It's all Greek to me
On my first trip to Greece I went for a walk in the hills on the island of Paros. A Greek lady also walking in the hills said something that I heard as kalamari. I must have looked as puzzled as you would at a stranger in the hills saying "squid". Was she trying to sell me some squid? Kalamari is from kalamos (pen) - the squid has a long tapering internal shell. I later realised that she had been saying kalimera (good day). I was then more familiar with words for Greek food than with greetings. I find opposites very easy to confuse, particularly when there is nothing to grasp hold of to tell the words apart. When asked when I had arrived on an island, I said avrio (tomorrow). Of course I meant kthes (yesterday). Nai (yes) and ochee (no) are also easy to confuse, sounding like "nay" and "OK".
I used to listen to Greek language cassettes when packing to go to Greece - but now I more or less know by heart the lessons about food, drink, accommodation and travel. I need something different. And so I started looking at how English words with Greek origins could help me to understand more Greek. The problem I find in trying to read languages with a different alphabet is that the slightest variation in the basic script is SO difficult to decipher. I once went to an evening class in Greek run by an elderly Greek man with shaky hand writing who insisted in writing in lower case script in chalk on a blackboard. I would have struggled to understand upper case in clear script - but lower case in patchy and scratchy chalk was almost impossible to understand. Another problem is dictionaries - dictionaries are not easy to use when you do not know the position of some of the letters in the alphabet. I was once looking for a hotel, and found a "G" class hotel. I had read that "E" class hotels could be somewhat basic. What would a "G" class hotel be like? Then I remembered that gamma is the third letter of the Greek alphabet - I was looking at a "C" class hotel.
There are a lot of goats in Greece, and the tinkle of goat-bells is one of the many charming features of a walk in the hills. A tragedy is etymologically a "goat-song" - from the Greek tragos (goat) and oide (song, and the origin of the English ode). Rhapsody is from rhaptein (to stitch) and oide. The Greek rhapsoidos - the literal meaning is "song-stitcher" - was an itinerant minstrel who "stitched" together pieces of poetry.
I once got into conversation with a Greek chap on a ferry about a flower he called amaranth (not the sort of word you find in the average phrasebook!), an "everlasting" flower of the sort used in dried flower arrangements. The sort of flower that should do well in the dry Greek summers. Amarantos (unfading) is from marainein (wither). The prefix a or an means "without". Other words with the same prefix include apathy (from apathes, without feeling), atheism (from atheos, without God), anonymous (from onuma, without a name).
Museum is from mouseion (place of the Muses). In one of my favourite Greek museums (on the island of Naxos) there is a small stone figure, just a head and shoulders a few inches high) labelled in English acrolithic. The figure would originally have had a wooden trunk, and perhaps stone legs. Akros means tip or peak, and lithos stone. The figure had extremities made of stone. In Athens I usually stay at a hotel with a view of the Acropolis from the roof terrace. An acropolis is an elevated part of a polis or city. An acrobat (from bainein, to walk) walks on another extremity, the toes.
My camera works overtime in Greece. The Greek phos means "light" and graphos "writing". The word photograph was introduced into English in 1839 by the astronomer Sir John Herschel. Astronomy is from astron (star) and nemein (name or distribute). Panorama is from pan (all) and orama (view).
Epistrophe (return) is a useful Greek word for finding out about the return time of a bus or ferry. Strephein means to turn, and the prefix epi means on, near to, above, or in addition. Apostrophe is from the Greek phrase prosoidia apostrophos - the literal meaning is "accent of turning away", a mark showing where a letter has been omitted. The prefix apo means "away".
Now it is time to check the return bus times!
On my first trip to Greece I went for a walk in the hills on the island of Paros. A Greek lady also walking in the hills said something that I heard as kalamari. I must have looked as puzzled as you would at a stranger in the hills saying "squid". Was she trying to sell me some squid? Kalamari is from kalamos (pen) - the squid has a long tapering internal shell. I later realised that she had been saying kalimera (good day). I was then more familiar with words for Greek food than with greetings. I find opposites very easy to confuse, particularly when there is nothing to grasp hold of to tell the words apart. When asked when I had arrived on an island, I said avrio (tomorrow). Of course I meant kthes (yesterday). Nai (yes) and ochee (no) are also easy to confuse, sounding like "nay" and "OK".
I used to listen to Greek language cassettes when packing to go to Greece - but now I more or less know by heart the lessons about food, drink, accommodation and travel. I need something different. And so I started looking at how English words with Greek origins could help me to understand more Greek. The problem I find in trying to read languages with a different alphabet is that the slightest variation in the basic script is SO difficult to decipher. I once went to an evening class in Greek run by an elderly Greek man with shaky hand writing who insisted in writing in lower case script in chalk on a blackboard. I would have struggled to understand upper case in clear script - but lower case in patchy and scratchy chalk was almost impossible to understand. Another problem is dictionaries - dictionaries are not easy to use when you do not know the position of some of the letters in the alphabet. I was once looking for a hotel, and found a "G" class hotel. I had read that "E" class hotels could be somewhat basic. What would a "G" class hotel be like? Then I remembered that gamma is the third letter of the Greek alphabet - I was looking at a "C" class hotel.
There are a lot of goats in Greece, and the tinkle of goat-bells is one of the many charming features of a walk in the hills. A tragedy is etymologically a "goat-song" - from the Greek tragos (goat) and oide (song, and the origin of the English ode). Rhapsody is from rhaptein (to stitch) and oide. The Greek rhapsoidos - the literal meaning is "song-stitcher" - was an itinerant minstrel who "stitched" together pieces of poetry.
I once got into conversation with a Greek chap on a ferry about a flower he called amaranth (not the sort of word you find in the average phrasebook!), an "everlasting" flower of the sort used in dried flower arrangements. The sort of flower that should do well in the dry Greek summers. Amarantos (unfading) is from marainein (wither). The prefix a or an means "without". Other words with the same prefix include apathy (from apathes, without feeling), atheism (from atheos, without God), anonymous (from onuma, without a name).
Museum is from mouseion (place of the Muses). In one of my favourite Greek museums (on the island of Naxos) there is a small stone figure, just a head and shoulders a few inches high) labelled in English acrolithic. The figure would originally have had a wooden trunk, and perhaps stone legs. Akros means tip or peak, and lithos stone. The figure had extremities made of stone. In Athens I usually stay at a hotel with a view of the Acropolis from the roof terrace. An acropolis is an elevated part of a polis or city. An acrobat (from bainein, to walk) walks on another extremity, the toes.
My camera works overtime in Greece. The Greek phos means "light" and graphos "writing". The word photograph was introduced into English in 1839 by the astronomer Sir John Herschel. Astronomy is from astron (star) and nemein (name or distribute). Panorama is from pan (all) and orama (view).
Epistrophe (return) is a useful Greek word for finding out about the return time of a bus or ferry. Strephein means to turn, and the prefix epi means on, near to, above, or in addition. Apostrophe is from the Greek phrase prosoidia apostrophos - the literal meaning is "accent of turning away", a mark showing where a letter has been omitted. The prefix apo means "away".
Now it is time to check the return bus times!
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