hi, and what language?

Textkit Community Open Board
1

This is not ancient, and I’m not sure it’s even Greek … but I haven’t found anyone else to ask. :smiley:

I’m active on findagrave.com and its related forums. Recently another user posted a photo of a grave marker in Syracuse, New York, which looks to my untrained eye like Greek but not quite. Of course, being in the US, it could be a combination, for example Greek inscriptions but a name that’s not entirely Greek.

I’ll post the image if I’m allowed. The wording in the Rules is a bit confusing as to when a new user is allowed to post an image.

As best I can transcribe it – and I’m sure it’s not all correct – it’s

ΜΕΗRΙ ΚRΙΤΙ
KIPKOU
ΘΕΟΣ ΣΥΞΧoΡΗ
ΔΗΜΗΤΙΡΟΣ
ΝΖΙΜΜΗ
1915
ΜΑΙΡΑ ΞΥΟΤΑ
1913 1963

The letter I’ve transcribed as Ξ (xi) is almost certainly something else. On the grave marker, it looks like a stretched-out S leaning to the right. The letter I have as “o” actually looks like a lower case Roman o, underlined, with the underline at the baseline. In both cases, looking at lists of Greek letters, I haven’t found anything showing anything like these as letters or variants. Of course, being unable to read anything in Greek other than by studying each letter and looking it help doesn’t help me.

Then of course there’s the top line, where “R” appears twice. But this is probably the name of the deceased, so perhaps that’s actually in a different alphabet from the rest. For that matter, the name could be entirely in Roman alphabet.

I appreciate any ideas to pass to the person who photographed the marker.

Edward

2

Sure, post the image.

3

Thanks. Here it is linked directly from the original … if that turns out not to work for others, I’ll copy it to my own web site.

Edward

4

It is Greek, partly written in Latin letters. The letters you were wondering and pondering are gamma and omega.

5

Thanks. So the name is ΜΕΗRΙ ΚRΙΤΙ KIPKOU. It would seem that I have to interpret the P in KIPKOU as a rho, just based on searching Ancestry.com – I find no one there named Kipkou, but a few named Kirkou. More named Mehri, but the way the marker is laid out, I’m pretty sure the family name is KIPKOU.

Can you give me any ideas on the inscription? Google Translate is even less help than usual. It wants to tell me that ΘΕΟΣ ΣΥΓΧΩΡΗ is “God of dominion” or “God conducting”. Well, thanks, I already knew the first word. :sunglasses: At least I can make sense of either on a grave marker. As for

ΔΗΜΗΤΙΡΟΣ
ΝΖΙΜΜΗ
1915
ΜΑΙΡΑ ΓΥΟΤΑ
1913 1963

it wants to tell me that ΜΑΙΡΑ ΓΥΟΤΑ means “more girls”. It would make more sense if that were “born” and “died”. :open_mouth: As for ΔΗΜΗΤΙΡΟΣ … well, perhaps that’s actually the person’s name? And ΝΖΙΜΜΗ … don’t usually have three dates on a grave marker, and when we do, the third one is usually a date of marriage, which doesn’t fit here. I haven’t seen a christening date on a marker, but perhaps?

All ideas welcome … thanks again.

Edward

6

Well, you will probably have more luck asking modern Greek speakers. ΘΕΟΣ ΣΥΓΧΩΡΕΙ would be “God forgives.” That Latin letters at the top could refer to Crete (complete guess).

I would guess that the two names above the dates are first and last names. There were two people meant to be interred there, but Demetiros never was, apparently. Notice that they are removable plates.

7

I did read the first word as μέχρι, and Crete is Κρήτη. Κιρκος means very little in Modern Greek; in LS we have it. But this could well be but nonsense. Maybe it is just a name. Genitival ending is of course very common in modern Greek surnames.

ΣΥΓΧΩΡΗ is a little difficult. I suppose it could theoretically be συγχωρῇ, a subjunctive, though this would be no Modern Greek. And Δημήτριος’d be a more common name, but the plaque does say -τιρος.

8

Yes, the first word seems to be a known English transliteration of μέχρι, but Kriti is a known transliteration of Crete.

I guess that Kirkou is the last name of the family.

I imagine that whoever did the gravestone was an American Greek family spelling phonetically. The name at the end is Giota (gr. Γιώτα). This could either be a first, last, middle, or even maiden name.

ΔΗΜΗΤΙΡΟΣ is for someone named Demetrios, which should be a first name.

ΜΑΙΡΑ should be a first name.

I have no clue about ΝΖΙΜΜΗ. It’s hard to see if it’s transcribed correctly. Perhaps a middle name?

Or perhaps those are four first names at the bottom, all belonging to the Kirkou family, but I can’t imagine that the marker is old enough to date to the early 1900s. The last number plate is more likely 1983, not 1963, obscured by a leaf of grass. This makes it far more likely that it is two names rather than four.

9

Well, rather transcription (translitteration is done letter by letter). Κρήτη is of course pronounced [kriti] in Modern Greek. But it’s not clear why that should stand here, so it could be something accidentally similar.

It seems plausible or at the very least possible that Ι and Ρ have changed places in the gravure of ΔΗΜΗΤΙΡΟΣ.

Κύρκου seems to be a much commoner surname. A graving mistake in accordance with the pronunciation? But then again, that’s not really an upsilon at the end. Do we in the end have to read it as Kipkou/Kipku in Latin letters? That’s even more difficult to explain than Kirkou/Kirku.

10

I went back and revised this after the most recent post, so some of the responses are not exactly tied to the quotes.

I did quite a few searches. Surely with all the people talking about languages, there is some place where people are talking about Modern Greek and know English (for the benefit of those of us with inadequate exposure to other languages). I haven’t found it.

ΘΕΟΣ ΣΥΓΧΩΡΕΙ would be “God forgives.”

Makes sense.

I would guess that the two names above the dates are first and last names.

Oh, duh. This makes total sense. Except that probably for the man it’s the first and middle names, and for the woman either the same or first and maiden names.

There were two people meant to be interred there, but Demetiros never was, apparently.

Which is quite common. She died age 50 … no, I was fooled by that blade of grass you mention elsewhere, she was 70. Still, he could easily have outlived her by 20 years or more and could have died far away. Or died with no one around who cared to bother to add the plate for his death. Happens a lot.

Since the photo does not include the surrounding ground, it’s hard to tell how large the grave site is. But from the appearance of the plaque, and the presence of both names there, I’d guess it’s a burial of ashes.

I guess that Kirkou is the last name of the family.

Seems probable. More below.

Ah-ha. And when I do some searching, I find that μέχρι has multiple meanings and perhaps in this context the phrase just means “from Crete” or “native of Crete”?

Κιρκος means very little in Modern Greek … Maybe it > is > just a name.

I think that’s the case, though it seems to be uncommon. The family name has to be somewhere on the marker, and it’s usually the largest lettering. I find one memorial on findagrave.com with the name, one Anastasia Kirkou, buried in St Louis. She was married to one Achilles Kirkou, who appears to be still alive. The inscriptions on their marker indicate they were from mainland Greece, but could yet be related to the people on this marker. Her date of birth is consistent with his being the son of the couple on this marker, though that would mean they (or perhaps even their parents) had moved from Crete to the mainland.

And Δημήτριος’d be a more common name, but the plaque does say -τιρος.

Although the monument makers are careful to get family to verify names, they do make errors. It’s bronze rather than stone; I don’t know whether this makes it any more likely that they erred.

Combined with several things jeidsath posted, it does seem possible there are multiple errors on the marker – unusual but not unheard of. Or partly “American Greek family spelling phonetically” as jeidsath mentions. Repeated use of R for rho (phonetic). Demetiros probably should be Demetrios – searching the web for Demetiros mostly finds obvious typos. Possibly ΝΖΙΜΜΗ should be Tsimis? Google finds none of the former but many of the latter. The last letter of Kirkou might be a phonetic representation of upsilon?

So perhaps the names (transliterated where necessary) are

Demetrios Tsimis Kirkou
Maira Giota Kirkou

Thanks again!

Edward

11

Could be, but if that’s “Crete”, it makes sense. Immigrants to America often have their place of origin on grave markers. See the link to Anastasia Kirkou in my previous post.

It seems plausible or at the very least possible that Ι and Ρ have changed places in the gravure of ΔΗΜΗΤΙΡΟΣ.

Seems very likely to me, based on Google search results.

Κύρκου seems to be a much commoner surname. A graving mistake in accordance with the pronunciation? But then again, that’s not really an upsilon at the end. Do we in the end have to read it as Kipkou/Kipku in Latin letters? That’s even more difficult to explain than Kirkou/Kirku.

I tried searching Find A Grave for several of these variants and did not find any. This does not necessarily mean much, except that I don’t find graves with those variant transliterations in the US or Western Europe. Crete is currently represented on Find A Grave by fewer than a dozen graves other than the German and British war cemeteries. I think the Find A Grave database is fully Unicode, but the user interface (currently being rewritten) still discourages use of non-Latin alphabets. I can’t even do a global search for the possible Greek spellings of the name.

How would you transliterate Κύρκου ?

Edward

12

Maybe the most logical message would be “From Crete, Kirkou etc.” This won’t explain why the graver started writing in Latin letters but soon changed into the Greek ones. A possible explanation might be that he didn’t have a model to write the first words but only knew them aurally. I don’t say this is the best way to explain the transition, but am just wondering.

Μέχρι is a perfectly good Greek word even today. The problem is that it doesn’t mean ‘from’ (that’d be από) but ‘till, until’. (I’d actually also expect an article before “Crete”, but never mind.) I know nothing of the Cretan dialect of Greek; theoretically it could have such a meaning there, but this is a really long shot and not probable at all in my opinion. It is a conundrum.

As to Kipkou/Kirkou, the graver could have written P when he meant to write R (the so-called pectopah effect, i.e. mixing up some letters that look the same in two writing systems). But still: why use two writing systems mixed?

This is an interesting aenigma. We should have commentators who know Modern Greek much better than I if they chance upon this page.

This all reminds me of the film Deer Hunter.

13

I suspect a stonecutter who didn’t know Greek was given a handwritten Greek text to engrave–perhaps written by someone whose Greek was not strong, either, or whose Greek handwriting was idiosyncratic–and didn’t quite get things right.

14

Yep, all that. (Bronze caster rather than stonecutter in this case, but whatever.) Who knows how literate the surviving spouse was, especially before leaving Greece. And so on. I know the monument makers are very careful about getting sign-off, but they can’t improve on whatever info the family provides.

I found a few more clues which are intriguing but not really informative. I found a Demetrio Kirkou as a passenger arriving in New York – but born c1883, arriving 1906. I suppose it’s possible that he was the father of the Demetrios Kirkou on this marker – the mention of Crete on the marker could only indicate a connection, since it doesn’t say “born in Crete”. This would not be surprising at all given how immigrant communities tend to stick together for a couple of generations at least.

I found Anastasia Kirkou (whose grave I linked above) and her husband Achilles arriving in 1956. But other info says he was born in 1928, so it is highly unlikely that he was the son of Demetrios and Maira(?), since her grave marker says she was born in 1913.

Never seen it. Now I need to …

Edward

15

And the final resolution …

This marker was next to a marker for Jimmi Kirk and Mary Wood Kirk. And the cemetery said the plot with the Greek marker is owned by Jimmi Kirk.

So it seems pretty obvious, albeit without strong proof, that the couple immigrated to the US and adopted American names. Kirk is just a phonetic shortening of Kirkou, with probably no other connection, since the English name Kirk comes from a Scandinavian word for “church”. On the Greek stone, the P in MAIPA really is a rho, hence Mary. Plus Giota – Holy Mary. On the web, I find it stated that Jimmi is a frequent translation for Demetrios. Or perhaps the middle name is Tsimis and that became Jimmi. Perhaps her maiden name was a Greek word for “wood”, but there’s no telling since her maiden name is not on the Greek marker.

It’s common to have grave markers with both English and the original language. Buying two plots so as to create separate markers in the two languages is unusual, but apparently that’s what happened.

We still don’t know Jimmi’s final disposition. It’s possible he’s still alive, but highly unlikely. (Fewer than 1% of people live to be 100.) He may be buried elsewhere, or he may be buried there but the marker was never updated.

The manager of the memorial on Find A Grave was delighted to resolve this. Thanks for all the help!

Edward