Friday, June 24, 2022
Samples of Greek handwritten and typewritten text
Our group recently visited the Vallindras kitron (citron liqueur) distillery in the village of Chalki, on the wonderful island of Naxos. Among the items on display are a group of letters from 1928-1937, some written by hand and others typed. They provide an interesting sample of the variety of Greek handwriting, as well as the more subtle variations in Greek typewriting.
Fascinating! I note that the handwritten letters predate 1936, while the typed letters come after. It's a small sample, but it may spur a hypothesis on the general adoption of typewriters in Greek business correspondence.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I notice, apropos of little, I suppose, is that some of these Greeks are careless about spelling. The addressee's name is the business name and it appears everywhere clearly as Ballendra, but the letters are addressed to Balindra and Beleindra, in addition to the correct spelling. (I'm dropping the terminal 'n,' which is clearly a grammatical suffix.) I'm accustomed to even poor spellers taking the trouble to get the addressee's name right, but cultures differ, so maybe it's not as much of a faux pas as it would be here.
One problem is that there are half a dozen ways to spell the sound we spell "ee" in modern Greek.
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