Episode 279: Carat

Your Greek Word On A Sunday

(Intro & piano music)
There is an ancient fruit that grows in Greece and it's the food that sustained thousands of Greeks, including my grandparents, during the second world war. It's called ΧΑΡΟΥΠΙ (charoupi). In ancient Greek it was called ΚΕΡΑΤΙΟΝ (cerateon) meaning 'little horn' because, it looks like one! The ancient Greeks discovered that the weight of each seed of the fruit never changes so they used it as a measure of weight against precious metals and stones. The Romans used to measure their gold with it as one seed was 1/24th of their gold siliqua coin. They, of course, used the Latin word for it that passed on to the French and came to English in the 15th century but the measure for gold purity remained 24 ΚΑΡΑΤΙ/CARAT

Instagram @yourgreeksunday ,
Blue Sky @yourgreeksunday.bsky.social
email [e-mail]