h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I did my first edit of a Wikipedia article in Greek today.

I found that one section of the Wikipedia article in English on the Bouzouki was very badly worded. It looked as if it was machine translated from Greek. It talked about the "hose", the "lid" and the "lustration", all words which are not used in English when talking about this instrument.

Using my knowledge of bouzoukis, I was able to figure out what most of it meant, so I went in and changed the English-language article. But there was one word which stood out: gummalaka. This seemed to be some sort of varnish or glaze on the surface of the bouzouki. But I couldn't find the word anywhere on the web other than in copies of this article.

Eventually I worked out with the aid of Google Translate that the original word in the Greek version was gomamalaka but this spelling also doesn't occur anywhere on the web.

After some more searching I found that the Greek word was a misspelling. It should be gommalaka without the "a" between the two m's. This is known in English as Shellac, which I have heard of.

So I corrected the English version to Shellac and the Greek one to gommalaka.

There are still parts of the English article I don't understand. I don't know what the difference between tonicity and tonality is - I think these words must mean something different in Greek. And I don't know which part of the bouzouki is called the "speaker". But I'm getting there.

I listened to a radio drama of Zorba The Greek this week, and he plays something they called a santuri. I'm not sure I could tell the difference, but it sounded more like a zither than a bouzouki.

Keep at it! Greeks will shout 'eucharisto'.

Years and years ago, in the classroom: I sent Eleutheria down to the school office with an adaptor plug.

I said, in English 'Tell Eleni we need one like this, only to turn a three-prong into a two-prong. Bring me back the right plug, and the proper name for it in Greek, parakalo.' Ten-year-old nodded, ran off.

A few minutes later, she came back with the item in question and a word.

'Tetoia,' she announced proudly. ('Thingamajig.')

The santouri is in fact a zither, but played with hammers rather than plucked. It's also known as a hammer dulcimer.

To be honest, when I saw the title of this thread, I assumed it was Dmitri who had written it.

So that's a hammered dulcimer? We have them as an Appalachian instrument. I bought mine in Bryson City, North Carolina, but don't ask me to play it...

Any ideas on whether that's actually David's harp?

I like to hear Turlough Carolan's tunes played on hammered dulcimers


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68s84b0LoTE

Harps are one of the oldest instruments so it seems likely that David's harp was an actual harp. The early ones had no pillar but otherwise were like a modern one.

http://www.lessingimages.com/viewimage.asp?i=08010137+&cr=27&cl=1

Well done Gnomon, editing the Greek! An excellent tale of sleuthing. I would expect no less of you

Aha, , thanks! I note that the 'kinnor', or Hebrew harp, is mentioned 42 times in the Bible.

And harpies are mentioned in Greek Mythology.

Sorry, I had a sudden compulsion to go from sublime to ridiculous.