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| agapotinelada | Saturday 09th of April 2005 10:42:12 AM |
| greek language - Can somebody tell me slangs used in greece and what do they mean? I also would like to know the different dialects, ( if they exist) spoken in greece... efharisto poli! | |
| giorgiom | Saturday 25th of June 2005 10:53:07 PM |
| - Hi, There is in greek as in any language, a lot of local accents and some dialects. The distinction between local accent and dialect is a bit obscure but generaly speaking (with the help of television) most of continental greece has lost its unique dialect characteristics in the sense that the vocabulary is more or less the same and the accent is different nowadays in most of the continental country. It's a pitty that all the local dialects with their distinct words and syntax are getting lost because of TV (and school of course). Well the most distinct dialect that has a plurality of distinct vocabulary and some uncommon to modern greek and closer to ancient greek syntax is everyday cypriot. It's no exaggeration to say that an average greek from the mainland will not understand a word out of a conversation between Cypriots mostly because of the intonation and the accent. Cypriots still use some words that to mainland Greeks would seem rather archaic (they still understand them though) and cypriot syntax is distinct in that it still uses forms that have been lost in the mainland speech since the byzantine period! Although the education, press and media in Cyprus are all in Demotiki, the Cypriot dialect is used everyday by all Greek-Cypriots (even in public administration) and all of the serials on the CyBC national television are in the cypriot dialect. Of course all programs and channels coming from mainland Greece are in Demotiki. When a mainlander is involved in a conversation cypriots will normaly switch to common greek in order for the mainlander to participate. It usually takes a mainland greek about one or two days of stay in Cyprus in order to understand the local everyday speech. It has happened to me a lot of times while riding the metro in Athens or walking in Athens streets and a group of cypriots is behind me that I initially think (hearing them from a distance) that they are Spanish! After I focus on their conversation I understand that they actually speaking greek! So even cypriot with its rich vocabulary is losing more and more its distinct characteristics, the only thing remaining strong is the intonation that makes the cypriot speech sound like "spanish" to a mainland greek ear... Another distinct dialect (but not as strong as the cypriot one) is the Cretan dialect. People in Crete have really characteristic accent which is far more understandable to a mainland greek than that of Cyprus. The number of local vocabulary in Crete is deminishing fast as with other local dialects. Syntax in the Cretan dialect is also not so different from common greek as the syntax in cypriot speech. Another characteristic dialect is the Corfiat dialect and in general the Eptanesian dialect (in the islands of Corfu and the island complex of Eptanissa in general). The locals in Corfu mainly and less in other Eptanisa islands have a distinctive "musical" intonation and accent highly influenced from the Italian language (Corfu and the Eptanissa were under Venetian rule for centuries). Corfiats also use a lot of italian words in their everyday speech like fanestra (which means window) and Splanada (which is an esplanade). Corfiat cusine is by the way delicious and comprises of a lot of pasta! In the Aegean sea we have local dialects which are not as strong as the Ionian ones mainly because the Aegean as the rest of Greece was under Ottoman rule for centuries whilst the Ionian islands were somehow separated under a constant Venetian rule. The Cyclades dialect is more of an accent with a characteristic musical intonation but the local speech is nowadays very close to common greek. Another distinct case in the Aegean is the islands of Mytilene and Chios. As the people of the two islands which are very close to each other come from the Aeolians on one island and the Dorians on the other, the Mytilene local accent is very close to the Thessalian (mainland) accent which I will discuss later on, whilst the Chios local accent is close to the Athens speech (which is the base for modern common greek). In the mainland now we have four major categories. The Peloponese dialect, the Thessalian and Central Greek dialect, the Macedonian and Thracian dialect and the Epirus and Western Greek dialect. The Peloponese dialect which is very close to that of Athens is actually nowadays not distinctable from the common greek of Athens with the exception of the sounds lee and nee which are pronounced as the italian gli and the spanish ~n by Peloponesians. The Thessalian and Central Greece accent is very distinctive for its substitution of the sound oh with the sound oo in a lot of cases and it is generally considered a "heavy" accent although (as it is the case with all mainland dialects) there is no distinct vocabulary and syntax (at least not any more). In Macedonia and Thrace there is also a distinct dialect known to greeks for the sunstitution of the genitive with the accusative pronoun in expressions like "I told it to him" . "to him" in common greek would be genitive "tou" while in Macedonia and Thrace (and partly in Thessaly) people would say "ton" which is the accusative form of the second person personal pronoun. They are also known in Greece for pronouncing L heavier as in "lemon" while in other places of greece it would sound like the l in the french word "elle". Finally the Epirus and Western Greece people have a "heavy" (that's how it's called by greeks) accent which is close the Thessalian and Macedonian ones. To sum up, mainland Greece and the Aegean has more or less accents rather than dialects. Dialects do exist in Cyprus, Crete, the Ionian islands with the the dialect of Cyprus being the most conservative of the three in the meaning that it's the one that has kept (due to the distance of Cyprus from mainland Greece) more distinctive characteristics and a syntax closer to ancient Greek than any other local dialect. I forgot to mention that there is a very special dialect in Greece, the Tsakoniki dialect which is only spoken in a handfull of villages in Peloponese and mainly by older people. This dialect is the only remaining dialect of Greece that is so close to ancient greek in the sence that the vocabulary and syntax is almost identical to that used in ancient (5th c. BC) Greek! Unfortunately only older people speak this dialect but since its special significance was acknowledged by linguists there is an effort to keep it alive! I also forgot to mention another dialect now lost in Greece but which is still spoken in areas of modern day Turkey and Georgia. It is the Pontian dialect which is also very distinctive and conservative, keeping lots of ancient vocabulary and a very distinctive syntax very close to the ancient language. Nowadays, Pontian is spoken mainly by greeks who have remained in ex-Soviet Republics (although most of them came to Greece after the fall of communism) and by older people who have moved to Greece from those places. Pontian is also sometimes common among people in places with a lot of refugees from the Pontos region (mainly from the Pontos-Armenian genocide era) in Macedonia, although it is only used in special circumstances commemorating the "lost home" in Pontos. Last but not least there is also the Grico which is the greek language spoken in the Magna Grecia (in southern Italy). This dialect is very special because it is spoken by ancestors of ancient greek settlers of southern Italy who have lost any contact with mainland Greece for centuries and have become Italian in everything but the language. The Grico is spoken in a handfull of mountainous and isolated villages of Magna Grecia in southern Italy by mostly older people. Nevertheless, younger people try not to lose their roots and learn Grico and recently the Italian government has started teaching Grico at schools and established a university department about Grico. Grico is by far the most incomprehensible dialect to a modern Greek because of its long isolation and its retention of ancient greek vocabulary and syntax mixing it with italian influences. It is notable to say that before the Fascist era, people in the Grico villages of southern Italy wouldn't understand any Italian, they also didn't know exactly what their language was although they had a memory of their relationship with Greece through their Orthodox converted to Catholic churches. Unfortunatelly the Mussolini regime forced them to give up their language and only nowadays has interest in Grico (both from locals and from Greece) risen again... The same is the case with the very few ancestors of ancient Greeks in Sardenia and Corsica who usually don't speak their Greek dialect anymore and their only connection with Greece is their Eastern Rite (Unite) Catholic faith which has substituted the Orthodox one in the lack of priests and contact with the Orthodox church. I've seen a documentary where those people (of 50 or 60) describe how they remember thei grandparents (!) speaking greek and that they can only reproduce a few words most of which they have learned not by their family but by visiting Greece... I'll give you an example of the situation in the mainland where I grew up and currently live. I was born in Thessaloniki, Macedonia and raised in Larissa, Thessaly thus my accent was a lighter Thessalian. It is lighter than standard Thessalian mainly because I grew up in the city of Larissa where most of the people have lost the "heavy" accent of the Thessalian province. As a child I wouldn't see any difference to my accent compared to that of Athens but people from other places would always be able to say I come from Thessaly not because of the accent (which was very light) but because of the accusative thing I mentioned above. When I moved to Athens for studies I started realising where my speech differed from the Athenian one. And without realising it or making any effort, about two years after that I would speak totally like an Athenian when I was in Athens and my parents' accent would sound different to me. Of course after a long stay with my parents or even when talking on the phone I will sometimes use accent or even the "Northern Greek Genitive-Accusative Pronoun Substitution". I have a lot of friends from Cyprus who would continue to speak Cypriot between them and even whith me present because I actually got used to their way of speech but it's common even nowadays that if I don't focus entirely on the cypriot conversation that I will miss parts and ask them to repeat what they were saying (which they will do in Athenian greek for a faster understanding). People from Crete also tend not to lose their distinctive accent when moving to other parts of Greece. People from the Ionian and Aegean islands where the accents are very close to Athens Greece usually can't be distinguished in their everyday speech (with the exception of oldre people). People from the Peloponese usually keep their gli and ~n accent and people from the mainland such as Macedonia, Thrace, Epirus, Thessaly and Central Greece usually lose their "hard" accents sooner or later when moving or living in Athens for a while. Hope I helped you a bit, all of this is more or less what a common greek would tell you about dialects in his point of view. I'm no linguist and there are for sure far more extensive details about modern day greek dialects which you can find in special books. | |
| agapotinelada | Sunday 26th of June 2005 08:54:57 PM |
| thank u! - Girogiom thank you vey much for ur answer, u really worked it and im happy now i know something else about greece. :) I look forward going to greece, to expend a few months to develop my greek. thanks alot again, take care, Pepe | |
| phoenix9861 | Tuesday 28th of June 2005 11:28:40 PM |
| need some clarification - I understand what u said but what i am lost at is....wat r accusative, genitive, subjunctive and nominative. k nominative might refer to naming or talking directly. i might be wrong. but i would appreciate if somebody could explain that. efxaristo. | |
| Panos | Sunday 03rd of July 2005 06:34:12 PM |
| - Hi phoenix Well,i am not so good in grammar ( there have been too many years from elementary school ) but i 'll try to explain it. The terms accusative, genitive, and nominative refers to words that are nouns and adjectives. These are called cases ( reminds you anything? ). There are four cases in New Greek : nominative, genitive, accusative, and vocative. Nominative refers to naming and talking directly just like you said. Nominative refers to the question ‘who ?’. For example, Who is hungry? – The dog is hungry. The genitive case is answering in the question ‘whose?’ i.e. Whose this dog? – This is John’s dog. (in English the genitive case is declared with the ’s while in Greek with different endings in the words ). The accusative case answers to questions ‘whom’ , ‘to whom’ , ‘where’. i.e. Where did John go? To the dentist ( I know there is no change in English between the word ‘dentist’ in nominative case and accusative case. I think it is declared by the preposition ‘to’ ). And vocative case is easy, it is used when calling to someone. i.e. Hey, John, wait ! or ‘Down dog ! ‘ . Now an example in Greek for the different cases of the word dog. See the difference in endings for the word and the articles also. Singular number ο σκύλος - o skilos - the dog του σκύλου – tu skilu το(ν) σκύλο – ton skilo (ω) σκύλε - skile plural number οι σκύλοι - i skili των σκύλων – ton skilon τους σκύλους – tus skilus (ω) σκύλοι - skili As for the subjunctive it refers to verbs, their inflexion or conjugation or mood or mode. The basic mood for verbs is the indicative, it is the mode that verbs exist in dictionaries, in the first person singular i.e. I work . The subjunctive is another form, not very important to know in Greek, so don’t be worried about it. Keep learning. Bye | |
| phoenix9861 | Monday 04th of July 2005 06:20:53 AM |
| thank you - hey panos, thank you so much for that. It did help a lot. Now the problem is, remember how u showed different ways of saying dog....how do i know which one to use and when. from the preposition, the word dog is masculine. but still. i bet the preposition indicates that. and if so, that means, i have to learn all forms of each noun right? thanx again. | |
| Panos | Tuesday 05th of July 2005 03:19:39 AM |
| - Ok, no need to thank me, i like to help and give answers when i can :) Now, about the genders, there are three in Greek, masculine, feminine and neutral. You can understand what gender is a noun or an adjective from the article or if there is no article from the ending of the word. For masculine the vast majority has the - ος - ending (in niminative case of course ). The feminine end in α or η and neutral in ο or ι. | |
| phoenix9861 | Tuesday 05th of July 2005 03:23:10 AM |
| another one - auth eivai h mhtepa mou. (this is my mother). now if i didn't say auth... it would still be the same meaning right becuz of the verb? and y is the possessive pronoun at the end. Is this always the case, or does it change depending on the meaning? | |
| Panos | Saturday 09th of July 2005 05:49:29 AM |
| - Well, it depends on the case, how emphatic you want to be etc. Of course you can ommit the word 'ayth'. For example, somone asks you 'Who is this woman?' and you say 'einai h mhtera mou' or simply 'h mhtera mou' i.e. you can ommit the verb also. Another example, you have introduced your mother to someone and then he is is mistaken greeting another woman. Then you say 'Ayth einai h mhtera mou'. The possessive pronoun is always after the noun or adjective that it is assigned / refered to. For example, in English you say 'my father' while in Greek 'o pateras mou'. Simple sentences in Greek usually follow the structure: subjective - verb - objective. For exaple, 'ego (subjective ) eimai (verb ) kalos (objective ). | |
| Phoenix9861 | Wednesday 13th of July 2005 08:51:39 AM |
| Kalos? - is kala and kalos the same? the way i understand 'ego eimai kalos' is 'i am good'. but then of course i could be totally wrong. :) another thing... i said 'ya su' to my neighbor and this other person and both were Greek. the neighbor gave me a look and the other person ignored me (unless of course she didn't hear me). did say something wrong to offend them? i know the formal way is 'ya sas'. maybe they thought i was disrespecting them. out of curiosity, is there any bad word that is similar to 'ya su' which is said a different way? | |
| Panos | Wednesday 13th of July 2005 04:35:15 PM |
| - you are right, kalos means good, it is the adjective (male ). While 'kala' is the adverb, means 'well', like in 'den eimai kala simera - i'm not well today'. About the other thing, 'ya su' means something like hi, it is the most common greeting. Of course in plural 'ya sas' you say when you refer to more than one persons or to only one person, formally, as a respect because is older, unknown etc. But i can't think of an insult that resembles 'ya su'. Maybe she didn't hear or they were surprised. Do they know that you are learning Greek? | |
| phoenix9861 | Wednesday 13th of July 2005 08:53:55 PM |
| of course not :) - the only person that knows that i am learning Greek is one of my pharmacist. i accidently told her. i don't want people to know. one because if i don't make it, then it is embarrasing. the other thing is i don't want to be called 'wanna be greek'. so maybe they were caught of guard and didn't know what to do. hehehehehehee :). | |
| phoenix9861 | Thursday 14th of July 2005 04:57:13 PM |
| grammar - when creating future tense place 'tha' in front of present tense, right? tha+present tense = future tense ? | |
| phoenix9861 | Thursday 14th of July 2005 06:39:39 PM |
| eixe? - what does 'eixe' mean? | |
| phoenix9861 | Saturday 16th of July 2005 04:19:49 AM |
| 'na'? - to say 'be careful' in Greek it is 'Να είστε προσεκτικός' (i translated that using a program :) ) but 'na' means 'to'. is that how u really tell somebody 'be careful'? | |
| Panos | Saturday 16th of July 2005 07:54:12 AM |
| - Hi again About your grammar question: all future tenses are formed with 'tha' in front of the verb. Let's take the verb 'work' - 'dulevo'. It is in present tense form. If i say 'tha dulevo' this is like future continuous, i.e. 'i will be working all day tomorrow'. If you want to use simple future it would go like this 'tha dulepso' - 'θα δουλέψω', like in 'i will work in a store'. There are also future perfect 'tha echo dulepsei', future past perfect 'tha eicha doulepsei'. Also, 'tha douleva'. The verb 'douleva' is in past continuous form. The above - 'tha duleva' - fits in a sentence like this 'tha duleva alla eimai tempelis' - 'i would work but i am lazy'. I know, the tenses is a bitter part of the language, but don't get dissapointed. About 'eiche'. It is the past of the -important- verb 'echo' = have in the third person. For instance, 'h mary eiche mia gata' = 'mary had a cat. The word 'na' is usually translated as 'to' in English. It also indicates that a verb that follows is in the subjunctive mode (remember something that you asked? ).Now, the same meaning 'be carefull' you can express it like 'να προσέχεις' - 'na prosecheis'. It is like you are going on a trip and your mother tells you to be carefull, but always be, not just for a moment, continuously. But, if you want to say 'be carefull'to someone as in 'look out' to warn him from a direct danger you use the imperative mood of the verb 'πρόσεχε' -'proseche !' | |
| phoenix9861 | Monday 18th of July 2005 09:05:49 PM |
| - ksero-know, why is it a defective verb and can't be conjugated in future continous? so how would u say 'i will know that'----'tha ksero aftou'? | |
| Panos | Tuesday 19th of July 2005 10:28:31 PM |
| - Well, i am not sure i got this question right. The verb 'ksero' can be conjugated in future tense. The thing is that it is continuous but it is not different from the simple future also. In fact, it is the nature of this verb that is continuous, i mean either you will know something or you will not, it can't be static, to know a thing for 1 sec, i.e. So, the future and future continuous is 'tha ksero'. For example, 'will we go out tonight?' 'den ksero akoma alla tha to ksero se 10 lepta' = 'i don't know yet but i will know that in 10 minutes'. The same goes for past and past continuous. The verb 'ksero' is 'iksera' = 'ήξερα' in past tense. ** By the way, did you try to enter PB yesterday? it was a big crash in the site, wasn't it? I saw your thread and i couldn't reply because i could not see any pages of the site again. Anyway, take care. | |
| phoenix9861 | Thursday 21st of July 2005 10:35:46 AM |
| yup - ksero. ego was trying to see the messages that ego got kai ego got banned. den ksero there was a problem alla ego figured something was wrong kai now that esi mention afto, ego exo to check messages mou. asko ta Ellinika. so nai, this message einai ena mix of greek kai english. if esi den katalaveneis, parakalo tell me kai will edit afto. | |
| nizou | Sunday 11th of September 2005 06:31:17 AM |
| - Yia sou Panos, I'm learning Greek also at the moment and I read the exchange posts between you and Phoenix. It was really rewarding for me. Milao kai katalaveno elachista hellinika. Agapo Elladha, i anthropi inai poli evyeniki kai filokseni, o keros inai kalos, i parallies inai omorfess kai to fayito ine ... nostimo !!! Taleme ! | |
| Panos | Friday 23rd of September 2005 06:19:13 AM |
| - Yia sou nizou You are good in learning languages, according to what i read in your profile. You are doing well in Greek also. I'll try to help you as much as i can, feel free to ask me anything about Greek. Na ise kala. Bye | |
