LETTER 03 · LANGUAGE & GREECE

Why “ela” means more than come

Some words lose something when you translate them.

There are Greek words you can translate perfectly well and still get completely wrong.

Έλα — ela — is one of them.

If you look it up, it means “come”.

But it doesn't.

Or at least, it doesn't only mean that.

Ela can mean come here.

It can mean go on.

It can mean tell me.

It can mean hurry up.

It can mean really?

It can mean enough now.

It can mean I don't believe you.

And sometimes it seems to mean almost nothing at all.

It depends on the face, the hands, the voice and what happened five minutes before.

That is very Greek.

There is another Greek word I love: φιλότιμο — philotimo.

People try to translate it as honour.

But honour feels too cold to me.

Philotimo is warmer.

It is something about dignity, generosity, pride, responsibility and doing the right thing without needing somebody to tell you to do it.

You know it when you see it.

Someone goes out of their way for you because of course they would.

Someone refuses to let you leave hungry.

Someone helps when helping is inconvenient.

There is pride in it, but there is heart in it too.

“Honour” doesn't quite hold all of that.

Perhaps this is why I notice language differently now that I live in London.

You can translate the sentence.

You cannot always translate the temperature of it.

Greek has temperature.

It has volume.

It has eyebrows.

It has hands.

And Greek people can have entire conversations without saying very much at all.

Walk down a street in Athens and imagine nobody is noticing you.

They are.

Everybody is watching everybody.

Not necessarily in a bad way.

It is simply part of being there.

People speak with their eyes.

Maybe that is what I want my children to understand about Greek too.

Of course I want them to know the words.

But more than that, I want them to get the feeling of it.

Because being Greek isn't something I can explain to them with a vocabulary list.

It is knowing when ela means come here and when it means you cannot possibly be serious.

It is hearing affection inside an argument.

It is understanding that sometimes the loudest person in the room isn't angry at all.

It is knowing that a word can carry much more than its translation.

So yes.

Ela means come.

But come to Greece and listen to somebody actually say it.

Then you'll understand what I mean.

— From London, with Greece in mind.