Gyros

[Grant Barrett]

On Wednesday, March 22, 2000, Mike Salovesh <salovesh at NIU.EDU> wrote:

>When gyros spread through Greek restaurants, snack bars, and greasy
>spoons, my Chicago Greek friends pronounced the word as Robert Kelly
>reports for New York. Their initial gamma is *voiced*.  (In Greek
>pronunciation, it's a continuant, not the English /g/ stop.)
>
>To my ear, that makes it unlikely that "gyros" can be related to the
>name of hero sandwiches.
>
>Classical scholars, please ignore my bad spelling and accept my wish:
>Kali nichta!


Kalimera! Here in New York as far as I can tell, nobody agrees on the pronunciation
of gyro, including the Greeks. I lived in Astoria, the biggest Greek community in the
world outside of Greece (though some say it's second after Sydney) and I've been to
Greece once. Greek food is, after cornmeal-battered deep-fried catfish, Captain
Crunch and White Castle's, one of my favorite meals. Besides nobody agreeing on what's in
tsatsiki, this is my biggest Greek food-related mystery.

As far as I can tell, most Americans here in New York City say "geer-oh" or
"guy-roh". Some say "jigh-roh." (Please restrain yourself from throwing things at at my
transliterations).

The Greeks, even the ones at Tom's Restuarant (the one made famous in the Suzanne
Vega song and as the exterior shot for the diner on Seinfield) say either the
aforementioned "yeeroh" or what sounds like "kyeeroh." It's a hard, clicky, short G at the
beginning. Very small. Of course, there's no accounting for 1) second generation Greeks
speaking the language differently than first generation Greeks, 2) accomodations to
American pronunciation so they'll be understood.

Which reminds me: after the British presence dropped in Greece in (was it) 1948,
wasn't there some push for language reform in Greece that was wildly debated? What am I
remembering?

--
Grant Barrett
gbarrett at americandialect.org