“We borrow foreign words, but we do not keep them unchanged”

An interesting description about Montrealese Greek. The process of linguistic borrowing and the integration of English words in the Greek morphological system are highlighted. Characteristic examples: brekaro (brake + aro) 'brake', baseris (bus + -eris) 'bus driver'.


AN.: Uh... it’s a strange thing… when I pursued mon Certificat de Terminologie Française, I conducted a survey: “The linguistic dialect of the Greeks of Montreal'. And there, I showed that we, Greeks, yes… we take foreign words into our vocabulary, but we do not keep them as foreign words. We hellenicize them. The word “frenaro", for example, or "brekaro", if one is English-speaking. Or the word "basi" and "baseris". "Baseris" is a word that you will not find anywhere, neither in English nor in Greek dictionaries, but "baseris" will be understood by Greeks here. The word "hodokas" will also be understood. There are many words, it is not just the word "stofa". Did you see my "boi"? What does it mean;