Not your ordinary exhibition, The Migration of Ideas: It’s all Greek to me focuses on ancient Hellenic words and their influence on the English language. The exploration and analysis of sounds and semantics, one man’s vision looks at how Greek words have enriched the English language.
Gerry Patitsas, Vice President of the South Australian Council for the Greek Cultural Month Inc, and as part of Festival Hellenika has curated and coordinated this exhibition. “As part of the migration museum, there is a little area called the forum gallery,” Patitsas told Neos Kosmos. “We approached them with a different idea because migration does not only involve the physical relocation of people and objects.” The migration museum liked the idea of an exhibition that looked at a different form of migration.
“What the exhibition does is talk about where it all began with Ancient Greeks and how ideas were part of the language that was spread throughout the world and in particular the influence that the Greek language had on the English language.” The initial idea was thought of, coordinated, written and curated by Patitsas.
“The exhibition is a series of panels with a lot of written material that analyses these ideas. There are some panels that relate to children, for example there is a panel on dinosaurs explaining where the word comes from and how you make dinosaur names from Greek words. There are various panels on specific words, such as Santa Claus, arcadia.” The exhibition also points out words that resonate the most in Australia to understand how far these words have migrated from the Ancient Greek language such as eureka and Gallipoli.
‘The Migration of Ideas: It’s all Greek to Me’ will be held at Woodville Civic Library, 72 Woodville Road, Woodville. Admission is free.
