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Category: Modern Greek
How are colors perceived in different languages and cultures?
Greek: The colour of sex is pink. Actually, it’s roz, a borrowing from French rose. The colour of freshness and youth is not green, but pale green, khloros. Sky blue, galanos, is the colour of calm. (There’s been some etymological conflation there.) You go yellow with fear, not cowardice. Answered 2016-08-29 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/How-are-colors-perceived-in-different-languages-and-cultures/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
What should I know (but don’t) about the culture and history of the Cyclades in general and Syros in particular?
https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%A3%CF%8D%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%82 Taking the *Greek* Wikipedia article as a baseline, Dimitris Almyrantis? I hate you. The fact that the anthem of Rebetika, Frangosyriani, means “Catholic Girl from Syros”, is too obvious for the Greek Wikipedia page to mention; it does at least mention that the song’s composer Vamvakaris was himself a Catholic Boy from Syros (a […]
How do you pronounce η (eta)?
How do I pronounce eta? In Modern Greek: /i/. When reading Ancient Greek to myself, still /i/. I’m Greek, which makes me Reuchlinian, as Haggen Kennedy described: I pronounce Ancient Greek as Modern Greek to myself. When reading Ancient Greek out loud, or describing Ancient Greek historically, I do not use whatever weird-ass Pronunciation of […]
How do you say welcome to a greek wedding?
Greek is all about the formulaic expressions. If you’re the guest in a Greek wedding, you must say: Να ζήσετε “may you live [long]” to the bride and groom. Να σας ζήσουν “may they live [long] for you” to the bride and groom’s families. Πάντα άξιος “[may you] always [be] worthy” to the best man. […]
What language do people in Cyprus speak?
Eutychius Kaimakkamis’ is the most complete answer; I’ll only add: The status of Standard Greek vs Cypriot Greek is a diglossia, and it’s a much more clear-cut instance of diglossia than what was going on in Greece in the 20th century. Cypriot Turkish (Cypriot Turkish, Kıbrıslıca) has some clear typological affinities with Cypriot Greek. For […]
Where is taking off your shoes when entering a home common, and how common is it in those places?
It has been de rigeur in Greece to take your shoes off when entering a house, as owner or guest. Indeed, Greek has borrowed the Turkish proverbial expression about it: to “hand someone their shoes” is to invite them to get the hell out of your house. (του ’δωσα τα παπούτσια στο χέρι/pabuçu eline vermek). […]
Has Komnenos/Komnena survived as a Greek surname in modern Greece?
The question about this is always whether it’s a survival or a revival. The Greeks of Cargèse for example convinced themselves that their main clan (the Stephanopoli) were descendants of the Comneni, and got the paperwork from the King of France to prove it. As a result, almost everyone from the village is now surnamed […]
Which Greek stronghold with Catholic administration was the last to survive the Ottoman conquest: Crete, Cyprus or other?
As I pointed out in commenting Niko Vasileas’ answer, the Morea was reconquered by the Venetians after close to two centuries of Ottoman rule, whereas Tinos was under continuous Venetian rule right through to 1715. Add to this the odd situation of the Ionian Islands. They remained under Venice until 1797. Then they fell under […]
Did Greeks in the Ottoman age feel Greek or Roman? Why was Greek identity chosen and not Roman when fighting for independence?
Go to Names of the Greeks: much good information there. On the eve of the Greek War of Independence, the prevalent term for Greeks was Roman (Romioi). That was what the simple folk used, and they used it to refer to Greek Orthodox Christians (the Rum Millet), as the folk of the East Roman (Byzantine) […]
Is it possible to write English in Greek script? Would it look better?
This could go one of two ways, neither pretty. You could phonetically transcribe English into Greek, Ancient or Modern, using the phonetics of the Greek alphabet unchanged. As Konstantinos Konstantinides says, that would sound horrible, because it really would be English with Greek vowels and consonants. In fact, when Greeklish ( Greek in ASCII) was […]