(see previous post: “Photo: Jiannena graffitti: “Bako Alani“)
“Niko, I was curious, so I checked my Greek dictionary. Αλανη with an η does mean street dude, etc. as you say. Αλανι with an ι means an open space between occupied buildings. So maybe the graffiti was a sort of verbal squatting, a claim to the space as _un_occupied?”
H., sorry, but something happened to the word gender-wise in Greek slang that your dictionary doesn’t seem aware of; it became neuter to signify the person too. Just google “είσαι πολύ αλάνι” and see what comes up:
“Γιαγιά είσαι πολύ μεγάλο αλάνι τελικά…”
“Μαλακα είσαι πολύ τυχερός που έχεις μια τέτοια γκόμενα, μπράβο ρε αλάνι, ;-)”
“αλάνι” — (neuter noun.) hate to contradict your dictionary again — doesn’t really mean an open space between two buildings, like it were an unbuilt-on lot waiting for a developer. It usually means an unbuilt, by implication, unfenced piece of property, on the edges of a built-up area or on the edge of town, i.e., an area where “αλανιάρικα” kinds of activities take place: semi-legal and unwholesome (or superwholesome and fun).
Μουσική: Γιάννης Σπανός
Στίχοι: Λευτέρης Παπαδόπουλος
Σ’ έστησαν σε μια γωνιά κι ήσουνα νέο παλικάρι
σ’ έστησαν σε μια γωνιά κι ήτανε τέσσερις φαντάροι
σ’ έστησαν σε μια γωνιά και σημαδεύαν την καρδιά σου
σ’ έστησαν σε μια γωνιά κι ήταν πρωί και παγωνιάΣε καρτερούσε η ζωή και μια παραδουλεύτρα μάνα
κι έγινες κείνο το πρωί κόκκινο κρίνο στην αλάναΣ’ έστησαν σε μια γωνιά κι έκλαιγε η μοίρα σου παρέκει
σ’ έστησαν σε μια γωνιά κι είχε κι ο χάροντας τουφέκι
σ’ έστησαν σε μια γωνιά και τους κοιτούσες και γελούσες
σ’ έστησαν σε μια γωνιά κι ήταν πρωί και παγωνιάΣε καρτερούσε η ζωή και μια παραδουλεύτρα μάνα
κι έγινες κείνο το πρωί κόκκινο κρίνο στην αλάνα–“They set you up in a corner and you were a young man*They put you in a corner and there were four soldiersThey put you up against a wall and were all aiming for your heartThey set you up in a corner and it was morning and freezing.–“Life was “karterouse” you (waiting for/craving/expecting more of you)along with a housekeeper mother.But that morning you became a red lily in the alana.–“They set you up in a corner and even your fate had stepped aside cryingThey put you in a corner and even Death had a rifleThey put you up against a wall and you were looking at them and laughingThey set you up in a corner and it was morning and freezing.”–(refrain)
The particular piece of graffiti in the Jiannena photo would have no meaning at all, if you’re dictionary were correct, since it’s on the corner of a completely built up intersection of a Jiannena avenue, with buildings on both sides and on the three other corners of the intersection it’s built on. What then could it mean? An advertisement for an “αλάνι” somewhere else that belongs to some Bakos? Then it would be genitive: “Αλάνι Μπάκου”; or is it vocative? “Yo Bako! I got an alani I’m selling!” (Actually, “Yo Bake…” preferably, as an old girlfriend used to sarcastically address me when she could see me shifting gears into “Alani” mode.)
“MΠAKO”…(yes, vocative)
[είσαι] “ALANI”
“Bakos, you street-dude”
Comment: nikobakos@gmail.com
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* I’m not going to get into the definition of “pallikari” — how much more it means than just “young man” — in this post, not just now. I don’t have the energy to do the word’s beauty justice. The one foreigner who understood the word so perfectly and sweetly that he knew precisely when to — rightfully — stab us in the ribs with it was Tanpınar in his masterpiece “Huzur.”
