Caprica Greek Dialogue
Battlestar Galactica pulled a lot of verbal influence from the Ancient Greek world and language — Kara Thrace (the wild region north of Greece); Helo Agathon (a form of the word for “good” which was used as a name) and his wife Athena, the goddess; Lee “Apollo” Adama (the god); the Pythia, Apollo’s priestess at Delphi, etc, etc. In Caprica the Greek is even more obvious: The Tauronian language spoken onscreen is “real”, correct, Ancient Greek. I have tried to transcribe the Greek in the pilot episode and will continue to do so as time permits.
Sam Adama to Joseph, on the terrorist attack:
- “The guatrau [a word which does not appear to me to be Greek] has pledged to help us find the νόθος [nothos] who killed Shannon and Tamara.” νόθος means “bastard”.
- αἷμα ἀντὶ αἵματος. ἡ δίκη τῶν Ταυρωνείων. [haima anti haimatos. he dikē tōn Taurōneiōn.]
Blood for blood. The justice of the Tauronians. - μᾶλλον οὖν χρὴ διῶξαι τὴν ἡμῖν δίκην, ὦ ἀδελφὲ μου. [mallon oun khrē diōxai tēn hēmin dikēn, ō adelphe mou.]
The more then must we prosecute our own justice [or “justice for ourselves”], my brother.
Sam Adama to the Defense Minister (during the assassination):
- χαίρε, Ὦ Θεράπων. [khaire, Ō Therapōn.]
Hello, Minister. - The remainder of his speech is unclear. What I can discern runs something like "οὔποτε […] νόσφι[σαι?] ὄπισθε ἀνέρος ὄντινα φίλον ὀνομαστι …" (never turn away from a man who is "friend" by name). But there's a few words missing from that and it's hard to work out what forms he's actually using.
David Reed | 02-08-2010 | permanent link
