Translator's note
In the transliteration of the place names and the Greek and Turkish terms appearing throughout the work it has proved difficult to achieve a satisfactory degree of consistency. To render such time-honoured names as Thessalonica, Olympus and Chalcidice into the modern Greek phonetic spellings seemed pedantic, and names which have survived from classical and post-classical times have been left in their familiar latinized forms.
To help the reader with the often unpredictable stress accent of modern Greek, the remainder of the Greek place names bear an accent on the stressed syllable (e.g. Siátista). This will not apply to names essentially Slav or Turkish. However, absolute consistency is impossible, for many small towns and villages that were originally non-Greek have become entirely Greek in population and in language.
With regard to the Turkish terms and titles, the great majority have been rendered according to modern Turkish orthography (even though many are Arabic in origin). But there are cases where it seemed undesirable to adhere to this rule: for example, where paşa is linked with a proper name it is written in the anglisized form, i.e. Ali Pasha.
In the pronunciation of Turkish words and names it will be helpful to bear in mind that
ş is pronounced as the English 'sh' (as in ship)
c » » » » » 'j' (as in jug)
ç » » » » » 'ch' (as in church)
There is, too, a distinction between i and ı : i is a moderate to long vowel, as in the English pit and machine; ι is something like the sound of the English u in bud.
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