Μπουμπουνοκέφαλος

Μπουμπουνοκέφαλος: bone-head - dumbhead

I had toyed with the idea of having a "word of the day," which would be various new Greek words I ran across that I thought were interesting. But, I end up decided against it, because just putting up a word and it's definition and some comment like: "I just love the word φεγγάρι and the sound it make when it rolls off the tongue," would be idiotic and not interesting or helpful to others reading the blog. Indeed, every word in the Greek language, as in all languages, is special in some way: when was it first used? What are some surprising usages and meanings of the word? What are common ways the word is misused? How has it's usage or pronunciation changed over time? What language did it come from? Has it reentered the language after leaving it, e.g. Μπράβο: βάρβαρος -> barbaros (lat.) -> bravo (it) -> μπράβο(ελ).

Something along that line would be interesting, but a colossal amount of dedicated work, requiring a level of skill far beyond my own. However, here is a word that I've been looking for some time: Μπουμπουνοκέφαλος. I had thought the pronouciation was 'Πουπουνοκέφαλος'.

It's an insult that was popular in Greek tv and movies in the 60s and 70s but, in current usage seems to have died out a bit - much like many English insults that would have been contemporary with it. I ran into it watching old Greek dubbed episodes of Lucky Luke. Below is a clip from an episode where where the perennial bad guys, the Dalton Brothers, assume fake identities and go into hiding in Canada. The dimwitted brother, Averil, can't quite grasp the idea and ends up being called Μπουμπουνοκέφαλος Τζονες.

Σε τούτο το παλιόσπιτο (1950)

Another work by Βασίλης Τσιτσάνης (Vasilis Tsitsanis). This masterfully crafted song is the Rebetico at it's highest artistic level. The song first sets the evocative scene of an old house, now a ruin, where gypsies and fortune tellers are camping out on the arid yard, and a bat flying back to her nest. The singer laments a sad parting of lost love and the scene he's presented becomes a symbol of that love.

The melody is mournful and haunting, the rhythm punctuates the verses while the wailing of the bouzouki animates the ghostly scene and sending shivers down your spine.

But the scene evoked, not only is not only made up of its surface elements but has an inner psychology of its own, what was the house in its previous life? The ancestral home of a luckless family fallen on hard time? A boarding for marginally employed? A brothel?

And the final lines telling of a bat making it's nests in the room where once the singer and his love had been. But the bat doesn't just represent darkness and, with mention of the gypsies and fortunately the presence of spirits or the supernatural: it's not just a cheap use of Halloween shop cobweb in a can. Instead it is balanced as the tender mother returning to her nest to tend for her young.
Στίχοι: Βασίλης Τσιτσάνης, Βλάχος
Μουσική: Βασίλης Τσιτσάνης, Βλάχος

Σε τούτο το παλιόσπιτο σε τούτο το ρημάδι θάψαμε την αγάπη μας ένα Σάββατο βράδυ		bury
Στο παλιόσπιτο ετούτο που χωρίσαμε την βραδιά την τελευταία που μιλήσαμε	| | Δις
Μέσα στην έρημη αυλή κατά 'π' τα παραθύρια οι μάγισσες και οι γύφτισσες να στήσουνε τσαντίρια		put up, paddy
Στο παλιόσπιτο ετούτο που χωρίσαμε και με δάκρυα ποτάμια το ποτίσαμε	| | Δις
Η νυχτερίδα μοναχή να χτίσει τη φωλιά της στην καμαρούλα τ'η μικρή που πέρνα τα φιλιά της
Στο παλιόσπιτο ετούτο που χωρίσαμε την βραδιά την τελευταία που μιλήσαμε	| | Δις

------ Μετάφρασης (Translation) ------

In that old house
In that ruin
Our love was buried
One Saturday night

In that hold house where we separated
The last night we ever talked

In the wasteland of a yard
Under the windows
The witches and the gypsies
Setup their wagons

In that hold house where we separated
The last night we ever talked

The lonely bat
Has built her nest
In the small room
Where I kissed you

In that hold house where we separated
The last night we ever talked

Όμορφη Θεσσαλονίκη (1950)

Μουζάκης Γιώργος (Giorgos Mouzakis) was a Rebetico legend and his style of bouzouki playing was especially influential for subsequent Rebetico artists and can be heard to this day in Greek popular music. He wrote and recorded hundreds of songs. The one below, Όμορφη Θεσσαλονίκη, (beautiful Thessaloniki)is about his love of Thessaloniki. A topic that comes up often in Rebetico is one's love of a native city, even if your conditions in it were squalid and beset by crime and drugs. Rebetico is a distinctly urban genre and you'll very rarely find the countryside or nature praised. It's often likened to the Blues of America, and at that one might even be tempted to go out on a limb and draw some parallels to hip-hop. Indeed, at various times Rebetico was banned due to it's perceived anti-social influence.

This is a nice modern recording played in a classic style, even down to the costumes. In a Ταβέρνα (tavern, from which we get the English word for the same.) it would be typical for a small band to sit in a row on a small stage, with some tables pushed away and men dancing in front.

Όμορφη Θεσσαλονίκη

Στίχοι: Μουζάκης Γιώργος
Μουσική: Μουζάκης Γιώργος

Ώ! όμορφη Θεσσαλονίκη Ώ! τα μαγικά σου βράδια νοσταλγώ Είσαι το καμάρι της καρδιάς μου Θεσσαλονίκη όμορφη γλυκιά κι' αν ζω στην ξελογιάστρα την Αθήνα για σένα τραγουδώ κάθε βραδιά Ώ! όμορφη Θεσσαλονίκη Ώ! τα μαγικά σου βράδια νοσταλγώ Μέσα στα στενά σου τα σοκάκια έζησα τις πιο γλυκές στιγμές καντάδες χίλιες νύχτες έχω κάνει για όλες τις μποέμικες καρδιές Ώ! όμορφη Θεσσαλονίκη Ώ! τα μαγικά σου βράδια νοσταλγώ Πάντα με κρατάς στην αγκαλιά σου Πάντα σε θυμάμαι και πονώ Κι αν είμαι τώρα λίγο μακριά σου με τον καιρό κοντά σου θα βρεθώ

------ Μετάφρασης (Translation) ------

Oh, beautiful Thessaloníki
Oh, I long for your magic nights

You are the chamber of my heart
Sweet, beautiful Thessaloníki
And if I'm living in bewitching Athena
I sing for you every night

Oh, beautiful Thessaloníki
Oh, I long for your magic nights

Amongst your narrow alleys
I've lived my sweetest moments
I've made a thousand songs
for all the bohemian hearts

Oh, beautiful Thessaloníki
Oh, I long for your magic nights

Always you hold me in your arms
Always I remember you and am pained
And if I'm a little away from you now
In time I'll find you

Greek by Radio

When pursuing self study of any language, one of the most important tasks it to find suitable material for study, the biggest criteria being quantity of audio available. (I.e hours of talking.) For being one of the lesser European languages, Greek has a large number of resources available. For instance both Pimsleur series levels I and II and Rosetta Stone I and II are in print, the intermediate and advanced levels of those products are generally reserved for languages like German, French, Spanish and Chinese, and even then coverage is not uniform. Both Hindi, with several hundred million speakers, is only offered through level one proficiency in those courses.

Modern Greek is also well represented in the free online world: there is the colossal FSI course which will teach you an elevated, bureaucratic version of the Demotiki dialect, but also a module teaching the Katherevousa; there is also a podcast put out by the Hellenic American Union that will familiarize you with everyday conversation (Though it does expect you to have some initial provenience in the language when you start.) and there are several other high quality resources as well. But best resource free, or otherwise, is the on-line Greek by Radio Series made available by Kypros-Net at:

http://www.kypros.org/LearnGreek/

This is an amazing resource, impressive for any language, a real treasure for Greek learners. It consists of 105 audio courses, along with transcripts, notes, tables and vocab for each lesson. The course is carefully paced such you need know nothing about Greek when it starts and by end of of it will have master all thee major grammatical points of the Greek language, have been exposed to many everyday conversational settings, learned a vocabulary of over 1000 words and most likely grown very fond of your presenters, Ellie, Andreas and Nico. Unfortunately, there is one draw back to the course. The audio quality is barely acceptable, and the RealPlayer streaming format making it impossible to save or access via mobile devices, like the iPhone.

That, however, hopefully is being remedied. High quality versions of the audio for courses is being posted on YouTube making it much easy for the beginner to develop their pronunciation and making it making it possible to access the content using the latest generation of mobile devices. (Though not quite as convenient as a pod cast. Hopefully someone will endeavor to set one up)

As new audio is posted, I'll update this post to provide links here so that you will have one place to access all the audio files.

Lesson 1 - Part 1/2
Lesson 1 - Part 2/2:
Lesson 2 - Part 1/2:
Lesson 2 - Part 2/2:
Lesson 3 - Part 1/2
Lesson 3 - Part 2/2
Lesson 4 - Part 1/2
Lesson 4 - Part 2/2
Lesson 5 - Part 1/2
Lesson 5 - Part 2/2