Blog by Kate Phipps at the Queen’s Translation Exchange
To mark the European Day of Languages, and taking the chance to celebrate multilingualism, I decided to write about my experiences of learning Greek. Not Ancient, but Modern Greek, a language which doesn’t tend to get as much attention or funding as other European languages. The Sub-Faculty of Byzantine and Modern Greek at the University of Oxford is the only department in Britain to offer Medieval and Modern Greek as a major component of a BA degree. With more and more language departments being cut, I wanted to draw attention to what we may be losing by narrowing down our options to only a few of the most widely spoken languages.
When I was studying Russian and French at university, we were offered the opportunity to study an extra language; the options were Portuguese, Dutch, Catalan, Ukrainian, and Modern Greek. I chose Modern Greek because it was the most different from the languages I had already studied, and I enjoy the satisfaction of learning a new alphabet. I probably thought of holidays in Greece as a child. The course also promised poetry by Cavafy and Seferis, and the idea of being able to read poetry in a language I couldn’t even begin to decode compelled me to give it a try.
I was lucky to have been taught by two fantastic teachers, Dr Liana Giannakopoulou and Dr Regina Karousou-Fokas, who made my first year of learning Greek exciting, and inspired me to learn more. At the end of the year, I was offered a scholarship for the Institute for Balkan Studies’ summer school on Greek language, history and culture, in Thessaloniki. I’m touched to see that twelve years later, the programme still exists. Spending a month in Thessaloniki with students of Greek from all over the world was an amazing experience. We had intensive language lessons in the morning, fuelled by frappés, then were served lunch accompanied by the hotel’s repeated soundtrack of a Hatzidakis album (I still think of that hotel whenever I hear his music). In the afternoons, we’d have lectures, or explore Thessaloniki together, with our various levels of Greek as our main mode of communication.
I ended up living in Athens, working on research in migration, learning to play the oud, and experiencing so much I could not have anticipated.
After Thessaloniki I decided to reap the rewards of my studies by spending more time in the country. I ended up living in Athens, working on research in migration, learning to play the oud, and experiencing so much I could not have anticipated. I was able to take part in an oral history seminar led in Greek, where we did interviews with people from the village, in the Zagori, in Northern Greece. Most importantly of all, some of my closest friendships have been made thanks to learning Greek. The way we slip between English and Greek depending on how we can best express ourselves makes all the effort I’ve made over the years feel more than worth it.
As I write this, I no longer live in Greece, but I am on holiday on a Greek island. Recently, someone asked me whether I found speaking Greek useful, other than for going on holiday. For a moment I didn’t know what to say. I’ve been used to (mostly Greek) people being baffled by me speaking Greek for years. I’d always found it easy to challenge anyone who suggested that it wasn’t ‘useful’. I used to use Greek in my daily life in Athens, in small exchanges in shops, cafes, restaurants, with friends, to read, to navigate my way through bureaucracy. For me, Greek was always useful, usually very helpful, and sometimes essential. Now that I mostly do use Greek with friends or on holiday, the question made me think, does it have to be useful all the time? And what does ‘useful’ even mean? The people I’ve met, and the experiences that learning Greek has made possible, mean so much to me and have made me who I am now. I don’t think I need it to be more useful than it already has been.
The way we slip between English and Greek depending on how we can best express ourselves makes all the effort I’ve made over the years feel more than worth it.
As much as I love Greek, I believe that choosing to learn any language, and being open to following the opportunities it opens could lead to all kinds of meaningful encounters and experiences. Even without leaving the classroom, I believe that learning a language, learning how to decode and understand literature that was previously inaccessible is one of the most thought provoking and fulfilling kinds of learning.
I am now working with the Queen’s Translation Exchange, supporting their work in languages advocacy and outreach. I’ve just been making a creative translation exercise for absolute beginners in Greek. It’s not the first time that Greek has been incidentally ‘useful’ in a way I hadn’t expected. For the exercise, I’ve chosen Cavafy’s poem Ithaca, a poem I studied in my first Greek course at university. The opening lines read:
‘Σα βγεις στον πηγαιμό για την Ιθάκη,
να εύχεσαι να ’ναι μακρύς ο δρόμος,
γεμάτος περιπέτειες, γεμάτος γνώσεις.’
‘As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.’
Translation by Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard, Poetry Foundation, full poem available here.
The lines mean more to me now than they did at the time. I would hope for anyone deciding to learn a new language, that the road is a long one. I do believe language learning is a journey and an adventure, even without travelling anywhere.
Any language can be useful. It all depends on what you use it for. That’s an exciting part of learning languages; you can never predict what that might be, or where they may take you.
I feel lucky to have been able to experience everything that has happened because of learning Greek. My life now would be very different if I had not taken the Greek course at university. My hope is that more people will keep choosing to learn languages, not because they are useful (although they are), but because learning a new language will offer new perspectives, new opportunities and experiences, chances to meet new friends. I hope that when people choose which language to learn, they will consider what might bring them joy, where their interests might lie, and what may motivate them to keep going. Any language can be useful. It all depends on what you use it for. That’s an exciting part of learning languages; you can never predict what that might be, or where they may take you.
