Bøker av John Antonakos

To conclude my story, I will briefly summarize the phases of my life. The life during my youth was terrible since I was completely orphaned at age twelve and had no one to support me. In our middle-aged years, John and I worked hard to raise and educate our children. But in our old-age life, it has indeed become a pleasure. I get together with my girlfriends two or three times a week for our various activities. Though my life started out badly, I am now very happy because I have good children and beautiful grandchildren. No one ever needs to become lost in this world if he believes in God.

This biography is more about the people who have surrounded me than about myself. With this biography, I intend to show all the following: How my environment affected me as a Greek American; the interplay I had with my parents who had come from Greece; my parents' faith and how it influenced me; the difficulties Greek immigrants had and how they overcame them; the strong belief a Greek immigrant had for education and how it impelled him to drive his children to get a good education; the way immigrants entertained themselves with home celebrations, dances, and picnics; and the relationship Greek Americans had with one another. In summary, the purpose of this biography is to show how Greek culture was established within American culture and was impressed upon me.This book is built around a thread that traces the development of the life of the immigrants in America. Do not look in it for the development of my life, but rather look in it to see the development of the Antonakos family in America. Look at the life of the Antonakoses in Mani, their immigration to America, and their progress in America. Look at their material development and how they used it to obtain higher education for their children. Then note how, through the use of this education, they obtained good positions in the professional world.It is fervently hoped that all immigrants in America from all nations of the world will establish their culture in America as the ones who had come here earlier. The greatness of America will continue to remain as long as this peaceful blending of cultures continues to occur.This biography is written purely chronologically. The persons, places, and events are recorded chronologically in my story as they actually occurred in my life. Accept them as they are recorded, and don't attempt to group different parts of my story together in any unique way.

In the past hundred years, some fifty international languages have been devised. But what was first needed was an international alphabet. Such an alphabet is needed for a number of reasons. First, it is needed for international communication. An international traveler knowing this alphabet would be able to instantly determine his location by reading signs written with the alphabet. Second, it would make language learning easier since language books would be written with this alphabet. And third, it would make reading and spelling easier for everyone. The proposed alphabet must meet the following conditions: (1) it must be phonetic, (2) it must have a reasonable number of symbols, (3) it must have simple symbols, and (4) it must be acceptable to as many of the world's people as possible. The thirty-letter international alphabet presented here meets these criteria.

The Greeks first started to emigrate to America in large numbers after 1900. This book is about those Greeks who emigrated from the district of Mani, Laconia between 1900 and 1930. The Greek American community that evolved here had three parts: a parish of the Orthodox Church, a chapter of the Order of A.H.E.P.A., and numerous regional societies. This book gives a cross section of the lives of these Maniates and their families. They were very industrious and of high moral character. They instilled these virtues into their children, so that today they have become leaders in science, commerce, industry, education and government.

English spelling and pronunciation has many peculiarities. To help one master these peculiarities, this book compiles existing rules and adds other rules so that spelling and pronunciation of English words can be more easily mastered. This book emphasizes the following rules: double consonant use and spelling, final E pronunciation and suffixing, noun plurals, final Y suffixing, and silent letters.

The Byzantine Greeks continued the spectacular ancient Greek civilization for another thousand years. Like their forefathers, they were involved in every art and science. Approximately 250 key personalities contributed greatly to Byzantine culture. This book describes the known work of these medieval personalities.There are various books that give the lives of the more famous of these medieval Greeks. There are a number of biographical dictionaries that give one-line descriptions of more of these medieval personalities. This book, though, is an attempt to describe the major points about all Medieval Greek personalities of which anything is known. It is a handy encyclopedia in which one can quickly find the salient features of any Medieval Greek personality.Each article in this book has the following order: the personality's name is stated, this is followed by his birth and death years or whatever of these can be approximated. The first sentence of the text gives the areas in which the personality was active and his birthplace if known. This is followed by a description of whatever is known about the character and life of the personality. The article concludes with the material or intellectual accomplishments of the personality.