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Category: Modern Greek
Does the Greek language have a variety of regional dialects?
The outlier dialects, Tsakonian, Pontic, Cappadocian, Mariupolitan: not mutually intelligible, with Tsakonian clearly the furthest away. In terms of the Swadesh list (100 words), Tsakonian has 70% in common with Standard Greek. Cretan and Cypriot both have 89% words in the Swadesh-100. With dialect attrition, there are versions of Cypriot and Cretan that Athenians can […]
What are the major characteristics of the poetry of Constantine P. Cavafy?
A major characteristic of Cavafy which does *not* come across in the most popular translation (Sherrard & Keeley’s) is the linguistic eclectisism, which adds to the overall feeling of restraint and detachment. Especially when everyone else writing in Greek at the time was idolising the Volkisch ideal of Demotic, his playful alternation of contemporary slang […]
What’s the best Greek song that Stelios Kazantzidis, Greek singer, has ever made?
Kudos to Achilleas for his comprehensive answer, and for pointing out something unfamiliar to the contemporary Anglosphere: plenty of musical traditions, like Greece, don’t require singers to be songwriters for them to have credibility. In fact, not only songwriters, but lyricists distinct from songwriters have a high profile—something I find cool, but which went out […]
How do Greeks feel about references to Ancient Greece?
Depends, as with many of these things. Yes, there is the reaction you mention. You will occasionally get Greeks (and non-Greeks) reminding you that the Roman Empire kept going for 1000 years after 476, thank you very much—though the relation of Greeks to Byzantium is more complicated than that. There is the haunting feeling that […]
How do you feel when a foreigner speaks in your local accent/dialect? Are you offended when a foreigner imitates your local accent?
Intellectually, I want to love it. Regrettably, being human, I freak out. Not much, just slightly, Uncanny valley-style. Ross Daly for example is an Irishman who has lived in Crete for four decades, and a practitioner of Cretan folk music (among others). Having gone to the Cretan highlands to learn Cretan music, he speaks Greek […]
What are dialectical, grammar or morphological, differences between modern Northern Greek and Southern Greek?
This graphic from Varieties of Modern Greek has been used around here before: The main difference is phonological. It’s one difference, but it’s a doozy (purple line): unstressed /e, o/ are raised to /i, u/, and unstressed /i, u/ are deleted. That makes Northern Greek sound at best silly to Southern Greeks (though their attempts […]
What do Greeks of Greece and Cypriot Greeks think about each other?
Greece Greeks about Greek Cypriots: * They talk funny.* They drive on the wrong side of the road.* They forget to mention them a lot of the time. (I’ve done that myself in a Quora answer.) See America–Canada, Australia–N.Z., etc. Greek Cypriots about Greece Greeks: * They talk like penpushers. (Because they speak standard Greek. […]
What is the difference in Greek between κοίταζε and κοίταγε?
In practice: none. κοιτάω and κοιτάζω both mean “to look”, and are just morphological variants—of a kind quite common in Middle Greek, as new present tenses were being reconstructed from aorists. (Both -αζω and -αω verbs could have -ασ- aorists; so working backwards, you could end up with either present tense.) There’s a slight register […]
How is rhyme used in different languages?
Sporadically in Classical Greek and Latin, as a rhetorical technique for both prose and poetry, rather than a basis of verse: Homeoteleuton. Systematically in Arabic and Chinese, but I don’t know much about them. In Europe, rhyme emerges as a structural feature of verse (as opposed to an occasional device) in the Late Middle Ages. […]
What is the historical significance of Thessaloniki, Greece?
Up and coming city in the Roman Empire. Was the base of the Emperor Galerius. Very important city during Byzantium, to the extent of being termed the Co-Queen of Cities (συμβασιλεύουσα—the Queen of Cities being Constantinople). Main trading town for much of the Balkans. Major centre of Sephardic settlement after their expulsion from Spain—to the […]