 | Vocabulary: hard-to-find translations of some words |
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There is an old but nice song of Stratos Dionisiou - "Aφιλότιμη". But there are many words in wich I didn't get their proper translation(s): -μοναχοπαίδι -μοναχογιός -ψυχοπαίδι -παραγιός -αφιλότιμη -"πόσο λάθος με μετράς" -σεβνταλής -κουρελής |
| Re: Vocabulary: hard-to-find translations of some words |
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Hi George, Some of these words are indeed difficult to find in a dictionary, as they are more commonly used in the oral speach, literature or are expressions that are a kind of "slang" rarely used nowadays. μοναχοπαίδι means: only child μοναχογιός means: only child, used when referring to a male child In this song these two words are used to indicate how "precious" or "important" he (the singer) was for her. ψυχοπαίδι means: adopted child or errand boy παραγιός means: young apprentice, it has a similar meaning with ψυχοπαίδι, but it refers exclusively to a young apprentice Using these two words the singer wants to stress the change in his status, from being such an important person to ending being a second class one. αφιλότιμη means: the one (here refers to a female) who has no honor and doesn't behave properly "πόσο λάθος με μετράς" could be translated as: "how wrong you think of me" Here he "accuses" her for treating him in a wrong, undeservedly manner. σεβνταλής could be understood as: a man who is passionate about a woman and suffers for her. It's a slang word, barely used. κουρελής means: a ragged person. In the song means that he feels as he has lost everything because of the change in her feelings and treatment. Hope it helped! Kind regards, Jim |
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Very good explanation Jim! σεβνταλής is probably borrowed from Turkish where sevgi=love, sevgili=beloved, dear & sevdi=he/she loved (past tense). So σεβνταλής could mean full of love (to the extent of suffering, as Jim put it). With words like μοναχοπαίδι, μοναχογιός, ψυχοπαίδι, παραγιός I am amazed how Greek resembles Armenian in constructing new words "on the run" by combining two or more root words and often you will not find these combinations as established words in dictionaries... and in Armenian they are not considered slang, actually it is a very much accepted method of speech. Finally, I just wanted to inform of a good website which I often refer to when confronting slang: www.slang.gr It gives lengthy explanations with examples, like a thesaurus. Regards, Arshak P.S. for κουρελής see another beautiful song by Dionisiou named Γιατί δε με προσέχεις where he says μ' έχεις κάνει πια ένα κουρέλι where κουρέλι literally means a rag (for cleaning the floor). Here evidently it means that you have disgraced/humiliated/belittled me to that extent. PS2. I LOVE DIONISIOU! |
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I would agree with Arshak. I'm almost sure too that σεβνταλής has Turkish origins and together with the phrase "πόσο λάθος με μετράς" they are the two slang-like words/expressions used in the song. All the other words are used both in literature and oral speach, although they can be a bit tricky for a non-native speaker when he/she looks them up in a greek-english dictionary as they might not be there (eg. ψυχοπαίδι, παραγιός). Something that really helped me when I was learning German was to search the meanings of words in German dictionaries, where the explanation is also given in German. It can be more difficult in the beginning, but I think it helps more. Kind regards, Jim |
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Thank you so much for both of you. This is a very nice forum to learn greek language and your explanations are great. I know slang.gr but even in there I couldn't find some words , sometimes. I agree, it is useful to learn a foreign language by means of the explanations in that language. Once I did that way too when I was learning english. And I like Dionisiou too. Very nice music. Still there are so many other great greek musicians... Best regards, George |
