The History of Greek Lexicography has many examples of exceptional and quite “crazy” pioneer researchers, amateur lexicographers, linguist authors who travel all the country to collect data for their lexica and dictionaries. Nikos Kazantzakis travelled most areas of Greece to collect “beautiful” words for his works, especially for his epic saga, Odyssey – as a sequel of the Homer’s Odyssey. He describes the following story.
Kazantzakis was taking pictures of rare flowers and trees in the countryside of Crete. On the outskirts of a village he was stunned by a beautiful flower. He asked the children that were playing nearby what the name of the flower was. They did not know the name; however, they informed him that only one, a very old lady of the village, would know the name of the flower. Kazantzakis went to the house of that lady to ask her about that name. Unfortunately, the neighbors informed him that she had just passed away. Kazantzakis became sad and he then said: “Our language lost a glorious member, since a word just died with that lady…”. Continue reading From a Legacy Dictionary to New Lexica: An Alternative Time-Machine to Discover Neologisms