No one

Question

Only recently have I realized that "no one" does not translate into Greek. This is a serious problem when teaching Greeks English. It is linked to the biggest problem I have, that Greeks believe that the Greek language is the richest language in the world, to an extent only mildly exaggerated in the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding .

This attitude is related to the general belief here that Greeks are the brightest of all the peoples of the world, the best-looking, and the finest lovers. In addition, they cook the best food, wear the finest fashions, are the only true believers in Christendom, and possess a number of other extraordinary attributes.
Now granted, we all have to deal with such attitudes in language teaching, and as educated citizens of our new multicultural world, gently deflect them in polite ways, but does this particular prejudice, the belief that My Language is Better Than English, closely linked to I Am Better Than You, significantly hinder anyone else out there who does this job? Is there is a sure and certain tactic for getting by it once and for all? By getting by it, I do not mean whipping a list of statistics out and "proving" that English is the richest language in the world, that those who speak English are the brightest in the world, the best-looking, blah, blah, blah.
Exercises in equal-opportunity bigotry would simply get me beaten up while the police looked on and laughed. That's pretty much the fate of anyone of any ethnic minority who questions the veracity of this judgment here. Granted, it happens more frequently to Albanians and Russians than Americans, but it still happens.
Thank you. I'm at my wits' end here.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

credoquaabsurdum schrieb:
[nq:1]Only recently have I realized that "no one" does not translate into Greek. This is a serious problem when teaching ... more frequently to Albanians and Russians than Americans, but it still happens. Thank you. I'm at my wits' end here.[/nq]It's not a problem that I really have to face here in Germany, but I would tend not to get involved in arguments about better or worse, etc. The simple fact is that English is more widely spoken than Greek and that is why people are learning it (or perhaps have to learn it). In this case, it is neither here nor there whether Greek can say something more elegantly than English. The only relevant fact is that if they don't learn English then they won't be able to communicate with the overwhelming majority of non-Greeks, whereas if they do learn English they'll be able to do so with a fair, even if still modest, proportion of humanity.

This has nothing to do with the intrinsic merits or demerits of either language, but is simply a result of historical development in the last few centuries.
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Only recently have I realized that "no one" does not translate into Greek. This is a serious problem when teaching ... more frequently to Albanians and Russians than Americans, but it still happens. Thank you. I'm at my wits' end here.[/nq]
The answer is quite logical.
Tell them that you're getting paid to
teach them English.
They're not getting paid to teach you Greek.
If they quibble at that, remind them that the
Greeks invented logic, and, in not being
logical about matters, they're not being
very good Greeks -:)

Usenet · Answer

Uzytkownik "credoquaabsurdum" (Email Removed) napisal w wiadomosci
[nq:1]Only recently have I realized that "no one" does not translate into Greek. This is a serious problem when teaching Greeks English. It is[/nq]
What exactly is the problem? Do you find it impossible to convey the meaning of "no one" to them? Even by using circumlocution? Are they trying to convince you that the expression has no sense and should be dropped from the English language?
[nq:1]This attitude is related to the general belief here that Greeks are the brightest of all the peoples of the world, the best-looking, and the finest lovers. In addition, they cook the best food, wear the finest[/nq]
There is no point in arguing. If they insist that Greece is older than the US, or even the UK, just agree with them!
Cheers,
Leszek.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]What exactly is the problem? Do you find it impossible to convey the meaning of "no one" to them? Even by using circumlocution? Are they trying to convince you that the expression has no sense and should be dropped from the English language?[/nq]

Part of the problem is that the Greeks are indeed lucky in that their language has a rich basic word stock. This flexibility, much bemoaned by Greek schoolteachers here when they have to teach a greater range of vocabulary to get Greeks to achieve what is considered basic fluency in the language, means that there is a good deal of perfect one-to-one correspondence between many words in English and Greek.

The flexibility comes from the fact that Greek has a gigantic word stock to choose from hanging around in the four roots of Modern Greek, the demotic, colloquial Greek that is spoken in households and largely borrows from Italian, French, and English to handle everyday words, educated vocabulary borrowed from "katharevousa," a nineteenth-century version of Greek which was developed to deal with expanding the folk language into a language that could handle a wide range of official uses, Church Greek, or Koine Greek used in the New Testament and its development, and finally, the Attic Greek of Athens's Golden Age in antiquity.
Yet every language has roots. Greeks learn as much basic vocabulary as they do, drawing deeply on these four roots, largely as a patriotic duty to the Fatherland. There is a well-developed myth here that the Powers-That-Be (chiefly, of course, the Great Satan) have been colluding for generations in a gigantic conspiracy to strip the Greeks of their language and in turn, their identity. I realize how ridiculous this sounds, but it's a myth. For the American readers of this Board, do you remember the widespread skepticism that glastnost was met with in the late eighties on the part of many Americans, who believed that Russian openness was a prelude to World War 3? It's much the same thing, and one person is not going to change this.

Simply the fact that "no one" represents a new, fundamentally basic concept to them is deeply troubling to the myth. If this item and a few others is not handled properly on my part, a socio-affective filter can slam over their understanding of the language. They turn me off: I turn from being a simple teacher to a representative of the Great Satan. For those of you familiar with the film American History X , do you remember the scene when the father turns to his son and points out to him, "Don't listen to what that *** teacher says. It's all *** ***!" Quietly, in the privacy of his home, the boy is set on the pathway of racism.
You can actually see the change happening in their eyes when you do "no one" with them. Imagine the fundamental instability to Western mathematicians that a personal introduction to the number zero must have caused. Suddenly, their understanding of themselves was deeply troubled, and their conscious and unconscious beliefs in their supremacy fundamentally challenged.
Now this is all a wonderful introduction to the power of language to cut across divides, but I generally have one year to take woefully underprepared students and turn them in to successful examination candidates. I do not have time to grapple with the mysteries of self and purpose that a deeper appreciation of any language evokes. Nor do I have time to flatly point out that English has a word that Greek doesn't, that this is its meaning, and then move on. UP goes the drawbridge on their willingness to learn, and I start to grow the horns of the Great Satan.
So what I'm asking is simple. Some of you out there live in fundamentally anti-American, anti-British nations like Greece. Some of you might even get shot at from time to time in the course of performing your work: I am well aware my situation could be far worse than it is here. Does it ever affect the basic nature of what you do as ELTs, and in what way? How do you deal with it?

Usenet · Answer

Uzytkownik "credoquaabsurdum" (Email Removed) napisal w wiadomosci
[nq:1]Simply the fact that "no one" represents a new, fundamentally basic concept to them is deeply troubling to the myth. ... on my part, a socio-affective filter can slam over their understanding of the language. They turn me off: I turn[/nq]
Amazing. I suppose they do have a way to say the equivalent of "There does not exist a human being X such that..."? Perhaps what is so threateningly new to them is that "no one" can be used as a subject in a sentence, replacing my convoluted negated quantifier above?

And to think that such a difference in vocabulary can add to the image of the Great Satan, and slam the door between you and your students... I have met such frames of mind in extremely undereducated Poles, neglected children, six-generation peasants (grandchildren of bonded serfs), whom the very mention of, say, the Chinese language may cause to giggle, but students? Grammercy horse!
Good luck,
Leszek.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1][/nq]
[nq:2]What exactly is the problem? Do you find it impossible ... no sense and should be dropped from the English language?[/nq]
[nq:1] Part of the problem is that the Greeks are indeed lucky in that their language has a rich ... affect the basic nature of what you do as ELTs, and in what way? How do you deal with it?[/nq]
Leszek's point about circumlocution is well taken.

The ancient Greeks did have a circumlocuitous
process of making someone they didn't want
to hear from a non-person, a zero, a no one.
It was called ostracism.
(They didn't invent it. They got it from Egypt.)
Sounds like they're holding an ostrakophoria
on credoquaabsurdum, like they did on Sokrates.
Either leave Athens or partake of the hemlock.
Remind them, credoquaabsurdum, that they do need
6,000 votes to do it to you -:)
And in plain terms tell them Greek does have
a term for 'no one'. Surely there's a modern
Greek derivative for 'ostracized' or 'the ostracized one'.

Or has 'ostracism' permanently left the Greek language and now exists only in English?

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Only recently have I realized that "no one" does not translate into Greek.[/nq]
=CE=BA=CE=B1=CE=BD=CE=AD=CE=BD=CE=B1=CF=82
That's what I get out of http://babelfish.altavista.com/ when I put "no one" into it
and had it translate to Greek. Don't ask me what it sounds like. If it doesn't look
like Greek to you, then try the translator yourself.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Only recently have I realized that "no one" does not translate into Gre=ek.[/nq]
[nq:1]=CE=BA=CE=B1=CE=BD=CE=AD=CE=BD=CE=B1=CF=82 That's what I get out of http://babelfish.altavista.com/ when I put "no one" into it and had it translate to Greek. Don't ask me what it sounds like. If it doesn't look like Greek to you, then try the translator yourself.[/nq]
Oh, trust me, it looks like Greek to me. The problem is that it isn't exactly the same thing, or used in the same way. There are actually two words in Modern Greek for the concept of "no one," one from demotic Greek (the form listed) and one from katharevousa Greek, the Latinate spelling of which is "kaneis." "Kanena" really means "none." The form ending in "s" is a person-equivalent to that. "No one" is not a simple person-equivalent to "none."
Therein lies the rub, along with other assorted noun declension issues. This is how it works:
No one was there. =3D Kanenas eitan ekei.
Not one ("one" being a pronoun here) was there. =3D Kanena eitan ekei.

I didn't seen anyone. =3D Den eida kanenas.
I saw no one. =3D Den eida kanenas.
Not even one (ibid) was there. =3D Kanena den eitan ekei. (Double negatives are quite common in Greek.)
Mix that in with the fact that the "s" in normal conversational speech is routinely disappears, and teaching "no one" as a concept becomes a CF of glorious proportions.
I, of course, say this as a Greek-American, one of those kids who just had one nationality to put up on the board in Social Studies class. I've also spent six years living here and spend far too much of my time speaking Greek.
Anyway, I really appreciate all your comments in this thread. It did bring things into perspective.

No one

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