Subscribe to Blog via Email
Archive:
Month: August 2017
Are the Trojans in the Homeric Epics portrayed to speak Greek differently than the Achaeans?
There’s no dialectal difference, although I wouldn’t expect one from an epic poem: Homer is not Aristophanes. Of course, the Iliad is not a documentary, and while the poem concedes that the Trojans’ allies did not speak Greek, it’s doubtful that the actual Trojans of 1200 BC spoke Greek either. Trojan language – Wikipedia mentions […]
Hiotis vs Hendrix
This is not high Greek culture. This is not even low Greek culture. This is stoopid Greek culture. But I got a laugh out of it, and I’m translating the YouTube comments about it. In the left corner: Jimi Hendrix. This audience, I assume, needs no introduction to him. In the right corner, Manolis Chiotis. […]
A friend of mine with the last name Vavasis wants to know its meaning. I know the origin is Greek. What is the meaning?
I’m not sure. Really, I’m not sure. I say that, because the following is speculation that your friend might not welcome. Vavasis Βαβάσης does not have an obvious Greek etymology to me. It may have one, but I can’t discern it. My first guess was that it is a hellenisation of Babasis Μπαμπάσης, which turns […]
What does the following phrase that I heard several times in central Greece mean, “tha paw na koitasthw” (“θα παω να κοιτασθω”)?
Dimitris Sotiropoulos reports in his answer that in some areas of Central Greece, this means “I will go to bed”. The normal meaning of the verb in modern Greek is “to look”, but the current accepted etymology of the verb is indeed from an ancient Greek verb for “to lie down”. This was not always […]
In what ways are Albanians in Greece mistreated?
My answer to this is a historical anecdote, but the quite informative answers here do talk about what happened in the 1990s, as well as what’s happening now. The reports now are that Albanians are on the top of the totem pole of immigrant privilege. They are of course still below Western Europeans, who are […]
How do Greeks feel about the hadith analysis by Imran Hosein that the “Al-Rum” of the end times is to be analysed as Russia?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4SzkI4H2U8 Having listened to 6 mins of Sheikh Imran N. Hosein’s lecture, and done some Googling: There is a Hadith that predicts that, in the end times, the “Rum” and Islam will form a truce to fight a common enemy, before they fight each other in Armageddon. To cite the hadith: Conquest of Constantinople You […]
Why does Greece produce such amazing music?
Given the amount of Greek songs that I’ve written about over at Hellenica, of course Greece has produced amazing music. The notion that it hasn’t, which Konstantinos Konstantinides’ answer gives, is to me as strange as the question itself seems to be to him. Of course, there’s a catch with the presumption behind this question. […]
The Mass of the Beardless Man
I’ve name-checked the Mass of the Beardless Man (Spanos) in Nick Nicholas’ answer to What is the dirtiest work of Modern Greek literature? I have been asked to provide a sample, and herewith I oblige. Spanos was written around 1500, in Northern Greece or Constantinople; I’ve noted the speculation by Tassos Karanastassis, that it was […]
What are the linguistic and cultural differences of the residents of the 2 largest cities, Athens and Thessaloniki, in Greece?
Well have both Yiannis Papadopoulos’ answer and Konstantinos Konstantinides’ answer put it. Upvote them. Some further supplemental detail, expressed linguisticiously: Salonica Standard Greek is pretty much Athens Standard Greek with a few shibboleths; it’s a situation comparable to Scottish Standard English (such as you’ll hear in Edinburgh)—you’ll hear wee a lot more, and you’ll hear […]
What is the dirtiest work of Modern Greek literature?
I know of three contenders; and having rebrowsed through one, I’m eliminating it from contention. I am, by the way, extending the definition back to 1000 AD. The contender I have not read (yet) is the only contender from the past century: The Great Eastern, by Greek surrealist Andreas Embirikos. It’s an encyclopaedia of all […]