Patrick Comerford
When I was back in Crete two weeks ago, I realised not how much I had learned over the years, but how much I had forgotten in recent years.
When I was at theological college in 1984-1987, I soon dropped in the elective in Biblical Hebrew, but I kept up the elective in Biblical Greek and Koine Greek with enthusiasm. I was so enthusiastic, I followed it up immediately with a Cambridge course in classical Greek organised by Trinity College Dublin and the Royal Irish Academy in 1987, and then took private tutorials in modern Greek. Ever since, I tried to read the Bible in Greek on a daily basis and to encouraged students to take up Biblical Greek.
When I was in Greece almost every year over the past 40 years or so, I tried not only to read menus in Greek, but to read daily newspapers and poetry, watch television news, and to listen to Greek songs, even to sing along, and I try to join the liturgical prayers in Greek.
But over the last year or two, I have noticed how my conversational Greek is slipping, and it is difficult to maintain it, let alone improve it, without regular interaction. I noticed it back in Crete at Easter, and where I could once follow an everyday conversation, I was stunned into silence in one conversation within the Greek community in Milton Keynes last weekend.
However, rather remain mute, I have become more resolute about recovering and improving my conversational Greek before I return to Crete soon again.
One of the difficulties many people find in learning Greek is how so often there seem to be two words where English has only one. For example, there are two words for wine, οίνος (oinos) and κρασί; two Greek words for bread, ἄρτος (artos) and ψωμί (psomi); and two Greek words for beer, μπύρα (bíra) and ζύθος (zythos).
Why, there are even three words for one: ένας (énas) is masculine, μία (mia) is feminine, and ένα (éna) is neuter; and three definitive articles: ο (o), η (i), and το (to), for the masculine, feminine, and neuter genders. And I often get them mixed up.
They are grammatically determined, but they come instinctively and intuitively to every born Greek speaker. I find it a compliment that many Greeks think I look Greek, but once I open my mouth they know that I am not.
There are at least two different nouns in Greek for fish: ἰχθύς (ichthus), and ψάρι (psari). A third word, ὀψάριον (opsarion), means fish or small fish. It is a diminutive of the word opson, which refers to anything eaten with bread, especially fish, or a cooked dish. In the New Testament, opsarion is used to describe the fish that Jesus provided for his disciples after his resurrection.
In the Gospel reading in the lectionary yesterday (John 21: 1-19), we find a number of Greek words related to fish and to fishing, including: ἁλιεύω (halieuō), to fish or to catch fish (John 21: 3), the only usage of this word in the New Testament; ἰχθύς (ichthus), a fish (verses 6, 8, 11); ὀψάριον (opsarion), a little fish (verses 9, 10, 13); and δίκτυον (diktyon), fishing net (verse 11).
The fish or the ἰχθύς fish, became a symbol of early Christianity. The word ἸΧΘΥΣ or also ἸΧΘΥϹ with a lunate sigma was read as an acronym or acrostic for Ἰησοῦς Χρῑστός Θεοῦ Υἱός Σωτήρ (Iēsoûs Khrīstós, Theoû Huiós, Sōtḗr, Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. But the early Christians saw symbolism too linking baptism in water with fish in the water, so fish and bread came to represent Baptism and Communion.
The word word ἰχθύς (ichthus) is name used only in Katharevousa or very formal, stilted Greek. But there are words derived from it in everyday use in Greece today, including ιχθυαγορά (ichthyagorá), fish market, so that the Traditional Fishmarket by the old Venetian Harbour in Iraklion is the Παραδοσιακή Ιχθυαγορά (paradosiakí ichthuagorá); and ιχθυοπωλείο (ichthyopoleío), fishmonger or fish shop, so that Aghia Galini, a colourful fish shop in Rethymnon, is a παραγωγικό ιχθυοπωλείο (paragogiko ichthuopoleio), a traditional fishmonger.
But the normal, everyday word for fish in Greek, and the one used in everyday conversations, in shops and restaurants, is ψάρι (psari). This is the word used on their signs and menus when restaurants say they sell φρέσκα ψάρια (phreska psaria) or fresh fish.
I don’t know that I have ever seen the words ἰχθύς or ὀψάριον on a menu. But this not because my conversational Greek is slipping a little these days. It’s probably just because I’m a vegetarian and probably would not notice.
Last word: 51, Bimah, βῆμα
Next word: 53, Bible
Previous words in this series:
1, Neologism, Νεολογισμός.
2, Welcoming the stranger, Φιλοξενία.
3, Bread, Ψωμί.
4, Wine, Οίνος and Κρασί.
5, Yogurt, Γιαούρτι.
6, Orthodoxy, Ορθοδοξία.
7, Sea, Θᾰ́λᾰσσᾰ.
8,Theology, Θεολογία.
9, Icon, Εἰκών.
10, Philosophy, Φιλοσοφία.
11, Chaos, Χάος.
12, Liturgy, Λειτουργία.
13, Greeks, Ἕλληνες or Ρωμαίοι.
14, Mañana, Αύριο.
15, Europe, Εὐρώπη.
16, Architecture, Αρχιτεκτονική.
17, The missing words.
18, Theatre, θέατρον, and Drama, Δρᾶμα.
19, Pharmacy, Φᾰρμᾰκείᾱ.
20, Rhapsody, Ραψῳδός.
21, Holocaust, Ολοκαύτωμα.
22, Hygiene, Υγιεινή.
23, Laconic, Λακωνικός.
24, Telephone, Τηλέφωνο.
25, Asthma, Ασθμα.
26, Synagogue, Συναγωγή.
27, Diaspora, Διασπορά.
28, School, Σχολείο.
29, Muse, Μούσα.
30, Monastery, Μοναστήρι.
31, Olympian, Ολύμπιος.
32, Hypocrite, Υποκριτής.
33, Genocide, Γενοκτονία.
34, Cinema, Κινημα.
35, autopsy and biopsy
36, Exodus, ἔξοδος
37, Bishop, ἐπίσκοπος
38, Socratic, Σωκρατικὸς
39, Odyssey, Ὀδύσσεια
40, Practice, πρᾶξις
41, Idiotic, Ιδιωτικός
42, Pentecost, Πεντηκοστή
43, Apostrophe, ἀποστροφή
44, catastrophe, καταστροφή
45, democracy, δημοκρατία
46, ‘Αρχή, beginning, Τέλος, end
47, ‘Αποκάλυψις, Apocalypse
48, ‘Απόκρυφα, Apocrypha
49, Ἠλεκτρον (Elektron), electric
50, Metamorphosis, Μεταμόρφωσις
51, Bimah, βῆμα
52, ἰχθύς (ichthýs) and ψάρι (psari), fish.
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