ΚΡΙΜΣS ΑΓΑΙΝΣΤ ΑΛΦΑΒΣΤS

 Some things get my goat like no others. One of the major ones, are persons who misspell their parents’ names on their tombstones. Tombstones are civilisation’s lame attempt at a final stab at eternity. The person buried beneath them may no longer be gone but their name is supposed to endure, at least for a little while, so one may as well get it right. For some reason however, many Greek-Australians are oblivious to the fact that the consonantal cluster ΚΣ can ably be represented by a letter known as Ξ, and that ΠΣ can more efficiently be rendered by the letter Ψ. Similarly, the progeny of many a dead Greek appear blissfully unaware of the fact that the letter, not the watch brand, Omega, according to one tradition, was invented by lyric poet Simonides of Ceos and its use became established in Ionia by the sixth century.

In 403BC, at the urging of Eucleides, the Athenians voted to replace the old Attic alphabet with the Ionian one, making the omega official. Someone obviously forgot to inform the Greeks of Melbourne, many of whom universally employ O instead of Ω, and criminally on occasion, Φ. Given that they probably don’t use this alphabet anywhere else, possibly what we are witnessing is the emergence of a unique script which in the future, archaeologists shall term Tomb Script. The ancient, endangered script of the Chams, a linguistic minority of South East Vietnam and Cambodia, is so integral to their identity, they must learn it before they can go to the afterlife. We on the other hand, don’t learn ours, so that our progenitors may stay with us forever.

Alphabetic liberties are taken on a daily basis in our community. From the undertaker who uses a V to write the word Vεκρώσιμη on his premises in Bell Street, thus burying the Greek alphabet as well as his clients for good measure, to the church in the western suburbs that proudly uses the equally and fittingly western Greek alphabet to inscribe upon its entrance: IERA ARXIEΠΙΣΚΟΠΗ, with linguists contending that the said R should be pronounced as it is in English, giving the Greek an Irish tinge, in our hands the alphabet is a pliable instrument, with every single letter being as negotiable as a cheque before the banking reforms of 1908.

Nonetheless, it cannot be disputed that the Greek alphabet forms a major part of our identity. We are inordinately proud of the fact that the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is represented by the letter π regardless of the fact that the Babylonians were the first to make a written approximation of it centuries before Archimedes’ calculations. We are also extremely proud of the fact that we “gave” our alphabet both to what ended up being the Latin West and the Slavic East, forgetting that we adapted it from the Phoenicians, according to Herodotus. This, we have difficulty in accepting, except for the Cretans of Melbourne, who still use the Linear B script (the Cretans of Sydney prefer Linear A) and the Cypriots who still use the ancient Cypriot syllabary with an extra two ideoglyphs to represent koumbaroi and shetalies,  leaning more likely to the more facile and elegant solution of the polymath Patriarch Photius who attempted to explain away the reason why the ancients referred to our alphabet as  Φοινικήια γράμματα in the following way:

 

“The Lydians and Ionians [report] that letters came from Phoinix the son of Agenor who invented them. But the Cretans report differently that they were developed from writing on the leaves of palm trees (phoinikes).

Skamon, in the second book of his Inventions, says that they were named for Aktaion’s daughter Phoinike. The story goes that he had no male children, but that he had daughters Aglauros, Erse, and Pandrosos. Phoinike died still a virgin. For this reason, Aktaion named the letters "Phoenician" for her, because he wished to give some honour to his daughter.” We did after all, invent everything, including invention itself.

 

Type the words “Ancient Macedonian alphabet,” in Google and a number of Glagolithic and Cyrillic Scripts emerge upon the page. This is of course nonsense, for the ancient Macedonians used the Greek script, but substituting the letter X for Ξ, which is why Social Media Warriors and Defenders of the Faith who secretly lust after Colin Farrell gush over a historical figure they refer to in writing as ΜΕΓΑ ΑΛΕΧΑΝΔΡΟ, pronounced in like fashion to the object of Lady Gaga’s lament:  “Don't call my name, don't call my name Alejandro…”

 

It is this history of license and abuse which cause me to recall possibly the best verse of poetry ever written, by Greek-Australian poet Tina Giannoukos, in “Bull Days:” “The mellifluous alphabet of pain...” It is a pain intensified by another insidious phenomenon: that of the reckless and insensitive abuse of the Greek alphabet by foreigners, especially Westerners. This is not by any means a new phenomenon. College fraternities have appropriated Greek letters for their so-called “Greek Organisations” as far back as the foundation of the Phi Beta Kappa society at the College of William and Mary in 1776. At least those initials stand for the ancient Greek phrase Φιλοσοφία Βίου Κυβερνήτης, signifying: “Love of wisdom, the guide of life.” The Chi Phi fraternity at Princeton I am reliably informed by initiated members of the Tierra Del Fuegan chapter of AHEPA, stands for Χέστηκε η Φοράδα στο Αλώνι, which is demotic Greek for when one is up a particular creek, sans paddle. Mysteriously, while we are rightfully enraged when our Slavic cousins appropriate our identity, we seem not to mind when frat prats have the temerity to autoidentify as Greek. This is something, I humbly submit, the international copyright experts employed by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs should look into, and perchance, pursue compensation.

 

I am by persuasion, as anti-Goebbelsian as the next socio-economic entity, but I freely admit I can go the full Savanarola and seek to stoke the pyre of my rage by consigning to it such excremental publications as the prurient Sαlly Griffyη who dares to entitle her “book” on Stone Circles and Sacred Paths: Sαcrεδ joψrηeyξ. Such crimes against alphabets must only be dealt with by condign punishment: the suspension of one’s year four pen license and re-education through labour, self-criticism and failing that, immolation by barbeque.  Similarly, when American property developer Phil South begins to advise you that ΩΗΑΤ ΩΕ ΛΣΑςΣ ΒΣΗΙΝΔ ΦΣ...and the words begin to become as garbled as the time in 1992 when theia Maritsa had a stroke after her daughter brought home a boyfriend who she mistook for an Indian even though he hailed from Rhodes, your rage must be tempered with sympathy, as you recall your Aussie neighbour who goes about his business with the word ΦΡΕΕ emblazoned upon his arm and you recall that in the mid to late nineties when personal computers were still a prestige novelty, countless younger members of Greek-Australian organisations were convinced that if you composed a newsletter in Times New Roman English, highlighted the text and transposed it into Symbol font, the text would magically translate itself into Greek, although you would still have to add the accents in ballpoint pen, Kilometrico for choice. Here then, we transcend the mundane and enter the realms of faith. Just as how Marx never fully explains how the State will wither away, so too are we never to know just how Symbol will convert any alphabet into Greek. You just have to believe.

 

It is for this reason therefore, that try as I might, and egged on by my Neos Kosmos guru, as polymathic as the Patriarch Photius who is his namesake, Fotios Kapetopoulos, I can experience no frenzy and fit into no pique, at the revelation that the divine Queen B’s premier offering to world scholarship “HOMECOMING: A film by Beyoncé (I’ve come to Netflix relatively late in life) is rendered in the promotional material as HΘΜΣCΘΜΙΝG, because I suspect that it either critically treats an imminent delivery of Hommus, or rather, showcases her musical stylings within the context of “black Greek life,” which I understand, refers to African American fraternities and sororities who are federated in an umbrella organisation which has been known as the National Pan-Hellenic Council as far back as 1930, decades before our own Australian Hellenic Council was but a glint in founder Costa Vertzayias’ eye.

 

And it is for this reason that I eagerly await the arrival of the latest version of the filmic medium’s treatment of the Homeric Epic that is being touted as ΤΗΣ ΘΔΨSSΣΨ, which was exactly the same exclamation that I emitted whilst moved to ecstasy the last time I beheld Efi Thodi in concert in Trikala, way back in 2006, when I was still being weaned off the Symbol font. That is to say, I am not so much flattered as confused, for while Odysseus is most definitely described as πολυμήχανος by our Blind Bard, there is nothing in the versions of the text that I have read that refer to Odysseus having ever founded a college fraternity, and I am dying to know more, for I am in the process of preparing my doctored dissertation on Greek-Australian Brotherhoods as frathouses, where according to Grimm’s law in linguistics, the Proto-Indo-European "p" sound evolved into an "f" sound. And after all, we Greeks are not the only victims of Alphabet appropriation. My Russian friends are heartily sick of the letter Я being usurped as either an R or an A, whenever anyone wants to reheat the frozen leftovers of the Cold War. Я is supposed to be pronounced “ya,” which means that yiayia in Russian would be ЯЯ, efficient, cool and eminently inscribable upon a tombstone at a fraction of the cost, to boot. Be thus not dismayed and rejoice,  MY FRIENDS. WE SHALL MAKE GREEK GREAT ΑΓΑΙΝ.

 ΔΕΑΝ ΚΑΛΨΜΝΙΦΨ

Φιrστ ΡθβλισΗεδ ον ΣατθrδαΥ 11 ΜαrcH 2025