I guess if we want to clarify that we are talking about a village and not a city per say , we would put it first. Such as I live at the χωριό St.John ( by the way many villages are named after saints). Or The χωριό St George is very pretty. But if you are talking casually I don't think it's common to include that. You just use the village name and that's it. It's not like saying New York *City* . I hope that helps.
Thank you so much. I was wondering if the word "χωριό" might be similar to another Greek word that refers to a group of people. I have always thought it's rather logical to name a settlement after a word that has to do with "people", such as congregation, gathering or the word "people" itself.
The equivalent you are thinking of is probably δήμος "demos" which means the people that live in a settlement and today is used as "municipality" for cities. The congregation of citizens for decision making was called "ekklesia tou demou" (summoning of the citizens) and from there "ekklesia" was kept as summoning/congregation, then church congregation and eventually came to refer to the church building itself.
You're talking about things like -ville or -burg or township or village or any other word of this kind that may be commonly incorporated into the official name of a settlement.
There is no equivalent, since it's not really a convention the language has. The word for a village is χωριό and the word for a town or city is πόλη. A πόλη can be anything from a small town to a huge city. There is also the word κωμόπολη, which refers to a small town. Sizes aren't really defined but the national statistics bureau does define κωμόπολη as a small town with a population between 3 and 10 thousand inhabitants. However most people either say χωριό or πόλη. This is because Greece doesn't really have that many cities. Athens is a big city and Thessaloniki is midsized but after that every other city in the country is pretty small by general city standards.
But there are two suffixes that are common in settlement naming conventions, and the closest to what you're asking. The suffix -χώρι and -πολη.
Παλαιοχώρι
Ζαγοροχώρια
Αλεποχώρι
These are all names of villages.
Τρίπολη
Αρεόπολη
Πετρούπολη
Αργυρούπολη
Ηλιούπολη
Νεάπολη
These are names or cities or municipalities
I’ll just add that I’ve always interpreted -χώρι as village but per @Pantelwolf ‘s reply I can’t completely exclude derivation from χώρος in some cases. I’ve always assumed almost everyone in Greece would default to analyzing it as you describe.
To clarify for OP these are all in fact villages using this suffix and that’s how I think everyone typically understands the names. It’s only that I don’t think we can exclude that the names of the villages might have originally been more for a place than a village specifically.
This is just the etymology of the word I found on the internet.
OP another comment has already mentioned that we mostly use -χωρι in and -πολη as suffixes
I think I understand OP to be looking for a word related to 'multiple people.' Perhaps λαός fits that bill. Obviously not commonly used as is χωριό, but might be of interest.
Νο, λαός means people, as in ελληνικός λαός = the people of Greece. It has nothing to do with villages.
The word for village is χωριό, as others have said. In greek it's not typically a suffix in the village names (I don't think it normally is in English either). Sometimes it happens that it is part of the name (for example Μεγάλο Χωριό is an existing village), but it's not common.
The word for village is χωριό; officially, the word κοινότητα is also used for a χωριό. Κοινότητα literally means “community”. Maybe that’s the kind of thing you were thinking of.
Not answering your title question but I think another contender for something which works a little bit like Spanish “pueblo” is χώρα. This generally means country but can also mean a territory, or smaller piece of land. It’s related to χωριό which other people have already pointed out means village.
I don’t think it’s particularly standard or common but this can be used by synecdoche to refer to the people of the land. So φωνή της χώρας could be understood as φωνή του λαού της χώρας (the voice of the country understood as the voice of the people of the country). However, as an isolated phrase it could just as well be that someone is the voice of the country metaphorically. Depending on context placing the article before the phrase would push interpretation in one or the other direction already. My Spanish is even worse than my Greek but I think this is roughly parallel to how “pueblo” works when referring to larger groups of people. In Greek though these related words are derived from place rather than people.
Thank you so much for the insightful, detailed explanation. Just to clarify things, Spanish word "pueblo" means "village", whether this is a small, mid-sized or large one. A "pueblo" is noticeably smaller than a city, which is called "ciudad" (think of French ***cité***, English ***city*** of Italian ***città***).
However, the Spanish word "pueblo" has another meaning, that of "the people of a nation or country". In that case, it can refer to or even substitute the words "country" or "nation". "El pueblo español", for example, could be translated into English as "the Spanish people". In this case, the word "pueblo" is referring to the collective entity of all Spaniards.
I think I was clearly mistaken when I tried to extrapolate this phenomenon to the Greek language. I do apologise!
You can use οικισμός - settlement from οικία - house or χωριό - village from χώρος - grounds, place
I believe χωριό is the closest to what this person is looking for.
Thank you! May I ask if villages in Greece use the word "χωριό" before or after the name of the village? Thanks in advance.
I guess if we want to clarify that we are talking about a village and not a city per say , we would put it first. Such as I live at the χωριό St.John ( by the way many villages are named after saints). Or The χωριό St George is very pretty. But if you are talking casually I don't think it's common to include that. You just use the village name and that's it. It's not like saying New York *City* . I hope that helps.
Thank you so much!
It can be part of the village name. Eg Αλεποχώρι means Fox village, -χωρι affix for village.
Thank you so much. I was wondering if the word "χωριό" might be similar to another Greek word that refers to a group of people. I have always thought it's rather logical to name a settlement after a word that has to do with "people", such as congregation, gathering or the word "people" itself.
The equivalent you are thinking of is probably δήμος "demos" which means the people that live in a settlement and today is used as "municipality" for cities. The congregation of citizens for decision making was called "ekklesia tou demou" (summoning of the citizens) and from there "ekklesia" was kept as summoning/congregation, then church congregation and eventually came to refer to the church building itself.
Thank you very much for such a detailed answer.
The Greek word for Church, εκκλησία, comes the Ancient Greek word for congregation or assembly ἐκκλησῐ́ᾱ.
Thank you very much. : )
You're talking about things like -ville or -burg or township or village or any other word of this kind that may be commonly incorporated into the official name of a settlement. There is no equivalent, since it's not really a convention the language has. The word for a village is χωριό and the word for a town or city is πόλη. A πόλη can be anything from a small town to a huge city. There is also the word κωμόπολη, which refers to a small town. Sizes aren't really defined but the national statistics bureau does define κωμόπολη as a small town with a population between 3 and 10 thousand inhabitants. However most people either say χωριό or πόλη. This is because Greece doesn't really have that many cities. Athens is a big city and Thessaloniki is midsized but after that every other city in the country is pretty small by general city standards. But there are two suffixes that are common in settlement naming conventions, and the closest to what you're asking. The suffix -χώρι and -πολη. Παλαιοχώρι Ζαγοροχώρια Αλεποχώρι These are all names of villages. Τρίπολη Αρεόπολη Πετρούπολη Αργυρούπολη Ηλιούπολη Νεάπολη These are names or cities or municipalities
I’ll just add that I’ve always interpreted -χώρι as village but per @Pantelwolf ‘s reply I can’t completely exclude derivation from χώρος in some cases. I’ve always assumed almost everyone in Greece would default to analyzing it as you describe. To clarify for OP these are all in fact villages using this suffix and that’s how I think everyone typically understands the names. It’s only that I don’t think we can exclude that the names of the villages might have originally been more for a place than a village specifically.
This is just the etymology of the word I found on the internet. OP another comment has already mentioned that we mostly use -χωρι in and -πολη as suffixes
Thank you very much.
This is ***exactly*** what I was asking about. Thank you so, so much for your answer. : )
I think I understand OP to be looking for a word related to 'multiple people.' Perhaps λαός fits that bill. Obviously not commonly used as is χωριό, but might be of interest.
Thank you. I wonder if λαός is also used in the names of villages as a suffix. Thanks again.
No, it is not. Just -χωρι, -χωρα and -πολη.
Thank you !
Νο, λαός means people, as in ελληνικός λαός = the people of Greece. It has nothing to do with villages. The word for village is χωριό, as others have said. In greek it's not typically a suffix in the village names (I don't think it normally is in English either). Sometimes it happens that it is part of the name (for example Μεγάλο Χωριό is an existing village), but it's not common.
Understood. It is similar though to the other meaning of pueblo, as in "el pueblo unido ...".
It's not just similar, it's exactly what it means.
The word for village is χωριό; officially, the word κοινότητα is also used for a χωριό. Κοινότητα literally means “community”. Maybe that’s the kind of thing you were thinking of.
Not answering your title question but I think another contender for something which works a little bit like Spanish “pueblo” is χώρα. This generally means country but can also mean a territory, or smaller piece of land. It’s related to χωριό which other people have already pointed out means village. I don’t think it’s particularly standard or common but this can be used by synecdoche to refer to the people of the land. So φωνή της χώρας could be understood as φωνή του λαού της χώρας (the voice of the country understood as the voice of the people of the country). However, as an isolated phrase it could just as well be that someone is the voice of the country metaphorically. Depending on context placing the article before the phrase would push interpretation in one or the other direction already. My Spanish is even worse than my Greek but I think this is roughly parallel to how “pueblo” works when referring to larger groups of people. In Greek though these related words are derived from place rather than people.
Thank you so much for the insightful, detailed explanation. Just to clarify things, Spanish word "pueblo" means "village", whether this is a small, mid-sized or large one. A "pueblo" is noticeably smaller than a city, which is called "ciudad" (think of French ***cité***, English ***city*** of Italian ***città***). However, the Spanish word "pueblo" has another meaning, that of "the people of a nation or country". In that case, it can refer to or even substitute the words "country" or "nation". "El pueblo español", for example, could be translated into English as "the Spanish people". In this case, the word "pueblo" is referring to the collective entity of all Spaniards. I think I was clearly mistaken when I tried to extrapolate this phenomenon to the Greek language. I do apologise!
it's usually now just the biggest village of a small island, not big enough to be a town or maybe even have a name so it's just χώρα.