Month: January 2017

I’m going to give one for each decade from the 30s through the 70s. I’m going to put up, not necessarily my favourite songs, but the songs I think have had the greatest cultural impact.

1935. Φραγκοσυριανή (Frangosyriani): Catholic Girl from Syros. Lyrics: Markos Vamvakaris. Music: Markos Vamvakaris.

Markos was the master of the Peiraeus tradition of rebetiko, which switched from an Anatolian, plaintive setting for songs about hashish and swag, to a Greek, jaunty setting for songs about hashish and swag.

Frangosyriani marks the beginning of the end of the tradition. Wikipedia says it was written in ’35, but it already sounds like it was written in ’36, when the Metaxas dictatorship censored both the lyrics and—more lastingly—the scales of rebetiko. It’s just a list of scenic locations in Syros where Markos would take his fellow Catholic girlfriend. Its music lacks the bite of what made Markos great.

But this is his lasting legacy, a tune that gets everyone swaying, a tune suffused with elegance and romance—and jauntiness.

Here’s the best known, 1960 recording.

stixoi.info: Φραγκοσυριανή

I have a swelling, a flame, inside my heart
as if you’ve cast a spell on me, sweet Catholic girl from Syros.

I’ll come meet you down by the beach.
I’d like to fill you with caresses and kisses.

I’ll take you on a trip to Finikas and Parakopi,
to Galissa and Della Grazia, even if I get a heart attack.

At Pateli, at Nichori, a fine time at Alithini,
and romancing at Piskopio, my sweet Catholic girl from Syros.

---

1948. Συννεφιασμένη Κυριακή (Synnefiasmeni Kyriaki): Cloudy Sunday. Lyrics: Alekos Gouveris or Vasilis Tsitsanis. Music: Vassilis Tsitsanis.

If Markos was master of the Peiraeus blues, Tsitsanis was master of what came next: the transformation of rebetiko into a genre palatable to the masses, cleaned up, and with virtuoso flourishes.

Cloudy Sunday is the song that, at least when I was young, every Greek knew by heart, and was guaranteed to bring a tear to every Greek’s eye. It has a dignified, stately melancholy to it, a proud swelling of the heart.

Tsitsanis let it be understood that the song was written in 1942, while Athens all around him was starving. That was no doubt a big part of why the song became so well loved. The prevalent theory is that the lyrics were written in 1946 by a friend of his, because his soccer team had lost that Sunday.

In truth, that doesn’t diminish the song a bit. The song stands just fine on its own. Here’s the definitive performance by the great Stelios Kazantzidis.

stixoi.info: Συννεφιασμένη Κυριακή

Cloudy Sunday, you’re like my heart,
that’s always overcast—Oh Christ and Virgin Mary.

When I see you all rainy, I have not a moment’s peace.
You blacken my life, and I sigh bitterly.

You’re a day just like the day I lost my joy.
Cloudy Sunday, you make my heart bleed.

---

1958. Δυο πόρτες έχει η ζωή (Dio Portes Echi i Zoi): Life has two doors. Lyrics: Eftichia Papagianopoulos. Music: Stelios Kazantzidis.

Kazantzidis also wrote songs, and this is perhaps one of his greatest.

Kazantzidis is perhaps an acquired taste. In my youth, I dismissed him as boorish, mawkish, too Oriental. I matured, I learned there’s a place for that in life. I learned that pain in life deserves wallowing in music. And after I took part in a drunken singalong to this, I could never dismiss him again.

I’m living my last night tonight.
And those who have embittered me so,
now that I am leaving life behind,
I forgive them all.

Everything is but a lie,
a breath, a sigh.
Like a flower, a hand
will cut us one dawn.

Where I am going, tears and pain have no purchase.
Suffering and sorrow
will stay behind in life,
and I will leave alone.

Life has two doors: I opened one and went in.
I took a stroll one morning,
and by the time sunset came
I left by the other.

---

1962. Ένα Δειλινό (Ena dilino): One evening. Lyrics: Mikis Theodorakis. Music: Mikis Theodorakis.

Theodorakis is a defining figure in Greek music and Greek politics; his star has been tarnished, but he expressed a generation, and that does not change, even if the generation has become disillusioned since.

This was likely his greatest song, where he transformed the bouzouki song into a a not-so traditional lament for the dead. The song was one of many Theodorakis used in his play on the reccent Greek Civil War—each and every one a hit.

And none more transcendental in its keening than this.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FVb8YkFuTZE

stixoi.info: Ένα δειλινό

One evening, they bound you to the cross.
They nailed your hands, they nailed my insides.
They bound your eyes, they bound my soul.

One evening, they broke me in two.
They stole my sight, they took my touch,
My hearing remains, to listen to you, my child.

One evening, like the golden eagle,
swoop over the sea, swoop over the fields.
Make the mountains flower, and the people rejoice.

---

1974. Τα λόγια και τα χρόνια (Ta logia ke ta chronia): The Lost Words and Years. Lyrics: Manos Eleftheriou. Music: Yannis Markopoulos.

I’ve already posted about this song, and its cultural resonance, in Nick Nicholas’ answer to What are your favourite lyrics?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=xIgakumAkUE

Yes, there’s wild applause whenever the altered lyrics alluding to the Athens Polytechnic uprising are sung (“Friday the Killer’s night”). That kept happening throughout the 70s.

In a roundabout way: syllabus is ultimately derived from a garbling of the obscure Greek word sittyba, which got mangled progressively in manuscripts and then print editions of Cicero, and reinterpreted from its original meaning “title slip”.

The Curious and Quibbling History of “Syllabus” (part 2)

I’ve answered variants of this question elsewhere:

• Nick Nicholas’ answer to Does the Greek language have a variety of regional dialects?
• Nick Nicholas’ answer to Which language is closest to Greek?
• Nick Nicholas’ answer to How different are the dialects of your mother tongue within your country?
• Nick Nicholas’ answer to Are there any dialects of Greek acknowledged to be unintelligible to mainstream Greek within Greece itself?

(Modern Greek > English)

If it is possible! You hear there, “It can someone to write in the language theirs using the grammar theirs but English words?” Hey not you us quit? For what you us passed, for revue? Not will I sit to you make theatre the how I speak, so you to break slab! Elsewhere these! Not they have slaughtered! Hey shoo!

Well I never! The nerve, “Can someone write in their language using their grammar but English words?” Why don’t you leave me alone! What do you take me for, a performing monkey? I’m not going to sit around making a show of how I speak for your amusement! Tell it to someone else! It ain’t happening. Get lost!

Nick Nicholas’ answer to If famous writers on Quora were Greek gods, who would they be?

Wherein I enumerated my favourite Quorans as Greek Gods.

Alfredo Perozo pointed out in comments:

I feel this would make a nice cartoon… just saying.

https://www.quora.com/If-famous-…

Finally done. I was going to do a fancy cartoon with layers and a tablet, but this came out eventually, instead.

I’ll provide transliterations from the bottom clockwise. I added myself in after Dimitra Triantafyllidou’s answer and Edward Conway’s answer.

• Hekkaidekatheon [Sixteen Gods] of Qora
• Gyps [vulture]
• Promētheus Nikolaos Nick Nicholas
• Hēphaistos Masiellos Michael Masiello
• Arēs Skōttos Scott Welch
• Dionysos Michaēlios Michaelis Maus
• Hermēs Habibios Habib Fanny
• Poseidōn Edouardos Edward Conway
• Apollōn Ieremias Jeremy Markeith Thompson
• Zeus Lionellos Lyonel Perabo
• Hēra Dēmētra Dimitra Triantafyllidou
• Athēna Michaēlō McKayla Kennedy
• Dēmētēr Iordanis Jordan Yates
• Bert
• Hestia Geraldinē Gigi J Wolf
• Aphroditē Maria Mary C. Gignilliat
• Artemis Klarissa Clarissa Lohr
• Persephonē Pega Pegah Esmaili
• Kerberos
• Hāidēs Jer Jay Liu

Didn’t I already answer this?

Oh. I didn’t: Nick Nicholas’ answer to If Satan had Quora, what questions would he ask?

• Why is my name so close to Satan? Am I Satan? Does OP think I’m Satan?
• I mean, I’m dressed in red, and my reindeer have horns…
• Am I St Nicholas?
• Am I St Basil of Caesarea?
• Am I the Christ Child?
• Am I related to the Three Wise Men?
• Am I Jólnir, aka Odin? (Have a Merry Viking Christmas – Wild Eyed Southern Celt)
• Do I owe Coca Cola royalties?
• What is NORAD?
• Why is NORAD tracking me?
• Are NORAD going to shoot me out of the sky?
• How can I best stop a reindeer’s nose from glowing while flying?
• What is the weather like in Rovaniemi in July?
• Where exactly do I live? The North Pole, Drøbak, Uummannaq, Tomteboda, or Rovaniemi? (Santa Claus : Home – Wikipedia)
• If I live on the North Pole, am I actually Canadian?

On 23 December 2008, Jason Kenney, Canada’s minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, formally awarded Canadian citizenship status to Santa Claus. “The Government of Canada wishes Santa the very best in his Christmas Eve duties and wants to let him know that, as a Canadian citizen, he has the automatic right to re-enter Canada once his trip around the world is complete,” Kenney said in an official statement.

• Is Justin Trudeau still permitting me to reenter the North Pole?
• Do I have to be extra polite and apologetic now as a Canadian?
• Who was Virginia anyway? (Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus – Wikipedia)
• Why are there no chimneys around any more?
• How did I ever fit in the chimneys?
• What do you mean, Odin used to enter through chimneys and fire holes on the solstice? Wikipedia says “citation needed”.
• Is there still time for me to go surfing after Christmas in Australia? What’s the weather like in Bondi Beach?
• Why do Calvinists hate me?
• Why do Christian Scientists hate me?
• Why do communists hate me?
• Why do child psychologists hate me?
• OK, OK, geez! Some child psychologists.
• Survey Question: Have you been naughty or nice?

I wrote an extensive set of blog posts in 2009 under Ἡλληνιστεύκοντος (read them backwards), trying to deal with this question with a fixed(ish) corpus, that I was responsible for lemmatising: the TLG. It has a whole lot about the distinction between word tokens (individual instances of words), wordforms, and lemmata (dictionary words).

It starts with several posts about how pointless this question is. Which noone seems to pay attention to.

The count of lemmata for the Corpus in the TLG (ancient and mediaeval literature) plus PHI (inscriptions) was 214,000 in 2009. By the time I was terminated from the TLG in 2016, I had gotten recognition up to 240,000 lemmata.

For the strictly classical corpus, up to the 4th century BC, it was 66,000.

If we add Modern Greek and Modern Greek dialect, it’ll be more. I’ve seen a guess by Christophoros Charalambakis, director of the Historical Dictionary of Modern Greek (dialect dictionary) at the Academy of Athens, of 600,000. I think that’s implausible. Given Zipf, I think 350,000 to 400,000 for all periods of Greek is plausible.

OED has something like 600,000 for English.

Sam, this… this is not going to be good.

Central America:

• Missed Guatemala
• Put Honduras where Guatemala should have been
• Put Nicaragua where Honduras should have been
• Put Costa Rica where El Salvador should have been
• Put El Salvador where Nicaragua should have been, and renamed it San Salvador
• Called Costa Rica North Panama. Yes, I knew that was wrong.
• Didn’t even try to place the Bahamas, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, or, like, any of the individual Antilles.
• So… yeah, ¡no bueño! ¡Desculpate me, amigos centralamericanos!

South America:

• … Holy smokes, I got it right! There was a little hesitation with Uruguay/Paraguay and Colombia/Venezuela, and I almost called Bolivia South Panama. Phew.

OK. I know I’m going to do badly with Central Asia.

• Middle East: Yup.
• South: Yup.
• South East: Yup. I momentarily misplaced Laos, but I found it again.
• East: Yup.
• North: Yup
• Central: … OK.
• I got Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
• I rotated Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Oh well.

The American “lootenant” is easy: it’s a general rule of American English that [ju] after alveolar consonants is reduced to [u]: news, tune = nooz, toon. In British English, they are nyooz, tyoon. (And there is variation within American English.)

The lack of a French pronunciation is also regular: French ieu is rendered in English as -(y)oo. Thus in lieu of; adieu.

The oddity is the left- pronunciation. This is what the Oxford English Dictionary says:

The origin of the β type of forms (which survives in the usual British pronunciation, though the spelling represents the α type) is difficult to explain. The hypothesis of a mere misinterpretation of the graphic form (u read as v), at first sight plausible, does not accord with the facts.

I.e. that people misread lieutenant as lievtenant.

In view of the rare Old French form luef for lieu (with which compare especially the 15th cent. Scots forms luf– , lufftenand above) it seems likely that the labial glide at the end of Old French lieu as the first element of a compound was sometimes apprehended by English-speakers as a v or f.

Meaning, the unfamiliar French liøtenã, with a breathy pronunciation, could have been misheard in England as lyeftenant, a spelling present alongside leuetenant since the Middle Ages.

Possibly some of the forms may be due to association with leave n.1 or lief adj.

i.e. Folk etymology.

In 1793 Walker gives the actual pronunciations as /lɛv-//lɪvˈtɛnənt/, but expresses the hope that ‘the regular sound, lewtenant’ will in time become current. In England this pronunciation /ljuːˈtɛnənt/ is almost unknown. A newspaper quot. of 1893 in Funk’s Standard Dict. Eng. Lang. says that /lɛfˈtɛnənt/ is in the U.S. ‘almost confined to the retired list of the navy’.

So the old, predictable pronunciation had died out in England; the spelling survived, and it may be that either the old pronunciation survived in the US, or was revived as a spelling pronunciation.