After two plus weeks of wandering around all parts of Greece, we have synthesized a number of our observations about what it means to be an American tourist. This is the first of what I hope will be a series of posts.
I don't think Greeks understand the phrase "it's all Greek to me", but they are definitely not in the least put off by our inability to say anything more than "yes" and "thank you". Even in the most rural of restaurant or shop or gas station, they make an effort, and we can get the transaction accomplished. This is decidedly not the case when visiting France or Germany where the inability to speak with perfect diction or the failure to construct a basic sentence, respectively, can earn you a harsh glare of contempt or a bit of lecture about how one ought to try harder. In point of fact, I am trying hard, and the little bits that I do say are much appreciated, just as they appreciate the opportunity to practice their English. Which leads me to my next point.
Many Greeks speak English very well and they are happy to try to communicate with you, and learn a few new words, if not a few new idioms. I can recall taking the deposition of a fourth grader and having to reconstruct my standard deposition format to accommodate a potential lack of vocabulary. I have not had to do that while traveling through Greece, and whether the people I have been chatting with have been phenomenal actors and humoring me, I suspect that they really do understand the subtleties of English.
Once I got out of the Marriott in Athens, we discovered there were other TV channels, some of which carry a variety of English programming (Frasier, King of Queens and the Law & Order franchise are regulars), which are subtitled only. All movies which are not animated children's movies are also subtitled only. Which means that the average Greek will be exposed to quite a bit of English, and fast-paced dialogue, at that, and perhaps even, get a grasp of NY law, but that's another subject....
Now, it is also obvious that besides English, Greeks do not speak any other foreign language. I have offered a few times when the individual was stuck for the word for them to pick it out of any other Western European language and specifically offered French or Italian, and was told, politely, that they did not speak those languages. However, at the various sites we have been to all over the country, we have distinctly heard an abundance of French and a good representation of German, and they all have communicated with restaurants and ticket booths in English.
Which leads me to my last observation about the signage at the archeological sites and museums which has uniformly been in Greek and then English, and with varying amounts of French and German. So, why if the average countryman does not speak these two other popular Western European languages and if such visitors are expected to and do communicate in English, would the signage cater to them? This is because of which archeological team underwent and more importantly funded the excavation at these sites. At Delphi, it was the French, so all the signs were in Gr, Eng and Fr. At Olympia, it was the Germans--no French, but at the History of the Olympic Games it was in all four (likely because French is the official international language of the Olympics) despite the German funding. Where there has been no international funding of the excavation, the signs are only in Greek and English (e.g., Nemea, Epidavros). There was an amusing outlier at Lusoe, where the sign for the town was only in Greek and German. Because that was a barely visited site, I think this was more of an oversight.
What this means to me is that I try to learn enough to not feel arrogant, but here, knowing that only 15 million people speak Greek and the other 7 billion speak something else, they are happy knowing that you are trying.
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