Yia Yia is the Greek word for grandmother. It is often among the first words a Greek child learns. It means grandmother, but it carries so much more than one meaning, love, warmth, safety, and home. My mother-in-law was my daughter’s Yia Yia grandmother. Her name was Zahari.
Above all she was small, but mighty, and grew up an orphan. As a young married woman, she worked the farm that belonged to her in-laws, right alongside them. Her hands were big, and her feet were too. A size nine shoe. Hard work in the open fields was something she handled without complaint
A Yia Yia of Quiet Courage
During WWII, Zahari and her mother-in-law found a German deserter asleep in their barn. He had fled the army and found a place to hide. He looked thin, worn, starved, and thirsty as well. By all accounts, her mother-in-law sent a couple of farmhands to wake him.
They could not wake him, probably from exhaustion. Instead, the women left him there. They brought food, water, and a blanket to keep him warm. They did this for three days. On the fourth day, he was gone, moved on safely, they hoped.
That story says everything about who Zahari was. She saw someone in need, even someone she had every reason to fear, and she helped him anyway. That kind of quiet courage does not ask for anything in return. I think of that story every time I remember visiting her as an older woman.
A Yia Yia Without Words
Even when she was well into her nineties, she had a fresh, clean, pressed hankie tucked into her dress pocket. It seemed like a small thing, but it told me something too. Her care for details. For instance her care for details. Showing up prepared. Being clean and in order, even in her later years, even when no one asked her to.
When my daughter finally met her grandmother at dinner in Kypseli, no words were needed there was clearly a language barrier between them.
Neither one could say much to the other because of it. Still, my daughter knew, without any doubt, that she was loved. Still, some things do not need many words. A warm hand, a steady smile, and full attention say enough on their own.
In fact grandmothers like her carry more than family stories.
In Greek homes, the Yia Yia often holds the language, the recipes, and the memory of hard times survived. She passes these things down, not always in words, but in the way she lives, and sometimes in the way she loves a child she has just met.
Zahari has passed now, but her hankies remain. One found its way to my daughter, a small, lasting piece of a woman who was small in size but mighty in heart.
Greek Family Words
| English | Greek | Sounds Like |
| Grandmother | Γιαγιά | Ya-Ya |
| Grandfather | Παππούς | Pa-pou |
| Mother | Μητέρα | Mi-TE-ra |
| Father | Πατέρας | Pa-TE-ras |
| Sister | Αδερφή | A-ther-FI |
| Brother | Αδερφός | A-ther-FOS |
| Aunt | Θεία | THE-a |
| Uncle | Θείος | THE-os |
| Cousin | Ξάδερφος | A-ther-fos |
| Baby | Μωρό | Mo-RO |
| Teacher | Δάσκαλος | THA-ska-los |
| Neighbor | Γείτονας | YE-to-nas |
Zahari did not need the world to know her name. She just lived… fully, quietly, and with open hands. That was enough. That was everything.
To learn more about Greek culture and language visit the Greek Language Institute at greek-language.gr
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