Subscribe to Blog via Email
January 2025 M T W T F S S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Category: Modern Greek
What did Greeks contribute to the world in the last thousand years?
As Pieter van der Wilt said in comments: Well nothing really very outstanding. The great achievements of mankind during the last 200 years come mainly from highly industrialized nations (UK, France, Germany, USA, etc…). Greece is a small country with a fairly high level of creativity. All nations are great, because humanity is great. The […]
Could someone into Greek Orthodox Christianity define “καθωσπρεπισμός”?
Like Dylan Sakic, I’d need a lot more context, but here’s a stab. Καθώς πρέπει is a calque of French comme il faut, “as it should be done”. It refers to social propriety, observing social etiquette, but it has an intense connotation of hypocrisy and stuffiness; it’s the kind of thing that “bourgeois” gets inevitably […]
How different are the dialects of your mother tongue within your country?
How does one measure it? I’ve already responded to something similar: Nick Nicholas’ answer to Does the Greek language have a variety of regional dialects? and Nick Nicholas’ answer to Which of the Greek dialects sound harsh to a standard Greek speaker? The most deviant “dialect” of Greek, Tsakonian, is not mutually intelligible with Greek, […]
What is your favorite proverb from your culture or country? What country is it from?
I did a rich assortment of off-colour Greek proverbs over at Nick Nicholas’ answer to What are some weird expressions? A tuthree more off-colour sayings. Which I’ve actually tried to use in English, with decidedly mixed results. Τα μεταξωτά βρακιά θέλουν και επιδέξιους κώλους. Silk undies require agile arses. One must be equipped to handle […]
What are some human-made things you dislike or like that are present in South (and West) Cyprus?
This actually isn’t my own dislike, but it’s a dislike that really struck me. My father left Cyprus in 1966. He was in tears the day that Archbishop Makarios III died. I’ve only been back to Cyprus twice, in 1979 and 1989, and briefly and superficially at that. So I don’t have a clear notion […]
Can learning Modern Greek be helpful for studying philosophy?
I dearly, earnestly, ardently want you to learn Modern Greek for the pop culture. But don’t do it to help you with Ancient Greek philosophy. You’ll trip over more false friends than you can shake a stick it. Meanings and connotations of words have changed over the millennia, and nowhere is getting the precise connotations […]
In languages with formal/informal pronouns, do people explicitly tell you to switch pronouns?
Modern Greek speakers tend to squirm when addressed in the politeness plural, unless they are deliberately being high and mighty. The politeness plural connotes negative, not positive politeness to them, and emphasises social distance. Greeks don’t like social distance, they like being friendly and in your face. The exception these days would be officialdom and […]
What’s the whole thing about the widow in Zorba the Greek?
Depends what whole thing you’re asking about. The village widow comes up again in Kazantzakis’ Christ Recrucified, as the stand-in for Mary Magdalen: in traditional Greek society, a young widow was the only available sexual outlet for men—unmarried women were guarded by their fathers, married women by their husbands. So lots of barely repressed stuff […]
What is the Greek word for “messenger”?
The question has been answered for Ancient Greek: angelos, whence angel. The Christian use of angelos has made the word inaccessible for “messenger” in Modern Greek. The formal modern word is angelioforos, “message-bearer”. The old vernacular word is mandatoforos (where the Latin mandatum has ended up meaning “military communication”, and thence “news” in general.) Answered […]
Has Melbourne been the financial center of activities for advocates of annexing Greek Macedonia to FYROM?
Oh, fuck. Let’s put it this way. And for the purposes of this answer, I’m going to assert that there is indeed a distinct Makedonski minority in Greece, rather than refer to FYROM overtly. If you were an ethnic Macedonian living in Florina/Lerin or Kastoria/Kostur, you had the option of embracing a Greek identity and […]