Greek
Characters: Theresa Mitsopoulou and Her
Theories
by Adrian Vrettos
 In the age of the X-files and Star Wars, many
theories abound about who we are and where we come
from. The mysteries of the pyramids and the Mayans
are yet to be unlocked, and paleontologists,
archaeologists and anthropologists alike are
locked in battles trying to uncover the origins of
man and civilized society.
One archaeologist here in Greece has been putting
forward ideas about the origins of Greek language
and society that is as far-reaching as the place
she claims that they came from. Teresa
Mitsopoulou, archaeologist, author and tour guide
has theories that fly in the face of modern
academia with her long-term research in this
field.
"In all the tangle of prehistoric and historic
society, I have discovered strong links between
Ancient China and Ancient Greece," she says. What
makes her concept even more interesting is that
both Chinese and Greek, even though they have
undergone a multitude of changes, are still easily
accessible in their ancient form to scholars and
laypersons alike. However very few scholars and
linguist experts in China and in Greece know about
both, as indeed they are seen as two separate
academic disciplines altogether.
It is a commonly accepted theory that Greeks are
Indo-Europeans, however Mrs. Mitsopoulou stretches
this ideology further by stating that we are in
fact Sino-Europeans. "Similarities abound not only
between the languages, but also in art,
architecture and customs," she notes. The
archaeologist cites as a powerful example the
significance of the snake/dragon in both the Greek
and Chinese culture, adding that "some of the
snake depictions in ancient Greek art are of
species only found in China."
Mrs Mitsopoulou first became interested in Chinese
culture whilst a student in the sixties, but it
was not until the early 1980's that she went on
her first trip to China. There she not only
noticed some resemblances in the language with her
own, but whilst she wondered around, lost in the
Forbidden City she was struck by its similarity to
the Greek pre-classical site of Knossos. This led
her, upon returning to Athens, to start avidly
learning Chinese and begin research on her newborn
hypothesis that there may be links between the two
cultures.
As difficult as her early research was, she had
two advantages, firstly that she spoke six other
languages, and secondly that after year of working
as a tour guide she had an excellent ear for
different dialects and discerning phonetics.
By cataloguing similarities between the two
languages, Mitsoploulou has found several
impressive examples of how Greek sounds like
Chinese and vice versa, to fortify her theory.
Some are: Ego - Wo (meaning I), Kai - he (and),
Dasos - Dashu (forest in Greek, big trees in
Chinese), Ioda - (zh)idao (know), Pino - pin
(drink), Abyssos - Abi (abyss\deep), Yiayia - Yeye
(grandmother - grandfather). These are but a few
of the words that can be found in her book "The
common origin of the Greek and the Chinese
languages" 2000 Basilopoulos press. She goes on to
give examples of other fundamental similarities in
the languages, and draws her conclusions on
these.
Plato's statement that "language teaches history"
has been a great inspiration to Mrs Mitsopoulou,
who learnt that Chinese was originally written
from left to right, but that due to the use of
bamboo shoots as a writing surface it changed to
up-down. She also notes that in the 1977 lexicon
by Rong Geng, "Inscriptions On Bronzes", all of
the Hebrew, Greek and Latin letters and numbers
appear along with all the Chinese characters.
During the excavations at Troy, a linguist
colleague of Schlimann, the archaeologist who
discovered Mycenae, noted that the inscriptions
found on one of the Greek vases by saying that it
read like Chinese (MORE SPECIFICALLY?). However,
amongst the chief problems with discussing the
origin of languages is that so much has changed
over the last couple of millennia, that existing
similarities are at best considered debatable and
at worst laughed at as mere coincidence.
Further comparing the two languages, Mrs
Mitsopoulou states that Greek was originally a
monosyllabic language, as Chinese is, which
acoustically and semantically is very probable.
Since the words seem to be made up of many little
words that create the overall meaning, these
smaller monosyllabic imports have in many cases
vanished over time. Indeed, Ancient Greek was
written without breaks, with no free spaces
between words, thus as the language developed
larger words came into common use.
Beyond her evaluation of the two languages, Mrs.
Mitsopoulou compares numerous aspects of the Greek
and Chinese cultures, such as pottery styles and
their symbolism, dance and architecture to name
but a few topics. She also adds to her
'categories' odd examples from other cultures such
as those in the Americas, the Vikings and Celts,
as well as African and Australian aboriginals.
This element of her broader research aims to lend
weight to her theories that mankind (homo sapiens)
and culture primarily originated in Southeast Asia
and then spread throughout the world. Her theory
is clearly contradictory to the Eve theory, which
states that Homo sapiens originated from Africa.
Yet recent discoveries, like that of two skulls
dated between 250,000 - 320,000 years, which were
unearthed in China, may act to disprove that
wide-held belief, by suggesting that indeed Homo
sapiens (man as today) may well have originated
outside of Africa and in China. However evidence
is still very limited, and there are a great
number of possibilities and alternate
theories.
Unfortunately, the controversial findings of Mrs.
Mitsopoulou have been met with everything from
indifference to disdain by the Greek
archaeological community. Her volumes of research
have also been classified as groundless by the
Chinese academics she has approached with her
theories. However, fuelled by a strong spirit and
fathomless determination, she continues
single-handedly to research and publish her ideas.
There is the spark of the adventurer and
discoverer in Mrs. Mitsopoulou, something
refreshing in the field of archaeology, where new
ways of seeing things are asked for in theory but
in actual practice are felt to rock the balances
of power.
When asked to raise her eyes from the misty,
distant past and look into her future plans, Mrs
Mitsopoulou sighs. "Ahh I have been studying
footage from ceremonies of Zulu tribes," she says
excitedly, like a schoolgirl set on a new
adventure after having discovered new clues, "and
soon I will bring out some amazing material on
this, which strongly connects to much of the work
of the past" she divulges, smiling from ear to
ear.
Certainly her theories may appear tenuous, however
Mrs. Mitsopoulou has made some remarkable
connections, and the mere intensity and magnitude
of her work warrants more consideration and
research by teams of experts, not just a single
lone crusader. This could lead to her connections
being proved or disproved once and for all. Being
right or wrong is not so much what is at issue
here; opening up groundbreaking new paths in
thought and ideology is what it's all
about.
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