And there is something important I want to tell you.
You wrote : " An obvious difficulty in deriving "rebetis" from "ribaat" would be if we accept the spelling "REMBetis" rather than "REBetis". However it is clear that when Greeks take a foreign word which has a "b" sound, it is rendered as "mb" (everything from "beer" to "bouzouki"). If the derivation is from "ribaat", it would certainly have come into written Greek as "remb…", "ñåìð…".
Well, what you must see is that the Greeks from Asia minor did not have exactly the same accent as the Greeks living in Athens.
You must see how the Greeks from Asia minor spoke
Their way of speaking Greek is closed to the way the "true" inhabitants of Cyprus or of some eastern aegean islands speak : the "b" is not "b" like in Athens. It is "mb", (always in the middle of the words and very often in the beginning)
Very often, the "t" is also doubled and "rebetis" becomes : "rembettis"
Also, I dont think the Greeks don't know turkish or arabic culture. they know it much better than western europeans and Americans do.
As far as irony is concerned in rebetiko songs, a Greek ear can listen to it in many occasions and this has also to be taken into account as far as some explanations are concerned.
Re: Conférence d'Hydra sur le rebetiko
j'ai envoyé cela à M. EMERY
Hi I've read your article : http://www.geocities.com/HydraGathering…
And there is something important I want to tell you.
You wrote : " An obvious difficulty in deriving "rebetis" from "ribaat" would be if we accept the spelling "REMBetis" rather than "REBetis". However it is clear that when Greeks take a foreign word which has a "b" sound, it is rendered as "mb" (everything from "beer" to "bouzouki"). If the derivation is from "ribaat", it would certainly have come into written Greek as "remb…", "ñåìð…".
Well, what you must see is that the Greeks from Asia minor did not have exactly the same accent as the Greeks living in Athens.
You must see how the Greeks from Asia minor spoke
Their way of speaking Greek is closed to the way the "true" inhabitants of Cyprus or of some eastern aegean islands speak : the "b" is not "b" like in Athens. It is "mb", (always in the middle of the words and very often in the beginning)
Very often, the "t" is also doubled and "rebetis" becomes : "rembettis"
Also, I dont think the Greeks don't know turkish or arabic culture. they know it much better than western europeans and Americans do.
As far as irony is concerned in rebetiko songs, a Greek ear can listen to it in many occasions and this has also to be taken into account as far as some explanations are concerned.
Regards