Rebetiko (, ), plural rebetika ( ), occasionally transliterated as rembetiko or rebetico, is a term used today to designate originally disparate kinds of urban Greek music which have come to be grouped together since the so-called rebetika revival, which started in the 1960s and developed further from the early 1970s onwards. Rebetiko briefly can be described as the urban popular song of the Greeks, especially the poorest, from the late 19th century to the 1950s. In 2017 rebetiko was added in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists. Definition and etymology The word (plural ) is an adjectival form derived from the Greek word (, ). The word is today construed to mean a person who embodies aspects of character, dress, behavior, morals and ethics associated with a particular subculture. The etymology of the word remains the subject of dispute and uncertainty; an early scholar of rebetiko, Elias Petropoulos, and the modern Greek lexicographer Giorgos Babiniotis, both offer various suggested derivations, but leave the question open. The earliest source of the word to date is to be found in a Greek-Latin dictionary published in Leiden, Holland in 1614 where the word is defined as a 'wanderer', 'blind', 'misguided', etc. Musical bases Although nowadays treated as a single genre, rebetiko is, musically speaking, a synthesis of elements of European music, the music of the various areas of the Greek mainland and the Greek islands, Greek Orthodox ecclesiastical chant, often referred to as Byzantine music, and the modal traditions of Ottoman art music and café music. Melody and harmony The melodies of most rebetiko songs are thus often considered to follow one or more (, Greek for 'roads' or 'routes'; singular is (). The names of the are derived in all but a few cases from the names of various Turkish modes, also known as makam. However, the majority of rebetiko songs have been accompanied by instruments capable of playing chords according to the Western harmonic system, and have thereby been harmonized in a manner which corresponds neither with conventional European harmony, nor with Ottoman art music, which is a monophonic form normally not harmonized. Furthermore, rebetika has come to be played on instruments tuned in equal temperament, in direct conflict with the more complex pitch divisions of the system. During the later period of the rebetiko revival there has been a cultural entente between Greek and Turkish musicians, mostly of the