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Category: Modern Greek
Whats the difference between λες and πεις?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jDSR1nBgpg I had to correct your spelling there: πεις, not πες. In the context you’ve given, both are subjunctives, following μη “don’t”. Λες is the present subjunctive, meaning it’s imperfective (continuous); πεις is the aorist subjunctive (perfective). So “don’t keep telling me” vs “don’t tell me” (once-off). Why would the lyricist switch aspect in the […]
What do modern Greek speakers think of the phonetics of ancient Greek as it is taught in textbooks and performed (in, say, readings of Homer)? Do they think these reconstructions are accurate? Why?
What do they think? *sigh* The students at the Classics Department in the University of Auckland have this channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/… In which they have published three recordings of pop songs sung in Ancient Greek, with Erasmian pronunciation. They are exceedingly clever renderings, both in translation and staging. Mama Mia even has a Sappho […]
Did the Orthodox Christian church have any equivalent to the Protestant movement?
Patriarch Cyril Lucaris made overtures towards Calvinist theologians in the 1620s, and many though not all specialists believe he was pursuing a reform of the church along Calvinist lines. His contemporaries certainly thought so, and attributed the Calvinist Confession of Cyril Lucaris to him. The Synod of Jerusalem (1672) repudiated both the Confession, and Cyril’s […]
When did Orthodox Christians (normal citizens, not clergy) get access to the Bible?
I am not aware of any Orthodox ban on laypeople buying bibles, if they could afford them. It may or may not have been seen as odd before the invention of printing. The Greek Orthodox Church did have a massive problem with translating the Bible into Modern Greek, to the extent of getting a ban […]
How would you describe your first or almost-native language to someone who doesn’t speak it?
Thx4A2A. I’ve already answered a related question from a linguist’s perspective: Nick Nicholas’ answer to What makes Modern Greek an interesting language to learn, from a purely linguistic point of view?. But this question really should be about a lay description. (But I can’t resist telling Ilir Mezini: it’s Albanian, missing half the letters, and […]
In Modern Greek, is there any difference between “I have said” and “I have been saying”?
έχω πει, the perfect tense, is only used in perfective contexts (completed actions); so you can’t use it for “I have been saying”. You will use the imperfect, έλεγα, for that. So Greek makes no distinction between “I was saying” and “I have been saying”. The English “I have been saying” looks like it’s both […]
Do languages other than English have a numerical concept similar to “dozens”, plural?
Modern Greek has borrowed duzina from Venetian, so that does get used. What is more idiomatic is the suffix –arja added on to tens-words, meaning “approximately”. So ðekarja “around ten”, triantarja “around thirty, thirty-odd”, eksindarja “around sixty, sixty-odd”. [EDIT: correction to hundreds] Also ðjakosarja “two hundred-odd”, triakosarja “three hundred odd”, up to enjakosarja “nine hundred-odd”; […]
In what situations would you use an article in English where you wouldn’t in Modern Greek? And vice-versa?
Rather than make up an answer, I googled and am posting from the first blog I found: Πότε δεν χρησιμοποιούμε το οριστικό άρθρο the Proper names in Modern Greek always take a definite article. It’s quite rare in English: rivers, families, plural countries. Nouns with generic reference take a definite article in Modern Greek and […]
Does Italian administration in the Dodecanese prevent the expulsion of Muslim citizens, contrary to Crete?
Self-evidently yes. The population exchanges of 1923 dictated that all Muslims in Greece move to Turkey, with the exception of Thrace, and that all Greek Orthodox in Turkey move to Greece, with the exception of Istanbul, Imbros and Tenedos. In 1923, Crete was part of Greece—though the Muslims of Crete were already fleeing the island […]
Can someone translate from Greek the phrase “apeasa vrohe ston dromo, ke agao then stathika, san poli stin agallia sou, irtha ke zastathika”?
I commend your taste in music, Anon, though not your transcription skills. stixoi.info: Το σακάκι μου κι αν στάζει, 1970. Lyrics: Akos Daskalopoulos. Music: Stavros Kouyoumtzis. Μ’ έπιασε βροχή στο δρόμο μα εγώ δε στάθηκασαν πουλί στην αγκαλιά σου ήρθα και ζεστάθηκα Κι αν με χτύπησε τ’ αγιάζι το σακάκι μου κι αν στάζεισου το […]