Subscribe to Blog via Email
Join 327 other subscribersOctober 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 do you know about ethnically or linguistically Greek Muslims?
Well, I’ve already answered the related question What do you know about Greek speaking Muslims (e.g. those in Hamidiyah, Syria)? I was tempted to merge the two questions, but the focus on Al-Hamidiyah is useful, because they’ve been so prominent in Greek media. Outside of Al-Hamidiyah: I know that some Muslims in Greece that were […]
What does the Greek word “kefi” mean?
What my peers said. Being upbeat and in a good mood, having fun. To do something with kefi means you’re smiling, you’re doing it with gusto, you’re having fun. To have kefi is to be in a good mood. Kefi is one of those Greek words that is routinely listed as “untranslatable”, because it has […]
Are Middle Easterners considered to be White by Greeks?
Everyone here has spoken well on the topic. Greeks have a keen sense of Other, and skin colour can factor into that. As Dimitra Triantafyllidou says, we have a history of dismissing Gypsies (like much of Europe); and there’s a lot of anti-Pakistani feeling in downtown Athens. But then again, there was a lot of […]
If you want to include a word or phrase in Greek in a novel, should you write it in Greek letters or should you transcribe it by pronunciation?
A novel with mass readership, not in Greek, where you don’t want to alienate readers unnecessarily, and you care to give readers some notion of what it sounds like? Use transliteration rather than original script. Same as if you were putting Hindi (or whatever your language happens to be) into a non-Hindi (or whatever) novel. […]
What is the weirdest song in your language?
Zavara Katra Nemia, Greek, 1968. The songwriter Yannis Markopoulos was routinely subject to censorship during the Greek Junta, as a left winger. So he wrote a song with nonsense lyrics and lots of 5/8 and 11/8 metre, which got past the censors. And everyone assumed it was against the dictatorship anyway. Zavara katra nemia Zavara […]
This is no Fun and Games, this is the Balkans!
Whenever a Greek wants to nod sagely about the mess that is and ever has been the Balkans (and to admit that they too are stuck in the mess), they’ll mutter Εδώ είναι Βαλκάνια δεν είναι παίξε–γέλασε. “This is no Fun and Games, this is the Balkans!” I was going to cite the bon mot, […]
How and why does religiosity vary among Greek immigrant communities?
Question comes from my contrasting the attitude to religiosity among Greek-Australians and Greek-Americans. In the 1990s, Greeks were only coming up to second generation in Australia. The attitude to religion was akin to what it was in the home country: more about group identity and tradition than about a (how do Evangelicals put it?) personal […]
What is the etymology of Limassol, the English version of the Cypriot city ‘Lemesos’?
I don’t know. I’ll build on Sid Kemp’s answer, and to use what online resources tell me. Nemesos is used by Sophronius of Jerusalem (7th century), Anna Komnene (11th century), and the Byzantine lists of bishops. Lemesos is used by Leontios Machairas (15th century), and the vernacular Byzantine chronicles (15th century). The Turkish forms are […]
To whom Constantinople and Byzantium legacy belong to, Greece, Turkey or Bulgaria?
To anyone who claims it. I mean, seriously, what are you going to do? Sue the claimants you don’t like in the Hague? It belongs to the Greeks, who continue to call the City Constantinople and the empire Byzantine, Andrew Baird nothwithstanding, whose literary and church culture is suffused with Byzantium, and whose language if […]
What are some signs of Venetian and Genovese influence in the Greek islands (and Cyprus)?
Not aware of any Russian influence; 7 years was short, and I’m not aware that the Russian presence was substantial. The British did leave behind ginger beer and cricket. Venetian and Genoese influence that I know of includes: Substantial Italian, Venetian and Genoese lexicon in the dialects of the Greek islands. When my grandmother told […]