute penis”
karafroðitostasi: period: “prostitute pause”
karafroðitotsarðo: brothel: “prostitute hut”
katsikano: female breast < katsika “goat”
kavlokunimata: thrusting of top during sex: “erection moves”
kavlomaɣnitis: sex appeal: “erection magnet”
kavlomaksilaro: vagina: “erection pillow”
kavlopipilo: female breast: “erection suckling”
kelebia: condom: “jellabiya” (Arabic robe)
kontra-pombon: 69: “opposite blowjob”
kumunoskeli: period: “commie thighs”
kupobeles: eunuch: “cut testicles”
kuraveltozumo: sperm: “fuck juice”
kuraveltopuriazo: to be impotent: “fucking old-man”
kurunes: cockteasing: “crow”
krevatoðeksiosi: night-long anal sex: “bed reception”
kolotsitono: to have forceful anal sex: “arse stretch”
laxaniazozumo: sperm: “panting juice”
lukia: slut (not whore): “Lucy”; possibly related to Koutsavakika luki “drainpipe = anus”
madam ɡu: lesbian < guniota
matiazo: to peep (in standard Greek: to single out something by glancing)
modernizo: to have anal sex: “to be modern”
modernosixliazo: to become impotent: “to shrivel while being modern (= having anal sex)”
munopasxa: period: “cunt Easter” (which in Greece features red easter eggs)
musandoperno: to flirt: “to fake take (= have sex)”
musandopasas: sexual aggressor: “fake pasha”
mudzokontratempo: deflowering: “cunt pressure”
mudzomusafiru: service staff at brothel: “cunt guest chick” (because she is a guest at the brothel, rather than core staff)
mudzotsarðo: brothel: “cunt hut”
bagazi: bulge in pants: “baggage”
bamia: small penis: “okra”
barosimo: venereal disease: “sickness stamp” (allusion to stickiness of VD)
beliera: jockstrap: “testicle holder”
bulkume, purkume: sperm, ejaculation
bulkumeðotsarðo: brothel: “sperm hut”
brateliazo: to feel up < bratelo “hand” (cf. mainstream Greek vazo xeri “to put hand” = “ibid.)
naziazo: to have sex < nazi “flirt, coquettish behaviour”
dap: masturbation (older Kaliarda: to beat up)
dezaro, avelo dezi: to be horny, dezi “desire, horniness” < deziraro “to desire”
dezoðikeliazo: to peep: “horny looking”
dezolaxtaras: sadist: “horny yearner” (only in the masculine)
dezobula: penis wart: “horny ball”
dezodupu: masochist: “horny beating chick” (only in the feminine)
dezoplenis: sensuous: “horny full”
dezoxorxora: idiosyncracy (= fetish, kink?): “horny fire”
desapote sermelia: penis without foreskin: “uncovered penis” (lit. “hatless” < French de + chapeau)
perno: to have sex as passive partner: “to take (someone)”; hence *parθikame “we were taken” = “I was fucked”
paketo: bulge in pants: “package”
parateri: (cis) woman: “redundant” (to gay relationships)
parke: blowjob: “parquet, flooring”
partuza: group sex (now mainstream Greek) < French partouse
pentikosti: married woman (or gay man): “Pentecost” (originally: fiftieth [day]), by analogy with mainstream slang sarakosti “Lent” (originally: fortieth [day]), used with the same meaning, alluding to Lent being a period of deprivation
piasman, piasmande, piastiko: groping: < piasimo “holding”
pipiloɣamulis: tender lover: “darling fuck” (lit. “suckling fuck”)
pipiloɣatulis: tender lover: “darling kitten”
plejaro dap: to masturbate: “to play wank”
plenobeles: horny: “full testicles”
pombon: blowjob < bon-bon “lolly”; pombino frape “ibid.”
pulomusafiro: enema: “anal guest”
presvia: public urinal: “embassy”. “Embassy of the United Arab Republic” = “Athens Town Hall public toilet”; “Embassy of Great Britain” = “Syntagma Square public toilet”, named for the Grande Bretagne Hotel nearby; “Embassy of Free States” = “Field of Mars public toilet”; “Embassy of the United States” = “Omonia Square public toilet”.
ruzoskelo: period: “red legs”
sarmela, semelia, sermela, mela, melitsa: penis
sarmelozumo: sperm: “penis juice”
sarmeloxamoɣelo: coitus: “penis smile”
sarmuta: female prostitute: Koutsavakika: “fat woman”
safrans tuzur: the twink has come looking for money: Pseudo-French
semelonome: to get married to a man: “to be dicked”
semnaðerfi: lesbian: “modest sister”
sividzilu, sividzo, dzivdzilu: lesbian < dziv dziv
dziv dziv: lesbian sex: probably onomatopoeic
soloflokiazo: to masturbate: “to cum solo”
spanokukula: condom: “beardless hood”
sikafra: cancer, syphilitic ulcer: “fig (= faggot) venereal”
sfera: small penis: “bullet”
teknadzu: someone into twinks (fem., with queer referent); has passed into mainstream Greek, as woman into toyboys, cougar
teknokalierɣistra: sperm: “child cultivator”
teknorokanadzis: “pederast”, top: “chews twinks”
teknodezopsino: to deprave, to lead into prostitution; “child horniness bake”
tekno tis violetas: client of gay prostitutes: “money twink”
dzasaro flokia: to ejaculate immediately: “to expel sperm”
dzinavokosmos: gay community: “in-the-know world”
dzinavopoltos: vaseline: “in-the-know (i.e. gay) jelly”
dzinavoxirokrotis: gay ally: “applauder of those in-the-know (i.e. gay)”
dzus-pulomusafirizome: to cleanse one’s anus of sperm: “to drive away the anal guest”
turloliɣuris: top: “longing for the swollen” (i.e. anus)
tutafe: hedonist < French tout à fait “absolutely”
tutu, tuta, tutuka: small penis: “whistle” (nursery word)
tremozumo: sperm: “trembling juice”
trombies: thrusting motions of top during sex: “pumping”
tsapela: someone whose anus is tense: “string of dried figs”
fakiropipiza: erect penis: “snake charmer flute”
feɣi de roza: anus: French feuille de rose “rose petal; analingus” (cf. rosebud)
fistiki: small penis: “peanut”
floki: sperm < “lint”
fsi fsol: coitus: onomatopoeic, possibly influenced by German Ficki-Ficki
fotoɣenia: bulge in pants: “photogenic”
xorxoriazo: to be horny, to burn with desire: “to be on fire”
psamoskelu: horny: “excited thighs”
psixotraɣopuros: top: “soul priest”; Koutsavakika psixopapas has the same meaning
psolaraɣma: vagina: “dick haven”
psolovrondi: masturbation: “dick beating”
*aðerfomana: supporter of gays: “sissy mother”
*lamno: to fuck: “to row”
*sapo: glans: French chapeau “hat”
*suɣlaro: to fuck enthusiastically: “to skewer”
*dzivanostasio: hangout for effeminate gays: “in-the-know station”
*sfraɣiðiazo: to have a permanent relationship: “to be sealed”

Kaliarda XXXII: The Wit of Kaliarda

By: Nick Nicholas | Post date: 2018-01-05 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

Kaliarda has a couple of puns:

kolombos, xristoforos: top: “Christopher Columbus” as soundalike of kolombaras
dubloðikeliazo: to be diplomatic: “double looking”; Standard Greek ðiplomatis “diplomat” sounds like “double-eyed” (dipl-ōma: “folded (document) < “doubled thing” read as dipl-omma “double eye”)
*papi: document, certificate: “duck”, but puns on German Papier “papers”, often demanded during the Nazi occupation

It has a much larger number of calques from mainstream Greek and Greek slang—the wit lying in recognising Greek expressions in Kaliarda garb:

amitsopuru: Philopappou (“Friend of Grandfather”) Hill, calqued as “Friend Old Man”
asprokangela: platinum: “white metal”, calque of lefkoxrisos
axalos: repulsive: “uneaten” < ðen troɣete “cannot be stomached”
ɣlutokarnu: thigh: “hip meat” (calque of colloquial kolomeri lit. “arse portion”)
ðorkakis: cuckold < “gazelle guy” (who has horns), calqued from keratas “horned”. Hence, ðorkakoviðomenos “screwed-in gazelle guy” = “someone repeatedly cuckolded”
kangelokrosos: Iron Cross (Kaliarda “metal” < “rail” + English cross)
karvunomakiastra, karvunomako: coaldust (standard karvunoskoni)
karnoxalos: carnivore: “meat-eating” (standard sarkofaɣos)
klinarolinga: Puristic Greek: “clean language”, calque of Katharevousa
koza tempo avelis, koza dzornoɣiro vuelis: what time is it? “what time do you have?”, calque of ti ora exis?
latsaveles: welcome: < latsa aveles “well you do/come” (standard kalos irθes); latsavelo “to welcome”
latsolinga: Puristic Greek: “good language”, semi-calque of Katharevousa (cf. klinarolinga)
latsotempa: summer: “good weather” (standard kalokeri)
letrostampa: postage stamp: “letter stamp” (standard ɣramatosimo)
mesodzorna: midday (Italian + Greek, standard mesimeri)
midlanota: midnight (English + Italian, standard mesanixta)
musikapoxis: conductor: “music fishing-net guy”
mus-paɡro: white lie: “fake hairs” (calque of mainstream trixes! “hairs” = “bullshit”)
baks ke latsi: once and for all (calque of mainstream mia ke kali, with Puristic apaks for “once”)
natura floki: fresh juice: “nature jizz” (calque of mainstream fisikos ximos “natural juice”)
duramol: vitriol: “hard water”, calque of Italian acquaforte
ostrakopoðarakis: cancer: “shell foot guy” (i.e. description of crab; Greek karkinos “cancer” and Latin cancer both originally mean “crab”)
pulopirɣono suandes: I am indifferent towards you: “I shit on you”, mainstream se xezo
sekretoðulia: mysticism: “secret job” (mystikos in Greek literally means “secret”)
sekretoxalema: Last Supper: calque of mistikos ðipnos
sketo kaprikente: very clever: “lone match”, calque of mainstream spirto monaxo
dzazo ta tiraxa: die: “thow away shoes”, calque of mainstream tinazo ta petala “fling off horseshoes” (cf. kick the bucket)
dzazo ti linga mu: to loosen one’s tongue: “to get my tongue out”, calque of mainstream vɣazo ɣlosa
ipomona: pumpkin seeds: “patience”; in mainstream Greek, they are called pasatempo < Italian: “pass the time”
ipsometro: hillbilly, provincial: “altitude” (alluding to them being from the mountains)
fresokarno: tenderloin: “fish meat”, calque of psaronefri lit. “fish(-coloured) kidney” (i.e. grey meat around kidneys)
xasobaltas: lawyer: “lose trial”, calque of mainstream slang xasoðikis
xumsovivi ðantela: life sentence: “prison life knot”, calque of isovia ðesma “life-equalling bondage”
psixotraɣopuros: top: “soul priest”; Koutsavakika psixopapas has the same meaning
oxroblada: leukemia: “pale blood” (standard lefxemia “white blood”); hence musandoxroblada anaemia: “fake leukemia”
*staɣonakis: doppelganger: “waterdrop guy”, allusion to expression that two people are as alike as two drops of water

I’ve erred on the side of inclusion in counting forms as witticisms:

aðikokuti: coffin: “unjust box”
etna, tna: pimple: “Mt Etna”
anemodzasaro: sacrifice: “wind expel” = “throw to the winds”
animatsurnos: Death: “soul thief”
astakomeno: armoured vehicle: “lobstered” (“armoured like a lobster”)
afantos: God: “invisible”
vivopalamaro: octopus: “live palm”
vivosermelo: snake: “live penis”
vivosermelo but piasman: boa constrictor: “snake very grope”
vlakopsaliðu: censorship: “stupid scissors chick”
ɡodorelia: wind: “god fart”
ðrakodzastis: cross: “drives out ogres” (i.e. vampires)
enzimiazo: to rot: “to enzyme”
zalistra: radio: “dizzy-maker”
zuzunovarvari: naphthaline: “savage to bugs”
inðofiðiazo: to charm: “Indian snake” (alluding to snake charmer)
kavɣaðokutu: radio: “argument box chick”
kangelopartuza: chain: “metal gangbang” (cf. sexual meaning of daisychain in English)
kangurosalo: snot: “nose saliva”; ful kangurosalo “full-blast snot” = “sneeze”
kaðro: ugly: “picture frame”
kaimozumi: coffee: “sorrow juice”
kaimotsiftozumi: coffee: “sorrow cunning juice”
kaimokuto: bouzouki: “sorrow box”
kaimoburia: rebetiko songs: “sorrow songs”
kaimoxelono: baglama: “sorrow turtle” (so called because the baglama body was the size of a turtle, and some baglamas were made of turtle shells); also xelonoburo “turtle song”
kaliardo-mol: water: “ugly liquid” (as opposed to alcoholic drinks)
kanalovivu: fate: “channel of life”
karbonomilionaris: billionaire: “carbon-copy millionaire”
katolioiraklia: actress of melodramatic movies: “tears woman”, which was the nickname given to melodrama actress Martha Vourtsi (Petropoulos only gave her initials)
katoliotekno: actor of melodramatic movies: “tears twink”, which was the nickname given to melodrama actor Nikos Xanthopoulos (Petropoulos only gave his initials)
katsikanotsarðo: balcony: “house boobs”
kelaru: fountain, water tap < kelorosola “tears”
keravnos: toothless: “lightning”
keromusando: love-talk “candle (= melt) lie”
kifinas: monk: “drone”
kokorobuluki: theatrical troupe: “rooster squadron”
koniðokolora: miniature paintinɡ: “nit painting”
konikloxalos: vegetarian: “rabbit(-like) eating”
konderandza: stuttering: “lecture”
kontra-feɣi: cardboard: “counter-sheet (of paper)”, by analogy with kontra plake “plywood” < French contreplaqué
korakovlastimo: very fat woman or gay: “crow curser” (because “crows” = undertakers will curse when the time comes to lift them up to bury them)
koroiðorampo: shadow puppet theatre, Karagiozis: “mockery ramp”
kosmoalana: town square: “world/people alley”
kueloflokopalku: tragedy, tragedy production: “tears stage”
kueloflokorampa: tragedy, tragedy production: “tears ramp”
kulopapapa: urine bottle (in Standard Greek papia “duck” from its shape): “shit quack-quack”
kumunis turlu: Olivier Salad, Russian salad: “communist salad”
kuskusofeɣi: newspaper: “gossip sheet”
kiparisotekno: overly tall: “cypress twink”
koloklaklas: ambassador: “arse ??”, from their wearing a tailcoat
lakrimi: onion < lakrimo “tears”
levendomandra: prison: “pen for the brave”; cf. the song lyric “The irons of prison are for the brave” (Της φυλακής τα σίδερα είναι για τους λεβέντες)
lepi: filth: “fish scale”
lepiðofola: massacre, bloodshed: “knife-blade poisoned bait” (comparing a knifefight to the poisoning of animals)
lesi: filth: “corpse”
letra kakaka: telegram: “rat-rat-tat letter”
letra-karambola: correspondence: “letter collision”
letra plereza: rent bill: “mourning-veil letter”
liɣðoberdes: penniless: “hungering for money”
limoros: replusive: < limoðis “infectious (disease)”, or Italian limo “mud”
lutsolakrimo: candle: “light tears” (because melting wax looks like tears)
lisaɣman: dog: lisa “rabies” + pseudo-French -ment
maɣnitoberdes: debt: “money magnet”
mandotempo: future: “bread time” (because bread is something that becomes?)
mavrodavas: Death: “black pimp”
maxmurlokaro: road roller: “sleepyhead cart”
melisovroma: fly: “stinking bee”
ministeros tis axalis: Finance Ministry: “Starvation Minister”
molopalestis: shipwrecked person: “water wrestler”
molorufa: heatwave: “water suck”
munɡafon: record player: “mute-phone”
mu klinun simvoleo: I am being called in to be interrogated, lit. “they are finalising a contract for me”
mumia: elderly but well-preserved gay: “mummy”
musandoefe: gusto: “fake effect”
musandodavakis: scumbag: “fake pimp”
musandosermelia, musandosema: banana, cucumber, eggplant: “fake penis”
musandospiritoza: Pentecost, Feast Day of the Holy Spirit: “fake spirit-ful”
mudzantivaro: female breast: “cunt counterweight”
mudzonome: to marry a cis woman, of someone gay: “to be cunt-ed” (homonym with mudzonome “to receive the insulting gesture of the moudza“)
mutsemeni: the Virgin Mary: “deceived”
mutseftra: IOU: “deceiver”
baltas: judge: “axe”; hence balta “trial”, baltaletra “summons”: “judge letter”, baltadziðiko “court”: “judge shop”
babakovutiro: finicky: “cotton butter”
batane: heavy makeup < batanas “whitewash”
benavoɣarɣalo: jokester: “talk tickler”
biz ke dzaz: police emergency services: “strike and run”
biseloɣipsos: dead: “sleep plaster”
biskototekno: conscript: “biscuit child” (i.e. sweet child)
bodofriɣanu: sunburned: “body toast”
buka stafilitis: silence: “mouth uvula, stuffed (up to the) uvula”
bukostafiliara: dictatorship: “silencer”
bubuni: fart < bubunito “thundering sound”
budala xalkas: wedding ring: “fool ring” (xalkas is both a ring and a nosering; the comparison of the wedding ring to the nosering of a bull is a Greek commonplace)
buroksexilo: accordion: “singing overstretched”
buropita: LP record: “song pita”
mirmingobala: the globe: “ant ball”
nekroxartu: photograph: “dead paper”
neroksilo: crystal: “water wood” (crystal looks like water frozen stiff as wood)
nisestorela: rag: “cloth fart”
nisestosuravlo: rope: “cloth flute”
davadzokonsoma: ugly: “pimp consumption”
damiroklusma: injecting drugs: “hashish enema”
damiroxalastra: drug squad: “hashish ruiner”
diloðokaro: toothpick: “tooth beam”
dilokolie: denture: “tooth necklace”; hence dilokoliazo “to bite”
dupopatata: fist: “beatings potato”; “potato” in turn is called bunia “fist”; the plural dup-patates means “boxing”
kserobaksu: straw: “dry garden”
ksinasvestis: yoghurt: “sour whitewash”
ksirafia: heart attack: “razor blow”
pangrolavi: braid, ponytail: “hair handle”
palamarokanis: tall: “arms and legs” (allusion to expression aftos olo xeria ke poðia ine “he is all arms and legs = he is tall”)
panses: gendarme: “pansy”
pandokulura: zero: “all donut” (kulura “donut” for “zero” is used by students)
papiros: licence, diploma: “papyrus”
papirodravo: driver’s license: “driver papyrus”
patriðopresa: duty: “fatherland pressure”
perlokrokaða: oyster, mussel: “pearl yolk”
petsovunu: callus: “skin mountain”
pixopiasman: arm: “cubit groper”
piselokapniazome: to dream: “sleep smoke”; piselokaporampa dream: “sleep smoke theatrical.stage”
pulman: Vice squad van: “bus”
puloviðonome: to sit squarely down: “to screw one’s arse in”
pulomusafiro: enema: “anal guest”
pulopirɣi: faeces: “anal tower” (Koutsavakika kuraðoθimonia “turd bale” has the same sense)
puroxtikiasma: old man falling in love: “old man tuberculosis”
presveftu: calling card: “ambassadress”; xartopresveftu “paper ambassadress” = “ibid.”
prikokuskusu: wedding: “dowry chat”
protosiðeru: official appearance: “first ironed”
renovlastos: prince, heir to the throne: “queen sprout”
runosarostra: patrol: “cop sweep”
sangosfungara: liver: “blood sponge”
sarkisti me sik: live, orally: “in the flesh, with chic”
sarkoðomi: bone: “flesh structure”
svuru: alcohol: “spinning top chick” (i.e. dizzying), svuriazome “to get drunk”
sielokapnila: clouds: “sky smudge”
sielokuelofloku: rain: “sky tears”
skatopresa: draconian law: “shit press”
skatofaɣu: undercover cop: “shit eater”
skinolatsaris: sensual: “skin beautiful”
skotsara: skirt suit (ταγιέρ): “Scottish” (i.e. kilt)
soɣi kuravelte: dim liɡht: “light for fucking”
solodapis: bachelor: “one who masturbates alone”
suvafatsa: horrid makeup: “plaster face”
sustokolo: luxury car: “spring arse” (because they had suspension)
stamnosterno: female breast: “chest pitcher”
stavrolekso: embroidery: “crossword”
strosomasela: piano: “laid-out dentures”
solinaki tis xaras: hashish cigarette: “little tube of joy”
solinokanguros: elephant: “pipe nose”
solinokanguru: proboscis; big penis: “pipe nose”
tavliazo: to kill: “to table (i.e. lay out flat)”; tavliazome “to be tabled” = “to die”
talirokatara: moudza (insulting gesture with spread palm, and five fingers): “five-drachma curse”
taraxoproties: track and field: “tumult firsts”
taraxotremuliaris: poltroon: “tumult trembler”
tapsodaniazome: to admire oneself, to be narcissistic: “to act like a whore in a mirror”
teknozalistra: lecture: “child dizzier”; teknozalistra tu mus-dzusi “Jesus lecture” = “sermon”
teknozembilo: elevator: “child basket”
teknokilistres: rollerskates: “child rollers”
teknobalevo, teknobalono: to impregnate: “to make a child ball” (i.e. pregnant belly)
teknobiɣa: porter: “child crane”
teknoxtikiazo: to fall in love: “twink tuberculosis” (i.e. become consumptive for a twink); teknoxtiko “love”
tebelosteko: café: “hangout for the idle”
tebeloferis: road roller: “lazy iron”
terokseratomolu: water spring: “earth spew water”
dzazberdepuros: national benefactor: “old man throwing away money”
dzasprovia: hair removal: “away fleece”
dzeslutekno: new mother: “insane (for) child woman”
dzurovalviða: kidney: “urine valve”
timokutela: forehead: “honour forehead”, alluding to expression “having a clean forehead” = “having a clear conscience”
tiraxoɣrilos: heel: “shoe car-jack”
titlokavala: ownership: “title riding” (alluding to slang use of “riding” to mean “arrogance, pretension”)
tulosa: dictatorship: “silent”
turkosupa: coffee: “Turkish soup”
turkual: grotesque jewel: “turquoise” + “Turkish”
turbani: wound: “turban” (referring to wound dressing)
trokana: brainless: “cowbell”
tsarðokukos: bachelor: “house cuckoo” (cuckoos being proverbially solitary)
tsarðokipseli: neighbourhood: “house beehive”
tsarðodania: earthquake: “house whorishness” (houses swaying in an earthquake compared to the coquettish swaying of a prostitute); the synonym tsarðotarakunima is merely “house shaking”
tsarðoperɣamini: callinɡ card: “house parchment, house diploma”
tsarðosplaxno: basement: “house entrails”
tsarðotermitis: architect: “house termite” (comparing architect to termite in building complex structures); tsarðotermitu is an apartment block
tsinganoromvia: tambourine: “Gypsies’ barrel organ”
tsixlatelioti: car wheel: “rubber un-ending”
tsurnokota: fox: “chicken thief”
tsurnoletra: playing cards: “thief papers”
tsutsekiazo: to gather, to shrink < dzudzes “dwarf” < Turkish cüce
timvos: prison: “funeral mound”; hence timvorixos jailbreak: “grave robber”
tiru: moon: “cheese”
iɣropreza: coffee: “liquid drug hit”
fainopartuza: political party: “gangbang of the bright” or “gangbang of ideas”
fainodzasberdes: ideologue, idealist: “idea throw-away money”
fakiru: greedy: “pauper”
falu: walking cane: “phallus”
fabrikopartuzis: business partner: “factory gangbang”
fatsofisuna: nose: “face bellows”
fesovakulokafko: minaret: “mosque erection”
fidelis: dog < French fidèle “faithful”
fioroðoma: lawn, grass: “flower flooring”
fiorofaringo: eucalypt: “flower pharynx” (for the use of eucalypt oil in throat lozenges)
fola: ugly: “poison bait”
fusfus: kafasi train station: “chuff-chuff (= train) cage”
xaimali: necklace: “amulet”
xalodurvas, xalosakos: stomach: “food sack”
xamalokarna: muscle: “porter flesh”
xamalomuskulis: muscle-bound: “porter muscles”
xaos, xaus: mouth: “chaos, chasm”
xaus spilia: toothless: “mouth cave”
xaramolio: candle: “oil waste”
xasikloreviθo: worry beads: “hashish smoker’s chickpeas”
xortobiɣa: hashish: “grass crane” (i.e. grass that raises you up)
psakio: bad news < psaki “poison”
psofokukula: mausoleum, crypt: “hood over the dead”
*nifokukula: Turkish coffee: “bride hood” (allusion unknown, unless this is an allusion to the comical coinage nifokokozomon “sober bean juice” in the play Babel (1836), satirising in that instance pedantry)
*kaliardopresa: interrogation: “ugly pressure”
*kilorufi: spoon: “belly suck”
*kristaloburu: television: “crystal singer”
*lakrimoveku: tragedian: “tears old”
*moliviazo: to grow serious: “to leaden”
*buribunaro: to bombard: “chimney punch” (the chimney being the bomb casing, the punch being the bomb explosion); hence also *buribunaristos “striking” (i.e. “bombshell”)
*dezotrimu: cocaine: “horny powder”
*peribeneðes: appetisers: “around queers”
*trikajori: Holy Trinity: “three directors”
*xtiko: golden sovereign: < xtikio “tuberculosis” (a sovereign is yellow as a consumptive; gaining sovereigns is as strenuous as getting TB (χτικιάζω))

Kaliarda is also notorious for making things sound worse than they are, through pejorations:

afakos: brother: < English fuck: “unfuckable”
afrikanokuli: cocoa: “African turd”
axaloeθnokifinas: emperor: “inedible [= repulsive] drone of nations”
virdziniazo: close < It. virgine “virgin”
ɣalatopombon: baby’s dummy: “milk blowjob”
ɡran-renokaθikiomenos: crowned: “grand queen chamberpotted” (queen = royalty; chamberpot = crown)
ðiplomudza: 10: “double moudza” (insulting gesture with spread palm, and five fingers)
ðiploðiplomudza: 100: “double double moudza” (insulting gesture with spread palm, and five fingers)
eloxesma: rice: “swamp shitting” (rice is planted in swamps, and looks like diarrhoea)
karnosermeles: sausage: “meat penis”; durokarnosermeles “hard sausage” are large preserved meats, such as ham and mortadella; teknokarnosermelo “child sausage” is sausages proper
kotsilokulu: chicken: “birdshit shit chick”
kuloskembes: koxla tripe: “shit belly boiled”
kunistra: LP record: “mover, swayer”; in mainstream slang, a coquettish woman
kuorokuravelta: love: “heart fucking”
maɣazodania: shop billboard: “shop whoring”
monomudza: 5: “single moudza” (insulting gesture with spread palm, and five fingers)
mus-dzusis: Jesus: “bearded Jesus/fake Jesus”
mudzopuri: mother: “vagina old-woman”; sandomudzopuru “fake mother” = “stepmother”
mudzoxezo: to give birth: “to shit out from the cunt”
muxloskembes: old man: “mold animal belly”
bakosarmela: oar: “boat dick”
barotsarðo: house of gay: “sickness hut” (allusion to VD)
benavopombon: begging someone: “talk blowjob”
bladis: surgeon: “blood guy”
buropombonaro: to play a wind/brass instrument: “song (= musical) blowjob”
brostomudzu: apron: “front of cunt”
ksotikomudzo: fairy (neraiða): “spirit pussy, spirit cis-woman”
pipilas: darling, dear < “suckler” (presumably allusion to blowjob); metathesised pilipas has the same meaning
piperoskatu: mustard: “pepper shit”
pombotabako: smoking pipe: “blowjob cigarette”
pon pon bombona: lollypop: “blowjob bon-bon” (in fact, “bon-bon bon-bon”)
puliazome: to sit < puli “arse”
pulostrostra: chair: “place to lay your arse out”
purozeles: decrepit old man: “old man jelly”
puromarioneta: decrepit old man: “old man puppet”
putanokonsomis: ugly: “whore consumed” (i.e. fit only to be a client of a prostitute)
protokaθiki: prize, award: “first chamberpot” (i.e. award cup); hence protokaθikono “to award”, protokaθikoberθa “award birth” = “festival”, protokaθikopuros “award old man” = “awards judge”
protodavas: Prime Minister: “first pimp”
relopnoi: stench: “fart breath”
relo tu xaus: burp: “mouth fart”
renokaθiki: crown: “queen chamberpot”
savano: bedsheet: “burial shroud”
savanono: to cover: “to enshroud for burial”
semelopuros: father: “penis old-man”; sandosemelopuros “fake father” = “stepfather”
semelorizo: cucumber: “penis root”; semelorizomolo “cucumber water” = “cucumber juice”
skelosaliangas: old man: “leg snail”
skulamentozos: having the common cold < skulamento gonorrhoea; similarly skulamentosimo common cold: “gonorrhoea sign”
skutula: perfume < skatula “turd (diminutive)”
soðosalo: bubble bath: “soda saliva”
sublime: soup: French sublimé, soluble salt of mercury, used in treatment of syphilis
terotsutsuno: mushroom: “ground (child’s) penis”
traɣomuxlos: monk: “mouldy goat” (referring to monk’s beard); hence traɣomuxlokipselo “monk beehive” = “monastery”
traɣopuros: priest: “goat old man” (referring to priest’s beard: the comparison also appears in mainstream Greek); hence traɣopurozumo “priest juice” = “holy water”, traɣopurosfraɣizo “to priest seal” = “to baptise”, traɣopurotsarðo “priest hut” = “church”
traxanas: feeble old man: “porridge” (tarhana)
iɣrotekniazo: to pour: “liquid twink”, as maistream xino “to pour” also means “to cum”
fusokapota: candelabra: “light condom”
xaus klisma: soda water, fizzy drink: “mouth enema”
psilopele: roasted chickpea: “small testicle”
psoloɣuðupa: shoe last: “dick pestle” (from its similar shape to both)

Compounds of flokia “sperm” are a particular class of pejoration—although clearly the stem has simply ended up meaning “fluid” generically in Kaliarda:

ɡazofloko: liquid ɡas: “gas jizz” (-floko in compounds really just means “fluid”)
zuzunofloko: honey: “bug jizz”
komodorofloko: tomato paste: “tomato jizz”
kuelofloki: tears: “eye jizz”
musandofloko: marrow: “fake jizz”
bodofriɣanofloko: suntan lotion: “sunburn jizz”
natura floki: fresh juice: “nature jizz”
dudukofloko: vegetable oil: “flute jizz”; from skliroduduko “hard flute = peanut”, via fistiki “peanut = small penis” (so that duduki “flute”, as a euphemism for “erect penis”, ends up displacing “peanut” used as a euphemism for “small penis”, and comes to mean “nut” in general)
pres floki: glue: “press jizz”
teknokaknofloko: meringue: “egg (chicken child) jizz”
tsainofloko: ink: “China jizz”
flokia romanof: Olivier salad, Russian salad: “Jizz Romanov”
floki tu xaus: saliva: “mouth jizz”
flokodorvares: testicles: “jizz sacks”
flokoxalemandu: salad dressing: “food jizz”
fisunofloko: common cold: “nose jizz”
*ɣelaðofloko: milk: “cow jizz”
*karofloko: petrol: “cart jizz”
*piselofloko: sleeping drug, sedative: “sleep jizz”

Kaliarda XXXI: Basic vocabulary

By: Nick Nicholas | Post date: 2018-01-05 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Uncategorized

Next, I’m posting the function words of Kaliarda, and other classes of words that indicate how the language works:

Function words:

altros: other < Italian altro
axatos: this (Rom. kathe “here”; Greek a- “un-” + kate “that”?)
emandes: I, me, my (Rom. mande “me”); mandula (diminutive)
esandes, suandes: you, your (Rom. mande “me” + Greek esi “you”); sandula (diminutive)
imandes: we, us, our (< emandes)
isandes: you.pl, your (< esandes)
karafundan: roundabouts, in lower class suburbs (Turkish?)
karbone: together, both < Greek karbon “carbon copy” < French carbon
kates: that (Rom. kathe “here”)
kate-dzorna, statuta-dzorna: today: “this day”
kontrodzorna: tomorrow: “opposite day”
pasioza-dzorna: yesterday: “past day”
katoplaka: “down, to the ground” < “down” + plaka “slab; falling down”
luaxatos: that, that yonder (Italian/French là “there” + axatos?)
me sik: politely, gently (“with chic”); so, well
dan: he, pl. danakati “they.masc” (dan “he” + kate “that”?)
duna: she, pl. danakate “they.fem” (dan “he” + kate “that”?)
duni: it, pl. dunakata “they.neut” (duni + kate “that”?)
dik!, dikos!, duak!: look! < Romani
dik: opposite, next to; with definite article: “the one opposite” < Kaliarda dik! “look!” < Romani
dikotos: nearby < dik “look!” (i.e. “visible”)
dopa: after < Italian dopo
dopa-kontrodzorna: the day after tomorrow: “after opposite day”
otros: other < Spanish otro (if not French autre)
uxu!: hooray! bravo!
upsa!: hi! goodbye!
paradik: next to something opposite: para “next to” + dik
pasioza-dzorna: yesterday: “past day”
prans: nearby: French près “near”?
privos: mine < Italian privato “private”
protoplaka: up; first floor < “first” + plaka “slab; falling down”
statuta-dzorna: today: “this day”
ta naka: “don’t; without” < “the not”; e.g. ta naka brostoberde “without a deposit”, lit. “the not front-money”
dzaka, dzakata: as soon as, where, when, near, in front, here: Turkish çak “until”?
dzus: without < dzazo “to drive away, to go away” < Romani džav “to go”
tsarðofatsa: opposite: “house face”
*kataxar: opposite
*katina: down < unattested adjective katinos < kato “down”, formed by analogy with totinos “of that time” < tote “then”; hence also *katinotsarðo “down hut = brothel”, *katinoxaus “basement = down hole”

We have often mentioned how avelo (and its Dura Liarda variant vuelo) are characteristic of Kaliarda as light verbs. This is the full list of such verbs in Petropoulos:

avele apokate: come here!
aveli ɡodorelia: wind is blowing
avelo etna, vuelo tnara: to get a pimple
avelo axalia: to go on a diet
avelo vakuloksekolupses: to get divorced
avelo violeta: to give money, to pay
avelo gazoza, vuelo gaza: to have an enema
avelo ɣorɣori: to slap
avelo ðantela: to tie
avelo ðiakona ston berde: to beg, to ask for a loan
avelo etruska: to know Kaliarda (“to do Etruscan”)
avelo kaniko: to leave (“to do leg”)
avelo kapi: to feel up
avelo katolia: to cry
avelo kloz: to close < English close
avelo kontieri, vuelo kontater: to caress
avelo kontratempo: to press
avelo kontrosol: to kiss
avelo kula,vuelo kul kul: to defecate
avelo kuselia: to betray
avelo kusumia: to gossip, to badmouth
avelo krakra: to be thirsty
abelo latsokazantia: to be lucky (“to do good outcome”)
avelo latso paɡro, vuelo tsopagra: to comb (“to do good hair”)
avelo luni: to swim
avelo marmaru: to wait (“to do marble [statue]”)
avelo musi: to get angry (“to do beard/fake”)
avelo bakalumo: to ask
avelo balomba: to over-eat
avelo baltadzu, vuelo baltes: to be put to trial
avelo berde: to pay
avelo berxama: to argue
avelo biesman, avelo biesmando: to feel up
avelo blado: to have one’s period (“to do blood”)
avelo bua: to beep a car horn
avelo but bairaktari: to punish severely (“to do very Bairaktaris”, the notorious police chief of Athens)
avelo but bon: to explain (“to do [say] very well”)
avelo boxikos: to stink
avelo bratelo, vuelo brates: to feel up (“to put hand”, calque of Greek vazo xeri)
avelo brostoberde: to pay in advance
avelo napses: to gossip, to chat
avelo niseste: to have one’s period (“to have clothes”, calque of Greek exo ta ruxa mu)
avelo normal: to fall prone
avelo dania: to act coquettishly (“to do whorishness”)
avelo dezi: to be turned on
avelo dup: to beat up
avelo duranasama: to persevere
avelo dreses: to get dressed
avelo ksekolupses: to part with someone permanently
avelo opsion berde: to have cash (“to have money on-sight [pseudo-French]” < kataθesis opseos “deposit on sight”)
avelo paketo: to have a visible genital bulge (“to do package”)
vuelo bagazi: to have a visible genital bulge (“to do baggage”)
avelo puf: to take a drag of a cigarette
avelo relo: to fart
avelo reta: to fart
avelo retali: to give minimal assistance, to help unenthusiastically
avelo rodosol: to kiss, to lick
avelo skriva: to write
avelo spasibes: to escape
avelo sfina: to be accused
avelo dzastiko, vuelo dza: to leave
avelo dzastiraxosekeri, avelo dzastiraxosolo: to poison
avelo dzasxalema: to vomit
avelo dzoka: to play
vuelo dzoka: to kiss
avelo dzuro: to urinate
avelo dzus lesi: to wash
avelo tula: to be silent
avelo tufes: to sleep deeply
avelo tromba: to inject drugs
avelo tsarðospasiba: to expel
avelo fasamenta: to wear glasses
avelo fiongo: to have sex with a bottom I thought was a top
avelo flokia: to ejaculate
avelo fromaz imitu: to have a filthy penis (“to do Hymettus cheese”)
vuelo ɣorɣodzes: to have a filthy penis (“to do Gorgonzola”)
avelo xus: to hide
vuelo ɡlasonia: to wear glasses
vuelo kanksero: to go
vuelo kelorosola: to cry
vuelo komunoskeli: to have oneʼs period (“to have commie [red] legs”)
vuelo kurunes: to act dishonourably
vuelo laxaniazozumi: to ejaculate (“to do panting juice”)
vuelo munopasxa: to have one’s period
vuelo blukru: to be thirsty
vuelo bubuni: to fart
vuelo ksplika: to explain
vuelo opia: to pay
vuelo ruzoskelo: to have oneʼs period (“to have pink legs”)
vuelo saliango: to kiss (“to do snail/slime”)
vuelo semelopiɣi: to urinate (“to do penis water-spring”)
vuelo silansioles: to betray (< French silencieux “silent”)
vuelo suzman: to be angry (“to do nerves?”: susta “nerve”)
vuelo traɣopurozumo: to bless with holy water (“to do goat.old-man.juice = [bearded] priest water”)
vuelo tremozumo: to ejaculate (“to do trembling juice”)
vuelo fakiropipiza: to have an erection (“to do snake-charmer’s flute”)
vuelo foria: to pressure
vuelo xalastra: to beat brutally (“to do ruin”)
vuelo xtipes: to inject drugs (“to do hits”)
*avelo pluts: to be happy (“to do splash”)
*avelo pluts tabako: to get stoned (“to do splash cigarette” = “to be happy cigarette”)

*avelo bubules: to shoot (“to do boom-boom”)
*avelo xuxules: to be cold (“to do shiver”)

In a few instances, Kaliarda makes semantic differentiations between words that standard Greek does not:

animalonionies: brains (as food): “animal mind”—differentiated from nionio “brains”; both miala in mainstream Greek (but mainstream slang nionio “intellect” only means the latter)
ɣudi: wood (English wood), kariðosfino “walnut (wood) wedge”, differentiated from dup “beating”; both ksilo in mainstream Greek
linga: language < Italian lingua, differentiated from rosolo “tongue” < rosoli “saliva” < rosolio “rosewater liquer”; both ɣlosa in mainstream Greek

There is a massive list of schematic compounds in Kaliarda; I will cut it short at delta:

aðerfokrazo: to meow: “to cat shout”
aðerfotrofi: mouse: “cat food”
aeragistro: magnet: “air hook” (hooks iron in mid-air)
aeranderizo: to fart, to be indifferent: “to air intestines”
aerokaro: airplane: “air cart”
ainstainotabletes: logarithms, logarithm tables: “Einstein tablets”
etnoxorxora: measles: “pimple fire”
akumbotsarðos: neighbour: “touch house”
almobiselu: medium: “soul sleep chick”
ambelobombitses: dolmades: “vineyeard little bombs” (as they are round food wrapped in vineleaves)
anemoviva: soul: “wind life”
anemomandosvuru: windmill: “wind bread spinning-top”
anemoselogugu: medium: “wind sleep ghost chick”
anderosvuru: kokoretsi: “entrail spinning-top”
adikotos: distant: “un-seen”
antikro: TV set: “opposite”
apoliazo: to shut: “to [put] away from the sun”
arapiki dzinavosini: algebra: “Arabian cleverness”
astedupuros: director: “‘That’s how I want it!’ old man” < Arvanitika është dua “that’s how I want it” (also used in mainstream slang)
astefanotekno: born out of wedlock: “no [wedding] crown child”
astrapopetra: brilliant (diamond): “lightning stone”
atmokazano: railroad: “steam cauldron”
atsarðo: countryside: “houseless”
afroɣuɣulfia: rabies: “foam dog-ness”
axalia: diet: “un-eating”
axatozo: interior, Greece: “here-ness”
axatobenama: gesture, signal: “here saying” (“hither signal”)
varonolemari: necktie: “baron neck thing”
vestitosenduko: clothes trunk
vivokokora: fruit: “life mood”
vivokarno: calf: “live beef”
viðobladorufa: leech: “screw blood sucker”; bladorufa “blood sucker” is the cup used in cupping (βεντούζα)
vinaroklina: gargle: “drink clean”
virdzinoskriva: stenography: “virgin writing”
vlaxomiziθra: ricotta: “hillbilly cheese”
vomvobenavo: mumble, whisper: “buzz speak”
voskoxala: vegetables: “pasture food”
ɣaletomandula: biscuit: “rusk bread (diminutive)”
ɣalokarna: cow: “milk beef”
ɣalofusku: female breast: “milk balloon”
ɣarɣarotekno: sailor: “babbling [water] child”
ɣatakia-lalis: tender and faithful friend: “kitten jewel” (Turkish lâl)
ɣatuloɣamulis: tender lover: “kitten(-like) fucker (dimin.)”
ɣenapaɡros: beardless: “beard hairless”
ɡlobaro: to screw something, from globos “light bulb”
ɡodaxali: religious fasting: “god un-eating”, godaxalo “lenten food”
ɡodoðiakonevo, ɡodozitianevo: to pray: “god beg (as beggar)”
ɡodoðula: angel: “god slave”
ɡodokontra: Hell: “opposite god”
ɡodoprezanta: Epiphany: “god presentation”
ɡodoprofesoros: theologian: “god professor”
ɡodotekno: Jesus: “god child”
ɡran-vakulodavadzis: patriarch: “grand church pimp = grand archbishop”
ɡran-vakulopuros: bishop: “grand church old man = grand priest”
ɡrifopsipsizo: to scratch: “nail pussycat”
ɡroso kanɡelokaro: army tank: “large metal cart”
ɡrosokuakis: frog: “large quack” (note that the Greek onomatopoeia for frogs is koaks)
ɣuɣuloxalo: to bite: “wolf eat”
ɣuɣulfakis: dog: “little wolf”
ɣulfobenavo: to bark: “dog talk”
ɣrasiðopaɡru: cotton: “grass fleece”
ɣiroɣalu: fatty: “go-around milk” (alluding to churning milk)
ɣirozaru: casino: “go-around dice chick” (alluding to roulette)
ɣirotera: year: “go-around earth”
ɣirofisu: fan: “go-around blow chick”
ɣirobukis: generous party-goer: “fills (with food) those around”
ðaxtilo: piano: “finger chick”
ðikeloɣonias: cross-eyed: “looks corner”
ðikelomantio: window, cinema: “looks oracle” (because seeing through window or cinema lets you know something far from your physical presence?)
ðikelomantopoðia: curtain: “window apron”
ðikelosvura: dizziness: “looking spinning-top”
ðikeloskales: benches in stadium: “steps for looking”
ðikelto: eye: “seen thing”
ðikeltu: glance: “seen chick”
ðiplomiliona: million: “double thousand”
ðiploroða, dubloroða: bicycle: “double wheel”

Finally, this is the list of Kaliarda colour words:

ɡrekos: dark blue < “Greek” (national colour)
kipi: green: “garden-coloured”
kuli: beige, brown: “shit-coloured”
blavos: black < mainstream “bruised, black-and-blue” < Venetian blavo “blue”
blakis: black < English black
nekri: purple: “death-coloured” (purple is associated with funerals)
neros: black < Italian nero
dareli: yellow (< darela “gossip, nonsense”?)
durosielo: blue: “hard sky-coloured” (French ciel, used in Greek as a colour word)
durosielo tis renas: royal blue: “the queen’s blue”
plereza: black (usually in compounds) < Standard plereza “mourning veil” < French pleureuse
rozi: red: “rose coloured”. (In standard Greek, roz is borrowed from French rose and means “pink”)
sielos: pale blue < Italian cielo, French ciel “sky”; siel < ciel already means “pale blue” in Standard Greek
xionis, xionikos: white: “snow-coloured”

Kaliarda XXX: Kaliarda etymologies

By: Nick Nicholas | Post date: 2018-01-05 | Comments: 1 Comment
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

I am drawing this sequence to a close with posts on noteworthy classes of Kaliarda words from Petrpoulos’ dictionary.

To begin with: I have already posted (and updated) the Romani words in Kaliarda; the Italian words are given in Minniti-Gonias have already been discussed; and the Turkish, French, and English words have been sign-posted by Petropoulos. This is an etymological addendum. (In the following, asterisked forms are not Dura Liarda, but are from the addendum to Petropoulos.)

Albanian words:

vaizo: black woman < vajzë “girl”
kurdavo: almond (etymon not given by Petropoulos)
mutiazo: to shit < muti “shit”
bukuros: beautiful < bukurë
duvdeza: coffin < duvdes “to die”

(I have not been able to confirm these, and these will be Arvanitika, not standard Albanian.)

Spanish words:

kukaro: cockroach < cucaracha
otros: other < otro (if not French autre)
plaza: city square < plaza

To these we need to add Ladino semelja “penis”: this is clearly Lubunca similya “penis” < Ladino semilya “seed”. semelja is a missing link to the Ottoman Empire, since Ladino was spoken widely in Constantinople and Salonica—but not in Athens, whose Jews were Romaniote (Greek-speaking). We know that Kaliarda was spoken in Athens before Salonica became part of Greece in 1912, so semelja proves what the lack of Italian in Lubunca seemingly disproves—that Kaliarda and Lubunca share at least some common ancestry.

The much longer list is that whose etymologies defeated Petropoulos. There are by my reckoning eight Romani stems that Montoliu found and that I have not—though I’m quite sure develo ~ dzevelo and dapavelo are two of them.

Unknown Etymologies:

(avelo) napses: to chat; napsiaris is an informant, and Petropoulos derives it from anapso “to light (a fire)”
(vuelo) foria: to pressure
aθoritos: absurd; aθoritiazo to act stupidly, riskily; to gamble
vakuli: church (Petropoulos claims Venetian bangolo “brothel”, but Minniti-Gonias has not found that word in Boerio. He also suggests vakla “rod” < Latin bacillus)
verɣos: informant
vutra: breasts
ɡolos: deaf
ɡurbandos: charming (of men)
elamu: arrival; elamano “to arrive” (< ela mu “come on”?)
esapsis: wonderful
kajoros, kajos: director (Turkish cayır “quickly, noisily”?)
kanɡuri: nose
kaklamaro: to influence
kansavaro: to correct
kaprikende: matchstick (kendo “to pierce; to set alight”; hence kenda “fire” does not have an unknown etymology. See also kerikende “matchstick” < keri “candle” + kenda)
karakukunis: miser
karalafaro: tickle (kara- “augmentative” + English laugh?)
kaskambera: smart
kaskauti: hashish
katolia: tears
kirkirisi: vomit (onomatopoeia?)
klakakembaro: to make noise in a bar for or against a singer (< French claque?)
kopapi: rusk
kuranda: comb
kurkurzelo: wet
kurkuledzu: slut
kusa: doll
kuseli: gossip (cf. kuskus “ibid.)
kros krose: confetti
kruakis, kruu, kruiko: filthy
lamaro: to back up, cf. kaklamaro to influence
lugra nasty, bitch. lugra ~ rugla is Lefkada dialect for snot, and derives from Ancient Greek ῥύγχος “nose” luni: swimming
lupara: ears, luparo “to hear”
lutsia: sea (Petropoulos: Italian luto “sludge”?)
mandalas: cuckold; hence mandalobaltas “prosecution of adultery, adultery”: “cuckold trial”
meliði: end, full stop (looks like “honey”); buromeliðo “song meliði” is a musical note
mentsa: lawsuit
merkeres: kapamas (in Greek: lamb or veal stewed in butter, tomato and spices)
morza: snot
berxamas: argument (Turkish barhana “big inn”?)
bigros: big (English big?)
bilo delo: mirror
bolokaro: to coat
bua: flower (French bois “forest”?)
mukluke: interesting, wonderful
bulɣuana: pretentious
bulɣuriko: sweet, smart, cultured
bulkume, purkume: sperm, ejaculation
bubul: sweet
busɣaliazo: to bury
busɣukulos: indifferent
niseste: clothes, thread, cloth
nitsikos: few
davilaro: to begin
dabagojes: binoculars
dan: he, pl. danakati “they.masc” (dan “he” + kate “that”?)
duna: she, pl. danakate “they.fem” (dan “he” + kate “that”?)
duni: it, pl. dunakata “they.neut” (duni + kate “that”?)
dapavelo: to surrender (Romani? cf. tapavel “to make someone beat someone up”; daravel “to intimidate”)
develo, dzevelo: to desire, to want (Romani? Romani devel “God” does not have a clear relation)
darela: gossip, nonsense
dareli: yellow
dili: tooth (French dent?)
diskronde: cram school, enlightenment, oven (all of which are I presume slang for “place where someone becomes in-the-know”): cf. French discorder?
dovas: hated and repulsive gay
dokomaxmurlis: lazy: doko- (?) + Greek maxmurlis “sleepy-head” < Turkish mahmur
ksepensaris: expensive: ostensibly Greek kse- “un-” + Italian pensare “to think”, so “maddening”?
parandinu: carnival: para-ndinome “to cross-dress”?
prans: nearby: French près “near”?
radaristo: phone receiver: radar? radaro means “to read”
sarmela, sermela: penis: related to semelja “penis”?
sapsaro: to admire
sekanso: I can: English can?
seklaman: innocent, indifferent
sekons: how much; fem. sekonsa, neut. sekonso
sinta: (elastic) spring
sixliazo: to rot, to shrink (from tsixla “thrush (bird); skinny person”?)
skundula: evil eye
smoki: germ
sol: pleasure
tapioka: unkempt hair
tendos: true, and tendu “truth”
dzasbanaðiko, dzasbanotsarðo: insane asylum: “away X shop, away X hut” (dzaslos “away”, dzasnionio “away mind” and dzatestos “away head” mean “insane”; ban resembles banio “bath” < Italian bagno)
dzelbue: leucorrhoea, vaginal discharge
dzuanaro: to leave
dzurata: stockings (dzuro is “urine”)
ˈtula: silence
turkokutrukelo: Smyrna, Izmir: “Turk Χ?”
turla susta: dizziness: lit. “swelling bounce/spring”
tsulukani: child; hence tsulukano “pregnant”
fasa: woman
frida: fire (Italian freddo “cold”?)
xafto: place: related to xafto “to swallow”?
xonsika: toilet
xus: hiding place; xusaro “to hide”
xusia: laughter
xututopos: that place; xutu “?” + topos “place”
psamos: excited, psamono “to get excited”
*aminobarotsarðo: hospital: amino “?” (“defence?”) + barotsarðo “sickness hut”
*ɡuruma: bear; hence ɡurumotos “hairy” (cf. bear)
*ðela: vomit
*karkabiniazo: to look admiringly, to sweet-talk
*kataxar: opposite
*kerekokristalo: photography: “X? crystal”
*kumusa: case; *kumusukulia bandoleer, cartridge belt: “case turds”
*listra: razor (Italian lisciare “to smooth”?)
*berebeðaki: lamb
*buma: potato
*dzurda: glance
*dzaz bilo: unlucky: “away X?” (cf. bilo delo “mirror”)
*faraniazo: to froth: < fari “stallion”? Hence *faraniasmenos “furious” (“frothing at the mouth”)

Kaliarda XXIX: 1904, addendum

By: Nick Nicholas | Post date: 2018-01-04 | Comments: 3 Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

I just noted that Nikos Sarantakos posted on his blog a report on the 1904 attestation of Kaliarda. I neglected to mention that he posted a full scan of the 1904 article (1904–11–25), which includes a couple of paragraphs left out in Spatholouro’s transcription, which I’d previously posted here.

“Our journal is able to announce a journalistic success today. When we gave the truly difficult mission to our contributor Bichtis [“Pest, Sexual Harrasser”] of discovering the friends in Constantinople and collecting Makris’ correspondence towards them, we were convinced of his capability and his success, for he is a young man full of energy, zeal, and smarts, a proper spitfire. He literally has the devil inside. But he has exceeded our expectation.”

The “friends” are obviously queers in Istanbul. (I really should have been using that term instead of “gays” all along.)
I have no idea who Makris was, and what his correspondence involved, but there may be hints of it in previous issues of the magazine.

“Constantinople, 21 November. … Constantinople too has her Twelve, just like our Athens. The difference is that her circle is larger than the Omonia Square one, for more members have entered it here.”

Why yes, some of those italics are deliberate. The whole magazine did that, not just this article.
The reference to the Twelve, this confirms, is purely conventional (“Council of Elders = Queers”), since in fact there are numerically more queers in Istanbul than Athens.

“We all know that (the) language/tongue is only useful for women. Now it is confirmed that men use it too. Language/Tongue in both cases plays the major part.”

I initially thought this was indirect confirmation that Kaliarda was already familiar as the language of cis female prostitutes. But in context, it’s likely just some artless sexism plus a double entendre: “Women are all talk (tongue); but it turns out (queer) men can use their tongues for the same purpose as women. Why no, I was just referring to the use of language by both! Get your mind out of the gutter!”

“Before going further I will write on the language of the Twelve here [in Constantinople], since this is the same language as that of our Twelve [in Athens]. This is also quite important in our case, as that is what Makris’ letters are written in.”

Again, the explicit identification of Athens Lubinistika from 1904 with Istanbul Lubunca; and the old Italian vocabulary which differentiates the two is not included in the glossary.

“The report of our correspondent is quite detailed, including among others the history of our Twelve and the names, or rather pseudonyms, by which the Athens and Peiraeus members of this curious company are known, along with the age of each; we will be continuing it in many issues of our magazine.”

And indeed, while the following issue (1904–12–02) is missing from the Greek National Library and the ΕΛΙΑ press archives, the issue after that, 1904–12–09, did publish names of the “Twelve in Peiraeus”; I already noted the presence of masculine, feminine and neuter names, in contrast with the exclusively feminine names reported for 1971 by Petropoulos.
The 1904–12–16 issue left out its report on “The Twelve” for lack of space; the issue after that, 1904–12–23, is likewise missing from ΕΛΙΑ. The 1904–12–09 issue likely has a few more gems though.

Kaliarda XXVIII: Sarantakos

By: Nick Nicholas | Post date: 2017-12-30 | Comments: 3 Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

Nikos Sarantakos has just published on his blog a report on Spatholouro’s finds in his blog comments of early attestation of Kaliarda, as already reported here. My thanks to him for disseminating Spatholouro’s findings more widely, as they deserve.

There’s not a lot of new information in the article, but he does mention that Manganareas’ journal Πεταχτό Κόρτε “Fleeting Flirt”,

despite its editor’s activist credentials, was one of the risque magazines of the time, with half-naked women drawn on the front cover, with cartoons with innuendo-laced captions showing ladies in negliges, with poems and witticisms full of double entendres, often italicised (e.g. “every female reader should give it to her friend—the magazine, that is.”) […] As you can see on the front cover above, the magazine shows dozens of pseudonyms of contributes, but I would not be surprised if the entire content was written by Manganaras with 2 or 3 collaborators.

Sarantakos also raises a criticism of Petropoulos’ work that is worth discussing: the lengthly witticisms in the dictionary don’t seem to be conventionalised parts of a normal cant vocabulary, but one-off opportunistic inventions, which his consultants happened to come up with:

But users of cants don’t use it so much to communicate, as to not be understood by outsiders. They don’t need to devise words for all aspects of life, because the mainstream language is enough for that. They need 100–200 basic words for their immediate interests (money, client, beautiful, ugly, small, big.)

The sense I get every time I leaf through Petropoulos’ Kaliarda is that many, if not most of those words were made up by a small group for fun, building on the existing model of Kaliarda vocabulary. I open up Petropoulos at random at <R>, and read these entries:

rena: queen [French reine]

renovlastos: “queen sprout”: heir to the throne

renoɣlastra: “queen flowerpot”: palace

renokaθiki: “queen chamberpot”: crown

renokatsikaðero: “queen goatville man (= hillbilly)”: evzone (royal guard, in traditional rural garb)

renos: king

renoskamnu: “queen stool”: throne

renotekno: “queen child”: prince

The compounds are very witty and inventive, and I bet the people who made them up had a lot of fun doing so; but I would be surprised if they were ever widespread among Kaliarda speakers. I fear that Petropoulos, yielding to the passion of the collector, bolstered his collection by recording the opportunistic formations of a small group.

I agree with Sarantakos that it’s unlikely that these witticisms were conventionalised—that “queen chamberpot” was the regular word for “crown”, used more than mainstream stema or korona (whenever crowns did come up in conversation). I disagree that they were out of bounds for being recorded.

Kaliarda at the beginning may well have been as limited as Dortika, when it really was being used as a secrecy language, by sex workers and gays. The minimal records we have of older Kaliarda concur: they don’t have the compounds, the jokes, and the allusions that Petropoulos recorded. (Of course, they were quite basic vocabularies, so there’d be no room for them anyway.)

But Petropoulos says that wit is a major component of speaking Kaliarda; in fact, wit is also emphasised in accounts of the much more parsimonious Lubunca, and were clearly also at work in Polari. Even in 1928, Hatzidakis says much the same about Kaliarda—that the experience of hearing any word of it is unforgettable; and I find it hard to believe that it was unforgettable merely for using a couple of Romani words in a mincing accent. Even if the coinage “queen chamberpot” was not conventionalised for “crown”, and was the invention of one particular Kaliarda speaker, I suspect that kind of coinage happened among Kaliarda speakers all the time.

And beyond that, the linguistic patterns of the coinages are revealing of how the language work. dzasberdepurotsarðo is rechercé for “National Benefaction”, and “house of an old man throwing away his money” is clearly one-off. But I doubt this was the only time dzas-berde was used to refer dismissively to philanthropy; and the variant clearly permitted such four-part compounds to be formed and understood—something not without precedent in Greek, both literary and colloquial, but in a much more schematic garb than we’re used to from Greek.

I’m going to be offline for a couple of weeks. When I get back, I’ll be posting glossed highlights of the Kaliarda vocabulary, and drawing this series to a close.

Kaliarda XXVII: Biondo

By: Nick Nicholas | Post date: 2017-12-24 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Linguistics, Modern Greek

Thanks to friend of this blog Kostas Karapotosoglou, I’ve consulted Raffaela Biondo’s honours thesis on Lubunca from Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice: Lubunca: Lo slang queer del turco. Usi e funzioni sociolinguistiche a Istanbul e Berlino.

The research contribution of Biondo’s thesis is a survey of attitudes towards Lubunca by gay Turks in Turkey and Germany, and the extent of their usage of it. There is some introductory material, and a glossary of Lubunca; I suspect much of this material is in Kontovas’ thesis, but I’m going through it for completeness.

p. 17. The slang of the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, studied by Özdemir Kaptan in 1988, is polyglot, and includes Greek, Italian, French, Armenian, Russian and English; this reflects the polyglot nature of Beyoğlu (mediaeval Pera) itself, as the Venetian and Genoese settlment, and then as the Levantine centre of Istanbul.
p. 27. Kontovas included as characteristic of Lubunca the use of alıkmak as a light verb, and the use of -matik, -oz, oş as derivational suffixes. (p. 117 alıkmak is based on Turkish almak “to take”; -ık- is obscure.)
p. 27. The first Turkish slang dictionary was Lugat-i Garibe by A. Fikri, 28 pp long, from 1889/1890. Next came Devellioğlu’s 1941 dictionary, then Hulki Aktunç’s 1990 Türkçenin Büyük Argo Sözlüğü, which is the major reference on Turkish slang. Slang studies in Turkish have intensified since the 1990s.
p. 84. Lubunca is also known as labunca, lubunyaca, kelavca. kelav is Lubunca for “prostitute”; lubunyaca is the older form of lubunca, from lubunya “gay bottom, trans woman” < Romani lubhni “whore”. So Lubunca lubunya, like Lubinistika/Kaliarda lubina, conflated cis female prostitutes and queers as reflexes of lubhni. (I’d been avoiding queer as too generic till now, but it’s better than ibne or gay or gay bottoms and trans woman.)
p. 118: lubunya has spread to general Turkish slang. labunya is a synonym of lubunya; cf. Manganaras’ recorded form labuni, which appears to correspond to later lubina.
p. 84. Online sources speak of 300–400 words of Lubunca; Kontovas, recall, found 158 roots. Petropoulos, it should be said, recorded 3000 words (700 roots), but guessed there were more like 5000 extant.
p. 85. Morphological peculiarities of Lubunca (Kontovas 2012:13–17): -iz, -ız as a non-productive nominalising suffix on verbs; productive derivative suffixes -oş (Greek), -tör, -tor (French); the use of alıkmak as a light verb.
p. 86. Kontovas concluded Lubunca must have originated in the final decades of the Ottoman Empire—the use of “58” as a visual pun only makes sense before the 1932 introduction of the Roman alphabet. Lubunca as we now know it was standardised in the 80s (when it was first recorded) and 90s, a time which speakers consider the golden age of Lubunca. (Speakers of Kaliarda would be unanimous that the golden age of that language was Petropoulos’ time.)
p. 87. Romani is no longer spoken by Istanbul Roma, but it was in the 60s; so Lubunca must have originated before then. The Greek in Kaliarda would date from before the exodus of Istanbul Greeks after the 1955 pogrom. (Recall that Manganaras found a language he identified with Kaliarda, spoken in Istanbul in 1904; Kontovas would not have been aware of that source.)
p. 88. Kontovas situates the origin of Lubunca in Beyoğlu and Şişli, where the Levantines lived, contributing their languages to Lubunca; the Roma of Istanbul also lived in Beyoğlu, and that is where trans sex workers in Istanbul work to this day. Kontovas (2012: 40)

The engagement of Queers, Roma, and other gayrimüslim [non-Muslim] minority women in unregistered sex work during the latter years of the Ottoman Empire and early years of the Turkish Republic explains the cohabitation of social space and corresponding experience of similar social conditions that catalysed in the exchange of linguistic material exhibited by Lubunca.
p., 93. Lubunca is still much used in its original context of sex work, but it has spread more widely as an emblematic language, including among gay activists.
p. 96. Lubunca is used by both gay men and gay women, although the sexual vocabulary of Lubunca is ibne-oriented. (There does not seem to have been any takeup of Kaliarda by lesbians, and lesbians are consistently absent in the sources—though Kaliarda is certainly aware they exist.) The secrecy function of Lubunca is becoming less prominent.
p. 119. paparon for “policeman” got a lot of use in the 80s and 90s to refer to the policemen persecuting trans women; it is now being displaced by beybi < English baby. Already in Petropoulos’ time, paparuna had been truncated to runa, and its earlier form forgotten—Petropoulos was certainly unaware of it.
p. 120. belde ~ berde “money” is used almost exclusively with reference to payment for sex. One informant claimed that gays would not use belde outside of sexual contexts, but that trans people would extend it from payment for sex to payment for work in general.
p. 122. homoş “homosexual” and malbuş “Marlboro cigarette” are formed with the pseudo-Greek suffix -oş.
p. 125, 127. The same has happened with ibnoş, reclaimed from mainstream Turkish ibne, and used ironically.
p. 126. The Romani denyo “crazy” has generalised from Lubunca to general Turkish slang.
p. 132. Biondo gives a Lubunca glossary:
p. 133. balamoz ~ malamoz has the specific meaning “sugar daddy” (as in fact does baron < French). In Kaliarda, balamos is “client of prostitute”; both straightforwardly derive from the Romani meaning “gadjo, boss”.
p. 135. çaça “madam of brothel” is listed as Lubunca; it is derived from either the dance cha cha cha, or Venetian ciaciarar “to chatter”. As it turns out, mainstream Greek tsaˈtsa means the same, and is not a particularly obscure word; Greek dictionaries derive it from the nursery word ˈtsatsa “auntie”. The Greek etymology is rather more plausible than either of (Kontovas’?) suggestions, and would make this the fifth Greek word of Lubunca.
p. 143. The fourth Greek word of Lubunca, which Kontovas forgot to list in the excerpt I saw of his thesis (after paparon, paparun, paparos “policeman”, nonoş “bottom, transvestite, effeminate gay man” < nonos “godfather”; and nafta “middle aged man” < naftis “sailor”) is tarika “moustache”, trika “beard” < trixa “hair (follicle; body hair)”; hence (p. 123, citing Kontovas) trikacı “someone excited by body or facial hair”. (Biondo notes that trika has now fallen into disuse.)
p. 137. The sixth Greek word of Lubunca is hoy “no”, which may come from Greek dialectal oi “no”; the form is only attested in the “Memrise Lubunca Course”.
p. 139. maydanoz “hair” < “parsley” is not the seventh Greek word of Lubunca, since maydanoz is already well established in Standard Turkish as a Greek loanword.
p. 138. laço in Lubunca is specialised to mean “20–40 year old man; active gay; virile gay”—so in fact what Kaliarda speakers would have referred to as a kolambaras, though presumably with less of the toxicity of kulampara/ibne relations that the Kaliarda usage was characterised by, since the term is in contemporary use (“active gay” rather than “active sex tourist”). laçovari, accordingly, means “masculine”.
p. 139. minco has moved from meaning “vagina” to meaning “anus”, something that may reflect the more recent attestation of Lubunca compared to Kaliarda, with at least some trans women more overtly identify their anatomy as feminine. We saw that in Kaliarda, even in the 80s, mudzo was restricted to cis women by speakers who themselves identified as trans.

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1. FalkSing: V. von Falkenhausen. Un’inedita singrafe dotale calabrese del 1208/09. Rivista Storica Calabrese n.s. 6 (1985) 445–456,

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Updated post on the etymology of βύσσινο “sour cherry”

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Kaliarda XXXIV: Miscellanea from Kaliarda

Kaliarda XXXIII: The Context of Kaliarda

Kaliarda XXXII: The Wit of Kaliarda

Kaliarda XXXI: Basic vocabulary

Kaliarda XXX: Kaliarda etymologies

Kaliarda XXIX: 1904, addendum

Kaliarda XXVIII: Sarantakos

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