Teaching Kids Greek: Language Options

Do you have kids who speak Greek with such a thick American accent it makes you cringe? Do the know of any older women in your church (you know the one, Kiria Maria old-school who brings in all the baked goods to the trapeza table) who  tsk tsk you when they hear your kids can’t even speak Greek? “Krima krima,” they shake their heads, “na min xeroune tin glossa tous.”  Do your kids look like dumb mutants unable to open their mouths to respond even to the simplest question their Greek cousins ask them on the beach in the summer?   Are you afraid your kids might turn out to be “dry toast amerikanakia”?  Are you afraid of losing your culture because you are losing your tongue? Mom, don’t give yourself a guilt trip. Here’s the latest in Greek language and culture learning resources at your fingertips to keep your kids fluent and your mother-in-law off your back.

1 Option 1 Greek school full time. If you can afford it and the ratings are good, there’s nothing like putting your kids in a full-time Greek school. In this way they get the mandated state curriculum but with the perks of Hellenic language culture and history  built in. The benefits is that everybody is Greek in such an environment so you will never forget what date the Independence Day parade falls on. Your kids will learn Greek via osmosis by virtue of living and breathing in a Greek establishment. The disadvantage is the same as the advantage everybody is Greek  this can breed inclusiveness (the nice word for cliquiness) provincialism (the long word for small mindedness) and lack of diversity. Be wary that some all-day private Greek schools do not do as good a job of teaching kids how to speak Greek. Unless there is real reinforecenrnt and rigor in using the language across the school you might just get kids who talk English with a Greek American accent. Most private schools, however, do a good job of having students know enough Greek to perform a poema at the annual OXI day assembly.

Option 2 part time Greek school. This is the most popular option for parents. The kids go to their regular English day school and continue after school with 2-3 hours of Greek. Sometimes they are taken on Saturdays for 3 hours at a stretch. Again depending on the quality of the teachers native off the boat teachers from Greece tend to rub the language off better than Greek American teachers this can be an affordable effective option.
Option 3 home school. It goes without saying that a family that talks Greek together, keeps the Greek together. As a kid my father would thunder down at us, “Sto spiti tha mikate ellinika.” If it wasn’t for my parents insistence, I don’t think I would be able to speak Greek in the present moment. But besides the incessant exposure to the Greek language via speaking it, watching Greek TV, listening to Greek radio programs and having a tenacious giagia or some other annoying relative straight off the boat in the home, there are a number of decent on line courses and books for home study.

Dinolingo.com:  this language course created for kids is good at teaching vocabulary with bright colors.  It reinforces sound letter combinations and can really help beginning learner a advance. It breaks down after the beginning level as it is not so great at breaking down the grammar. But for $100 it’s a good starting point. Furthermore, it has gotten many awards both by the Best Mom Awards and Dr Toys 100 Best for 2013.  As it is exclusively created for kids, this would be my first choice for helping little Nono advance in Greek.

Rosetta Stone Greek for $320 you can purchase all 5 levels of the CDs of  probably one of the most effective stand alone language courses on the market. Although not targeted for kids, it is nevertheless visually engaging and has a game like quality to it.  The company has also released the internet only version called Rosetta Stone version 4 TOTALe
$169.00 at Amazon Rosetta Stone version 4 TOTALe, is  an excellent blended experience. High learning engagement comes from users hearing, reading, speaking, and touching (virtually) simultaneously. TOTALe also offers hour-long virtual classroom sessions, guided by an instructor on a live video feed. However, I still feel the old-fashioned CD set that gives you the entire course which includes higher level grammar superior. 
Pimsleur Comprehensive (digital download) $169 for download  Simon & Schuster’s Pimsleur Comprehensive (digital download) is one of the most accurate and effective programs for learning to speak and hear a new language. Visual learners may have a hard time with the audio-intensive program, especially at the early stages, but audio learners will love it. Pimsleur’s products consist only of audio files and sometimes a companion book or PDF booklet. There are with no interactive flash cards, voice recognition systems, or learning games. However, in testing, I found that more is not necessarily better. Pimsleur holds up quite well against the competition.

Mango Passport $79 for Journey 1; $132 for Journeys 1-2; $176 for Journeys 1-2-3
The Mango Passport language-learning program teaches solid content for travelers. The downloadable software is mature, with a polished interface and clear audio recordings. It lacks most of the interactive goodies found in other installed software programs for language learning, making Mango a pretty modest product, although it’s less expensive than some of the big-name products, like Rosetta Stone. The selection of languages is more than decent though, and the software comes with MP3s that you can load into your music player for on-the-go learning. Free companion iPhone and Android apps can extend where and how you learn with Mango Passport as well.

Let’s face it the phrase it’s all Greek to me should be a compliment when coming from a Greek child. And because it is so important to know the language of your culture to feel like you are innately a part if it do yourself a favor mama teach your kid Greek. It will also help them in English. Who of your friends can know what claustrophilia might be without looking it up in the dictionary. You guessed right it’s the love of tight spaces. Apparently it’s what that wacky English spy had the one who accidentally locked himself up in a baulo and forgot the key.

Hot New Greek Film

“To The Wolf” in Astoria 

The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria will present the United States premiere of a new Greek film, To The Wolf (Sto Lyko), as part of the museum’s First Look series on Sunday, January 19 at 2 pm. The film premiered at Berlinale in 2013.

Directed by Aran Hughes and Christina Koutsospyrou, To The Wolf takes place over four days of unrelenting wind and rain in a remote God-forsaken village high up in the Nafpaktia mountains in western Greece where two goatherding families struggle to survive during a period of national crisis.

A hybrid of documentary and fiction featuring an all-local cast, this bleakly beautiful film presents an unsettling allegory of modern day Greece.
Tickets may be purchased online at www.movingimage.us or by phone at 718-777-6800. Remaining tickets will be sold at the time of the performance. The Museum of the Moving Image is located at 35th Avenue at 37th Street in Astoria.

 

QUAD CINEMA TO HOST “Both Sides of the Aegean”

From Both Sides of the Aegean, a new documentary directed by Maria Iliou, has been booked for a two-week run starting on Friday, March 21 at New York’s Quad Cinema, 13th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

The new film is essentially the second part of Ms. Iliou’s enthralling Smyrna: The Destruction of A Cosmopolitan City, 1900-1922, and focuses on the expulsion and exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece in 1922-24.

While astonishing archival footage offers unforgettable images of the population exchange, personal testimonies of second and third generations of refugees offer moving stories of the human plight.

As in the first film, Alexander Kitroeff serves as historical consultant.
Smyrna: The Destruction of A Cosmopolitan City had its American premiere at the New York City Greek Film Festival in 2012, selling out its two performances at the Paris Theater. It went on to play a successful three-week engagement at the Quad Cinema in 2013. From there, Ms. Iliou took the film to major college campuses across the United States, the tour made possible by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. From Both Sides of the Aegean has had a successful commercial run in Greece. The engagement at the Quad will be the first commercial presentation of the film in the U.S.

 

Music for a Cause: Betty Harlafti 

Kyniska of Sparta: ancient female Olympic winner

Did you know that one of the most famous winners of the ancient Olympics was a woman, Kyniska of Sparta,  during a time when women were supposedly not only forbidden to take part in the Games but also not allowed to become participants? How did she do it? She found a loophole.   

Kyniska, daughter of King Archidamos of Sparta, was the first woman to be listed as an Olympic victor in antiquity. Her chariot won in the four-horse chariot race, not once but twice,  in the 96th and 97th Olympiads, (396 B.C. and 392 B.C. respectively).  Not only did Kyniska push the envelope by being a woman to participate in the events, she was honored with the same pomp and circumstance as all other Olympians were. 

 

“Exceptforattendance at the awards ceremony for Olympic victors – from which Cynisca was banned because she was a woman – she received the same honors as other Olympic victors. This included a sculpture of herself erected in the Olympic sanctuary. The dedication on the base of the statue read:

 

 

My ancestors and brothers were kings of Sparta.

I, Cynisca, victorious with a chariot of swift-footed horses,

Erected this statue. I declare that I am the only woman

In all of Greece to have won this crown.

Cynisca’s win in the Olympics had a great impact on the ancient Greek world as other women, especially Lacedaemonians, later won the chariot racing like Euruleonis, Belistiche, Timareta, Theodota and Cassia. However, none of them was more distinguished for their victories than she was.
This Spartan princess is frequently used until today as a symbolic figure of the social rise of woman.  Kynisca is an inspiration to women everywhere. We have always been running. We will always make the finish line!  We will be crowned as victors!   

 

References:

Cartledge, Paul. The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse. University of Virginia: Overlook Press, 2003.

Kyle, Donald G. Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World. Malden: Blackwell Press, 2007.

Pomeroy, Sarah B. Spartan Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Committed the movie

 

Sure, we’ve all seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but come next year you will be able to see a twist on the Greek-girl-gets-married theme by Cypriot-South African film director Stelana Kliris in her debut film  Committed.  Filmed in English with the landscape of Cyprus and Greece, Committed tells the story of a run-away bride who is literally picked up on the side of the highway by another ex-pat who is on holiday but who is also pressured to propose to his girlfriend.  Together they set on a journey to find themselves in a critical crossroads, literal and metaphorical, of their lives.  It is a film that explores identity and charting your own course by pitting the individual’s needs and desires against the expectations of one’s family and culture.

We had a chance to talk with the director about her own story and the story she tries to tell on film.

Who are you? 

I am a South African Cypriot writer / director with a background in editing and production on international film and commercial productions in Greece and Cyprus.  I am inspired by stories with heart and humanity and I’m in the fortunate position of being able to draw from two different backgrounds having grown up in a Greek-Cypriot home in South Africa.  I think that these are two very unique countries with similar issues regarding division and co-existence; I feel equally attached to both and I think my exposure to these two cultures have enriched me as a person and a filmmaker.

I have written and directed two short documentaries and two short films to date.

“Committed” is my first feature film.

 What prompted you to make the film? What is the film about?

I am at an age where everyone around me is getting engaged or getting married and I started to question the concept of committing to one person for the rest of your life. I was also having a lot of discussions with men and women about love and relationships. So I thought it would be great to explore this theme through two dynamic characters.

I made a movie about a man who is being pressured to propose to his girlfriend and a woman who has just run out on her wedding. He finds her by chance on the side of the road, picks her up and a bizarre road trip follows where they hash out their conflicting feelings about love and commitment. There is a big twist at the end, but you’ll have to see the movie for that!

I also just wanted to make a fun, feel-good movie that I’d go to the cinema to see with my friends. I miss fun comedies and I feel like female audiences aren’t being catered to enough.

On that note, I’m really hoping that women and the Diaspora are going to rally for this film. This is our audience and it’s only through their support that the film will get out there!

 

How does the film connect to Greek diaspora audiences? Specifically, how does this film treat the Greek bride motif in comparison to My Big Fat Greek wedding which was the hallmark independent film about a Greek diaspora bride in the US and also a big hit?

This film is a little different as it brings the Diaspora home, because it actually takes place in Cyprus. The male character, George, is from Cyprus but has studied in London and the bride is a member of the Greek Diaspora from America. So they speak in English to one another.

While the theme of the film is a lot more universal and doesn’t deal with the topic of the Diaspora, it represents people of the Diaspora who have moved back and forth between Greece/Cyprus and their adopted homes.  So the connection to Greek Diaspora audiences lies in the fact that it’s a film made in Cyprus by someone from the Diaspora, so it’s a very new perspective, but one they’ll relate to.

Regarding the bride motif, we basically show the other side of the coin of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” in that our bride has seemingly abandoned the concept of marriage and run away from her fiancé and family. She’s filled with doubt and questions everything about her situation. In a way, both films have a very similar theme about finding yourself, they’re just done in very different styles.

Where can audiences expect to get a sneak peak? 

“Committed” will be complete by the end of the year and we hope to start our festival run early next year. We don’t have a set screening schedule yet as it all depends on which festivals we get to. From there, the aim is to get distribution so audiences will have access to the film.

If you are interested in finding out a bit more, check out the Facebook page or the trailer:

 

Official site:

http://www.committedmovie.com/

 

 

 

 

American Aphrodite: The Classic Text

What is it like to be a Greek woman assimilating to American culture? Think your experience is unique? Then read Constance Callinicos’ classic text American Aphrodite and you will see your experience, your concerns, your struggle echoed in the lives of thousands of Greek American women all over the States. The book serves as an invaluable tool for understanding the Greek American woman’s experience from more than one angle: the personal, the sociological, the psychological and the historical. It is a must-read for anyone interested in “white minorities” in the US as well as the evolution of feminism from within a minority culture adapting and adopting to a dominant one.  It is an honor for us at greekamericangirl.com to have had an interview with the renowned author, feminist and historian of the book.

In case you are not familiar with her,  Constance Callinicos, a longtime feminist and activist for women’s rights, has in American Aphrodite concentrated her activism and writing on the subject of becoming female among Greeks in America. She is currently researching a companion volume on Greek-American men (working title Hermes In Ameriki), with an emphasis on assimilation into mainstream American culture, the process of becoming white in an alien culture, among many transformations the changing of one’s family name, a key component of one’s identity.

Ms Callinicos is also a musician trained in opera and concert presentation. She sings in seven languages. From her teen years she has served as Music Director of various Greek Orthodox churches in the United States, most recently a ten-year Byzantine musical journey at St Sophia Cathedral of Los Angeles, California.

Here is a snipet of what she shared with our readers:

What prompted you to write the book? What is the book about?

American Aphrodite is an overview of the private lives of Greek-American women of the first three generations, from the mail-order “picture brides” to their granddaughters, the third generation.

Documenting their lives in 111 taped interviews and over 300 conversations with women from Greek-American communities throughout the United States, the book describes life as lived in an oppressive patriarchal culture.

The author weaves into the fabric of these stories her own life story and her impressions of Greek-American culture as she lived it, a struggle for independence and control over her own life.

Why did you write this book?

The book started out as research for a novel. I had been involved in the women’s movement for years and had done extensive reading on the lives and histories of women of other cultures and from other places and experiences, had been profoundly influenced and changed by getting in touch with “our” history. But I had seen very little – in fact almost nothing – depicting the experience I had lived and known in Greek America.

I spent many hours in libraries and book shops, expecting to find titles about Greek women, at least one title, for heaven’s sake, in the light of the mass of new writing spawned by the women’s movement. I found nothing. I read plenty about Greek men, books authored by men, in which “history” was defined as Greek men’s history. Theodore Saloutos, archon of Greek American historians, included a passing reference to having to accompany his mother who spoke no English to buy shoes and other household needs like groceries. Otherwise, nothing about the lives of Greek American women.

So I decided I had to do the work myself. I hit the road and started interviewing women from Greek communities all over the U.S., north, south, southwest, northwest, northeast. Very soon I realized that truth was better than fiction, and so was born the format of American Aphrodite, a story told in the women’s own words, interwoven with my own.

How has the Greek-American Women’s Experience changed/stayed the same since you wrote your book?

I can only judge by the experiences of my daughters and their cousins, and from what I read and experience as I travel the country to visit friends and relatives. Of course the 3rd and 4th generation has advanced light years beyond the struggles of the 1st and 2nd generations, a college degree and a professional degree and a profession of any kind being not just a possibility, but an expectation of the younger generation of women. Freedom to choose a life, to choose a mate, to establish a family of your own no matter what or how is definitely a reality for the young Greek-American woman.

What I’m seeing in the response to this book by younger women (not just Greek American) is that it has moved into the realm of “classic” and has become important as a teaching tool, a valuable historical document, rather than the painful first reading of so many who shed tears at the exposure of their own lives. Women’s studies programs are an ideal milieu for the book. I am currently pursuing inclusion of the book in these departments.

What advice would you give to the next generation of Greek American women?

I would give the same advice to them as I gave to my daughters when they were growing up: ask yourself the question “What do I want?” and the answer should not be what you think your parents want or your friends want, or your boyfriend wants or your brothers. “What do I want?” is the only question any young woman should ask herself. Then when she has given serious thought to her wishes and dreams and decided what it is she wants, she should pursue it. Make a plan, execute the plan. Ask for your parents’ blessing. But not for their approval, if they will not approve of you as you really are and see yourself. Is it a hard road for some? Yes. For others, not so hard. But you don’t want to wake up on the morning of your 60th birthday and realize that you had dreams and ambitions when you were 20, but decided not to pursue them and have regrets.

And don’t forget hard work. Realizing your ambitions doesn’t always come easy. Ask your grandfathers and grandmothers about hard work in the pursuit of a goal and a better life. They’ll tell you all about it — and so will my book.

Get a copy of the classic to read and share with your friends at www.americanaphrodite.com.  Mention you heard about it through our site and you can get a signed autographed copy.  Better yet, let’s have an online book discussion!

 

Aglaonike: first woman astronomer in ancient Greece

 

Did you know Aglaonike (Gr. Ἀγλαονίκη, Aglaonikē; fl. 2nd century BC), also known as Aganice of Thessaly, is cited as the first female astronomer in ancient Greece? She is mentioned in the writings of Plutarch and Apollonius of Rhodes as the daughter of Hegetor of Thessaly. So good was she at predicting the cycles of the moon that many thought her a sorceress because she could make the moon disappear from the sky.  Because the male scientific establishment was a bit abashed by her acute prowess to predict the time and general area where a lunar eclipse would occur, they labeled her a witch.  She raised a school of female astrologers, also regarded as witches, known as the “witches of Thessaly” who were active from the 1st to 3rd centuries BCE. There is even an ancient Greek proverb attributing to her powers of celestial prophecy: “Yes, as the moon obeys Aglaonike.”

Hellenic Tattoos

We have seen how tattoos have become all the rage all over the place.  Of course, they make a statement of identity, showcase interests, reveal relationship status, and advocate likes and causes.  That’s why some philhellenes have taken the practice to new heights.  They have become human canvases for Greek mythology, Greek history, Greek philosophy. I stumbled upon a Facebook Group that uses tattoos to promote Hellenic pride.  Some of the designs are so carefully executed, in terms of both perspective and shading, they look like sketches from a Hellenic epic popped out to become inscribed into living flesh.  These are practically works of fine art, and given the statuesque bods they have used as canvas, it’s like the gods and heroes of ancient Greece have come to life and are walking around the streets of Greece, San Francisco, Frankfurt for all mortals to admire.  Take a look at this photo gallery to confirm how Greek pride can run skin deep, but doesn’t end there.

Greek inspired quotes for Tattoos

Everyone’s going the tattoo way.  So if this is the way with you, why not consider some of the wisest, sexiest Greek quotes as your tattoo of choice?  Of course these choice lexicons are not all Greek to you as you are Greek.  (Plus, Greek lettering is so chiiiieeec).   So show off your Hellenic heritage by inscribing it on your skin.  Here are some cool ideas:

1) Your name in Greek:

2) One word abstract nouns (faith, hope, love, etc.)

3) enigmatic phrases in Greek:  like “the dangerous things”

4) compliment yourself in Greek

5) A quote from Homer or some other philosopher in the ancient Greek (that’s the coolest):

Know Thyself:

Better dead standing up than crawling alive

The unreflected life is not worth living

6)  Or else if you can’t or don’t want to, get your boyfriend to tattoo “300” Spartan warriors all over his back and chest:

7) Or if you dare, get Greek goddesses tattooed across your t@att:

8) or go discreet with a Greek inspired geometrical motif