2.5 Loans Going the Other Way — Epoché
What you will be able to do Read thirty English and international words as Greek spells them. Predict the Greek spelling of an English word, using the letter pairs of 0.3. Say why these words are the easiest reading in the language, and why they are also a trap for the ear. Read eight sentences built around them. Prerequisites : 2.4 — the roots. Read 2.4 Cognates first if you have not. What you already know The first four lessons of this volume were about what English took from Greek. This one is about the traffic in the other direction, which is recent, large and still moving. Modern Greek has borrowed freely from Italian, French, Turkish and — in the last half century — English, and the borrowings sit in exactly the places you would expect: technology, sport, clothes, food and the furniture of modern life. For a reader these words are a gift. You do not have to learn them, you only have to decode the spelling, and decoding is mechanical. But they are also the one place where an English speaker's confidence is misplaced, because a borrowed word is pronounced the Greek way and may be unrecognisable to the ear even while it is obvious on the page. The rule Greek writes a borrowed word by sound, using the letters and pairs it has. Six points cover almost everything. In Greek Stands for Why μπ b a word starting with b arrives with this pair ντ d the same for d γκ g and for g τσ ch or ts the ch of sandwich lands here σ sh Greek has no sh, so it becomes a plain s ι the vowel is chosen by ear, not by spelling so English party ends in the letter for i The first three are the letter pairs from 0.3 doing exactly the job they were introduced for: Greek has no letter for b, d or g, so every borrowed word containing one arrives with a pair. That is why the word for a bar looks like it begins with an m, and why an English speaker who has not read 0.3 cannot find it. The fifth point is worth dwelling on. Greek has no sh sound at all, so English words containing one lose it: it comes out as a plain s, and the word may sound blunter than you expect. The same happens to the j of jazz and to the English r, which becomes the tapped Greek one. Thirty words Read the first column and cover the third. Greek Read as English κομπιούτερ kombioúter computer σουπερμάρκετ soupermárket supermarket μπαρ bar bar τρένο tréno train σπορ spor sport στυλ styl style ίντερνετ índernet internet μπάσκετ básket basketball γκολ gol goal τένις ténis tennis σάντουιτς sándouits sandwich τοστ tost toast, toasted sandwich πάρτι párti party ασανσέρ asansér lift, elevator ταξί taxí taxi μετρό metró metro τσάντα tsánda bag φιλμ film film σινεμά sinemá cinema ραδιόφωνο radiófono radio τηλεόραση tileórasi television μέιλ méil email σέρβις sérvis service μπλούζα bloúza blouse, top πουλόβερ poulóver pullover παλτό paltó coat καφετέρια kafetéria café κέικ kéik cake πίτσα pítsa pizza μπισκότο biskóto biscuit Notice the last few. The word for a café comes from Italian rather than English; the word for a lift comes from French, as does the word for a coat; the word for a train came through French too and kept its French vowel. Greek has been borrowing for a long time and from several directions, and it is worth resisting the assumption that every familiar-looking word arrived from English. Notice also the word for television, which is the odd one out: it is not a borrowing at all. It was built from Greek pieces — the prefix for far and a root for seeing — in the way lesson 2.2 described, and the English word was built from the same Greek prefix and a Latin root. Both languages coined a word from the same material at roughly the same date. One grammatical point, because it will save you trouble later. Many of these words do not change their endings at all . Greek nouns normally take a different ending in each case and number, as the grammar volume will show; a borrowed word that does not fit any of the Greek patterns simply refuses to play, and stays in one shape wherever it appears. The words for a taxi, a party and a lift are all like this. That makes them easy — there is nothing to learn — and it also makes them stand out in a sentence, because everything around them is inflecting and they are not. A last observation for the ear. Because a borrowing is said the Greek way, the stress may not be where English puts it: Greek puts it where the word arrived with it, which for words that came through French is usually the last syllable. So the word for a lift is stressed at the end, not at the beginning, and an English speaker who stresses the first syllable will not be understood — not because the sounds are wrong but because Greek hears stress as part of the word, exactly as lesson 1.3 said. Read it aloud Greek English What to notice Έχασα το πάρτι; [1] Did I miss the party? the party: read the two letters at the front as one sound Έπαιζαν τένις. [2] They were playing tennis. tennis, unchanged from the English Έχασε το τρένο. [3] She missed the train. the train — from French, and it kept the French vowel Κλείνουμε ένα ταξί. [4] We book a taxi. the taxi, which never changes its ending Παρήγγειλα πίτσα. [5] I ordered pizza. pizza: the Italian double letter is written with one Greek pair Έβλεπαν τηλεόραση. [6] They were watching television. the television: not a borrowing at all, but built from Greek pieces Δουλεύω σε μπαρ. [7] I work at a bar. the bar, with the two letters that say b Πηγαίνει το μετρό στο αεροδρόμιο; [8] Does the subway go to the airport? the metro and the airport in one question New words Word (with article) Meaning Notes το πάρτι el party Part of speech / class noun, neuter, indeclinable How it differs from English borrowed words often take no endings at all το τρένο el to tréno train Part of speech / class noun, neuter How it differs from English from French; it does take endings Έχασε το τρένο. She missed the train. η τηλεόραση el i tileórasi television Part of speech / class noun, feminine How it differs from English not a bor