Talk:Greek language/Archive 1

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HELP NEEDED: POLYTONIC GREEK TEXTS

I can read all of the Greek down to the Lord's Prayer, but about half the characters therein don't show up in IE or in Firefox. Is there some way to change it so that I could? It's a safe bet that the majority of the readers of this article won't already have a Greek font installed, so....

This is not just plain Greek; it is polytonic Greek, a now deprecated mode of writing that requires a special font with a superset of the glyphs contained in a normal (monotonic) Greek font. You have a point there; if you still want to read this text try to download and install a font such as Athena or Gentium (look at the external links section).
I'd appreciate your feedback on this; which is your OS version, your browser version, and if you managed to read the text after downloading the font (if you eventually do it). Etz Haim 09:20, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Also, tell me if you can read it from here:

Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου·
ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου· γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς·
τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον·
καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφελήματα ἡμῶν, ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν·
καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν, ἀλλὰ ρῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.
Ὅτι σοῦ ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία καὶ ἡ δύναμις καὶ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας·
ἀμήν.

I'm running WinMe, Firefox 0.9.3, and IE 6.0. I downloaded Athena; Firefox can now read the text on the main (Greek language) page and here, but IE can only read the text on the main page. Vivacissamamente 22:34, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)vivacissamamente
Thanks. Your help will eventually help us standarize the way polytonic Greek texts are integrated into Wikipedia. Etz Haim 14:18, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I also find I can't read all of the characters in the text above, but I can read the text in the main page, using IE. But the encoding seems to be the same in both cases. So why can I read the one but not the other - and why can I read polytonic Greek on some pages but not others?

Let's do a good job with this one--it is #1 on Alta Vista for "Greek language"!

Comment added July 27, 2001

Shouldn't Dorian be changed to Doric? Also, I have read that the Koine was derived mostly from the Attic dialect, a form of Ionian, spoken in Athens.

material moved from the main Greek language page:

What I was thinking is that, for instance, on Oligarchy there could be a little note saying (Gr oligos+archês) or whatever the derivation is.

Greek is written in its own special alphabet. It's a bit cumbersome to type in, though, so we may want to keep transliterating. That's what Perseus does, anyway. Epsilon = e, eta = ê, omicron = o, omega = ô; everything else obvious. That sort of thing might be useful to include anyway, for people who don't read the letters.

Well thanks to technology :-) it is now pretty easy to write in Greek. All you have to do is to add a Greek keyboard in your PC´s local settings (in Windows systems) and then switch to this keyboard. Then any letter you press produces greek letters like that

ΑΒΓΔΕΖΗΘΙΚΛΜΝΞΟΠΡΣΤΥΦΧΨΩ αβγδεζηθικλμνξοπρστυφχψω

so please try not to use this ugly transliterations anymore...

If you want to use the tonos (stress) switch to greek keyboard and press the key next to the Letter L (in US keyboards that would be the ";" key) before the letter you want to get "stressed".

PS In Linux switching to a greek keyboard is even easier...

What do you do about the cicumflex over the "ou" and "ô" in the genitive? Perhaps, the answer is in Perseus. I don't have the time to check right now.

Hmm...doesn't look like they do anything. They have some other methods of transliteration listed, I just looked at the first one, which seemed the simplest. Well, the ancient Greeks didn't use accents anyway...since I don't know the tongue, I have no clue how important they are (you can get by without macrons in Latin most of the time). If they're crucial, then we could either mark them befind the letters (ô^) or give up until we have a real Greek alphabet.

Greek stress indicated a rise in pitch, originally, and later a normal stress (loudness, clarity, etc.). I guess I am so used to seeing it that Greek looks strange without it, but if Perseus can do it, I guess we can.

The major ASCII convention for transliterating Greek with diacritics is [Beta Code|http://www.tlg.uci.edu/BetaCode.html], which is also available at Perseus. I have come up with an alternative which is a variant of Perseus' transliteration (but changes the circumflex to a colon): http://www.tlg.uci.edu/help/AccTranslitTest.html. Some samples in the three schemes:

  • Mênin aeide thea Pêlêïadeô Achilêos
  • Mh=nin a)/eide qea Phlhi+a/dew *)Axilh=ws
  • Mê=nin áeide theà Pe=le=ï´deo= Achilê=os
Beta code is not a transliteration in the ordinary sense. It is an encoding so that ancient Greek texts could be entered on keypunch (!!!) machines (for the TLG) by people who do not read Greek at all (this is actually a good thing in data entry, because it prevents mis-corrections). Beta code even has a special convention for capital letters.... There is really no excuse as far as I can tell for using Beta code in the Wikipedia (or any other person-to-person communication). --Macrakis 23:40, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Modern Greek is transliterated in a variety of ad hoc schemes, motivated either by visual or by phonetic equivalence. According to some prevalent schemes, you would get:

  • Mhnin aeide qea Phlhiadew Axilhws
  • Mnvin aeide cea Pnlniadew Axilnws
  • Minin aeide thea Piliiadeo Ahilios


For pronunciation of the letters see Greek alphabet. Ancient and Modern Greek differ somewhat, especially in that aspirates have become spirants. For example:

Change of Greek pronunciation (Thucydides, First Book, Fifth Chapter)

hOi gar hElE:nEs tO palai kai tO:n barbarO:n hOi tE En tEi E:pErOi parat_halattiOi kai hOsOi nE:su:s Eik_hOn

2. Ct. AD

hu Gar hElE:nEs tO palE kE tO:n varvarOn hy tE En tE: E:pi:rO: paraTalasiy kE hosy nE:su:s ik_hOn

Modern Greek (Phonemic)

i Gar 'Elines to 'pale ke ton var'varon i te en ti i'piro paraTalasii ke 'osi 'nisus 'ixon

Can someone give a definite way to transliterate Greek? My native language is Greek but I still don't know how to write it with latin characters. Not to mention that I dread to think how people will pronounce it!

Should we post more information about the construction of Classical Greek here, or not? I've been toying with the idea of a basic resource of Classical Greek forms, but it would take a lot of time and would require the Greek_language article to become a meta-entry. Would it be worth our while to put the effort in, or would that be more information than is wanted? -asilvahalo

I agree that some comments on transliteration conventions would help. Apparently convnetional ways of transliterating Modern Greek differ from conventional ways of transliterating Classical Greek; for example, the letter "H" is not used in transliterations from Modern Greek except in "ph", "th", "ch", "rh", and the like, and "B" sometimes changes to "V" in transliterating from Modern Greek, but not from Classical Greek. "Hagia Sophia" is Istanbul's most famous building, but "Ayion Oros" appeared in an article on Mount Athos (and I changed it to "Hagion Oros" --- was I right to do so?). Sometimes "f" is the transliteration of "υ" when used in Modern Greek, but never when used in Classical Greek ("Euclid" is "Euclid" and not "Efkildes"). "μπ" at the beginning of a word becomes "b" when transliterated from Modern Greek; I don't think anything like that happens with Classical Greek. The Wikipedia article on Greece refers to "Elliniki Dhimokratia"; if those words had appeared in Classical Greek, I think it would have said "Helleniki Demokratia". -- Mike Hardy

...and maybe some account of the vowel-shift that seems to have occurred in Greek could be added to this page. -- Mike Hardy

Shouldn't some mention be made of Homeric Greek, given the influence that Homer had on later Greek (and other) authors? If I remember correctly, it was an early Ionic dialect and is the earliest version of Greek for which there are any surviving extended writings. I'd need to check that up before adding to the article though. Magnus 15:14 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

I think if anyone's going to do any serious detail on grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary, we need two more articles, Ancient Greek and Modern Greek. It would be far too confusing for a lay reader to have them combined, with the difficulties of sound change and transcription. Now Ancient Greek will be predominantly about Classical Greek, but can mention New Testament, Homeric, and even Mycenaean, because they're normally studied with it. Luckily the main phonetic transition from Ancient to Modern took place after the bulk of the literary period was over. The present article on 'Greek' can be used as it is now, as a more general survey of all periods. Gritchka 12:23 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

So I agreed with myself and did that. Thought I'd start the basics of an article on Ancient Greek then move on to Modern Greek. But when I came back to add more, a day or two later, no trace of it. No record in any logs I could see, no trace of it in my own user history. After a while I accepted it must have been very late at night, I'd had a skinful, and/or my connexion had timed out at the crucial moment. Now I notice a paragraph of my Ancient Greek has been moved in here. Well, this is all very sweet if all we're writing is brief, one-page summaries with no interest in making them valuable -- if Wikipedia is just a pastime like crosswords or sonnets -- but it rather defeats the purpose of constructing a serious encyclopaedia. Let me reiterate what I said above. We can't begin to adequately discuss anything about Greek if we keep it all in the one article. There are two separate languages with separate phonology, phonetics, syntax, and literature. At the moment there is virtually no serious discussion of language or linguistics on Wikipedia: it's of no use to anyone who actually wanted to find something out. Gritchka 14:39 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Should we post more information about the construction of Classical Greek here, or not? I've been toying with the idea of a basic resource of Classical Greek forms, but it would take a lot of time and would require the Greek_language article to become a meta-entry. Would it be worth our while to put the effort in, or would that be more information than is wanted?

I would love to do this (something like we already have for Latin). My main concern is that the current entry makes it easy to confuse ancient and modern greek; it's not often clear which they're talking about or whether it's both. So we could leave most of the information in the current Greek Language entry, then have a link pointing to an article on Classical Greek, and maybe someone would do one for Modern Greek. I for one would be willing to work on a page specific to Classical Greek with all then pedantic grammatical info people might want. 

                                                   Athens, 15/oct/2003

People! It is my humble opinion being Greek and having done a little homework on the subject that the first thing that should be clarified is that there is NO such thing as an hindoeuropaic language-tribe-people or anything! This is for the simple fact that there is absolutely no historical or "hard" evidence to support such a theory. The greek language began it's course in history in the Aegean basin from inhabitants. The presence and evolution of humans in the Mediterranean and specificly in the areas today under the Greek state has been historically proved. Civilisation as we know it today-villages, agriculture etc-has been traced back 10.000 years to the people known as Pelasgi who began at that point speaking the language that evolved to the Greek we know today. At that point in time most of Europe was only recovering from the last ice age leading to the conclusion that good weather condition among others played a significant role in the evolution of civilisation in the Mediterranean.

The whole indo-europaic theory began at the end of the 19th century when scientists-in Germany-discovered the similarities between many languages in Europe and elsewhere. The reason being national policies at unstable times of ethnicism and fashism no one was willing to admitt that the roots might actually be the Greek language. Working in that direction they formed the theyory on non existing grounds and searched for archaiologic evidence afterwards. Of course no such evidence suggesting the transfer of civilisation from the Asian plains to the Meditteranean basin has been found. On the contrary following Alexander the Greats conquering trip in the depths of Asia up to India Greek elements can still be traced with various Alexandroupolis (city of Alexander with polis-city)existing etc.

In any case there is much evidence supporting if not proving that the Greek language was born and evolved to its present state from people who always lived around the Aegean sea, and clearly much more that can be posted here. If anyone is further interested on the matter or has his opinion to oppose it would be my sincere pleasure to start some kind of conversation and further enrich this online encyclopedia. Gerasimos

Your views are not supported by the scholarly community and have no place in Wikipedia, which is grounded in legitimate science. (p.s. Even the ancient Greeks suspected their ancestors had come from outside the Aegean). Kricxjo 10:14, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Filtate Gerasime,

You wrote:

"...In any case there is much evidence supporting if not proving that the Greek language was born and evolved to its present state from people who always lived around the Aegean sea, and clearly much more that can be posted here. If anyone is further interested on the matter or has his opinion to oppose it would be my sincere pleasure to start some kind of conversation and further enrich this online encyclopedia. Gerasimos"

Please show us some of this evidence you speak of, as the weight of linguistic evidence and scholarly consensus are indeed against the theory you espouse. I think you are making two mistakes here. One is to think that according to the generally accepted model, no pre-Indo-European elements remained in what became the Greek language. There is a significant non-Indo-European substrate in Greek, including such common Greek words like thalassa, doulos, and basileus which are productive to this day (with basileus slightly modified). Still, it is hard to deny cognates like fero -- having the exact same meaning as Latin fero -- or its ancient Macedonian counterpart "bero"(inferred from names like Berenikes), clearly related to the Germanic forms including English "bear" (to carry). So many of these cognates have been found as to preclude coincidence. It is very hard to present Greek as not a member of the Indo-European family when so much of its basic vocabulary is Indo-European. What makes it "Greek" and not something else is it's unique pre-Indo-European ("Pelasgian") lexical substrate and the unique phonological and grammatical rules formulated by the speakers of Proto-Greek and continually modified by their descendants. You and your fellow Hellenes are part of a process in Greek that began thousands of years ago whereby the language slowly changes due to the concscious and unconcsious behaviors of its speakers, as do all human languages. Whenever you choose to say "to diabaterio" instead of "to pasaporti" or without thinking about it say "to mpatera" for "ton patera" you are having a small effect on the direction Greek will take in the future. There is no need to believe that your language sprang from the brow of Zeus or that it has something to do with the same old shards of pottery being found at the same archaeological site for millenia to realize that your language is something of which to be proud and that it is possibly *the* most influential in terms of the literature and philosophy produced by Greek-speakers in Classical times.

Your second error is in thinking that only archaeological evidence can elucidate folk migrations and language spread. In Peru they speak Spanish, which was effected in a very short period by a relatively small number of people. Yet long after the conquest, even Spanish administrative buildings were built in the native masonry style that much resembles the Greek "cyclopean." There is little archaeological evidence that Pizzaro exacerbated the Inca civil war that was already taking place, leading to the assasination of King Huascar and was thus able to conquer the country for Spain with an astonishingly small number of troops -- but we know it happened.

Somebody must have introduced all these Indo-European words into Greece, even if they were a minority. And in fact this happens all the time. A small number of Norman French profoundly influenced English grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. Yet, but for a relatively few Norman castles and churches, the building styles and farming techniques of the average English peasant changed very little during the period that their language did.

Anyway, we know that the archaeology of the Greek world did change, including the introduction of new burial techniques, horses and new building styles such as apsidal houses all emerge about at about the same time the intrusion of Indo-European speakers is postulated to have taken place.

Are you an archaeology student? Archaeologists seem to be fond of explaining everything in terms of local archaeological developments, including some who think that humans evolved in different regions of the world. It's all rather silly to me, but I suspect such views will not be going away anytime soon.


Tsakonian

How about including a brief mention of Tsakonian, the moribund modern descendant of the Doric dialect? I'll do a brief write-up that can be linked to the Modern Greek page when it is finished.

Maybe this article should include the total number of people who speak modern greek, and the total who speek it as a first language.

Modern Greek masculine gentive article is wrong

The modern Greek genitive s. masculine article is wrong. It isn't "tu" but rather "tou".

So, either you are using some odd transcription system (which would well stand to be explained), or this is just a mistake?

PS: I came here to see if you document the rules for when the accent descends to penult and when to ultimate, in the genitive s. of neuters ending in iota. But, I don't see any such detail (and anyway, the fact that the genitive masc. s. article is wrong, doesn't inspire any confidence in anything more detailed).

Michael Ventris and Linear B - 1952

Michael Ventris, the architect and amateur classicist, deciphered Linear B in 1952 not 1953. He published his findings in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, together with John Chadwick of Cambridge University, in 1953.

"Debatable" interintelligibility?

Some scholars have overly stressed similarity to millennia-old Greek languages. Its interintelligibility with ancient Greek is a matter of debate.

I think that if its interintelligibility with ancient Greek is a matter of debate, then no one could have overstressed it. Michael Hardy 16:36, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Why specify a font?

Etz Haim wants that all Greek text be displayed with Arial Unicode MS. This in a wrong approach. Wikipedia is not concerned with fonts, only with content. Try to use a good browser (e.g. Mozilla Firefox) instead.

Or, if you prefer MSIE, switch to Standard Classic skin in Wikipedia preferences, and then set standard font to Arial Unicode MS in MSIE preferences.

Again, don't try to impose you favorite font on everybody! — Monedula 10:22, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Monedula, please be reasonable. It's a known fact that Arial Unicode MS is really the only font on PC's that most people have and that allows to see all kind of rare Unicode symbols. Both my Paneuropean Win98 at home and Windows 2000 just display empty little rectangles instead of accented Greek characters if you use a default font, and if you use Arial Unicode MS I can see them properly. And I know that there are many people like me out there, who have exactly the same combination (W98+IE6 or W2K+IE6) and have exactly the same problem with proper Unicode support. --rydel 13:01, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
This is really a practical matter, not an aesthetic one, such as that I'm trying to "impose" my "favorite" font. Displaying Polytonic Greek script on the web is a rather complicated technical matter: The Unicode standard theoretically addresses this, but most practical implementations (typefaces and renderers) are problematic. I agree with you that the HTML "font" tag is an ugly hack, but this will be eventually resolved with Cascading Style Sheets and the help of Wikipedia developers. FYI, I use Linux and Firefox. Etz Haim 21:09, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It's a known fact that Arial Unicode MS is really the only font on PC's that most people have and that allows to see all kind of rare Unicode symbols. — Wrong! What about Tahoma and Palatino Linotype? If you browser is not set up to display polytonic Greek, then most probably you are not interested in it at all.
Displaying Polytonic Greek script on the web is a rather complicated technical matter   Nothing complicated here! Just put the correct characters on the page, and let the browser to deal with displaying it. Firefox displays polytonic Greek perfecty under Windows and Linux. And MSIE requires only changing the default font to Arial Unicode MS or Tahoma (with Standard Classic skin on Wikipedia). — Monedula 07:56, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Can you please explain what "If you browser is not set up to display polytonic Greek, then most probably you are not interested in it at all." means? How is a browser set up to display polytonic Greek specifically? This has given me some trouble and I'd really love some feedback from a technical user. Also, are you sure you understand in what way Polytonic Greek script differs from the standard monotonic (which is supported by the vast majority of typefaces)? Etz Haim 10:34, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Every browser has something like "Options" or "Preferences" in the menu. There you can select "Fonts" and then instruct you browser to use a specific typeface for a given script. In MSIE, the setup is somewhat tricky, because you must change settings for the "Western" script, even though there is a "Greek" section. Also, MSIE always uses Arial for "sans-serif", which gives problems for the current Monobook skin in Wikipedia. Mozilla is better in this respect, because it can detect which characters are missing from the current font and then find a suitable substitute font — so usually Mozilla requires no additional setup, provided you have the good fonts. — Monedula 11:00, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I thought you'd say so. The "Greek" section on the browser font preferences, or even the ISO-8859-7 and windows-1253 standards cover only the regular Monotonic Greek script. If we just had monotonic, we wouldn't have to specify a font in the first place. Polytonic is a superset of Monotonic and that's the really diffucult stuff.
Also, although I'm a Mozilla advocate myself, I strongly object to mandating the choice of the browser to the non-technical end user, or even excluding people from knowledge because the use something such as MSIE. I'm waiting to hear what others have to say on this. Etz Haim 11:49, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It does not matter what is written in that MSIE dialog box; just change font for Western script to Tahoma or to Arial Unicode MS, and it will work OK. (Remember to use the Classic skin on Wikipedia then.)
And I am in no way mandating the choice of browser.  Still it is the reader's responsibility to make sure that his/her browser is able to display the characters he/she needs.  The correct display of characters is a browser-side problem, not a server-side one (unless the server expressly prescribes an unsuitable font).  And in the future, the Unicode support in browsers will be much better than now.  So why add elements that will have to be removed anyway? — Monedula 13:02, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
That's why we'll use CSS to separate content from design. Etz Haim 13:22, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Is this discussion dead? The font tags are still in the article, which makes the wikitext bloated and ugly. Are we really stuck with manually setting the font? grendel|khan 01:37, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)

Yes, we're stuck with it. Unfortunately. Etz Haim 03:28, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Surely Wikipeida is intended as an encyclopedic resource for anyone (not just wipediholics) to browse and obtian information from: to expect the ordinary user to adopt particular browser settings just to view this encylopedia would be like expecting them to wear special spectacles when reading a printed encyclopedia. Having pages displayed with a mass of rectangles where characters should be gives a very poor impression to the general reader. rossb 07:19, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
What about the method used for articles like devanagari, Standard Mandarin or Swiss German language, all of which use nonstandard symbols in the "right" (that is, no FONT tags) way? There's a big blue notice explaining that wacky characters are going to be displayed, and that if they don't work, go here to see how to make it work. At the very least, the font nonsense should be put into a template, which has already been done: {{IPA|ɪg'zɑːmpəl}} displays ɪg'zɑːmpəl. At least this moves the font specification to single template instead of having it smeared across the article proper. I still don't like it---I'm a bit of a stickler for doing things The Right Way and not kludging them. But, I think this is the best compromise we're going to get for now. (It also provides for non-Arial Unicode MS fonts, which the current system doesn't.) As such, I'vechanged the FONT tags over to the IPA template. (I still say that if someone's going to come her looking for polytonic Greek, they're going to want to have their system configured for the display of polytonic greek, and that this is all a bad, bad kludge.) I've filed a bug report about this here.
One note: if I change the FONT tag in the language-box template to the IPA template form, it mungs up the language box. Any idea how to work around that? Is this a MediaWiki bug? I'm confused. grendel|khan 22:37, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)
Yes, this is a good idea; polytonic rendering through a template is a less ugly hack. However, I disagree with using the {{IPA}} template for polytonic Greek texts; I've made a {{polytonic}} template instead. This is a form of primitive semantic markup that will help us weed out the polytonic tags when technology standards are updated to solve this once and for all. The template in action: {{lang|grc|Πιστεύω εἰς ἕνα Θεόν}} renders Πιστεύω εἰς ἕνα Θεόν. Etz Haim 00:06, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Why are the IPA examples showing up as squares now? Why were the FONT tags removed? Out of laziness, you couldn’t be bothered to add them at every example? The page looks extremely ugly now and very hard to read. I insist that all examples which include odd symbols be in the ARIAL UNICODE MS font. Wikipedia is about pleasing the reader, not the author, as all encyclopaedias should. How is the article supposed to be read if half the examples don't show up? REX 13:05, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

disagree

I think Xenophon Zolotas example is relevant and interesting. I think you shouldbn't have removed that. --rydel 00:48, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree with rydel. I also believe that Hao2lian should have posted a notice here before removing the section on the speech. REX 10:25, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Dhimotike Vs Katharevousa

hey guys, i wanna add a couple of sentences in the language dispute section: i wanna say that yes, it was the greek goverment's fault for bringing upon the greek people a literary dispute that lasted almost 100 years, and fuxored up a lot of things in the process... but it was also, in smaller extend, the fault of western intelectuals, such as Lord Byron, that attributed the characteristics of the ancient greeks to the greeks of 1821, who, racially, were a lot more diversified than anciet greeks... I'm taking suggestions how to write that (I can hear the Golden Dawn people cursing me already

Might i suggest the book "Apology of an Anti-Greek" by Nikos Dimos. good read. finished it last sunday


Project2501a 20:58, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)


May I suggest that the whole section on the Dhimotikí and the Katharévusa be moved to a separate article (for example the Modern Greek article) where we could add even more facts to it (i.e. Project2501a's changes). There where it is now it does not do anyone much good, as it is in too much detail and I believe that it may be a little irrelevant to the subject of the article (Εκτός Θέματος). The purpose of the article is to describe the language as it is today, therefore if that section must be kept it should be moved in less detail (for example that bit about the noted representatives should be removed) to the History section and not kept at the header. Please tell me what you think and MERRY CHRISTMAS (ΚΑΛΑ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥΓΕΝΝΑ)! REX 13:55, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
yeah, moving it into the Modern Greek article sounds like a good idea. But i think there should be a line or two about the dispute in the history section of the Greek language article, because it may help people understand why there are still University professors that teach in Pantio University of athens and STILL write in Katharevousa... OK, οκ, i'm not gonna get pissed today about the current state of afairs in greece :)

ok, my wishes, now: Χρόνια πολλά, παίδες. και του χρόνου, με περισσότερα λεφτά στις τσέπες μας, με λιγότερο ποσοστό του ΑΕΠ στους εξοπλισμούς, περισσότερο στην παιδία, να πέσει το μονοπόλιο του ΟΤΕ, να δούμε και εμείς 4Μμπιτ στο σπίτι μας με 100 ευρά, να απαγκυστρωθεί το ίντερνετ απο την σταθερή τηλεφωνία, να βάλουνε κανα διαπλεκόμενο μέσα, να πέσει κανα ψιλό στην αγορά, να καταργηθεί το ΔΙΚΑΤΣΑ και γενικώς η ελληνική γραφειοκρατία... (χεχεχε, όλα για υλικά αγαθά ;)

Όσο για τα φαντάρια, ΠΟΣΟ ΑΚΟΜΑ ΜΑΓΚΕΣ; ΠΟΣΟ ΑΚΟΜΑ ΜΩΡΕ; άντε καλή σκοπία, και να είσαστε ζεστά, μην φοβάστε, θα σταματήσει αυτό το βάσανο σε 5 χρόνια, το δουλεύουμε, υπομονή... (Θητεία του παραλόγου ΤΕΛΟΣ ρε!) Έχω κάνει Πρωτοχρονιά μέσα παίδες, μαμήστε τα...

Project2501a 23:23, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have just made these changes. I have not yet made any changes to the Modern Greek page, but they will follow in due course. REX 21:49, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)


REX, the history paragraph in article should mention that the whole turn to the katharevousa dialect was politically motivated and not something spontenious, as if the Byzantine culture had been kept intact after 400 years of occupation, and one fine morning Kolokotronis came around and thought'd be nice to display these family hairlooms once more... know what i'm saying? :)

Greeklish:(Den mporw na parw ta podia mou shmea... ti kwdikas kai maura aloga... pw pw, 8a balw adeia kai gia aurio...) Project2501a 10:19, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Modern language

I'd like to propose the merge of Modern Greek into Greek language. Modern Greek, as is right now, has no merit. Comments?

Project2501a 16:47, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the current Modern Greek has not much merit. But the main Greek language article already comes up with a warning when you edit it that it's too long. Surely a better solution is to move most of the stuff specifically related to Modern Greek into Modern Greek and perhaps similar for Ancient Greek. And reduce the size of the main article. rossb 11:44, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Consonant & Vowel Tables

May I suggest that the vowel and consonant tables for Ancient Greek be removed. It has not been proved that Ancient Greek was pronounced that way and anyway, in modern times, Ancient Greek is not spoken, but written. REX 13:05, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think it's extremely useful in an encyclopedic treatment of a language with a long history such as Greek to show the comparison between ancient and modern phonology. And while nothing can be proved about pronunciation in earlier times, classical Greek is one of the best documented of languages, and there can't be much doubt about the main features of its pronunciation. It might perhaps be helpful to put in a brief statement about the evidence, and the precise dialect and period it's intended to represent. rossb 14:38, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'm now reinstating the Ancient Greek consonant and vowel tables, with some corrections and a little more explanation.

Very well, however I think that there may be some omissions. Specifically, you don't mention which dialect uses those sounds, Attic, Doric, Ionian etc. Also, the glottal stop isn't included (the pronunciation of the PSILI).REX 11:55, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The text under the "Sounds" heading is intended to clarify the dialect as being Attic. Yo may be right on the glottal stop. although I don't recall having seen this mentioned in the literature - the psili is generally decribed as just indicating the absence of an H sound. Do you have a reference for this? rossb 12:11, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure about the glottal stop. Something is mentioned about it at Psili. Also how do we not know that there were no palatal consonants in Attic Greek as in Modern Greek? REX 11:04, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've checked this out in Allen (Reference in the article). On the smooth breathing he says that the terminology of πνευμα ψιλον "does not justify the assumption sometimes made that the 'smooth breathing' was something more than the absence of the 'rough' breathing, more specifically a glottal stop ... Indeed such an assumption is almost certainly ruled out by the fact that unaspirated initial vowels in Greek permit elision and crasis, which would be highly improbable if they were preceded by a stop articulation." On palatalisation he says "There is no evidence in ancient times for the 'palatalised' pronunication of k ... before front vowels which is normal in modern Greek."

Fonts again

The latest edit by Delirium has removed the font markup, making much of the article unreadable on many browsers. I agree that mandating specfic fonts is a bad idea, but there is now a pretty good alternative which is to use the polytonic template for Greek passages using polytonic characters and the IPA font for IPA characters. I think this was done on this article some time ago, but someone for some reason changed it back to fonts.

I propose to reinstate the templates when I have time, unless someone else wouid like to do so in the mean time. rossb

I've now started doing this, but the rest of the article will have to wait till I have more time. rossb 11:04, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is an issue to bring up with the MediaWiki developers: Fonts should be specified at the skin level, not in individual articles. I've had no problems with either polytonic Greek or IPA using the default font, in Firefox 1.0 on Debian (Linux), and in fact it was almost unreadable with the font tags here (very small font and completely different looking than the rest of the text). Those for whom MediaWiki's default font doesn't work might want to bring up the issue on Wikipedia:Village Pump. It seems likely to be a bug in IE not properly loading the right fonts for the relevant Unicode code points? --Delirium 09:07, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

I would just like to say that most readers will want to be able to see all the characters. Therefore we are obliged to set the page up in such a way that all characters can be read. Any way will do! REX 12:19, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

i've now completed (I hope) reinstating the IPA and polytonic templates. rossb 21:39, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Looks fine to me now. The version with the templates looks identical on my machine to the version without them, so I don't really care either way. =] --Delirium 03:55, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid the IPA templates don't work. Which Browser do you use? I use IE and I can still see a mass of squares as opposed to when the FONT tags were used. Couldn't a template be made which displays IPA symbols in a different font? REX 11:45, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I use IE (Version 6.0) and the text with the template looks fine for me. As I understand it, the template is actually calling up a selection of fonts, one of which is the Arial Unicode MS, so it should logically work for anyone who could read it with the FONT explicitly specified, while not limiting this to Microsoft fonts only. Is there perhaps something unusual about your IE settings? Mine are straight out of the box.rossb 12:00, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Splitting this article

A while back I suggested splitting this article to move the Modern Greek stuff into a separate Modern Greek article (there is one, but it's currently not in a good state).

Having thought about it a bit more, I now wonder whether it wouldn't be better to move the detailed history to a new article History of the Greek Language. This would incidentally give a structure more like that used for English language. I'd be prepared to do the work if people generally think it's a good idea. rossb 21:52, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That sounds pretty good. It should be possible to fairly cleanly separate the parts talking about the language from a linguistic perspective (phonology, orthography, grammar, etc.), and those talking about it from a historical perspective (origins, geographic range, movement, political implications, major dialects, etc.). There's a little overlap, as the e.g. Dhimotiki/Katharevousa issue has linguistic aspects, but I think for the msot part they can be separated, and it'd make it easier for people to find the information they want (I'd imagine most people looking for a historical overview don't actually want to learn how to speak or read/write it). -Delirium 03:58, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

I've now made the split. The main History part of this article is now the new article History of the Greek language. I've renamed the opening part of this article "History", with a cross-reference to the new article. This is fairly crude at present, and probably both articles could do with tidying up. rossb 07:19, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Repetition

This text is fairly good but it needs a repetition clean up meaning that statistics and comments on the two kinds of greek should be put together so the readers don't reread stuff they already did. 132.204.227.175 17:12, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the duplication (I hope!) It seems to be a feature of Wikipedia at times that stuff gets inadvertantly duplicated. rossb 23:27, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A million words?

An anonymous user has amended the number of words in Greek to more than a million. What is the source for this? Such a number would be considerably more than the current estimates of the number of words in English, and it seems unlikely that Modertn Greek, being much less widely distributed than English, could have surpassed English in this respect. Perhaps the number is intended to include Ancient Greek as well, but this raises the question as to how many Ancient Greek words can realistically be included in a count for Greek today. Even so, it seems unlikely that Ancient Greek could put the number up tha t significantly. Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon (the most substantial English-language dictionary for Ancient Greek) has only about 40,000 headings (although admittedly there may be several words per heading). To conclude, I think the figure of a million can hardly be correct, and should be replaced by a phrase such as "[such and such an authority] claims that there are more than a million words in Modern Greek" (with perhaps some discussion as to what it meant by a word). If no-one can come up with the authority in question I would propose to revert to the previous figure of 600,000, although even this seems suspiciously high. rossb 07:27, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

ross, i agree. bet ya that the anon user is greek ^^ . i wonder where can i find a reference. hmmm. I don' know if you are familiar with the Mpampiniotis lexicon. it's supposed to be THE authorative greek lexicon. it was put together by Professor Mpampiniotis, i think he's the chair of the philosophy department in the university of athens... let me look it up and i'll hola. Project2501a 09:43, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"and, probably, the richest surviving languages today, with more than 600,000 words. " Is this NPOV? Also, it doesn't really make sense when taking a closer glance... Maybe this should be removed or edited away...

Comparing languages by counting words like that is unlinguistic and silly. Languages vary so much that what 'word' means will vary too. This figure should be outright removed. Morwen - Talk 13:57, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There isn't a very good word count in any case, because what a "word in modern Greek" is is highly subjective. In many cases, ancient Greek words are still technically considered correct modern Greek words (sometimes with appropriate modification of the endings), but they might be seen only infrequently, or when the writer is being purposely archaic (perhaps similar to using Shakespearian words in modern English writing). Less of a stretch, most Katharevousa words are considered part of modern Greek, because the abandonment of Katharevousa was recently enough that most people are still familiar with the words, and many still see some use. In addition, for many loanwords (e.g. from French, Turkish, or English) there are also Greek-origin equivalents, which raises the total word count still further. Oh, and there are some words borrowed from other Greek dialects, like Pontiaka, which are occasionally used. --Delirium 03:49, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that adding all the loanwords, which are now considered part of Greek language, as well as all the terms used in modern Greek, a million words is not too much. It must be clarified that the language spoken and written by modern Greeks is not only the demotic language. The katharevousa might have been abandoned but it was a bright example of Greek language which "left" a lot words to the demotic even though it had never been spoken by the people. Therefore, the modern Greek language consists of uncountable ancient Greek terms, lots of loanwords (mainly Turkish, English etc), words from the different Greek dialects. The Pontian, Cretan, Cypriot and other dialects, now merged with modern Greek, add a tremendous amount of words. The existing lexicography does not include all the terms used more or less commonly by Greeks. As to the comparison with the English language, it is not strange if the Greek language has more words as it is an older language changed through the centuries and enriched by time and use. I'll search for more exact information! Petros The Hellene 15:42, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Arabic alphabet?

I have read somewhere that under Ottoman Empire, Greek-speeking Muslims used to write Greek with Arabic letters. Conversely, Turkish-speaking Christians used to write Turkish with Greek letters. Has anybody more info about this? — Monedula 07:16, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)


The Coptic Language was an Egyptian language written with Greek characters.

Strictly the Coptic language was/is written in the Coptic alphabet which is based on Greek but with some additional characters. rossb 17:34, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Fix the IPA template!

Anyone who's interested in permanently fixing the stylesheet to display international characters, see Bugzilla:1281. It's been updated. grendel|khan 21:36, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)


Lord's Prayer transliteration

see also Lord's Prayer and its talk page

The previous transliteration attempted to capture the polytonic accents, which I admire, but its use of the roman circumflex for both long vowels (to distinguish ε/η and ο/ω] and for the Greek circumflex/περισπωμένη was confusing, and the use of apostrophes to indicate smooth breathing/ψιλή even more so (since the characters in question appeared as 'straight quotes' rather than ‘smart quotes’ on my display). Since i'm not aware of an elegant way to "stack" diacritical marks, I decided that a standardized letter/letter correspondence was more important than preserving the pitch accents. Comments? -leigh (φθόγγος) 06:30, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

For some reason, the actual text of the Lord's Prayer no longer displays correctly in MSIE, despite the continued use of the polytonic template. I think you must have done something to upset it!
As far as your general question is concerned, I think I agree with your approach: I've recently tackled list of Greek phrases in a similar way, although it's difficult to achieve consistency with transliterating Greek. rossb 09:49, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi

documented history of some 3,000 years. ? i think it would be better to say 3500 years. (Mycenean is proved to be Greek by Ventris, of course there are even older documents that most propable are also greek but have not been decoded yet

article titles

are all separate articles. especially the different focus of the 'language' and the 'languages' articles is not so nice. Afaics, this article is mainly about Modern Greek. How about we merge Greek languages and Greek dialects, and place the result here, on Greek language? This present article would then be at Modern Greek, and not deal with historical issues. As it is, we are duplicating too much information in too many articles. dab (ᛏ) 16:51, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't think this is such a good idea. A single article will get huge, especially after the additions I'm about to make. I had a different proposal which I described in detail on User_talk:Ross_Burgess#On_the_Greek_language. I do agree that articles such as Greek dialects and Greek languages should be included within others. Miskin 08:56, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Maybe what's been proposed is not a good idea, but I agree that this set of articles looks incredibly confused - and I say this simply because I made a lot of confusion when first looking at them. Just type "Greek" in the search tool and browse around pretending you've never seen the articles before. You'll probably realize it's anything but straight-forward. LjL 11:09, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Maybe I don't describe it that well. Basically it's pretty simple and it aims to make things more organised. For example I didn't even know that articles Greek dialects and Greek languages existed. The former IMO should be either ditched or partially merged with Ancient Greek, while the latter seems completely meaningless. Now that I linked the periods of the Greek language to the main article, it's almost done. All that remains is a)complete the articles Ancient Greek, Hellenistic Greek, Medieval Greek, b) take off pieces from Greek language and move them to Ancient Greek and Modern Greek, c) get rid of Greek dialects and Greek languages. Someone might want to deal with b) and c) while I'm taking care of a) (otherwise I'll deal with them later). Articles Ancient Greek and Hellenistic Greek can get quite big even without the imports from the Greek language, therefore to keep everything on a single article is just impossible. Miskin 11:46, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
sigh, did you even read my proposal? I was not suggesting a "single article". I am precisely suggesting that the description of Modern Greek should be in Modern Greek, and that Greek language should be Wikipedia:Summary style, i.e. the tables now here will go to Modern Greek. But I'll leave it to you, as long as you're not trying to "get rid of" Greek dialects. dab (ᛏ) 13:39, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I don't see how we can co-operate efficiently with this "sight" attitude of yours. So I misunderstood. To move the tables to Modern Greek and create a summary-style article out of Greek language was something I already had in mind. I don't want to completely get rid of Greek dialects, I only suggested to merge it with Ancient Greek (the name is misleading since it solely talks about the dialects of Ancient Greek anyway). Besides, the list of dialects for each period of the Greek language is already provided in the corresponding article (see modern or ancient Greek). I don't see a reason to abstractly keep them in one article. Miskin 15:59, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Anyone coming here should primarily get information on Modern Greek just like with any other existing language. This, like any other language article, should primarily be concerned with the language spoken today. Of course there should be links to various stages of development of the language, but having complete phoneme tables for Ancient Greek is really over the top.
I say that Modern Greek should definetly be redirected to this article and its contents merged. In fact, I think all articles that are named just "XXX of Greek" or "Greek XXX" should be about the modern language. If there's actually a need for an article on Ancient Greek dialects or Medieval Greek phonology, then these kinds of article names are the most appropriate.
Just treat this like any other language article and develop the historical discussions under (that's right) "History" and History of Greek and I think you'll see that there will be a lot less to squabble over.
Peter Isotalo 9 July 2005 02:28 (UTC)
I plan to be writing an extensive article on Greek pronunciation and its evolution, as well as expand the Ancient Greek dialects entries. This will hopefully happen over the next month or so. I hope the articles will be of a high standard, with the help of Wiki-experts. The whole cluster of Greek language articles does need some reorganisation, but is there any rush? It's not like someone's life depends on it, for crying out loud.  :-) Chronographos 9 July 2005 12:14 (UTC)

"First true alphabet"

I characterized the Greek alphabet as the "first true alphabet" -- by which I meant the first notating both vowels and consonants. I believe this is a widely accepted definition, and a widely accepted claim. Karmosin has amended this to "one of the first alphabets", citing Phoenician. But Phoenician, like the other Semitic writing systems, is not a full alphabet, if I'm not mistaken. Perhaps "true" is the wrong word; should it be "full"? I certainly don't want overly strong claims to be propagated in the WP, but I don't want overly qualified ones, either.... Others' thoughts? --Macrakis 04:06, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't know of any reasonable definition that would define an alphabet without vowels as "uncomplete". The only definition as far as I know is that it's (somewhat) phonetic and reasonably consistent. I think it's just contemporary POV. We're used to alphabets having vowels and anything that doesn't would seem subpar, but that's just because we know of little else. One might just as well call an alternative alphabet which is genuinly phonemic "full" and regard the Latin alphabet as fairly shoddy, with all it's inconsistencies.
Peter Isotalo 13:04, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
The Greek alphabet is indeed the first true alphabet. To quote Wikipedia's Alphabet article: "Among segmental scripts (that is, scripts that use a separate glyph for each phoneme, commonly called "alphabets"), one may distinguish abjads, which only record consonants and were first developed by the Egyptians as part of their hieroglyphic script; true alphabets which record consonants and vowels separately, first developed by the Greeks; and abugidas, in which the vowels are indicated by diacritical marks or systematic modification of the form of the consonants, first developed by the Indians."--Theathenae 13:35, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Well, my first reaction to seeing "the first true alphabet" was also of disagreement. However, if you look at Alphabet, it states that scripts that only record consonants are usually called abjads, and other scripts that also record vowels, but as diacriticals, are abugidas. The article implies that abjads and abugidas belong to the family of "alphabets"; on the other hand, it doesn't attribute a specific name to "that kind of alphabet that records both consonants and vowels at the same level" -- it simply calls them "true alphabets", just as has been done here.
Look also at the article for abjad: "Abjads differ from alphabets and on the other hand from abugidas in that vowels are marked with optional diacritics.". This implies that abjads are distinct from alphabets, even though it's not in contradiction with the statement that "abjads are alphabets", as long as it's agreed that the term "alphabet" can have both a generic meaning that includes "true" alphabets, abjads and abugidas, and a specific meaning of "true alphabet".
This might be "contemporary POV", but the claim that it is is IHMO unverifiable. It's just "contemporary definitions", I think: if, besides the articles I've cited, you have a look at other related articles on Wikipedia, you'll see that this terminology is widespread.
For the sake of clarity, if add a "(as opposed to, for example, abjads)" to the note that the Greek was the first "true alphabet". Other than this, I'm sure the note has every reason to stay -- unless you also want to edit Alphabet and remove the phrase "true alphabets which record consonants and vowels separately, first developed by the Greeks" (which, incidentally, has been there since at least two years, and was there before with a different wording).
LjL 13:44, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
The Greek alphabet is both the first true alphabet and the oldest alphabet in use today, even when abjads and abugidas are taken into account.--Theathenae 13:55, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, maybe, but I've removed that part since I suppose it wouldn't even have been mentioned in the first place, if this "first true alphabet" debate didn't begin. I don't really know if what you say is true, but as far as I'm concerned, feel free to put it back in -- I just hope it's not going to generate too much further debate. LjL 14:04, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
All you need to do is scroll down the "History of the Alphabet" timeline to see that the Greek alphabet is the oldest used today. Of the ancient alphabets that preceded the Greek (Wadi el-Hol, Proto-Canaanite, Ugaritic, Phoenician, South Arabian, Palaeo-Hebrew and Aramaic), none is in use today. There are of course later modified forms of those scripts still in use, such as the Hebrew and Syriac, but these only became distinct alphabets in their own right well after the Greek.--Theathenae 14:35, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
As the Aramaic alphabet has been mentioned in the edits, let's look at it. The Wikipedia article about it conveniently gives renditions of its letters and the corresponding modern Hebrew forms. Now, the first thing I noticed while looking at them is that they're strikingly similar. Can we really call them two different alphabets (or abjads, whatever)? I suppose we can, since it's done in Alphabet and in most other texts. However, sometimes things are named in ways that follow conventions, history, convenience, etc. Is there something, besides conventions, that logically separates the Aramaic and the Hebrew alphabets but not, for example, the Ancient and the Modern Greek alphabets?
After all, most Greek texts today are written in lowercase. Aristotle wouldn't understand a word. Even the capital form has been added letters, removed letters, and modified the shape of letters throughout history. While I can read the modern Greek alphabet with little difficulty, I do have a lot of trouble reading some ancient inscriptions.
Is the difference between the Aramaic and the Hebrew alphabet so strong compared to that between the Ancient and the Modern forms of the Greek alphabet? And if it isn't, then -- what's more important in the scope of this discussion -- does it make sense to state that "the Greek is the oldest alphabet in use today" just because it's been decided to give the ancient and the modern alphabet the same name?
Obviously, I'm not proposing to change the Alphabet article, which correctly gives the standard terms used to group alphabets: in the scope of that article it makes perfect sense. In the scope of this article, which is supposed to talk about Greek and its features, it seems gratuituous for the reasons above.
(P.S.: of course, if Greek is the "first true alphabet", then it's also the "oldest [true] alphabet still used" -- but that's so obvious it's useless to state)
LjL 15:27, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
What you fail to mention is that the Aramaic alphabet has been used for Hebrew only since the 6th century BCE, so even if you date the "Hebrew alphabet" back to the 6th rather than the 3th century (as the Alphabet article does), it is still younger than the Greek alphabet. And if you're going to equate the modern Hebrew alphabet with the Aramaic alphabet, why not do the same with the other related scripts, such as Syriac? Syriac is only cursive Aramaic, after all, and the languages it is used to write are modern varieties of Aramaic itself, unlike Hebrew which is a separate Semitic language. The only other possible contender is the Samaritan alphabet, which is derived from the Palaeo-Hebrew variant of the Phoenician alphabet, but even that seems to be dated only as far back as the 6th century and is used today almost exclusively for the Samaritans' liturgical varieties of Hebrew and Aramaic, which are extinct as vernaculars.--Theathenae 16:26, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Why not do the same with the other scripts, indeed? I picked the Hebrew alphabet randomly, I suppose I could have said similar things about the Syriac script, or others. Really, if the Syriac alphabet is essentially cursive Aramaic, and it's used to write modern varieties of Aramaic, how is its situation different from the minuscule Greek alphabet that's used to write modern varieties of Greek?
Besides this, why do you limit the "continuity" (so to say) of an alphabet to being used to transcribe the same language (your argument that, even if the Hebrew and the Aramaic alphabets could be said to be the same script, the history of that script should be limited to the time when it started being used to write Hebrew)? Almost nobody could be said to write using the "Latin alphabet" today, this way.
Look, all I'm trying to say is that these classifications are somewhat arbitrary, and as such they're perfectly in their place in an article like Alphabet, which goes on to explain how alphabets are arbitrarily classified for convenience among scholars. On the other hand, they're not in their place in an article like Greek language, where stating that "the Greek alphabet is the oldest still in use" sounds like a Guinness record with no factual, but only conventional, basis.
(Stating that "the Greek alphabet is the fist true alphabet, i.e. with vowels", though, is different IMHO, since the addition of vowels is considered an important step by scholars as far as I know, and there's evidence that the Greeks were indeed the first to adopt such an innovation.)
LjL 17:06, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Language itself is arbitrary and conventional, so I don't quite understand your argument. Calling the Greek alphabet the "Greek alphabet" is also arbitrary and conventional, as is calling the Greek language the "Greek language" and calling LjL "LjL". According to your logic, since the Latin alphabet is really Greek, and Greek is really Phoenician, why bother classifying the world's writing systems at all? Greek is the oldest alphabet only insofar as you accept that there are separate alphabets. If you consider that they are all essentially Phoenician, then I guess such a characterisation would indeed be redundant. But I think you'll find that most scholars and users of those writing systems would agree that Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew, etc. are separate alphabets with their own histories. And Wikipedia is concerned with common usage and convention above all.--Theathenae 18:07, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Look, just edit the article and add the information, if you feel it's useful. I won't revert. Only in my opinion Wikipedia (which, yes, is about usage and convention) is also about stating the right thing in the right place. It's about common sense, if you prefer. There are things that are true, or that at least are true when viewed in a certain context, but that nevertheless aren't mentioned in every Wikipedia article. And you know, every topic relates to every other topic, in a way or another, just like every alphabet is ultimately Phoenician... :-) The decision whether to write something in an article, or to leave it for another article, or to state it in more than one article is basically dictated by common sense. My common sense says this particular piece of information we're talking about is best left for Alphabet and/or Greek alphabet, and Greek language is better spared of it. I do realize that my version of common sense may be different from others' -- but I think I've explained, if a bit convolutely, why I think that "first true alphabet" fits well in the article, while "oldest alphabet still in use" fits less well.
LjL 18:20, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
How true. Otherwise the Latin alphabet should really be called Chalcidean. Chronographos 18:13, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Though as I said, I'm not questioning the naming conventions for alphabets (which are what they are, perhaps could be refined, but seem to be good enough for communication); I'm questioning only the value of adding a specific statement to the Greek language article.
LjL 18:20, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
I quite like the "first true alphabet" tag as well, so I don't plan to revert. But it is as relevant to this article as the "oldest alphabet still in use" description; both describe the alphabet, not the language, and both are true according to our conventional understanding of the history of writing.--Theathenae 18:47, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
My last attempt, after which I guess it's time to agree to disagree. The "first true alphabet" thing could be paraphrased as
The ancient Greek alphabet, which is the direct ancestor of the Greek alphabet used today, was the first true alphabet, i.e. the first including vowels, which is considered a major innovation by many scholars.
while "oldest alphabet still in use" could be
The Greek alphabet (which is conventionally considered a single alphabet, even though by convention alphabets like the Aramaic and the Hebrew, which share similarities comparable to those shared by the Ancient and the Modern Greek forms of alphabets, are treated as separate) is the oldest still in use -- of course, if the naming conventions were different, this wouldn't hold true, and Aramaic might be the oldest, but as things stand, Greek wins, nyah nyah nyah.
I can't deny your stance that both statements are true, but I do doubt that both are as relevant to the article. Again, the first marks an important innovation, while the second sounds like a Guinness record of the most sterile kind, at least to me. Since we're debating about something like three or four words in an article, anyway, let's end it here for the sake of the other readers, who might enjoy this kind of debates less then I do. I recognize that you're "technically right" saying that both statements are true, so if you, or someone else, decide to add the latter statement, you've got every right to.
LjL 19:45, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
I liked this debate. As someone with no particular interest or vested interest in making wild claims like 'kimono' is a Greek word (I realize how lame that reference was), I would like to say belatedly that the Greek alphabet being the oldest alphabet still in use is incredibly significant from my POV, but I'm an omniglot.com script freak. Brahmi spawned roughly 32 (I lost count) abugidas, but died out early, and is thought to be derived from Aramaic itself. The Greek language and script are both amazing for how long they've stayed roughly the same over the ages compared with other languages. That's just my opinion though. Khirad 13:54, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Khirad. We think so too. :)--Theathenae 14:12, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Lord's Prayer

The Lord's prayer and the Nicene Creed are presented here with out comment. I find this a bit strange, as both texts aren't written in the form of Greek language that is presently most commonly used, i.e. Dimotiki. I think we should add information on the kind of Greek that is used (I guess it is Hellenistic Greek). What are your thoughts? A second question: why are both texts given anyway? To show an 'example' of the language, or because both texts were originally written in Greek? If the first is the case, shouldn't we give Modern Greek, Dimotiki, versions of the texts?--Hippalus 06:14, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

I should think that it is exactly because they are texts originally written in Koine and at the same time they are familiar to many millions of (Christian) Wikipedia users. There is no point in having them in Dimotiki versions for two reasons: one is that such versions are practically the same as the Koine ones (give or take a participle here or a definite article there) and the other is that the article concerns itself with Greek language as an organic whole, given its uninterrupted continuity of usage and evolution. Chronographos 08:48, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

The Lord's Prayer is an example of Koine (or New Testament) Greek. It is not normally translated into Dhimotiki, but recited as is by Greek Orthodox churchgoers (just like "our father who art in heaven, hallowed..."), so there is no point in giving a Dhimotiki translation. However, it is not true that the dhimotiki version would be 'practically the same' as the Koine version. Of course the text is familiar to modern Greek speakers, but then so is "O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?" to modern English speakers (though they usually misinterpret this to mean "where are you, Romeo?" rather than "why do you have to be 'Romeo'?" i.e. what made me fall in love with someone from the wrong family). Let's look at the first line in detail:

Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου·
Pater imon o en tis uranis, agiasthito to onoma su (phonetic)
father(voc.s) us(gen.pl) in the(dat.pl) sky(dat.pl), make-holy(pass.aor.imp.3s) the(acc.s) name(acc.s) you(gen.s)
Our father in the skies, may your name be made holy

At the lexeme level, most of these word-roots are still used in Modern Greek:

Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου

At the morphology level, the majority are different in modern:

ΠάτερX ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου.
PaterX imon o en tis uranis, agiasthito to onoma su (phonetic)

At the syntax level, the noun phrase construction "NP ὁ PP" is archaic. The passive aorist imperative ἁγιασθήτω doesn't exist in Modern (has to be expressed periphrastically). But the overall SVO syntax and the entire phrase τὸ ὄνομά σου are identical in Modern.

If I were to attempt a modern translation, it would be something like:

Πατέρα μας στον ουρανό, να είναι αγιαζμένο το ονομά σου
Patera mas ston urano, na ine agiazmeno to onoma su
father(voc.s) us(gen.pl) in-the sky(acc.s), NA(imp.particle) be(act.pres.ind.3s) make-holy(pass.part.acc.s) the(acc.s) name(acc.s) you(gen.s)

but this still isn't really idiomatic Modern Greek, the same way "our father who art in heaven" isn't English. This might be better:

Πατέρα μας, πάνο στον ουρανό, πως είναι άγιο το ονομά σου!
Our father, up in the sky, how holy is your name!
--Macrakis 17:00, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

PS My translation is a bit sloppy in that Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς doesn't mean "our father who happens to be in the skies" but "that father of ours who is in the skies" (that's what the ὁ does for you...), sometimes translated into English as "heavenly father". But I'll let someone else figure out a better way of rendering that into Modern Greek. The point here is that it is not the same words.... --Macrakis 17:53, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, sir, I'm afraid your Greek needs a little dusting: "αγιαζμένο"? "πάνο"? I do not normally discuss language with someone who cannot get even elementary spelling right. Not to mention that your "how holy ..." misrendering. Ιf you take your English analogies only so far, they will not take you any further. Obviously one's understanding of a language is dependent on one's education. President Bush thought "dissemble" was "disassemble", so what would he do with Shakespeare? Or Quayle with a "potatoe" for that matter? Such arguments prove nothing about a language and everything about a particular speaker. Πάνο-κάτο Chronographos 18:02, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Well, sir, I don't know any kind of Greek, but I do know English, and so I know that what Chronographos said was stated in a very calm, reasonable and logical way. He might now spell Greek too well, and of course he even (!) might be wrong. However, few people would IMHO find the attitude that transpares from your reply constructive, scholarly or Wikipedia-like; you might want to take this into consideration when posting, if you happen to find it important for Wikipedians to sympathize with your opinions (which may easily be the case, since any Wikipedian - anyone, actually - can edit articles). LjL 19:27, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Insults not necessary: I admit my spelling is poor. I would be happy to see a better rendering into Modern Greek. The fact remains that the Koine version is not grammatical (let alone intelligible or idiomatic) Modern Greek. --Macrakis 18:25, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad you admit the obvious, since it automatically renders your statement of "fact" irrelevant. Ipso facto, if you'll pardon my pun. Chronographos 18:30, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
So you maintain that that line is intelligible modern Greek to someone who has not studied Koine or Classical Greek in school or at church? --Macrakis 18:35, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
That's exactly my point: it does not apply to a Greek who has neither been to school nor to church. Try your luck finding one, because I haven't met any yet. A Gypsy camp might be your best bet. Chronographos 18:43, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Your horizons are rather limited. There are lots of us in the diaspora who speak and read reasonably well, but have not gone to Greek schools and only go to churches (Orthodox or otherwise) for weddings and funerals. You have correctly noted that my spelling is mediocre, but you have not answered a single one of my substantive points about the morphological, syntactic, and idiomatic differences between Koine and modern Greek (I would add lexical differences, but as it happens in the first line of the Lord's Prayer they are minimal). --Macrakis 19:49, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm afraid that it is your horizons that are limited. Surely a non-native speaker that belongs to the Diaspora cannot be the arbiter of the dispute, even if they could spell correctly. "Please, Mr. policeman, sir, do not give me a ticket. Dunno much about them traffic signs, but I sure am a better driver than Michael Schumacher. I watch him on ESPN." Now if you think that αγιασθήτω differs substantively from ας είναι αγιασμένο, then may I refer you to Ferrari? I hear they 're looking for F1 drivers Chronographos 20:12, 13 July 2005 (UTC) (To be fair, you mistranslated this last one into: "how holy is your name", so Ferrari might not be that impressed)
The Greek language skills of your average diaspora Greek are generally rather poor, but that's a matter for another talk page. What's the problem with including the Lord's Prayer in Koine in an article entitled "Greek language"? Examples of modern Greek - which has a separate entry - are also provided, if that's what you're worried about.--Theathenae 20:03, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
I never said there was anything wrong with it. Read my comments. I simply said that it is incorrect to say "Dimotiki versions... are practically the same as the Koine ones (give or take a participle here or a definite article there)", and gave evidence for it. --Macrakis 20:07, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
I see, a Clinton voter: it depends on what your definition of "is" is Chronographos 20:15, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Besides, I don't really know about the Greek situation, but in Italy, people who used to go to Church in times when Latin was used for offices usually knew all the prayers by heart, though they often didn't have a clue about the meanings. This, I think, demonstrates that "going to Church" -- i.e. being exposed to fixed texts in a non-native language -- doesn't imply understanding that language to any extent. Of course, as you say, with Greek the situation may well be different, if the ancient language is markedly similar to the modern one. But the line of reasoning that Chronographos seems to follow (I think) is that: 1) Koine Greek is intelligible to either someone who went to school or someone who went to Church 2) Since there is nobody who doesn't fall in at least one category, it follows that everybody understands Koine Greek.
Now, that listening to something in Church means understanding it is, well, false. LjL 20:09, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Next time you're in a wedding in Greece, try to figure out why, at the end of the Epistle reading, the bride smiles, the groom hurts and the congregation laughs. Chronographos 20:18, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
And? LjL 20:34, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Never mind. Pax vobiscum Chronographos 20:42, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
And what makes you think I understand what you just said? :-) In any case, let me state my position clearly: this debate of yours about (essentially) the mutual intelligibility between Modern and Koine Greek is an interesting one, and one I'm not competent to follow actively. However, I felt the urge to point out that you wrote with an attitude that I thought impoverished an otherwise interesting debate, and I think you'll acknowledge this after re-reading it with some calm.
As for the point at hand, I'm sure that Greeks do understand what's said in Church; it's just not true that what's said in Church must by definition be understood, as I illustrated with my example of Italy. LjL 20:51, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Point taken. I am sure however that you would not appreciate it if someone lectured you on Italian while insisting that Mr. Berlusconi was the Prezidente del Consillio. Chronographos 20:55, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Why, not necessarily. He might know things I don't about Italian, even though spelling could be better; he might be a foreigner who, while knowing only basic Italian, sees the language through a different perspective that might teach me things I wouldn't have thought of; he might be a linguist who knows much more than me about the history of languages, including Italian, but can't write modern Italian fluently (since no man can learn all things).
LjL 21:13, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Indeed they may very well might. But then again they might not. Chronographos 21:29, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
But then again, they might :-) I take it you agree that the benefit of doubt is a good thing? You see, I'm positive that at least some of the things Macrakis said are indeed true. Note that he talked about Dimotiki in his original remark, not "Modern Greek" in general; I haven't seen replies stating that, for example, it's not true that some of the constructions found in the Koine version of Our Father are un-grammatical in Dimotiki. Just an example. Really, do you think everything someone says is stupid, without even a need to inspect it, just because they made a couple of spelling mistake?
Oh, and sorry for messing with your signature, but you had forgot the user name... I guess we're all getting a bit confused by the concurrent edits :-) LjL 21:34, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Nooooooo problem! Your point is very interesting in that he does bring up Demotic, as it illustrates that he may be out of touch with present-day Greek reality. Traditional Demotic made a point of trying to bring out its own differences from official Katharevousa, but this is not the case any more. Once the language has been free of artificial restrictions as of the past 30 years, its natural flow has been mostly towards a more Katharevousa-like form, to the degree that early 20th century literature often sounds contrivedly "vernacular" by present standards. Chronographos 21:48, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Which, in my opinion, answers the question "How similar is Modern Greek to Ancient Greek?", a question that I've seen heatedly debated in many instances, not only here. My answer would range from a "depends" to a "who cares". Languages changes; sometimes, because of various reasons, they even change towards an older form, rather than diverging. The degree of mutual intelligibility between Modern and Ancient Greek obviously depends on the education of the (modern) speakers and on other factors, and as I think that we all really know this, I don't think overly heated debates are worth spending. My practical opinion on what version of Our Father to have is simply that the Koine version should be kept, not because of some mystical reasons but simply because a) it's Greek (what the article is about), b) it's the Greek of the original Greek text, and c) it's the version most commonly used today. On the other hand, a well-made comparison between the Koine version and a modern translation (or more than one modern translation) could be interesting to have, though perhaps not on the main article, but on Modern Greek or somewhere else (although there's already too much of a mess with articles about Greek, unfortunately). LjL 22:02, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
A most admirable summation! Regarding the Lord's Prayer in particular, you are also correct to point out that it's a sort of "Number 1 Hit": the, originally Greek, text which may be the most recognisable by the world at large, as it has been part and parcel of Christian catechism in all major denominations. Chronographos 22:25, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I think Chronographos was merely trying to point out that Koine is intelligible to anyone who has had a Greek education. Modern Greek does not exist in a vacuum; 30 years after the abolition of Katharevousa, the modern language is still peppered with archaisms. In fact, standard modern Greek (η καθομιλουμένη) is not pure Demotic at all, but a Demotic-based variety with strong influences from Katharevousa as well as older forms of the language.--Theathenae 20:33, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Another excellent point. Once everyday Greek was liberated from the Katharevousa straitjacket, the manner in which one chooses to speak and write depends purely on one's education and purpose. And since the essence of the language remains the same, one can freely draw from its vastly rich tradition, from Homer onwards, with a facility unknown to any other language I am aware of. This is a living heritage to be celebrated, not a corpse to be dissected. Chronographos 20:42, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
This does not agree with my experience. I have seen a Homer class composed about equally of products of a Greek education, with no extra training, and of English-speaking undergraduates with a couple semesters of Attic - enough to read Xenophon. Everybody struggled; it was the Greeks who dropped out. Septentrionalis
Modern Greeks can, of course, learn to read Homer, as modern English-speakers can learn to read Beowulf. I would expect them to learn faster, as an English-speaker can learn Old English faster than an Argentine, say. Better is another question. Septentrionalis 18:48, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
While I don't think that your hands-on experience contradicts my statement above (I said one can, not everyone does), a couple of pertinent points: I find the way the Greek educational system currently teaches Ancient Greek atrocious. Furthermore, English-speaking undergraduates who have taken a couple of semesters in Attic would definitely be far more motivated WRT Homer. On the other hand, ask any Greek what Hector's famous motto means (εις οιωνός άριστος, αμύνεσθαι περί πάτρης) and I'll bet you most will get it right away. Ironically enough, they may stumble at οιωνός, which is a word (albeit a sophisticated one) used unchanged and as such in current speech. Still they may on average do better than Valley girls tackling Shakespeare. Therefore not only do I think you do not disagree with me, but I also agree with what you have to say (how's this for Delphic-speak? :-) Chronographos 19:22, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Maybe, and I think Chronographos could have pointed that out more civilly. LjL 20:37, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
He could have, but he didn't have to. And what he lacks in "civility" he more than makes up for in wit. :)--Theathenae 20:56, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Could you point exactly where and how I was uncivil? I will be happy to apologise. Chronographos 20:42, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Note that I've said that you could have been more civil, not that you were un-civil. Besides this: well, questioning another person's spelling is generally considered bad netiquette. Of course, we're talking about language here, so spelling could actually have a relevance, but I have the impression that it had none in this particular instance (hey, I also noticed you made a mistake in your English grammar above -- can you spot it? --, but I'm not going to tell you "You, sir, shouldn't discuss things in English here since I've seen you make elementary grammar mistakes").
That "you don't discuss language with someone who can't get basic spelling right" is prejudice; of course, you're free to hold that view, but stating that view on a public forum (here) is insulting... or at least I'd find it insulting, maybe Macrakis is less intransigent than me (but note that he also said "insults not necessary", so at the very least I'm not the only weirdo). :::At any rate, come on, I know that you know that your attitude was aggressive. Sure, Macrakis disagreed with you (perhaps wrongly), but can you image what talk pages would become if every single disagreement elicited a reaction like yours?  :::LjL 21:13, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
I hear you. Note however how Mr. Macrakis also mistranslated "hallowed be thy name". I am sorry, but I still consider all of the above as evidence that his language skills are substandard, as Theathenae pointed out, and that his lack of "native speaker status" disqualifies him from making judgement calls as to the present-day intelligibility of Koine. He chose to dissect grammar and syntax, therefore my response in kind was rather appropriate. Chronographos 21:27, 13 July 2005 (UTC) (BTW you wrote "less intransingent than me", whereas you should have written "... than I") :-PP
Nah, that's no error. Look here for example: the state of matters is perhaps a bit confused, but it's clear that "than me" is the idiomatic phrase, while "than I" is more formal and allows for more semantic distinctions, but it sounds strange, and not only to modern speakers.
I certainly make much obvious and much worse mistakes, look better :-P (at the very least I'll have missed some s somewhere, or added one where it wasn't due... I do that all the time) LjL 21:42, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
I insist: "he is less intransingent that I (am)", "she is taller than I (am)". Americanisms notwithstanding. But that's ok, I am so magnanimous as to forgive you! :-PPPP Chronographos 21:48, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I never said there was anything wrong with it. Read my comments. I simply said that it is incorrect to say "Dimotiki versions... are practically the same as the Koine ones (give or take a participle here or a definite article there)", and gave evidence for it.

  • Sigh*, nobody said that it's practically the same, why do people have to exaggerate so much by imagining things between the lines? We said it intelligible, that's all. That's a fact for any (native) Greek speaker, so whether you can understand it or not is your personal problem. And for crying out loud, Modern Greek, like the article suggests is not just Demotic, it's much more than that. On the other hand Demotic was not just some Greek dialect that was chosen because it was closest to ancient Greek and still had to be purified by Katharevousa, there are many archaisms in other Modern Greek dialects that were left out of Demotic. On the other hand Katharevousa is not a completely artificial language as many people believe. Kathareuousa is basically a reconstructed version of the language of the church, so it can be regarded as an idiom of Demotic that was spoken in Constantinople. A parallel can be made with Dante's semi-artificial Italian that was later chosen as the official language of Italy. The only difference is that at the end of the day Greece kept its vernacular language which only absorbed some phrases from the semi-artificial version. Miskin 12:45, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguation?

Does anyone else feel that it is imperative that there is a disambiguation page between Modern Greek, Koiné Greek, Ancient Greek, and Medieval Greek? I think that there should be a disambiguation page because a general page on Greek language mainly dealing with modern Greek doesn't cut it.

Yes, but there is a lot of work that needs to be done in the respective "sub-pages" first. All will be sorted out in due time, fear not. Chronographos 10:11, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
All other language articles about living languages cover the modern languages, even in cases of a very long recorded history. Greek is still spoken by 15 million people and it is their language that this article should be concerned with mainly. Previous stages of Greek should should be mentioned in the "History"-section and be linked to just like in any other language article, but not focused on excessively.
This is at most a matter of structuring the article better. For guidelines on how to do this, please refer to Wikipedia:WikiProject Language Template. It includes a standard section structure that covers all aspects of a language.
Peter Isotalo 11:57, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Not a disambiguation page. We should do what me and dab agreed on earlier, i.e. a summary style article. Hold your horses Karmosin, the current condition of the article is not so bad, I think we should leave it at that until the other Greek language articles are complete. The structuring of the article seems fine to me, Greek differs from most languages because of its strong historical continuity, so I think its imporant to mention its stages in the main article. We can start moving though the sections that deal purely with Modern Greek, but not in the way some vandal did earlier. Miskin 12:19, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

No, no, no, wait, hold on! I absolutely agree with Chronographos, Peter and Miskin. This article is not what I consider a fine article, by any means, but it's far from needing to be thrown away.

For starters, the "History" chapter already works as a sort of disambiguation page, and I think it does an excellent work at that, compared to most disambigs. The rest of the article should, in my opinion, describe those features of Greek that are common to all, or at least most, of its historical forms.

Let's look at it article by article:

  • Classification, while it could probably be made more exhaustive, concerns all forms of Greeks.
  • Geographic distribution is currently biased towards Modern Greek, but I think it could be made into a satisfyingly short summary of geographical distributions during historical periods, too.
  • Official status could perhaps be moved to Modern Greek.
  • Sounds is problematic. While it is currently biased strongly towards describing the sounds of Modern Greek, turning it into a comprehensive description would probably be impractical. I think an article specifically concerned with the pronunciation of Greek should be created -- after some thought, though, since there is already a proliferation of scattered articles about Greek, which I'm apparently not alone to consider non-beneficial. Furthermore, Koine Greek describes sounds in some remarkable detail, so perhaps the information there could be merged with the information here (and possibly with other information) to create a decent article about Greek sounds.
  • Grammar says things that are common to every form of Greek (such as "being highly inflected"), but it also has statements related to Modern Greek specifically. I don't think it should be to hard to improve it.
  • Writing system is ok, except it should mention the letters that are no longer used in Modern Greek. It does lack information about Linear B, but after all, as the article says in the introduction, "Greek is traditionally written in the Greek alphabet" -- Linear B has its place in its own article. Possibly, it should be mentioned and linked again in "Writing system", but not treated in detail.
  • Examples could be a bit problematic. Personally, I'd remove all the "Common words and phrases" (and move them to Modern Greek, as they appear to be very specific to Modern Greek. I'd leave the Lord's Prayer and the Nicene Creed, on the other hand, as I would consider them chief examples of Greek as it "trascends" its specific historic variants. However I would mention the period, style and kind of Greek variant they were written in.

I could make some of these changes myself, but I'd rather like some feedback first. LjL 13:37, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Agreed on all counts. I plan to be writing a thorough article on pronunciation and its evolution, as well as expand the ancient dialects articles. Hopefully these will make the entire Greek language nexus easier to classify and disambiguate. Chronographos 14:32, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I strongly disagree. This article is supposed to be about Greek as it is spoken today. This is how it's done in every other language article, long recorded history or not. If it's the article is about a contemporary language, the main article (XXX language) should cover the living language, not previous forms of it. All sections except for History and perhaps Writing system should concern themselves with the modern language. Anything that has to do with older forms of the language belongs in articles like Hellenistic Greek orthography, Ancient Greek phonology or Medieval Greek grammar. This is no more odd than making sure that French language is concerned primarily with the grammar, phonology and geographic distribution of the French spoken today rather than Old French, or God forbid Vulgar Latin.
Peter Isotalo 14:34, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Each language is different. Rest assured that we will eventually produce a corpus of articles that both conform to Wikipedia standards and treat the Greek language properly. Chronographos 14:42, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Basically I think that we should cut off everything that follows from the section "Classification" and move it elsewhere. In that way the Greek language article will serve as a summary-style article (kind of like a disambiguation page) that will link to the 4 or 5 periods of the Greek language. The period-specific articles (Ancient, Hellenistic, Medieval, Modern) will in turn link to their respective dialects (if more than one). This is pretty much what's happening right now, and that's what LjL suggested, and of course it needs improvement. Personally I don't agree with Peter's opinion to treat Greek in the way wikipedia suggests. Every language has its own history and should be treated accordingly. The phonology of Koine Modern Greek (Demotic) is almost similar to the phonology described in Koine Greek, except the vowel υ which is pronounced as ου (u) until the 10th century. After I finish the linguistics of Koine and Medieval Greek, it will be much easier to write Modern Greek without being repetitive. If you give me some time I can personally take care of it. In the meantime it should be kept in mind that the terms "Modern Greek", "Demotic", and "Koine Modern Greek" are strictly speaking three very different things. Demotic Greek is the vernacular dialect of Constantinople and most Greek people that can be traced from the 12th c. until today. "Modern Greek" is a historical period which is symbolically assigned to the sack of Constantinople in 1453, and it refers to all existing forms of Greek speech (including Demotic). "Koine Modern Greek" refers to the chosen idiom of Demotic that would replace Katharevousa in 1976 as the official language of the Greek state. I'm pointing this out in order to avoid mistakes. For example if we put the phonology of "Koine Modern Greek" randomly on the Modern Greek article and not categorised under "Koine Modern Greek", it will be wrong, as the other Modern Greek dialects have a completely different phonology. This mistake has already been made in Ancient Greek, where the phonology of the Attic dialect is categorised under abstractly under Ancient Greek and not in the article Attic Greek. I'm planning to correct that. Miskin 17:06, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

If you could just drop the idea of making this article into some sort of overblown disambiguator for the history of Greek and just treated it like any other modern language article (but with an longer-than-average history) you wouldn't have to bend your minds in unnatural ways to make it overly unique. And if you're ever planning on making this an FA, you're definetly going to need to adhere to the standards set forth by the appropriate WikiProject just like any other article.
Peter Isotalo 09:19, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
Why the commotion? Miskin can prepare an article on his own (in his user space for example, just as I plan to do) and then we can all discuss to our hearts' content and come up with a solution that satisfies everyone, not least Wikipedia itself. There may be about 15 articles or more in total when all is said and done (for example: Pre-Greek and Linear A, Proto-Greek, Mycenaean and Linear B, Ancient in general, Attic, Doric, Aeolic, Ionian, Northwestern, Arcadocypriot, Koine, Medieval, Modern, History, Pronunciation, and maybe more, just like you suggested above). Existing articles will have to be improved and new ones written. Then they will all need to be properly integrated via navigation/disambiguation, to make things easy for the readers. Is there any rush? Chronographos 11:51, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
No, I don't think there is. It's a bit awkward to navigate in all those articles, but the information is there -- at least, a good quantity is there -- and I don't see any immediate need for a revolution. I agree that the best way to deal with the problem is probably to lay down the new articles in a user's page, and only apply the changes when it's done, in order not to lose useful pieces of information mid-way and to provide a smooth transition for readers, who would otherwise quite certainly be put in front of a "work in progress, please visit later for a decent article" sign. LjL 12:45, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
Beatus, beatus vir! (do you like Monteverdi? :-P). See User:Chronographos/Greek_pronounciation, a "work in progress, please visit later for a decent article" sample! Chronographos 12:59, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
Nah, you Greeks seem to have something for opera that, oddly enough, all Italians I've known seem to lack, me included... :-) I like classical music, but opera, really, you don't understand a word of what they say! Ok, there's the libretto, but it's still irritating to hear something that sounds like spoken (sungen) words but, at the end of the day, isn't.
I haven't read your article yet, just gave it a quick glance, however I've got something to note about your other article... LjL 23:59, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Maybe it's a Callas thing, who knows ... Still, Beatus, beatus vir is not from an opera, it's a choral Vespro or something. Come on, man, don't tell me you cannot follow an Italian opera just by listening! Hey, sometimes even I can. Now sing with me: "La calumnia e' un venticello ..." (words to live by :-PPP) Chronographos 15:14, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Please check: User:Chronographos/Family_letters

... Chronographos 15:04, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

... where I have a feeling that you might jump to conclusions too early. Now, I'm not an expert in Greek pronunciation (though I do like the subject a lot), but your point 3 jumped particularly to my eye. Are you using the fact that "viaticum" was transliterated "βιατικον" are proof that the Latin "v" was pronounced the same as Greek "β"? You may have other reasons to believe that of course, but that alone isn't enough.
How was Latin "v" written in Greek previously? It was usually "ου" if I recall well. But that's because "v" was actually pronounced "w" in Latin, or at least "w" and "v" were allophones enough for Greeks to find "ου" as an acceptable transliteration. But what happened when the pronunciation definitely changed to "v"? Either Greek "β" was then pronounced like "v", in which case you'd be right, and the Greek would certainly have chosen that option for transliteration, or... "β" was pronounced like "b", but there was no phoneme "v" in Greek. Well, if there was no "v", what could they choose for transliteration? I can only guess, but I guess that "β" would still be a pretty nice guess.
Basically: I think that the assumption that "v"->"β" demonstrates that "β" was pronounced like "v" is flawed, as there could easily have been no "v" phoneme in Greek, in which case "β" -- even though really pronounced "b" -- would have been a very possible choice.
I'm not saying that your hypothesis is necessarily wrong, of course, just that "viaticum" isn't quite enough to prove it, and that a lot of care should be used with these pronunciation issues. The point about "ρ" too, for example... one example certainly isn't enough! I know plenty of Italians who would easily get 3 or 4 double consonants wrong in a 20-words sentence... even though they do more or less pronounce those doubles! LjL 23:59, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Hasty, hasty, hasty! The points you make are βalid (:-P), but there is other data as well: for example, Cretans started replacing their own written digamma (F) with β as early as the 4th century BC. So we know the process had started a whole lot earlier than the papyri I presented. So, "don't be hasty" - signed Treebeard, a.k.a. Chronographos 10:03, 25 July 2005 (UTC) (P.S. Do you know much about Latin phonology? I would be grateful if you clarified some points for me, especially the allophones of I and V. I know for example that Greeks wrote Ουάλης for Valens, as you mentioned. Is there an article on Latin pronunciation, and if not, why not? ;-)) Chronographos 15:15, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

There is a great book "The Pronunciation of Greek and Latin" by Edgar H. Sturtevant, 1940. Find it in your university library. It gives copious reasons for why, when and how particular sounds were pronounced. P. 88 on beta, it repeats LjL's argument that the substitution of β for ou to represent latin v may just be due to Latin pronun changes. But "In the fourth century AD Gothic orthography employed b, d, and g to denote spirants, at least in the interior of the word. It is probable that this reflects the standard Greek usage of the time, although no other course would have been open to Ulfilas even if beta, gamma, delta had still been mutes. [new para] The use of beta for Slavic [v] ... while a modified beta was used for [b], proves that beta, at least, was a spirant in the ninth century."

For vowels, his chart on p. 41 says that eta becomes [e:] between 200 BC and 1 BC, then [i:] by 400 AD. epsilon-iota becomes [e:] by 400 BC, then [i:] by 200 BC.

He says that epsilon and alpha-iota become confused in "carelessly written papyri of the 2nd c. BC" (i.e. in Egypt) and about 100 AD in Attic inscriptions, becoming very common about 150 AD. Hence, the quality merged about 150 BC in Egypt and 150 AD in Attica, but the quantity difference "must have persisted longer even in popular speech".

There is a lot more but i can't type it all. note that he is very careful not to assume that a sound change in one region necessarily occurred elsewhere at the same time.

Agreed, and absolutely true. Chronographos 11:51, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Latin v, he says, was [w] in 1st c. BC but became [β] among some people by 1st c. AD and generally by 3rd c. AD; but [w] persisted in pockets until at least the 5th c. AD. Evidence is e.g. early Germanic (1st c. BC) loanwords (English wine not vine, wall not vall), Cicero's story about Crassus confusing "Cave ne eas" with "Cauneas", Horace's use of "silvae" with three syllables (sil-u-ae), confusion of b and v in 1st c. AD inscriptions, etc. Benwing 04:55, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

modern dative?

Chronographos asserts that there is still a dative in Standard Modern Greek. Is this really the case? Do people ever use this in speech? Benwing 00:52, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Εν τάξει, τοις εκατό, τοις χιλίοις, τοις μετρητοίς, Δόξα τω Θεώ, πράγματι, εν Ελλάδι... The list of dative archaicisms used in everyday speech in Greece is quite extensive.--Theathenae 08:44, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
It really depends, Benwing. Are you a πωλών τοις μετρητοίς or a πωλών επί πιστώσει?. In other words, "will this be cash or credit"?  :-))) Chronographos 09:35, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
The problem is that archaisms don't really count, as these are fixed expressions. English has many fixed expressions with a subjunctive in it (as it were, so be it, long live the king, if you please ...), but we don't consider that good evidence of whether English has a living subjunctive (some dialects do, some don't). Benwing 04:18, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
What is an archaism, and what isn't one? Every Greek will say "εν τω μεταξύ" (in the meantime), but many may write it wrong (εν το ...), many may write it correctly (εν τω ...) and few will add the iota subscript (εν τῳ ...). In standard spoken Greek, however, forming an object in the Dative would admittedly be extremely rare. Still, one never ceases being surprised. I recall, when serving in the Army, that an illiterate old woman in some remote village in the Peloponnese told me "ως έγγιστα" (at the very least), which might have come out of Thucydides! I was stunned, needless to say ... Chronographos 12:06, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

longest attestation

It has a documented history of 3,500 years, the longest of any Indo-European language.

I think it would be safe to say that it is the second-longest history of attestation, all languages considered, second after Coptic, which has a history of about 5000 years. There are close competitors, though. Modern Indian languages can be argued to be derived from Vedic, which would give them a comparable age, but that's oral traditon of course, and cannot be confidently dated. Also, the history is really only about 3,300 years. Since the Koine was not a continuation of Arcado-Cypriot, the unbroken history is only 'cross-dialect', comparable to the History of Hindi, so it would be fair to say that Hindi (and related languages) has about the same amount of history as Greek :o) dab (ᛏ) 10:30, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
A couple of points:
Coptic is not an indo-European languag
The assumption is that Coptic is the same language as Ancient Egyptian: I would suggest that the differences between Coptic and Egyptian are sufficiently great that they should not be considered the same language - just as we don't consider Italian to be the same language as Latin. rossb 10:42, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
dab is right other than his confusion about Coptic. Modern Greek and Ancient Greek have the same name for historical reasons only. Hindi has as much claim to a c. 3200-3300 year history as Greek does. (3500 years is incorrect; AFAIK current opinion does not date Mycenean much before 1200 BC) Benwing 04:10, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
I think chronographos has demonstrated why Modern Greek and Ancient Greek have not the same name simply due to historical reasons (whatever that means). Even if we assume that the documentation of the Greek language begins with the creation of the Greek alphabet, it still makes it the oldest living European language with an unbroken attested history. That's pretty much common knowledge, I don't know what's the argue about. Miskin 11:12, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
I think the earliest Linear B tablets are dated between 1500 and 1400 BC. And the degree of vocabulary identity to Modern Greek is nothing short of astounding, considering the 3500 year span:
  • qa-si-re-u - βασιλεύς, chieftain, king
  • pe-ru-si-nu-wo, περυσινό(ν), last year's
  • re-u-ko - λευκός, white
  • si-to - σίτος, wheat
  • ku-ru-so - χρυσός, gold
  • se-ri-no - σέλινο(ν), celery
  • ku-pa-ri-se-ja - κυπαρίσσεια, of cypress wood
  • ko-ri-a2-da-na - κορίανδρο(ν), coriander
  • ma-ra-tu-wo - μάραθο(ν), fennel
Chronographos 10:31, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Sanskrit older than Greek?

Take a look at [1], indicating that Linear B tablets are not older than c. 1250 BC. I'm also sure that you can quote similar examples between Vedic Sanskrit and certain modern Indic languages, e.g. Marathi, probably Hindi too. Benwing 04:22, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Go on then. Miskin 11:12, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
Better yet, we could look for a whole sentence in Sanskrit that is readily legible in Hindi. You know, like "i-je-re-ja e-ne-ka ku-ru-so-jo i-je-ro-jo" (ίέρεια ένεκα χρυσοίο ιεροίο, the priestess on account of the sacred gold). Whoever does this, I will buy them something made of re-u-ko-ku-ru-so :-P Chronographos 11:20, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
I hear you. Not knowing a shred of Sanskrit, or Hindi for that matter, I could not possibly oblige with the latter request! :-) What I could have tried doing is concoct a polenta-like recipe with si-to, se-ri-no, ma-ra-tu-wo, ko-ri-a2-da-na and e-la-i-wo (olive oil) in Linear B, then see if my mother could cook it, but this should have been done pe-ru-si, before my mother's death. Chronographos 10:41, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
Oh, you're so on! I'll have to sift through all Sanskrit works which far outnumber the Greek (those extant at least), but sooner or later I'll find a sentence with enough words still used in Hindi. Sanskrit is far more inflected, like Ancient Greek and Avestan, but in the Proverb: कालः करोित कार्याणि, (the master of) time [Yama] (alone) fulfills (all) works, the Hindi words काल, कारता, and कार्य are easily recognizable - and if I were fluent in Hindi I'm sure I could do more - but point of course well taken. I pursued it a little merely as a jest! A whole sentence would be much more difficult and picking out some random stotra would prove little. Btw the re-u-ko - λευκός was interesting given that r/l are one of those pairs that tend to shift, the q/b I don't know as much about (though I can imagine the uvular->bilabial shift). Khiradtalk

What the Indian crowd is missing is the detail that Sanskrit and Mycenaean Greek are separated by a gap of 600-1000 years. If we were to compare Sanskrit to Hindu then we'd have to be comparing Modern Greek to Ancient and Hellenistic Greek, not to Mycenaean. In that case of course, the Greek language wouldn't be looking simply for common words, but for intelligible paragraphs or even texts. Which means that we're playing at a different league. The person who said that Sanskrit texts (which btw were not even written down until the middle ages) far outnumber the Greek ones, has a lot of research to do before taking part to this conversation. Miskin 11:53, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, there's an argument to be made that the Mitanni had a tradition of Sanskrit. The first documents with Sanskrit words in them are otherwise Hurrian, and date to the 16-14th century BC... until Suppiluliumas I squashed 'em. Arguably written Sanskrit is written Sanskrit. Still, until a full Sanskrit text shows up, as opposed to a couple of gods, personal names, and technical terms, then I'd say we were stuck with LMII-era Greek as the oldest fully-attested living P.I.E.-descended language. (Zimriel 00:11, 30 May 2006 (UTC))

Anatolian older than Greek - but this doesn't matter

I'd say that Hittite (and maybe Luwiyan and Palaic) as written languages have a claim over Greek; Anittas and Pithanas were writing in Hittite in the 18th century BCE, and even Hattusili I was arguably writing alongside LMIB Crete prior to the "Room of the Chariot Tablets". But there are two good reasons to stick an asterisk by all that. First: all the Anatolian languages are dead, dead, dead - Greek isn't. Second: if we're defining P.I.E. as the ancestor of all living I.E. languages, as was done when the I.E. superfamily was first defined, then Anatolian (and Tocharian) branched off before P.I.E. even existed. Just a minor nitpick... (Zimriel 00:02, 30 May 2006 (UTC))

You realise of course, that this falls under original research. All the sources I've seen state that Greek has the longest documented period amongst the living IE languages. Sanskrit on the other hand is clearly a dead language with living ancestors, that's where the difference lies. Anatolian is dead altogether. Miskin 00:26, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Please improve greek grammar

I think it is stub and too sinthetic article, what about the consecutio modorum? And the tense vs aspect difference? Or the amazing duttility that this language has on talking about everything? Philx

You have to click on the blue underlined font to make it work. Miskin 08:42, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

The main page is illegible

Polytonic Greek does not display in Windows unless a polyatomic font is specified such as Palatino. The default font here is not polytonic. None of the IPA characters display either since Windows does not have a font for these at all.

I suggest that these characters should be ditched in favour of ISO Greek and Latin transliteration.--Thrax 23:59, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Both polytonic and IPA displayed correctly on IE until recently. But there has been some activity on Template:IPA and Template:Polytonic which seems to have broken them. For now, I reverted Template:Polytonic to an older version, but there may still be some problems. --Macrakis 18:47, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. It's working now. --81.178.255.12 19:26, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Intelligibility of Ancient Greek

The discussion of this point has become convoluted and somewhat hostile, so I'm starting this as a new topic.

My disagreement is with the following statement: It is claimed that an "educated" speaker of the modern language can understand an ancient text, but this is surely as much a function of education as of the similarity of the languages.

My expertise is not as a scholar of ancient or modern Greek. I am basically illiterate in Greek and learned a basic, conversational vocabulary by living among not-well-educated Greeks. Basically, my Greek is at the level of a four-year-old native speaker's. I found I was able to decipher the meaning of ancient Greek texts nearly as well as a modern newspaper. If I am able to understand ancient Greek, then surely the languages are pretty similar.

Of course, a higher level of education tends to lead to a larger vocabulary and overall better reading comprehension. An educated Greek person is going to understand more modern Greek as well as more ancient Greek. Similarly, an uneducated native English speaker is going to have a more difficult time understanding Shakespeare than an educated one would. In fact, the difference between contemporary English and Shakepearian, or early modern, English is probably the best analogy between modern and ancient Greek.

I suspect that it's the scholars of ancient Greek, who have a great deal of difficulty with modern colloquialisms, who emphasize the differences; whereas modern speakers understand a decent amount of ancient Greek and therefore emphasize the similarities.

Please sign your posts (with four ~'s).
In fact this situation is not uncommon - sometone with a smattering of German will find Old high German or Norwegian or Dutch about as hard as reading a German newspaper, because in all four cases, he's guessing at the grammar and syntax. So here; the written vocabulary is largely the same (to some degree, by conscious borrowing) and the differences are invisible (there are a lot of Demotic words which the reader doesn't know; there are a lor of Attic words the reader doesn't know; that they are often different words escapes him.) The pronunciaton, grammar, and syntax are quite different, but the smatterer doesn't see that.
My observation on foreign classicists is the opposite: they are impressed, often overly impressed, on how much they can communicate by using repronounced or written Attic. This is partly the same illusion as the tourist trying to read Xenophon, above. Septentrionalis 16:13, 6 October 2005 (UTC)


Well I've studied ancient greek on gymnasium, and I've been on greece many times , a greek friend of mine said that the distance between ancient greek and moder greek is same of modern italian and Dante's language,in fact there is less difference between Latin and italian than ancient and moder greek so, a well educated greek person can understand quite easily ancient greek, but not the attik, the Koinè greek, a normal greek person would have the same difficulties reading Tukidides as a italian guy would have reading for example Tito Livio. Philx.

I'm confused - you're saying the vocabulary is similar, but the grammar is so different that it makes any understanding illusory? You can't really be suggesting that syntax is as important to comprehension as vocabulary. If 90% of words in two languages are cognates, they're pretty mutually comprehensible, and differences in grammar won't matter so much, because you can successfully guess the meaning. I guess the question for me breaks down to what percentage of words in ancient Greek have cognates in modern Greek. Anybody want to venture a guess? 90%?

I don't get why you're saying that a "smatterer" wouldn't have any understanding of grammar and syntax. You don't have to be educated or literate to use grammar and syntax to make yourself understood. You pick up a sense of grammar rules along with vocabulary.

Obviously pronunciation is important to intelligibility, but this debate isn't about the pronunciation of a dead language, is it?--Lagringa 08:55, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I am greek, so i think i could help here. I think a modern greek speaker (with no special education in ancient greek) can in 70% of the cases understand the general meaning of a writen ancient text, but not everything. Also a person may missunderstand many frases, because of the change in some words' meaning. Also different tenses' forming and syntax may cause misunderstanding.
But the understaning is strongly related to the text. The biblic texts, writen in koine, are alot easier to understand than classical ancient greek texts. Moreover those (the biblic) texts are used in church, so almost everyone has some listening experience of that form of the language.

Some other thing to consider are:

  • Ancient greek is read in greece using the modern pronunciation of diphthongs (αι=e, ει=i, ου=u etc) and letters (ancient υ=i, β=v and not b, η=i and not ē etc.) That makes the understanding of ancient texts alot easier. I had once listened to ancient greek spoken as it would be spoken in ancient greece (I think it is called erasmian pronunsiation) and I was able to understand only some words here and there.
  • When it comes to vocabulary changes, the vast majority of modern greek words come from ancient greek. Some of them are unchanged in meaning and some have changed. An example of change that may cause missunderstaning is the word "όρνις". In ancient greek it means "bird" in general, but in modern greek it means "chiken".
    The result is that a modern greek pesron may understand that Aristophanes is talking about chikens, when he actualy speaks about birds. But, at least that person understands that Aristophanes isa talking about "aves" and not about the clouds or his mother.
  • There are also many ancient words that are not used now, but survive in complex words produced by them. As an example, again with "όρνις": the word itself is not used to describe a chiken or a bird. Insted the word "κότα" (kóta) is used for the chiken. But "όρνις" is used in words like "ορνιθοτροφείο" (ornithotrofío) meaning "place where chikens are fed and raised" (sorry i don't know the english word but I think you see what i am talking about). Those words make the understandind of ancient greek easier.
  • Ancient greek is taught in modern greek schools, up to a basic level. So almost everyone has some education in ancient greek. The ideal "object to observe" in our case would be a totaly illiterate greek. Hard to find, and when we do, that pesron has propably listend to alot of ancient greek in church.
  • Up to some 30 years ago the official writen form of greek was katharevousa, a made-up form of greek, that used a lot of archaisms. All the people aged more that 30-40 years had took their education in that language. So they have some experience with archaist form of words and grammar, even if they have no special experience with ancient greek.

To sum up, ancient and modern greek are, in my opinion, very diffrent, but for various reasons ancient greek is up to a point intelligible by modern greek speakers. At least more intelligible (I think) than other laguages spoken 2500 years ago, by speakers of modern derevatives of those ancient languages.--Mik2 23:44, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

How can I insert diacritics point or accents

I would likely know hot to insert diacritics points in acient greeks like spirites and crcumflex accents , can anyone help me? 82.59.61.199 18:47, 16 October 2005 (UTC) Philx 82.59.61.199 18:47, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Ancient Greek was originally written in all capital letters, the lower-case writing system and accenting were introduced in Hellenistic Greek. So if you want to write Attic the exact way its contemporaries did, you shouldn't use accenting at all. Miskin 11:59, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

And Eta and Omega were not introduced to Athens until 403 B.C. So?
Accented and breathed letters can be found under Polytonic orthography, which see; you may to use the inline Wikipedia:template {{polytonic}}.

Cleaning up "Ancient greek subordinaton rules and verbs meaning

I'm the author of this edit, as all of you can see I'm not very good at English writing, can anyone help me to clean it up? I'm not an experienced wikipedian and I ll gladly appreciate any helps. Thank you Philx 11:23, 18 October 2005 (UTC) Philx Philx 11:23, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

excuse is there anybody still active in this discussion? I'm talking to myself? Can anyone help me? Philx 17:53, 22 October 2005 (UTC) Philx Philx 17:53, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll take a look at it next week. Must go now. Septentrionalis 23:26, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Thank for four help Philx 08:48, 23 October 2005 (UTC) Philx Philx 08:48, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

γεια

You said that γεια is used as 'hello' and actually means 'health'. Yes, this is correct, but that it is used solely among people who know eachother well. This is absolutely NOT true. People who do not know eachother at all will use γεια in an informal situation. Yes, καλημέρα is more formal than γεια. This is analogous to 'hello' and 'good day' in English.

"γεια" may also sometimes be used between people that do not know eachother in a formal situation, but with the additon of "σας" (sas) in the end. (Γεια σας-Ya sas). "Sas" that means "to you" (plural) is used here as a plural of politness, like in french "vous" is used.--Mik2 21:56, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

the spelling of English

I've noticed a lot of mistakes in the orthography of the English on this page. Could anyone help me correct this?

"greek view" of historical sound changes - no sources, original research

Opposing Scientific Views

moved to Talk:Ancient_Greek_pronunciation Andreas 16:22, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Sandhi rules and Orthography have become illegible and unintelligible

Will people stop using IPA symbols that don't exist in standard windows UTF fronts.

Instead of using the IPA why can't people give examples in English so people don't have to keep searching dozens of other pages to find out how everything should be pronounced.

You can now click on the IPA symbol to get directly to the explanation. Andreas 00:30, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

The IPA doesn't even have a signal letter to represent the sound of English letter J (which is the sound of Cypriot kappa) and uses the same approximation as of the Greek combination of TZ which sounds nothing like J, thus the IPA causes more trouble than its worth. What use is telling people that Θ is pronounced /θ/ when they don't know what /θ/ is ? --Thrax 15:11, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation in Wikipedia is indicated using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation). As far as Wiindiws is concerned, read Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation)#Technical issues Andreas 17:01, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Sandhi rules and Orthography are still illegible even with the IPA template set at the top of the page. --Thrax 18:50, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Sound of μπ between vowels

The letters μπ betweein vowels in words like συμπάθεια or κουμπί sound like mb in English words like Hamburger and not like b as in about. Andreas 17:06, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

This is not always the case. The 'μπ' is either used for 'mb' or for 'mp' or even for 'b'. Examples of use as 'b' are loanwords such as μπάνιο, χαμπάρι etc. Petros The Hellene 15:50, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
μπάνιο does not count, this is not between vowels. You have to understand the concept of an allophone: the sounds [b] and [mb] in Modern Greek are allophones, and there is no [mp] in standard (southern) modern Greek. Therefore, the sounds of English /b/, /mb/, and /mp/ will sound the same when pronounced in Greek. Of course, this is only true for a naive speaker. Somebody who is familiar with the sounds of foreign languages (or the more educated speaker) will make a difference. This is evident with words of Venetian or Latin origin such as κουμπάρος < compare, καμπάνα < campana, ρόμπα < roba. Andreas 16:53, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
Addendum: According to the Hellenic Society for Terminology, in foregn words and in some words like μπαμπάς, <μπ> is indeed pronounced as [b], http://sfr.ee.teiath.gr/htmSELIDES/Technology/Orogramma/Orogr-46c.htm

greek words section

can someone add a latin alphabet translation of the greek words section (hello, goodbye etc)? --Phil 14:07, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

What you mean is transcription or transliteration. This would open a bag of flees. There is no way to transcribe a foreign language such that it can be read in English, especially because in English, vowels are pronounced differently from all other languages. For example, yes, in Greek ναι, is pronounced [ne̞]. A transliteration would be nai, probably useless for you. If we would write ne, you would probably pronounce it [niː], riming with we. So we are left with nay, but this would be pronounced [neɪ], and Greeks would think that you mean νέοι, the plural of νέος, new. Therefore, it is Wikipedia policy to use the International Phonetic Alphabet. See: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation) -- Andreas 14:47, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • When you say "There is no way to transcribe a foreign language such that it can be read in English," I think what you mean is there is no way to transcribe a foreign language such that it can be read in English with the exact pronunciation that it had in the original. Most English-language dictionaries (all the mainstream ones except the OED really) do this and I think that it would be an important aid to people who do not know the Greek alphabet but are nonetheless interested in learning about Greek. The pronunciation of the word in the source language is important to scholars, but to some etymology buffs and other people it is of only passing concern. That being said, learning the Greek alphabet is not that hard and most people could do it in about 5-10 hours of study over the course of a week. I had to do it (more or less) overnight. Learning IPA is in my opinion much more time-consuming.--Hraefen 17:38, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
This would mean a change in Wikipedia policy, so post your complains to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (pronunciation). See also: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style archive (pronunciation), Wikipedia:Simple_pronunciation_markup_guide. Part of the problem is which transcription system should be used, see: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(pronunciation)/IPA_vs._other_pronunciation_symbols. The alternative would be a transliteration but there is no accepted system of transliteraton for Greek. Andreas 18:15, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I realize the utility of using IPA and I agree with it, but would it be against policy to have IPA AND some type of Greek to English transliteration? The inclusion of one does not hinder the utility of the other, because all users would either understand only one (just the transliteration) or both. And while there may be no 'accepted' i.e. official protocol for transliteration, I think there is a fairly standard (although not accurate...which for reasons stated above doesn't matter to many users) way to do so which is employed by Webster's for one. Any thoughts--?Hraefen 20:12, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
In fact, other articles do use transliterations, there is no standard. You can try to do your own, using the talbe in Transliteration of Greek into English. There is a choice between two systems for Modern Greek. Be bold! If you make mistakes, somebody will correct them. Good luck! Andreas 20:48, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Modern coinages based on classical roots

Is there a word for modern coinages, based on classical roots (which likely wouldn't have been understood by the speakers in classical times) such as all the philias and phobias and other scientific vocabulary? Modern Greek clearly is referring to a different language, so that isn't valid. I thought about Neo-Greek, analogous to Neo-Latin, but according to Wikipedia, that's an architectural style. 85.226.122.222 06:55, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

vowel section table

Is this table supposed to have the weird formatting with the vowels left, center, and right justified in their columns? Maybe this was html that was copied from elsewhere and needs to be better wikified for formating?

about sandhi applied in the phrase "ton patera"

My intention is not to dispute about sandhi rules in modern Greek, but what disturbs me is that being a Greek and living in Greece, I haven't yet heard any person speaking "tompatera" (or even worst: "tombatera") instead of the correct "ton patera". I know, often one reads in books and the entirely Internet about "tompatera", and I wonder where they got that information, but nonetheless I think Wikipedia should try to correct this subtle error. I intended to edit the article, but than thought I should better make an entry here in this discussion, hoping someone else will find a better way to put things straight. (213.5.20.242)

Υou are not the first one with such a comment. The sandhi phenomenon occurs unconciously, therefore you would not notice it even if it occurs. The example τον πατέρα is not very good because πατέρας is a more or less formal word, the vernacular is μπαμπάς. Better examples: την πόρτα, δεν πειράζει, δεν πρέπει, εν τάξει.
References
I did not find much on modern Greek sandhi on Google. Maybe somebody with a linguistic background can find good sources. ::Andreas 16:45, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

The pronunciation of intervocalic ντ/μπ/νπ varies in many ways, depending on region, social class, age, literacy, speech register, whether there is a word boundary, etc. The underlying phonemic structure is probably different from person to person -- some people have underlying /nt/ which is distinctive from /nd/ and /d/, others do not. Or another analysis might mark the whole word as a formal-register word [+formal]. To call [d], [nd], [nt] allophones of the underlying phonemic /nt/ implies that the pronunciation is predictable from the phonetic environment plus perhaps the speech register, but different words in the same speech register might be treated differently, so there has to be some lexical information, too.... --Macrakis 18:09, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I’ll like to add to what Macrakis already said, that one has also to distinguish between various regional dialects and the common accepted language, which has not to be necessarily the formal one. From the above examples “την πόρτα, δεν πειράζει, δεν πρέπει, εν τάξει” only the last one follows clearly sandhi rules, both in the vernacular language and the formal one. In the other examples the final “n” tends to be dropped (although often one may still hear a subtle “m”, but avoiding any “b”, this is considered to sound ‘barbaric’), signifying that this will be part of the future development of the Greek language. -- Blue Oracle
There are different sandhi rules for different situations and different people. And the ν is optional in many of the cases you cite, which complicates the analysis. I disagree that the above examples avoid [b]. It is very common to hear [sti'borta] and ['δebi'razi]. I agree that the 'b' sound here is often stigmatized, but even the people criticizing it use it (without being aware of it) sometimes! --Macrakis
Maybe it's true what you want to point, but somewhere one has to draw the lines as to what is accepted as a sandhi rule, and what are plain dialects or even incababilities of the speaker to articulate proper sounds and words. Under "sandhi rule" one understands the general pronunciation of a language, as it is accepted by the majority of the population, otherwise one will never come to any proper result. In Sanskrit, from which this term comes, sandhi rules bind all speakers. -- Blue Oracle
I think we are using the word "rule" in different senses. In prescriptive linguistics, a "rule" defines the "correct" way to do something; prescriptive grammar talks about the "proper" sounds of the language etc. In descriptive linguistics (which is what language articles in encyclopedias generally document), a "rule" is simply a formal description of a linguistics phenomenon, without any judgement about whether it is desirable. Descriptive linguistics includes discussion of the sociolinguistic facts (e.g. that using [b] rather than [np] in some cases is considered vulgar by some people) but does not limit itself to that. --Macrakis 16:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Diphthongs

Modern Greek has diphthongs, like in "γάιδαρος", but also hiatus such as in "καΐκι". Should this be included in the phonology section? Does anybody know of a scholarly source? Andreas 20:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Labiodental nasal?

I notice that the phonology table has an entry for a labiodental nasal ɱ. I can't really understand why that should be a phoneme. Any idea, or should I just erase that? Lukas 18:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe for a word like έμφαση? But from my experience it should be [m]. Andreas 18:25, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, sure, that's where it occurs phonetically, but it seems quite a clear case of just a positionally conditioned allophone. I just looked it up, and that's what I found in Mackridge and Philippaki-Warburton too. Now, that grammar tends towards a minimalist phonemic system, as it also doesn't recognize the palatal series either, and we on the other hand do have the palatal series. But in the case of the /m/, I don't really see two ways about it. Lukas 18:34, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
P.S. Re-reading the section now, I realize the text is meant to make it clear that the table is a phonetic inventory, not a phoneme set. In that case, I guess the table can be left as it is, but I'll try to make the text a little bit clearer still so as to avoid the misunderstaning. Lukas 11:51, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Voiced palatal fricative vs approximant

How about Voiced palatal fricative [ʝ] vs [j]? Andreas 19:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I think no harm is done in sticking with the more common symbol [j]. The IPA handbook does the same, for instance with Irish, where /j/ is the palatal counterpart to velar voiced-fricative /ɣ/, quite similar to Greek, so if it's good enough for them, it should be good enough for us. Etymologically /j/ in Greek has a double origin, from a clearly consonantal fricative sound and from a consonantized original vowel; the fricative symbol would historically fit the first case better. I guess the phonotactic properties of the sound in Modern Greek may still partly reflect this double origin. But apart from that, it's now clearly a single phoneme, so whether to assign it to fricative or approximant status is pretty much a matter of choice. Lukas 12:22, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Secondary stress?

Another thing: the "common words and phrases" section has lots of secondary stress marks stuck in, sometimes in places that look quite weird to me (surely ˌeliniˈka and eˌliniˈka are equally plausible?). I'm not aware of anything that would make secondary stress phonolotically significant in Greek (unlike English). - These have been around for quite a while without having been discussed as far back as I can see, does anybody object if I delete them? Lukas 12:22, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

By all means, delete secondary stress symbols, I think they only confuse. Andreas 14:17, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Phonology section

After looking through the phonology section more closely, I found quite a number of things I thought might need some cleanup. I've put up a draft of a rewritten section in my user space for the moment: User:LukasPietsch/GreekPhonology. I've based it mostly on one grammar I had at hand, the one by Holton/Mackridge/Philippaki-Warburton. It presents the "minimalist" 15-phoneme consonant system, quite in contrast to the "maximalist" 29-consonant phonetic table we have at the moment. Not that I'd say the one is essentially more correct than the other, but my feeling is the minimalist system might be didactically nicer, as it corresponds much more closely to the written orthography, so the phonology can be presented together with the spelling (which is nice for the lay reader). - There were a number of what I felt were small technical mistakes or inconsistencies in the present text too. Let me know what you think. Lukas 22:47, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

social studies

IPA for Greek

I found a link from Indiana University that had the full IPA chart for modern Greek [2]. I have a question now: why do we say that Ελληνικά is pronounced /e̞ˌliniˈka/, where did the /e̞/ come from? According to that link, Greek uses /e/. The article also claims that /o̞/ is used as well - according to our source though, Greek uses /o/. Latinus 16:27, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The IPA [e̞] is simply more accurate than /e/ as it represents a lowered vowel (i.e. more open). It is a phonetic as opposed to a phonemic contrast in modern Greek. --Gareth Hughes 17:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Is there some kind of source? Latinus 17:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't have a source to hand. The diacritic simply indicates that vowel is slightly more mid-centralised than its cardinal position. The symbol represents a mid front unrounded vowel, whereas [e] is a close-mid front unrounded vowel. Phonemically, such niceties are not needed in Greek. --Gareth Hughes 18:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, let's leave it then, if you're sure. Latinus 18:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Duplicatiohn with Ancient Greek

This article includes information about Modern Greek and Ancient Greek in a haphazard way. The phonology table is that for modern Greek, whereas most examples are in ancient Greek. There are also two sections on grammar. This situation comes from the fact that the essence of the Greek language is seen differently by people with a classical education from and by those with ties to modern Greece or Greek expatriates. This leaves the uninitiated reader totally confused. If there is no objection, I will transfer the grammar sections and the Ancient Greek examples to Ancient Greek, and the phonology and example phrases to Modern Greek, as I did this before in the German Wikipedia. Another alternative would be to merge Greek language with Modern Greek with references to Ancient Greek. Andreas 14:40, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead. --Latinus (talk (el:)) 14:42, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Mention missing sounds?

Somebody included a sentence to the effect that Greek lacked a certain sound, [ʃ], and somebody else deleted that again. I'd suggest we keep it out. Greek also lacks [β, ɸ, q, ʕ, ʘ, ǀ, ʒ, ʤ, ʗ, ʍ, æ, ʌ, ɒ, y], so why not mention these too once weʼve started? If we were to describe, for every language, every sound that it does not have, we'd never get to an end. Lukas (T.|@) 22:27, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure about this, but I assume that the editor's intention in mentioning the lack of [ʃ] was to talk about how foreign words are rendered in Greek -- something that could be covered more systematically than just mentioning [ʃ]. This is interesting -- especially for foreign names -- because Greek doesn't have the option of preserving the Latin-script spelling as do all other European languages. --Macrakis 16:00, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Modern Greek wikibook

I've been doing some work on the Modern Greek wikibook. However, I'm not a native speaker, so I'd appreciate any proofreading that native speakers could provide. Also, I've recorded some audio for the first lesson, on the theory that even a foreign-accented recording is better than nothing at all, but obviously it would be a big help if a native speaker could take some time to redo the recordings (or perhaps record over the Greek words but leave my voice in for the English words that are mixed in sometimes). As I'm getting into the second lesson now, there's starting to be enough vocabulary and grammar to do real dialogues, so actually it would be helpful there to have *two* native speakers who could contribute. Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give!--Bcrowell 18:12, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

A couple of anons have made some very helpful edits and corrected some mistakes in the wikibook. (I assume these are people who were responding to my request for help above, and who just haven't made accounts on wikibooks yet.) Thanks very much for your help, folks! Sound recordings by native speakers would still be much appreciated. --Bcrowell 20:32, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Grammar question

Can anybody help with the following grammar question? I want to get this right in lesson 4 of the Modern Greek wikibook. I've seen constructions like all three of the following in books or in Google searches:

  • Aρέσω το αυτοκίνητο. I like the car.
  • Με αρέσει το αυτοκίνητο. I like the car. (lit, "The car pleases me.")
  • Μου αρέσει το αυτοκίνητο.

Are all three of these correct? Do they all mean the same thing? Am I confused? In the third example, why would the genitive be used?--Bcrowell 18:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

The first is incorrect. The second is also incorrect (but I think it is correct as dialect speach!). The correct is the third (Μου αρέσει το αυτοκίνητο). --Lucinos 18:56, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

"Aρέσω το αυτοκίνητο" is a regionalism from Constantinople/Istanbul. I do not know where else it is used, this is personals experience. In any case, it has to be avoided in a textbook where the standard language is taught. Andreas 20:54, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Modern Greek wikibook -- need help transcribing folk songs

I'd like to use some folk songs in the Modern Greek wikibook, and have not had much luck finding lyrics of them online. The site at http://www.kithara.vu/ has a lot of lyrics, but it's not clear to me whether they're public domain folk songs, or illegally posted lyrics to songs that are still in copyright. There are some at http://www.ucy.ac.cy/research/ethno/archives.htm, but the university is claiming copyright on them. I have been able to find some recordings of folk songs that are public domain, at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/flwpahtml/flwpahome.html, but I'm having trouble transcribing the lyrics. Would anyone be willing to help by transcribing some of them, or by simply giving some lyrics of a simple children's song that you know from memory and that you're sure is in the public domain? Some of the recordings that seemed promising are here:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/flwpahtml/flwpabibAudios4.html - To mikro potamaki
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/flwpahtml/flwpabibAudios3.html - Oi vounisioi
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/flwpahtml/flwpabibAudios4.html - To aidoni
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/flwpahtml/flwpabibAudios3.html - Parakalo sychorise me

The first one seems particularly good because it seems to be using simple grammar and vocabulary, but I've only been able to make out about a third of the words. The second one is a very pretty tune, but I can't figure out the words, and I'm wondering if they're archaic or dialectical. Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide!--Bcrowell 05:33, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Archive discussion?

Isn't it time to archive this discussion, soon? (When Bcrowell has received some help, anyway...) 惑乱 分からん 14:07, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Eisegesis

Can someone check my Greek from my recent edits to Eisegesis. I pretty much just mashed the spelling from Istanbul and Exegesis, which is bound to introduce a mistake or two. Thanks. -Harmil 18:48, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

εἰσηγεῖσθαι Andreas 20:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

the word 'greek'

Does anyone know the ultimate orgine of the English words 'greek' and 'greece' (beyond Latin 'graecus' and 'graecia'), since the Greeks themselves call themselves by something based on 'hellen'?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.138.68.3 (talk • contribs) .

See Names of the Greeks. Jkelly 21:23, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

"known world"

i might be being a bit nit-picky, but does anyone else have a problem with the term "known world?" the world known to who? the native americans? the aborigines in australia? people of modern south africa? this term is a very euro-centric term if you ask me. yes i know the known world included parts of north africa and south east asia, but only because these areas were known to the greeks and other europeans. just thought i'd share my thoughts.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.52.49.10 (talk • contribs) .

Gerund vs. participle

Here and in the German Wikipedia, I used the term 'Gerund' for forms like τρέχοντας. However, the gerund is a verbal noun, as in Editing this article is very easy. The Greek form is used in sentences like έρχεται τρέχοντας - she comes running. This seems like an verbal adverb to me. Can the linguists comment on this? Andreas 22:28, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

The Babiniotis dictionary has an interesting note about this (s.v. γερούντιο). He calls it an άκλιτη μετοχή (indeclinable participle) but notes the some grammarians call it a γερούντιο (gerund). The Andriotis dictionary, on the other hand, does not even mention the use of γερούντιο for modern Greek, only to Latin and (by extension) to ancient Greek (infinitives with the definite article and verbal adjectives in -τέος). --Macrakis 23:29, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
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