 | I'm confused..anyone have an answer??? |
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I am about to marry someone who was born and raised on the island of Crete, so I want to learn Greek. BUT...when he writes me in Greek words or small phrases...they are greek words but written in english letters. When I go online or to a bookstore to buy books/tapes on basic Greek. The letters and words are totally different. I can't recognize anything. Can someone tell me if the Greek lettering used in Crete is different or explain to me the difference. I'm lost. For example...agapi mou, moro mou, kalimera,ti kaneis,se agapo...are all things he has written. But when I look at Greek language books...looks like ancient lettering!! Can someone please tell me what the difference is? Not sure what to learn!! Sincerely, Wanting to learn...but confused in the United States!!  |
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I think the first thing you should do is learn the Greek alphabet and the pronunciation of the letters. The problem is that there are some letters in English that have the same sound in Greek M, N K T etc.; some look the same as English but have different sounds in Greek e.g. H, W, X (ee, oh, ch) and other Greek letters have the same sound as English letters, but have different shapes e.g. Ξ θ Σ. (x th,S) In addition Greek sounds can be transliterated into English in different ways e.g. agape mou or agapi mou. Also, it is sometimes difficult for a beginner to recognise Greek handwriting. There are some good web sites that will show you what manuscript Greek looks like. There is no difference between the Greek and Cretan alphabet, but some of the country dialects are (to me at any rate) completely baffling. It sounds horribly confusing, but any of the books you refer to will teach you the basics and this present course is by far the best online. If you want more help email at jimshutch(at)aol(dot)com Jim |
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My family is from Crete. It's an amazing island. but cretans speak the same as people form the main land and from other islands. They just do stuff a little differently. It's like how people from new york and from alabama speak the same language but sound different. and use differen't forms of words. I got to Greece every year to visit my family almost every year and when I was younger and my dad was teaching me greek, he would just talk to me in greek. He'd say something and point to it and that's how I learned. maybe ask your fiance to try that? I don't know. Good luck. =) Sammy |
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lol! It's what we call Greeklish. That is, Greek words with Latin chracters. People do it a) out of sheer boredom when typing b) Because they don't have Greek characters in their PC (before some 10 years or so not in their cell-phones either) c)In the case of your beloved, probably because he thinks it will be easier for you to pronounce them more or less properly. Just ask him to use Greek characters since there is no "hard" rule about what Latin Character is used for each Greek one (though if you give me an example or two and he is constant in the 'transliteration' I can help) |
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took me a while to remember to edit it so I couldn't "agapi mou, moro mou, kalimera,ti kaneis,se agapo" those are my love, my baby, goodmorning, how are you, I love you. The problem is from what I see that he is i.e. writting (as we all do,) both 'o's (omega and omikron) as o, and all "i"s (ypsilon, iota, eta, OI, EI, YI) as i in most cases. that's bound to cause you trouble when you look them up. the only help I can give you is sort of general a = alpha v= beta g= gamma d= is probably delta or NT e= epsilon and maybe AI z= zeta h = is either eta or chi (depends I'm afraid) th or 8 = theta i =iota or anyother i sound x= ks probably although sometimes doubling over as th in theatre o = is either omikron or omega ss = can be a single s which he doubles so that you won't pronounce as z ps = is psi ch= can be used as a chi sound I hope that, if you have a dictionary or something that tells you the names of each greek letter, that will help. Much easier if you ask him to write in Greek though. |
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http://speech.ilsp.gr/greeklish/greeklishdemo.asp Hi I know this is a very late reply to the question posed but it may help others who look at this hoping for help. The above link will take you to greeklish translator which will translate into greek alphabet for you you can then go here http://www.worldlingo.com/en/products_services/worldlingo_translator.html and translate from greek into quite a lot of different languages hope this helps Jill  |
