Talk:Greek language/Archive 3

Greek language spoken in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
By whom, and where is the source to confirm this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Akula444 (talk • contribs).


 * Ethnologue . Also, the 2002 census found that 0,021% of the population of the Republic of Macedonia (small I know) self-identified as Greek. --Telex 18:06, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Nope, that would be false sign to the world community. Our country is Hellas. Greeks since this is what the records say, were a tribe in Northern Epirus. If so, then we do a very bad mistake, to turn a subgroup as definition of the whole nation. While true, globally, is known as Greece or Greeks the adverb, truly this is false. And sometime in the future should be this altered. Hellas and Hellenic do exist and are familiar even people from abroad. Not to mention the country's official name, "Hellenic Republic" it is. In other words, while I do not know who edited the Hellenic Group, just by accepting and forgetting the original term, do not give pace neither to historical proof, but we accept further problems with subgroups or other nations that overlook our history ( like Skopians). Greeks is subgroup of Hellas, Macedonians, Cretans, Cypriots or Pontians are subgroups of Hellas. If we get rid of this term we loose our history. Personally, I have no problem to say " I am Hellenas" or "I am Hellen" and when a foreigner speaks about "Greece" I answer "Hellas", and if can not understand and ask me, I can explain.

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.167.181.37 (talk) 16:19, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Linear B writing = Pelasgians language
If linear B writing is consider as first form of Greek language then we must assume that this language is originated from Pelasgian language. We must accept that Pelasgian language is a indo –european language and since the oldest recognized such language is Albanian the oldest greek language is originated from oldest Albanian language “The law formulated in 1892 by J. Wackernagel, according to which unstressed parts of the sentence tend to occupy a position after the first stressed word normally situated at the beginning of a sentence qualifies Albanian as the oldest living Indo European language.” Dodona (80.78.74.68) 19:41, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * If Pelazg was an indoeuropean language then how do you explain the large amount of Sumerian-Altaic words in Greek?
 * Magi, (58.96.112.117) 17:14, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Is there a Greek MOS for usse of diacritical marks?
I am doing research on how diacritical marks are discussed in various style guides on Wikipedia. (See: User:Buddhipriya/LanguageTransliterationStyleGuides) Is there a Manual of Style or Naming Conventions page that covers rules for when and how to include diacritics for Greek on Wikipedia articles? Thanks for your help with this. Buddhipriya (talk) 05:01, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * From your user subpage I take it you are referring to the handling of diacritics in transliteration, right? Good question, and I think it's being handled less than consistently. The conventions should be at WP:GREEK. Currently it explicitly says that no accent marks should be used for Modern Greek. About Ancient Greek, I don't see any explicit rule, but two examples that do contain acute accents and length marks (Hómēros, Skýthēs). It might be worth clarifying this. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:15, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your answer, it is very helpful. You are right that I am trying to survey how diacritical marks are used across multiple languages on Wikipedia.  If you want to adjust what I have noted for Greek don't hesitate to directly edit my user subpage. Buddhipriya (talk) 22:56, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Consonant and Vowel inventory??
Hey guys, why hasn't someone added a consonant and vowel chart for "Standard" Modern Greek? Phonetics and phonology are important, you know. 65.14.229.26 (talk) 16:05, 22 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Because this is the article on the Greek language through its whole existence. Modern Greek is just a small part of the history of Greek. The phonology was very different in Mycenaean, and Ancient, and Koine times. A phonology section would be very long to describe all those. If you want Modern Greek phonology, check out Modern Greek and Modern Greek phonology. — Eru·tuon 17:58, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Evaluatives?
In the section on Characteristics, I see a number of semi- and outright evaluative words being used, which strike me as superfluous, not impartial, and hard to support with independent evidence. Examples: "This technique of Attic prose (known as periodic style) is unmatched in other European languages." "Greek is a language distinguished by an extraordinarily rich vocabulary." And pretty much the whole paragraph starting "One of the most distinctive characteristics of the Greek language is its powerful compound-constructing ability." Io rightly pointed out some of this as "chauvinistic". Moreover, it's hard to believe any of it is true. 1. What exactly is "unmatched" in other ... languages? The ability to have multiple participial clauses? If so, that's not true. These phrases sound like some kind of vague bragging, not neutral linguistic description. 2. "extraordinarily rich vocabulary" Citation? Comparison class? I hear these kinds of claims from speakers of lots of languages all the time, but I've never read a single scholarly article that would back up such claims. Everyone's native language is "extraordinarily rich" for *them*, and we certainly don't want to start counting lemmata in dictionaries, no? 3. Compounding in modern Greek is basically limited to two elements. There are many with two elements (νεοελληνικός, ελληνόφωνος, ελεφαντόδοντο, οδοντίατρος, etc.) but try putting these together and the results are comical (*νεοελληνόφωνος [even the Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής (Α.Π.Θ. 1998) doesn't list that one], *ελεφαντοδοντίατρος: such 3+ compounds are perfectly unremarkable in the Germanic languages, for example: German 'Elefantenzahnarzt', Dutch 'olifanttandarts', English 'elephant tooth doctor', while they may not be attested, are perfectly understandable as neologisms. I recall a paper on compounding presented at the Thessaloniki conference (Angliko tmima) a few years back on this topic; I may try to find it if anyone's interested, but frankly, given the marginality of this phenomenon to begin with, and its limited interestingness anyhow, I'd much rather cut this paragraph and replace it with something about clitic pronouns, lack of an infinitive, definiteness spreading, comparative/superlative morphology, negative concord, or almost anything else that makes Greek especially interesting typologically. (And this is where a pointer to the excellent sprachbund article would be apt.) I'm happy to do this myself, if no-one objects... Mundart (talk) 22:09, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Very good points. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Knock yourself out. Knowing several Native American languages, I always get a kick out of how some European linguists are so sure that all things Indo-European (especially in the classical languages) are the most interesting things in the world ;)  I totally agree with the removal of evaluatives.  (Hmmm, "evaluative" sounds like a type of syntactic marker or derivational suffix in some language somewhere.  Ah, I remember now.  "Evaluatives" is a term I've seen used for things like affectionate diminutives, augmentatives, etc.  Maybe something else, too.)  (Taivo (talk) 22:53, 30 April 2009 (UTC))

Just some trivia: Apparently the Greek Language contains over some 70 million words which include derivatives. Can anyone prove or disprove this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.131.40.195 (talk) 11:38, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I've never seen a claim like this in the literature. I know Jerry Sadock--as a joke--once calculated derived word forms for W.Greenlandic Eskimo (as in any incorporating language, or a language with recursive compounding, the number of "words" is unlimited), but nothing for Greek. But find a ref, that'd be interesting. Mundart (talk) 15:54, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That sounds like urban legend. It sounds like someone took X number of Greek roots and calculated that if Y derivational suffixes were added to each root then Z total words would be the result.  The problem with this exercise is that not all derivational suffixes can be added to every root.  Most derivational suffixes in any language can only be added to a small percentage of the roots in the language.  The only referenced exercise of this type I've ever seen is for Archi in Blackwell's Handbook of Morphology.  Each Archi verb root, when combined with each possible derivational construction can produce 1.6 million forms.  Fortunately, there are only about 100 verb roots in the language because Archi forms most of its verbs by serial verb constructions with one of the 100 inflected verbs plus a root that modifies the meaning.  But even then, not all verb roots can participate in the whole set of derivational combinations.  (Taivo (talk) 23:24, 24 May 2009 (UTC))

the anonymous poster is indeed referring to a minor 'urban legend'. it's along these lines: some guy heard that the TLG database contains a 'total of 90 million words of text', completely misrepresented it as 'the Greek lexicon totals 90 million words', posted the claim on his blog, another blog copied it etc. etc.87.202.49.224 (talk) 02:37, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I thought of a couple of Greek words that exist in the English language that have more than one or two derivatives, however there are many: "phon" which means "voice" which seems to have quite a few derivatives, e.g., phonasthenia, phonate, phonation, phonautograph, phoneme, phonematic, phonetic, phonetics, phonetical, phonetically, phonetician, phoniatrics, phoniatry, phonic, phonics, phonedoscope, phonically, phonometer, phonocardiogram, phonocardiograph, phonocardiographic, -cal, -cally, phonochorda, phonogram, phonograph, phonographer, phonographic, -cally, phonography, phonolite, phonology, phonologic, -cal, phonologist, phonomania, phonometer, phonometry, phonopathy, phonophile, phonophobia, phonophotography, phonopsia, phonoscope. Another is "phot-, "photo" which means "light." E.g., photosthesia, photosthesis, photic, photics, photism, photoallergy, photoautotrophic, photobiology, photobiologist, photobiotic, photocatalysis, photocatalyst, photochemistry, photochemical, -cally, photochromy, photochromatic, photochromic, photochromism, photochronograph, photodrama, photodynamics, photodynamic, photodynia, photoecology, photoelasticity, photoelectric, photoelectron, photoelectricity, photogene, photogenic, photogeology, photogoniometer, photogram, photograph, photographer, photographic, -cal, -cally, photography, photoheliograph, photokinesis, photokymograph, photolith, photolithograph, photolithographic - photolithography, photology, photologic, photologist, photolysis, photolytic, photomacrography, photomagnetism, photomagnetic, photomania, photomechanical, photometer, photometric, -photometrical, photometrician, photometry, photomicrograph, photomicrographic, photomicrography, photomosaic, photon, photopathologic, photoperiod, photoperiodic, photoperiodical, photoperiodicity, photophilic, phtophily, photophobia, photophobic, photophone, photophonic, photophony, photophoresis, photophygous, photoproton, photopsia, photopsy, photoptarmosis, photoptic, photoscope, photoscopic, photoscopy, photosphere, photospheric, photostat, photostatic, photosynthesis, photosynthesize, photosynthetic, -cally, phototaxis, phototelegraph, phototelegraphy, phototherapy, phototopography, phototoxic, phototoxicity, phototroph, phototropism, phototropy, phototropic, phototype, phototypic, phototypy. I could list more but I don't have the time right now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.131.30.80 (talk) 09:07, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Uh, so? What's your point?  (Taivo (talk) 14:23, 17 July 2009 (UTC))

Take a look this

http://www.filol.csic.es/dge/index2.htm

without exageration, this work is one of the most comprehensive dictionary of Ancient Greek (Modern Greek is excluded) ever written. It is a proof of the lexical abundance of Greek. It has been edited 5 volumes but the work is just in its beginning. Crazymadlover


 * No one ever said that Ancient Greek wasn't lexically rich, but, then the Oxford English Dictionary is 20 volumes. Compared to that, five volumes is just a toddler.  But then, I repeat, "Uh, so? What's your point?"  (Taivo (talk) 04:45, 25 September 2009 (UTC))

Lets not forget that the "English" language is predominantly made up from Greek and "Latin" (which contains Greek) and "Germanic" and from other languages to a lesser extent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.131.24.91 (talk) 00:33, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Um, no. And German certainly isn't based on Latin and Greek.  Rubbish statement.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by HammerFilmFan (talk • contribs) 09:52, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Periods of Greek
Britannica article includes Mycenaean Greek into Ancient Greek: Ancient Greek is subdivided into Mycenaean Greek (14th–13th centuries bc) and Archaic and Classical Greek (8th–4th centuries bc). This is a correct update after the decipherment of Linear B in the '50s. Shouldn't we update also? A Macedonian, a Greek. (talk) 19:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Linguistic period classification is always arbitrary. There is no objective truth about such classifications, so I wouldn't bother too much about it either way. Of course Mycenean is part of "ancient" in the sense that everything from antiquity is "ancient"; on the other hand, there is quite an objective gap between Mycenean Greek and alphabetic ancient Greek proper, both in times of attestation and in language structure, so that treating them as separate periods is quite easy to justify. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:52, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Big restructuring needed?
I think the whole set of articles on the Greek language suffers from some problems of scope. Much of this seems to be because an originally fairly well-planned series of articles has grown into unexpected directions, not least because there is uncertainty whether the term "Greek", when used on its own in an article title, should primarily refer to Ancient Greek (A.G.) or Modern Greek (M.G.). I'd therefore like to propose a rather large restructuring project for discussion:

Current article scope problems

 * Greek language seems to have been originally designed as a diachronic overview article, but has now been changed into a sketch of M.G., with a diachronic section rather awkwardly attached to it.
 * Confusingly, there is now both:
 * Modern Greek language, which redirects to Greek language, (fixed   A n d r e a s    (T) 14:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)) and
 * Modern Greek, which however deals only with dialects and diglossia.
 * Greek dialects, in turn, deals with A.G.
 * In contrast, there's another series of articles where "Greek ..." deals with M.G., and the corresponding article about A.G. is titled "Ancient Greek ...":
 * Greek grammar vs. Ancient Greek grammar
 * Greek phonology vs. Ancient Greek phonology

Other issues

 * Ancient Greek: duplicates a lot of material also in Ancient Greek phonology.
 * Ancient Greek lacks a treatment of syntax.
 * Koine Greek duplicates other parts of Ancient Greek phonology.
 * Attic Greek duplicates a lot of Ancient Greek grammar
 * Arcadocypriot is a stub and should be expanded on the model of Aeolic Greek, Doric Greek, Ionic Greek
 * History of Greek is another overview article doing very much what Greek language does or could do.
 * Material about phonological change is distributed across Ancient Greek phonology, Iotacism, Koine Greek.

Proposal

 * 1) All articles titled "Greek ..." should be either overview articles dealing diachronically with the whole of Greek, or dab pages pointing to corresponding "Ancient Greek ..." and "Modern Greek ..." pages.
 * 2) Greek language should be turned back into a pure overview article, discussing things like genetic classification, history, periodization, diachronic unity of the language, geographical distribution etc.
 * 3) All detail articles that deal with only one of the stages should be prefixed "Ancient Greek ..." and "Modern Greek ..." respectively.
 * 4) The main articles for the language-system sketches should be Ancient Greek and Modern Greek, with Ancient Greek language and Modern Greek language as redirects.
 * 5) Both should have a series of corresponding sub-articles, e.g.:
 * 6) Ancient Greek phonology vs Modern Greek phonology (plus Greek phonology as dab page)
 * 7) Ancient Greek grammar vs Modern Greek grammar (plus Greek grammar as dab page)
 * 8) Ancient Greek dialects vs Modern Greek dialects (plus Greek dialects as dab page)

What to do

 * 1) Merge M.G. language-system sketch material out of Greek language into Modern Greek
 * 2) Redirect Modern Greek language to Modern Greek (done   A n d r e a s    (T) 14:20, 1 June 2006 (UTC)).
 * 3) Move Greek phonology to Modern Greek phonology, recreate as dab page.
 * 4) Same with Greek grammar.
 * 5) Move Greek dialects to Ancient Greek dialects, recreate as dab page.
 * 6) Merge M.G. dialects material out of Modern Greek into new Modern Greek dialects article.
 * 7) Merge A.G. grammar material out of Attic Greek into Ancient Greek; rewrite Attic Greek and Acradocypriot on the model of Doric Greek, Aeolic Greek and Ionic Greek.

Not sure

 * 1) What to do with the discussion of the phonological changes between Ancient and Modern Greek? It's now mainly in Ancient Greek phonology (and quite big there, after a rather trollish big dispute last year), but much is duplicated in other articles. I think it's good to have it in one place, but as it is a topic that cuts across the different stages of the language, it should perhaps have its own diachronically oriented page, perhaps History of Greek phonology, or be merged into History of Greek.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:22, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Comments
Some time ago I had tried to organise the Greek language articles almost exactly as Future proposed above. Dab had agreed with me back then so he probably remembers. While everything seemed to be in order, some other people started complained about how the article didn't follow wikipedia's guidelines (using pretty much the same arguments as Andreas) and thus all the linguistic information from Modern Greek was moved to the Greek language, leaving the former in a much poorer condition. Miskin 20:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I wholeheartedly agree with this proposal. Let Greek language be in Summary style, the central article facilitating navigation to the topic you are looking for. I think the material on Ancient Greek phonology is at home where it is, while of course there should be a summary and a main template on History of the Greek language pointing to it. Yes, especially on linguistic articles, trolls are the driving force of Wikipedia. The worst trolls often spur the best editors into creating a brilliant article with watertight references where without the trollish ecapades we would only have a brief stub :) dab (&#5839;) 10:22, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I would suggest that Greek language should be the modern language (with a dab phrase at the top) because it is the living language. We also have English language and Old English but not Modern English (this article gives only an outline of the development of the modern language), same with French, German etc. This issue also came up with the request for an Ancient Greek Wikisource. It is a fundamental question that should be decided by consensus.   A n d r e a s    (T) 14:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * In English, almost all modern languages are referred to using the simple name, not "Modern xxx". But a book entitled "Greek Grammar" or "Greek Literature" is almost certainly about Ancient Greek. This may be changing.  The title of the recent and authoritative Philippaki-Warburton/Holton/Mackridge grammar does start out "Greek", but the subtitle clarifies: "An Essential Grammar of the Modern Language". There are similar problems with other languages with a long literary tradition, such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Chinese, though perhaps in none of them is the identification of X as Ancient/Classical X as clear.  This is annoying for us Greeks (or should I say modern Greeks?), but I think it is the current state of the world.  For Wikipedia to be completely clear, I would suggest that we stick with using "Greek" to mean the whole diachronic system of Greek varieties and clearly specify "Modern Greek" or "Ancient Greek" otherwise. --Macrakis 19:47, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with dab, I disagree with Andreas. Unlike most other european languages, Modern Greek is always prefixed by 'modern' for two reasons:
 * 1) Modern Greek is an evolved stage of the 3000-year old Greek language, and not an independent language of its own (such as the child of a dead language). In that respect 'Modern Greek' refers to a historical period of a living language, which strictly speaking, contains numerous different dialects and not just Demotic. That is not the case with modern French and English.
 * 2) There's by far more people learning ancient than modern Greek.
 * Just to chime in here again with the others, my rationale in proposing this was that (1) A.G. has a special claim to being treated on a par with M.G. when it comes to the scope of Greek language, because of its exceptional historical role in European culture, and (2) that if we move both A.G. and M.G. at equal distance from Greek language, that article will still have enough interesting stuff to deal with. And besides, even Macrakis and Miskin agree with each other on this one, it would be a shame to let that consensus go to waste ;-) -- Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:03, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Is it possible to go back and see who those "some other people" are and see their arguments and possibly get their present opinion? It may be impossible to get a stable result if those editors intervene again, and all the work my be for nothing.   A n d r e a s    (T) 22:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Looking back into the talk archive of last summer, I can see Peter Isotalo as the principal proponent of "Greek language=M.G." Perhaps that's what Miskin meant? Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:19, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I was asked by Future Perfect to give my opinion on the proposal. My main argument stands; even if the number of people who study Ancient Greek is higher than those studying Modern Greek, and perhaps even higher than the number of native speakers, the importance of the language to the native speakers is immeasurable, especially when we're talking at least 12 million of them. A dablink and a reasonably clearifying intro should, in my opinion, satisfy the AG buffs. But if consensus leans towards keeping the currently spoken language at Modern Greek, then I don't quite see why this should be an overview article instead of a straight-up dabpage. / Peter Isotalo 11:32, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the comments. Just a quick reply:
 * The measure is, I think, not so much the importance of this or that aspect of the topic, but people's expectations on coming to the article - be it when they type the term into the search box or when they are led here by a link. If you see a book titled "Greek", what do you expect it to deal with? When WP editors use " Greek " somewhere in an article, what do they have in mind?
 * The incoming links also make the solution of a dab page unworkable. There are thousands of links to this page, and they are extremely heterogeneous. In the majority of cases, I'd guess, the intended target is really AG more than MG. Thus the present situation, favouring MG, is suboptimal for them, but a dab page would make it even worse because it would force us to disambiguate manually. Dab pages shouldn't be link targets. And then there'll be many cases where the distinction will be pretty much irrelevant to the context. We need a page that can serve as a link target for people who need to refer to "Greek as a whole", be it because they don't know better or because that's really what they want to refer to, and which deals gracefully with the unavoidable vagueness by offering something interesting for everybody. That's what the diachronic summary article can do.
 * As for the argument of native-speaker preferences implicit in your comment, I think we needn't worry: Greek speakers are typically quite fond of the idea that AG and MG are closely connected, so for the primary article to balance between AG and MG by speaking primarily about their essential unity should actually serve these readers' interests quite well.
 * Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:34, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Maybe there is a way forward for this discussion. I believe a good idea is to follow the guidelines provided by the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages, an active WikiProject which seeks and manages, more or less, to bring consistency to articles on languages. They have come up with WikiProject Languages/Template, which in my opinion is comprenhensive, informative, plus the users of wikipedia can have a, more or less, standard way to navigate through language articles. The idea -as I understand it- is as follows: There is a main, comprehensive article for its living language, which points to the related, more specific articles, but it is not just a page proposing links to other pages, far from it . And this page is about the modern, standard language. See Portugese language, English language, Turkish language.
 * So, in my opinion, there should be an aricle headed "Greek language". "Modern Greek language" should redirect to it". In the first line, in italics, it should be mentioned that this article is about the modern language and about the ancient language click "Ancient Greek Language". Then "Greek language" should have the sections proposed at WikiProject Languages/Template, each pointing to the respective main article. The length of "Greek language" should be comparable to, say, Portugese language. The "Greek language template" will make navigation easier.--Michkalas 18:19, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I believe this is exactly the position Peter Isotalo was advocating last year. I can see your point, but I'd still prefer the solution I sketched out above.
 * Greek is truly unique among the world's languages insofar as it's (almost) the only language that comes to mind where an ancient and a modern form (a) share the same name, (b) are nevertheless sufficiently different that at least two separate articles are necessary, (c) the name, unqualified, refers more frequently to the ancient than to the modern form. Are there others? Aramaic, perhaps. That means the use of the WikiProject standards might legitimately have to be modified (not necessarily abandoned completely) here.
 * A typical WikiProject-standard language article has a "synchronic system sketch" part (phonology, grammar etc.), and a "diachronic" part (history, classification etc.). The diachronic part in this case is relevant to AG and to MG to the same degree. Why should discussion about Greek's position within IE be in an article that is essentially about MG for the most part, and the article about AG should lack that discussion?
 * Look at it this way: We will in fact be using the template, but we'll expand it through even heavier use of the summary-plus-subarticle feature then normal. We'll have a single diachronic portion, kept centrally in the main article, and not one but two synchronic-sketch portions, both integrated in the general template pattern through links from main article but delegated into two separate sets of subarticles. I believe that's a fair way of dealing with it, compatible both with the expectations of a reader used to the WikiProject pattern and to those of a reader who's come to the article through an AG-related link. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:41, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the response. I think the main problem is with the term "Greek language". Besides this, Greek isn't that particular. I believe that the line in italics I proposed above solves this problem. But your "follow the template with modifications" proposal is a very good basis. In my view, this article should include a "systemic system sketch" of MG, but not a "systemic system sketch" of AG (which would imply tables of phonemes, vocabulary, etc.), though I fully understand that AG's section will be more extended than usual. Anyway, let's begin and I firmly believe that even these divergences will be proved in practice even narrower. --Michkalas 19:05, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Fut.Perf. that the main Greek language article should be a diachronic overview, and that Modern Greek, Ancient Greek, etc. should cover the specific periods. This is for four pragmatic reasons: 1) there should be some place which presents an overview, and an article devoted specifically to Modern Greek is not the right place to do it; 2) the term "Greek" on its own often refers to ancient or koine Greek; 3) there are many existing wikilinks that would need to be disambiguated; 4) there is simply a large amount of material that needs to be divided in some logical way.

Michkalas mentions the WikiProject languages template, which is certainly handy, but I couldn't find anything in the related discussions which specified whether this template should be used for Greek, Modern Greek, Ancient Greek, Koine Greek, etc., or perhaps some or all of them. Perhaps there should be a discussion about Greek, but also Chinese and Arabic (where there is similar confusion), in the WikiProject.... --Macrakis 22:51, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Legacy of Greek Language
This comment is perhaps more appropriate for the "History of Greek Language" page but the author has not started a discussion page there. I would be interested to see a discussion in one of these pages regarding the relatively small Greek-speaking community today. The western Roman empire, which lasted into the middle of the first millenium, left a legacy of multiple Romance languages with a very large body of speakers all over Europe. This in spite of the fact that all of these areas were overrun by Germanic tribes which did not originally speak Romance. The eastern Roman empire was the most powerful nation in Europe into the beginning of the second millenium, and even while the western Roman empire still existed the eastern empire was the most significant and developed part of the empire. Yet today the speakers of languages derived from Roman Greek are mostly limited to the modern Greek republic with a few small pockets in other areas of Europe. One would think there would be more areas of Europe that speak Greek derivatives than Latin derivatives. Can anyone comment on the reasons this did not happen? That is, can anyone comment on why the western conquerors largely adopted the languages of the subjects whereas the eastern conquerors did not? MCorazao 26 July 2006


 * Ummmm.. Have you taken a look at the Cyrillic alphabet lately??  CanadianMist 15:27, 5 June 2007 (UTC)


 * It needs to be recognised that all indoeuropean languages borrowed/built on the same language: Altaic. In the stone ages Altaic was used from England to Siberia. It is also time to recognise that this Altaic language is called Hungarian today. Not just Greek, Latin, German, French and English uses at around a thousand Hungarian words but also Sanskrit, Hebrew, Russian and all the Slavic languages. These words are still recognisable and are used today. One needs to learn Hungarian to see that. Since Indoeuropean 'scientists' do not speak Hungarian, they do not know about it. Like the joke goes: "what are you doing" - says this bloke "Looking for that needle i lost" replies his friend. So they search for some time but can't find it. "Where did you lose it" he goes again. "Down in the cellar" "So why are you looking for it here?" "Because there is lots of lights here."
 * Just because them scientists speak several Indoeuropean languages doesn't mean they will find the needle.


 * Anybody knows what the word 'Greek' actually means?
 * What does 'Altai', 'Ural' and 'Siberia' mean? Clue: Hungarian words.


 * Magi, 28 June 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.96.112.117 (talk) 15:03, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The above comments actually made my sutures reopen and bleed. I guess they were beneath the contempt of a professional linguist to respond. HammerFilmFan (talk) 21:41, 4 February 2011 (UTC) HammerFilmFan

Just some interesting information I have come across and beg your indulgence: That English does not contain only 12% Greek but more like 40%- 70% Greek depending on branch of study/learning. According to a book called "oi Ellhnikes lexis sthn agglikh glossa” or " The Greek Words in the English Language" there are approximately over 52,000 words of Greek origin contained in the English language, The French language contains more than this and even Latin contains a large portion of Greek (when the Romans adopted the Greek alphabet they did not adopt the "Z" until the 2nd century A.D. and then also adopted a large proportion of Greek words as well.) Therefore anywhere where English, French and Latin are spoken, Greek is spoken. Greek is the only noematic language and all other languages are simiotic. Greek in contained in languages of South America, Indonesia, Japan, Spain, Italy, Polynesian and Hebrew (Hebrew linguist, Joseph Yahuda spent many years of his life comparing the Old Testament, written in Hebrew and a copy of Homer's Iliad written in Ancient Greek and concluded that over 90% of the Hebrew language is actually Greek, and even went on to say that even the Arabic languages have Greek as their foundation.) The Cyrillic alphabet that is used by some of the Slavic/Eastern Bloc countries (derived in the 8th to 9th century A.D. by the two Greek monks and brothers from Thessaloniki, capital of Macedonia, Greece) is also based on the ancient Greek alphabet. German grammar is based on ancient Greek grammar and also contains Greek. There is a very famous saying in America when something new is discovered and a word/words are needed to identify it - "The Greeks have a word for it." It seems the Greek language has a longer and more intricate history than we think or understand. It bears more investigation and study to understand it's full importance on other languages today. I will leave you with an adage that my mother likes to quote: "Wherever (in the world) you lift up a rock, there will be a Greek." So to say that Greek is spoken in just about every country of the world, it not so impossible or unimaginable lets keep an open mind. Just a small taste of some Greek words and the year that they were adopted into the English language: analysis (1667), synthesis (1611), antithesis (1529), problem (1382), hypothesis (1596), method (1541), theory (1605), practice (1553), empiric (1605), paradigm (1483), music (1250), orchestra (1606), melody (1569), rhythm (1557), harmony (1532), rhapsody (1542), organ (1000), hypocrisy (1225), theater(1374), drama (1515), tragedy (1374), comedy (1374), poetry (1447), lyrism (1859), symptom (1398), diagnosis (1681), therapy (1846), politic (1420), democracy (1531), tyranny (1374), anarchy (1539), despotism (1727), oligarchy (1577), idea (1430), ideology (1796), logic (1362), dilemma (1656), category (1588), program (1633), system (1638), organization (1432), etiology (1656), symbol (1450), syllable (1384), phrase (1530), dialect (1551), dialogue (1551), theme (1300), theorem (1551), axiom (1485), physic (1390), energy (1581), energy (1581), plastic (1632), meter (900), machine (1549), metal (1300), mass (900), magic (1386), myth (1838), mystery (1315), phenomenon (1639), period (1413), phase (1812), dynamic (1827), fantasy (1382), crisis (1543), criterion (1647), dogma (1600), psalm (961), bible (1095), church (825), martyr (900), liturgy (1560), orthodox (1630), catholic (1551), hymn (1667), symmetry (1563), asymmetry (1652), panic (1420), mania (1607), aesthesis (1879).

First names and surnames that are also of Greek origin include: Alexander/Alexandra/Alejandro/Alesandra/Lexie/Lexia/Xander/Sandra/Sandy, Philip/s, Andrew/s, Ellis, Evans (from Evangelos), George/s, Harris (from Harissiou or Haralambos) Campell from Kampana = bell, Milo, Myron, Sophia, Ambrose/Amber, Basil/Baz, Christopher, Christine/Chris/Christina, Dimitri/Dimitra/Dimi/Demi, Dion/Dionne, Doris, Dorian, Eugene/Eugenia/Nia, Gregory/Greg, Jason, Lea/Leander/Leah, Leon/Leonidas, Nick from Nicholas, Nicodemus, Peter, Petros/Petra/Petria, Stephen/Stephania/Steffi, Theodore/Theodora/Dorothy/Dorothea/Dora, Timothy/Tim, Ulysses from Odysseus, Ari/Aristotle, Agatha, Agnes, Althea, Aliki/Alice, Angela/Angelique/Angel/Angelina/Angelica, Ariana, Philomena, Philidyia/Lydia, Cassander/Cassandra, Catherine/Katerina/Katina/Tina/Ina, Cynthia, Delia, Margaret/Margarita/Rita, Penelope/Penny/, Elias/Eli, Evangelos/Evangelina/Lena/Vangelis/Evangeline/Evan/Melinda, Evanthea, Lily, Eunice, Urania/Nia, Euphemia/Mia, Olympia/Pia, Aristides/Arista/Aristea/Ari/Tea, Caliope/Caly/Poppy, Elektra, Hermione, Melissa/Leesa/Lisa, Melanie/Melania/Nia, Perry, Thierry, Troy, Hector, Andromache, Paris, Daphne, Konstantine/Konstantina/Constance,Dina/Dino/Dinah, Crystal, Sebastian/Sebastina, Christos/Christina/Christian/Kristian/Chistianne/Kristen/Kirsty, Adrian/Adriana, Zachary, Achilles, Antigone, Ptolemy, Eva/Eve, Ada, Rhea, Zoe, Larissa, Philomena/Mena, Zeta, Delta, Moira, Morpheus, Myrtle, Cypress, Nephele/a, Calypso, Calisto/Callista, Xenia, Zenovia/Zena, Nathaniel, Daniel, Emmanuel/Manuel/Manny, Michael/Mickey/Mikey, Rafael, Atticus, Celia/Lia, Haralambos/Charis/Harry/Charissa, Cicely, Coralia/Lia, Cora, Cynthia, Ida, Ina, Phaedra/Phaedron/Phaedon, Julius/Julia/Julian, Kimon, Molly, Polly, Cosmas/Cosmo, Stavros/Stav, Pericles/Perry/Perri etc., etc.    —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.231.19.172 (talk) 08:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

This is so long
Why don't you just put in the nessecary details and not make it so long??? 6th graders are gonna think it's soooooo boring. And you have to add some life to it. Spice it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gymgurl (talk • contribs) 21:42, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

It might be long but interesting and so is the following:

JOSEPH YAHUDA:HEBREW IS GREEK – ΓΙΟΣΕΦ ΓΙΑΧΟΥΝΤΑ:ΤΑ ΕΒΡΑΙΚΑ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ

Posted by satyrikon στο Νοεμβρίου 21, 2008

Ο Γιοσέφ Εζικιήλ Γιαχουντά

ήταν δικηγόρος και καθηγητής τής Εβραϊκής.

Γεννήθηκε στις 29 Ιουλίου 1900 στο Ιερουσαλήμ. Ήταν ο γιος του Ισάακ Μπέντζαμιν Εζεκιέλ Γιαχουντά, ερευνητής και ερασιτέχνης γλωσσολόγος. Το 1982 ο Γιαχουντά έγραψε ένα αμφιλεγόμενο βιβλίο

με τίτλο

Hebrew is Greek (Τα Εβραϊκά είναι Ελληνικά),

στο οποίο ισχυρίζεται ότι οι εβραϊκές και αραβικές γλώσσες προέρχονται από την

Ελληνική

και ότι τα σύμβολα που αναγνωρίστηκαν διεθνώς ως Εβραϊκά -όπως το αστέρι του Δαβίδ- ήταν στην πραγματικότητα Ελληνικά. Πέθανε το 1995 στο Westcott, Surrey, Αγγλία.

Τα παραδείγματα των ετυμολογιών που πρότεινε είναι τα ακόλουθα: [1].

Israel < Is-ra-el < εις (‘ισχυρός’) + ρα (‘βασιλιάς’) + ηλ (‘ήλιος’) Cain < Ka-en < Κα ην < Γα ην < Γήινος (‘από τη γη’). ΠΕΡΙΣΣΟΤΕΡΑ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ

WikiDumper site

Joseph Ezekiel Yahuda (born on July 29, 1900 in Jerusalem and died in 1995 in Westcott, Surrey, England) was a British lawyer, freelance author and self-styled linguist. He was the son of Isaac Benjamin Ezekiel Yahuda, a longtime researcher and linguist. In 1982, he published a book entitled ”Hebrew is Greek, Greek is Hebrew”, in which he proposed the theory that the Hebrew and Arabic languages are Greek in origin. He claimed that virtually all Hebrew and Arabic words could be “derived” from Greek ones. Examples of the etymologies he proposed are the following:


 * ”Israel” < ”Is-ra-el” < εις (‘powerful’) + ”ρα” (‘king’) + ”ηλ” (‘sun’)


 * ”Cain” < ”Ka-en” < Κα ην < Γα ην < Γήινος (‘from the earth’).

Published Works:


 * Joseph E. Yahuda, ”Hebrew is Greek, Greek is Hebrew”. Oxford: Becket Publications, 1982.


 * Joseph E. Yahuda, ”Law and Life According to Hebrew Thought”. New Series, Vol. 26, No. 3 (January 1936), pp. 283-292.

I also have a list of criticisms made towards Yahuda’s 1982 work if you want. Leave a comment on my blog at hellenicempire@blogspot.com if you need anything else or if you agree/disagree about showing Joseph E. Yahuda on your blog.

Again, even if Yahuda’s linguistic theories are incorrect, people deserve to know who he is. Realistically, there are a plethora of scholars who provided theories that were eventually proven false. Yet, their contributions are still recognized in Wikipedia. Of course, one reason why the Yahuda article was deleted was because “there was no evidence of his book having sold over 5000 copies.” Another reason entails Yahuda not eliciting many Google hits. To me, these are not very good reasons.

Overall, I am happy to know that there is someone who actually cares about articles created on Wikipedia that are unfortunately deemed as “useless” even if they provide some positive contribution to humankind’s collective knowledge.

ΕΠΙΣΗΣ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ

Science Forum Index » Archaeology Forum

HEBREW IS GREEK

THE WORK OF JOSEPH YAHUDA

A book that “mysteriously disappeared” soon after its publication.

In 1982, a suppressed, ages-old, historical truth, was resurrected through the publication of a book by Becket Publications of Oxford, England (ISBN O 7289 0013 O). The book, published in English, and titled Hebrew is Greek, was written by lawyer, linguist and researcher, Joseph Yahuda, the son of Isaac Benjamin Ezekiel Yahuda, an ethnic Jew and longtime researcher and linguist. Though Jewish both by nationality and religion, J. Yahuda could be considered a Greek– according to Isocrates’ definition of a Hellene [see definition below. ed.], since his decades-long, unbiased, and meticulously thorough search reveals the linguistic relationship of numerous groups of words in Hebrew, Greek and Arabic. Work that was published without fear or hesitation by a scholar whose only concern was for the discovery of the truth.

Following the book’s publication, and while only a limited number of copies circulated for a few fortunate individuals, the book disappeared from the face of the earth. It was as if an invisible hand intervened and blocked its circulation. It cannot be found at any public library, it is not sold at any bookstore on earth, not even in a curiosity or antique shop. [Rare book dealers, in the U.S. and the U.K., have told TGR that there have been inquiries after the book, but that they have been unable to locate a copy anywhere. ed.] The only information available about the book throughout the world is its title. No book reviews on this book were ever published, neither positive nor negative, moderate or offensive. Nor, it seems, has there been any other evaluation of the work. One must eventually come to the inescapable conclusion that every one of the copies originally published was somehow withdrawn through some sort of a secret operation with a global reach.

Concerns posed by another Jewish intellectual who wrote the preface of the book.

The research published in the book covers 718 pages. The introduction was written by Jewish professor Saul Levin, though no enthusiasm on his part was evident in his introduction. He admits that following the 1977 publication of his book entitled, The Indo-European and Semitic Languages, J. Yahuda got in touch with him, and they maintained a fruitful relationship through correspondence, though they never actually met in person. The reason for the interest in J. Yahuda expressed by S. Levin, as he himself confessed, was the publication of several writings by J. Yahuda, such as the La Palestine Revisite, written in 1928, Law and Life According to Hebrew Thought (1932) and This Democracy (n.d.), published by Pitman. Professor Levin learned of the contents of the book [from the proofs which were sent to him from time to time] for which he wrote the introduction gradually, as it had already been sent to the printer. As Professor Levin disclosed: “It was J. Yahuda’s congeniality and my inherent curiosity that did not allow me to refuse the writing of the introduction.” [For a better understanding as to why Professor Levin was not enthusiastic about writing the introduction, consider the fact that] the black Jew, Martin Bernal, has stated: “Saul Levin was among the many Jewish individuals who worked on the publication of [my] book, Black Athena.” A book which has been deemed to be a disgrace and a discredit to serious scholarship by the vast majority of specialists who have read it.

Joseph Yahuda speaks about his work

In the preface of his book, J. Yahuda notes:

This ecumenical research will be reviewed by three separate specialists, one for each language researched, although each specialist does have knowledge of the other two languages. This is not an error committed only by me. I attempted repeatedly, yet unsuccessfully, to find more scholars who would be willing to assist me in my quests. As an example of what I was up against, at the very beginning of an hours-long meeting, one potential colleague exclaimed: “All of this is garbage and we are all wasting our time.” My answer was: “Both you, and I, will be judged for the words we say, whenever we discuss my work.” I hold no hostility or bitterness because of such small-minded opposition to my belief. In fact, during the progress of my research, I twice attempted to arouse [this man's] interest, but in vain. A little while after the meeting referred to above, I mentioned his degrading comment to Christodoulos Hourmouzios, a graduate of the University of Athens, and an acknowledged specialist on Homer, and he said: ‘ I think you are one of the greatest linguists I know’; he promised complete cooperation with me. Unfortunately, before we could begin our work, he passed away.

“There were others who admitted that they had been convinced; that something did really exist in my theory. However, they did think that my belief in the correspondence of Hebrew with Greek was rather exaggerated. They said I was too ambitious, and suggested, for my own good, that I expect less and adopt a ‘less controversial view.’ One of them, Sir Leon Simon (A British Lord of Jewish descent), a known classicist who knew Hebrew, attended my first lecture on the issue on the evening of Jan. 14th, 1959.He did this even though he was old and had to travel a long distance in bad weather and heavy fog. He introduced me, briefly and carefully, not wanting to commit himself to any decision until the end of my speech. Then, before the audience was asked to pose questions, he said the following, which I noted: ‘I don’t believe that everyone will agree with everything J. Yahuda has told us, as he may have thought that everyone understood what he was saying. Despite any doubts that may exist, I am sure of one thing. He has resolved a mystery that had created confusion for scholars for the past 2.000 years. For, if he is correct in stating that many Greek words that begin with sk were transformed in Hebrew as if sk was a digraph [a combination of two letters to make one simple sound. ed.], or one of the two letters lost, then Homer was not wrong when he left the vrachi [ abbreviated ] vowel at the beginning of the word Skamandros, as in his famous line: ‘On Cantho%n kaleousi theoi%, a%ndre*s de Ska%mandron’. [The Gods called Xanthos, mortal men Skamandros. ed.] I also had a fruitful interview with a scholar of international fame, which was then followed by a series of exchanges of correspondence. This correspondence ceased after he sent me a note, wherein he wrote: ‘It could also be possible that you would say that the English word ball comes from the Greek ba%llw, or that you discover a connection between chow and show since chows are exhibited at shows.

“The result was that I was obliged to fall back on my own sources, and to depend only on my own efforts, thus devoting my free time to this research for the past 30 years or more. Two things kept me going: the unfailing support of my wife, Cecile, and the unprecedented emotions we felt with every new discovery. When my wife was asked by a friend how she was sure of my work, since she knew neither Greek nor Hebrew, she answered: ‘But, I know my husband. He hates speculating, he always insists on finding proof. As a lawyer, he is able to evaluate this proof. He tells me that he has plenty of proof that is convincing, and I believe him.’ There is truly a plethora of ‘proof that is convincing’ which I have attempted to make available, not only to those technically specialized, but also to interested, non-specialist researchers.”

Yahuda realizes the significance of Greek Civilization

“I was somewhat familiar with the Bible, as stated above. My brother, Solomon, and I learned the New Testament in Hebrew translation from a copy that my father had, as part of his personal library. For years, the distant Biblical past was alive in my mind: I lived with the vision of the pyramids to such an extent, and my passion for the Bible was so great, that I developed hostile feelings for the Greeks and Romans. Strangely, this hostility did not involve the Egyptians, who were our enemies, had been the enemies of our forefathers and had so deeply influenced post-Biblical Hebrew. Neither had I been able to learn more than the necessary Latin needed for my law education and practice. However, my feelings for the Greeks and Romans have changed radically since then. Now I realize that our differences were similar to those of a civil war, as fratricidal as the taking of Troy had been, for I became convinced that the Jews are of Greek descent. This revolutionary transformation took place around the time I was thirty years old, following the publishing of my book Law and Life according to Hebrew Thought. That year (1932), I became interested in biology as a ‘hobby’. During my haphazard study of the issue, I came across various Greek words that were strikingly similar to the Hebrew words of the Bible, and I drew the conclusion that the Greeks had borrowed them from us. I began debating the idea of whether or not I should one day begin a systematic comparison of the two languages. At that time, I was still fascinated with the more traditional studies, and, like everyone else, I believed without a doubt that the Semitic languages were Semitic and the Aryan languages were Aryan. These two could not be mixed. At the same time, though, I was thinking that it would be interesting to collect anddeconstruct a complete list of groups of similar words so as to demonstrate the degree of influence of Hebrew on Greek at the time before Alexander the Great (considering that the reverse influence became stronger following his conquests). I knew very little of where this research would lead me and what the results would show.

“I had such little knowledge of Greek that all I knew were the first letters of the alphabet, knowledge that I had acquired by chance during my studies of mathematics and geometry. I remember asking my friend Gerald Emanuel, in a teashop in 1932, to write the whole Greek alphabet on the bottom of a half-written page. The years passed, but when I published my book Biology and New Medicine in 1951, I then had the opportunity to spend all of my free time on researching those possible links that I suspected existed between Biblical Hebrew and Greek. Following the acquisition of some rudimentary knowledge of Greek grammar, I submerged into the translation of the Septuagint, solely based on my memory of the meaning of the numerous pages that I had chosen to read. Then I read Homer, comparing him to the Bible. One page from the translation of the Iliad, one page from the Old Testament, line for line, page by page; I started with Genesis and the first book of the Iliad, along with the last book of the Odyssey and the 2nd book of ‘Chronicles.’ Day after day, the list of similar words grew longer, until it reached 600 words — including words related to different views and activities of life — which could not be attributed only to the borrowing factor. In any case, history has not witnessed circumstances where such elaborate borrowing would be possible on such a large scale. I was convinced that this phenomenon went past the limits of borrowing, reaching the limits of a genetic relationship. The door of genealogical descent stood before me and I could not attempt to pass through it or climb above it. It should open freely and widely and the key to this was the grammar. The only grammatical characteristics that I knew of that were common to both Greek and Hebrew, concerned the definite article and the dual number nouns [count nouns. ed.]. I stopped reading and began thinking and re-thinking the results of my non-processed research. I used the materials I had: analyzing, classifying, comparing these with the Biblical variations and the dialectic interchanges of the Greek letters, selecting specific words to be compared. Thus, my theory began to develop. Some of the Greek dialectic letters could be used interchangeably, such as the letters ‘k’ and ‘t’, ‘o’ and ‘a’, ‘s’ and ‘d.’ I also noted a curious transformation with Hebrew words: a suffix to a Greek word changed to a prefix in a Hebrew word. Early on during my research, I tested the exactness of the words and verified their meanings. As the number of tests increased, the more effective my research became, and the confidence in my theory rose.

“From the beginning, I based a lot of my work on Arabic. With my theory, it became possible for me to correct the translation of the Septuagint, using the Septuagint and the translation of the Bible, using the Bible. These discoveries cured me of my dyslexia in relationship to Greek and Hebrew and made me capable of reading a Hebrew word as if it had been a variation of the word. I formed a series of phonetic and morphology rules. I gradually gathered a number of valuable facts. Some examples are that the declension dotiki [dative] exists in Hebrew, that the masculine plural is the same in Hebrew and Greek, and that, in general, a compound Greek verb is equivalent to a Hebrew compound verb. I estimate that 9 out of each 10 words of the [Jewish] Bible can be proved to have a purely Greek equivalent. Many issues were resolved which prove that the Greeks and Jews hold some customs and religious convictions in common, whereas the Hebrew language is proven to be richer and more beautiful than believed until today because of the existence of these groups of words. This whole matter is, in practice, consistent with the following two proposals: Biblical Hebrew is Greek; and, the Jews are Asian Greeks. In reality, the conclusion of this massive, extended and complicated research can be summarized in the following brief sentence: Hebrew is ‘Greek wearing a mask.’”

An example for the rest of his co-religionists

As already stated, the research of J. Yahuda restores part of a universal truth that has fallen into oblivion for millennia. Not only is the Hebrew language “Greek wearing a mask” (in other words, a distorted version of Greek), but, as we have announced at international conventions, there is no other language on the face of the earth except Greek. A few years ago, we made this statement at a convention of the Literary Society Parnassos, titled: “The Ecumenical Character of the Greek Language,” where we used texts and images to prove this statement. All other languages are just descendants or distorted dialects of Greek, adopted by the peoples.

Finally, we present one of the tables compiled by the undaunted scholar, J. Yahuda, where Hebrew letters, along with their pronunciation in Hebrew appear on the left, the equivalent Greek letters and their pronunciation in the middle, and the Arabic letters and pronunciation on the right. In the preface, just above the table shown below, Yahuda’s first theorem is written, to wit: “The Greek and Hebrew alphabets demonstrate striking similarity insofar as the order of the letters is concerned, their names, their shapes and their pronunciation.”

We cannot omit to express our admiration for this great man, who, defying the forces of darkness and medieval ignorance, proved to be an unbiased scholar, unburdened by preconceived dogma and purposeful deception. A man who broke the bonds of mischievous misinformation so prevalent in [the past] century, and dared to defy traditional nationalistic and racist fanaticism while declaring a revolution against the international forces of power. He has achieved the level of a true Hellene. After discovering the truth, he struggled to make it known, he revealed it and he published it without fear. His acts were acts of patriotism, since he has raised his compatriots to a level approaching the Greeks. He called them “Asian Greeks.” His life and work truly pronounce him to be of equal value to a Greek, in contrast with those of his compatriots who have denounced him and his book. Is it because they are afraid or is it because they are unable to follow in his footsteps?

In Conclusion

Yahuda has scientifically proven that both Hebrew and Arabic are Greek in their origin, as is true with the other languages of the world. It is to be regretted that the speakers of this distorted Greek dialect do not take advantage of this, so as to elevate themselves to free and Christ-loving Greeks, as their compatriot Yahuda has done. Many of them prefer to live in the dark; It is a fact to be pitied that some are fanatics who hate everything Greek, especially her history and her language. In the past, many such men appeared in the Roman State as politicians, academics or administrators in the public sector, and fought against everything that was Greek. Nowadays, such men cooperate with the global powers that are propelling the world toward destruction. A destruction that can only be avoided by a rebirth of the only salvation for humanity: Greek Civilization.

Primary Source

This article was written by the linguist and researcher, Konstantinos G. Georganas, for Davlos. February 1999 issue, pp.12931-12937. Translation by staff. Emphasis not in original text was added.

Note: The great rhetorician, Isocrates (436-338 B.C.), gave the following definition of a Hellene in his Panagyricus:

Athens has so far outrun the rest of mankind in thought and speech that her disciples are the masters of the rest, and it is due to her that the word “Greek” is not so much a term of birth as it is of mentality, and is applied to a common culture rather than a common descent.

ΤΟ ΒΙΒΛΙΟ ΜΠΟΡΕΙΤΕ ΝΑ ΤΟ ΚΑΤΕΒΑΣΕΤΕ ΑΠΟ

ΕΔΩ

ΕΠΙΣΗΣ ΑΠΟ

ΕΔΩ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.186.160.177 (talk) 05:23, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

ideological comparation with sanskrit
I have cancelled the sentence “second only to Vedic Sanskrit attested in the early portion of the Vedas composed between 2000 B.C and 1500 B.C.[9] “ because first attested history means the ancient written language that today is spoken. We have linear B tablets and at moment, don’t exist similar document for sanskrit. Michael Ventris and John Chadwick performed the linear B decipherment 1951 and 1953. We don’t know if oldest greek or sanskrit but at moment we know that exist linear B tablets. Sanskrit is written only in CE era in devanagari. The oldest written records in India are in prakrit languages written in brahmi, aramaic and greek, and dated only III century BCE. Indus tablets at moment aren’t decoded. The article says that greek is one of oldest..... not the oldest. At moment the oldest attested indo-european language is hittit language but is died. In this article is not necessary an “ideological” comparation with sanskrit. The “Indian nationalism” don’t understand that are indo-european languages as greek, hittit and mitanni that give us the evidence that sanskrit is old.

--84.223.59.57 (talk) 14:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

PS: the reference (9) to enc. Brit. say about the ancient of the language not about the existence of written record. Greek is attested before because is written before but it is obviosly existed before. Teogony is written in VIII century BCE not means that teogony was created in VIII century BCE. Rig Veda was written in CE era not means thet rig-veda was created in CE era. It is impossible affirm that the Rig-veda pantheon is older than Teogony pantheon. So is impossible give a evidence if sanskrit is older than greek. But surely the greek is written before in linear B, shortly after the creation of the first stage of an oral Rig Veda.

--84.223.59.57 (talk) 14:46, 15 December 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.223.59.57 (talk) 14:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Other "ideological sentence" that i want indicate that at moment exist into the article :

(However, the earliest known literature in an Indo-European language are the early portion of the Vedas written in Vedic Sanskrit between 2000 BC and 1500 BC in India, though the Vedas were never written down and transmitted orally for religious reasons.)

Is necessary this sentence in the article on greek language ?

--84.223.59.57 (talk) 15:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree. This sentence is rather false (a literature cannot be "orally transmitted"--the word 'literature' means 'writing') and completely pointless in an article on Greek.  --Taivo (talk) 15:26, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Typical Hindu-nationalist POV, we should expect it to pop up here from time to time. Athenean (talk) 18:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Requested move of Mycenaean Greek language
Those who are interested are encouraged to voice their opinion on whether Mycenaean Greek language should be renamed Mycenaean Greek. — Eru·tuon 06:34, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation
Why is the IPA pronunciation of "ελληνική γλώσσα" given as [eliniˈci ˈɣlosa] when ελληνική is spelled with a kappa (κ), not with a chi (χ)? &mdash; 194.74.1.82 (talk) 10:35, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The phonetic symbol [c] stands for a voiceless palatal plosive, the palatal allophone of /k/ before a front vowel. (The letter <χ>, on the other hand, denotes a fricative, either velar [x] or palatal [ç]). I am personally not a big friend of using [c] for the front variant of /k/, since it actually isn't normally a fully palatal [c] but only a slightly palatalized variant of [k] that could better be represented as [kʲ], as far as I know. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:37, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Peer review
Someone guess that the article is ready for a peer review? to prepare a nomination. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crazymadlover (talk • contribs) 00:20, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Changes by IP editor
The changes recently revert-warred over by an anonymous editor (, "[Some believe that the alphabet arose from the Phoenician script ,but the majority of historians support the most correct,that ancient Greek alphabet's characters may used some Phoenician letter sounds,but the Greek remains the first alphabet") are both heavily ungrammatical and not useful. Nobody in the literature doubts that the alphabet arose from Phoenician. This is universally accepted. The technical difference between the Greek and the Phoenician use of the alphabet, regarding the values of vowel letters, is only a slight change (albeit a structurally important one), and in no way contradicts the basic, undisputed fact that the one derived from the other. Hence, the "some believe" is wrong, the "but" is wrong, the "used some Phoenician letter[s]" is wrong (it in fact used all of them). Phoenician also isn't a "syllabary", as is in fact explicitly made clear in one of the sources cited by the anon (Diringer 1968: 166), and without doubt elsewhere too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:45, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I thought the problem was solved 2500 years ago, indeed even Herodotus claimed that Greek alphabet was of Phoenician origin ... Obviously it was and adaptation, because an indo-european language (with many diphthongs) needs to identify the vowels. An alternative it was to use a complicated and less efficient abugida. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.74.212 (talk) 21:01, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

what if the info in the encyclopedia is wrong? phoenician background? BULL indo-european? more bull. lets look at the source,amazing how someones assumption makes it in the history books as fact,and then everyone copies the same falseties, you want to know about the greek language? ask a expert that actually speaks greek. ever wonder who exactly were the phoenicans we hear so much about and were are there works,cities,ect ect? if they were so influential — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigbobcoolman (talk • contribs) 07:06, 2 May 2012 (UTC)


 * What if little green men from Mars settled Greece? See, we can pose ridiculous questions, too.  Take your extremist Greek nationalism somewhere else, please. HammerFilmFan (talk) 00:07, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

cypriot dialect
Among the modern Greek dialelects(Cappadokian,Cheimarriotika,Cretan,Pontic,Tsakonian,Maniot, Yevanic),you do not include the Cypriot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Αριστόδημος (talk • contribs) 23:03, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

official status of Greek outside Greece/Cyprus and EU institutions
In the table at the top right part of the webpage, under "official status", the article claims that Greek is a "recognized minority language" in the following countries: Albania, Australia, Italy, France, Russia, Germany, Armenia, Turkey, United States, Romania, Ukraine. However, the corresponding cited sources merely indicate the presence of Greek diaspora communities in these countries and do not prove official status as recognized minority language. I know for a fact that Greek does not have any official status in the United States, Australia, France, Turkey, or Germany. Russia, Albania, Italy, and Ukraine had Greek-speaking communities that existed until the 20th century, and perhaps even into present-day, but I'm not sure if Greek has official status as a minority language in these countries. I will do the research and edit this part of the article within the next few days. Let's please try to stay accurate. Skyduster (talk) 21:16, 6 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed, most of these are bogus. According to Griko language, Italy does recognize the "Minoranze linguistiche Grike dell'Etnia Griko-Calabrese e Salentina", though I couldn't find a good source for this. I don't think the US and Australia even have the idea of formally recognized minority languages.  A few years ago, there was a French proposal to recognize various minority and regional languages, but this report does not include Greek, and in any case, it was never ratified. (cf. Languages of France) Though there are vanishingly few Greek-speakers left in Turkey today, the Treaty of Lausanne did actually give Greek a status as a protected minority language, and I believe that is still valid in theory. (cf. Languages of Turkey).  Don't know about the others, though under USSR law, there were surprisingly many recognized languages (divide et impera), so it's not impossible that Russia and Ukraine have some sort of recognition. --Macrakis (talk) 23:13, 6 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that Greek may have some sort of official -albeit symbolic- minority recognition in Russia, Ukraine, and possibly Kazakhstan and Georgia, as a carry-over from Soviet nationality policy. Although, just as in Turkey, I believe there's barely any Greek-speakers left in those countries today; most have either emigrated to Greece and Cyprus after the fall of the USSR, or completely assimilated into Russian/Ukrainian societies (and even those who emigrated to Greece/Cyprus barely spoke Greek, I believe).  I'm pretty sure too that Italy has some sort of official -but mostly symbolic- recognition of Calabrian and Salentinan Greek, but I'm not sure.  I'll have to research all these these.  In France, I don't believe any language has any sort of official status (other than French), at least not on the mainland, and if they did officialize minority languages, it would only be native minority languages like Basque, Alsatian German, etc, not immigrant languages.  I don't believe there's any part of France post-antiquity, where Greek is spoken natively and not by immigrants (and even the immigrant usage is low, as Greeks have completely assimilated and intermarried into French society).  The United States has no official language at the federal level but almost all states have English as their official language, while Hawaiian, Cajun French, and Spanish are -at least nominally- co-official in Hawaii, Louisiana, and New Mexico respectively.  Again, no recognition for immigrant languages whether Greek, German, or Vietnamese...even though some government documents (like voting ballots) may be printed in an immigrant language in an area with very high demand for that language, that doesn't amount to "official minority recognition", and especially not for Greek, and aging community whose American-born descendants speak primarily English.  Romania had, I believe, a significant Greek refugee population from the 1946-1949 Greek civil war, but I'm not sure if they were ever given official minority-linguistic status, either by communist Romania or post-communist Romania, and most of the Greek refugees and their children moved back to Greece anyways in the 1970s/80s, I believe.  You bring up an interesting point about Turkey.  I'll try to do some research, and correct this article accordingly. Skyduster (talk) 09:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The United States does not have any official language. Look it up. --Nikoz78 (talk) 16:35, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Nikoz78, please re-read what I wrote. Especially the following passage:
 * "The United States has no official language at the federal level but almost all states have English as their official language, while Hawaiian, Cajun French, and Spanish are -at least nominally- co-official in Hawaii, Louisiana, and New Mexico respectively."
 * You look it up. Skyduster (talk) 08:03, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

ACI
The article Accusative and infinitive needs a section on the construction in Greek. Would it be possible for someone working here to do the necessary? --Doric Loon (talk) 16:54, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Which are your criteria about low-quality sites?
20:55, 24 June 2012‎ (talk | contribs)‎. . (42,217 bytes) (-58)‎. . (rv, low-quality commercial e-learning site) (undo) I saw this message in the history of the unit "Language learning" when i added the site easygreeklearning.com and to tell the truth i m surprised of the removing reason.Easygreeklearning uses multimedia in his frontpage, based on platform of social media and full exercises, lessons etc. I t s not made by a simple html editor. It probably could be a matter of defamatory

I just ask a question: Which are the criteria of low-quality sites? Because someone else could also claim that the same unit "Language Learning" contains lower lower "quality sites" and they all still remain.

I hope that this mistake could be corrected.


 * For our general criteria about external links, see WP:External links, especially the section about sites that require registration. This alone would be a good reason to exclude this site. As for quality, I can't judge the quality of the sessions (as I obviously haven't subscribed), but judging by the poorly structured design of the front page, the absence of clear information about prices, programs and course structure, and the absence of freely accessible sample lessons, I don't expect much. Your mileage may vary, but for me a language learning site that offers "Griechischen lernen" among its programs of "greek learning in all languages" makes some alarm bells ring. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:33, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Greek Question Mark
I think it would be interesting to mention somewhere that modern Greek does not use (?) to represent the question mark, but because of some resemblance to a letter of their alphabet, they use the semicolon instead. How did that come about? 204.92.65.10 (talk) 13:43, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

number of speakers
SIL International Ethnologue is a better source for the number of speakers, as it specializes on the subject, and is moreover widely used throughout wikipedia. Moreover, the Ethnologue figure of 13 million speakers is more plausible than the figure of 12 million from the Swedish encyclopedia. A figure of 12 million implies only one million speakers in the diaspora, which is far too low. Athenean (talk) 18:38, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree. The NE figure also probably doesn't account for Pontic or Cypriot, about 1 mil each. — Lfdder (talk) 19:01, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Vocabulary
What constitutes an extensive vocabulary? The English vocabulary, put together, probably contains a couple of million words. The Icelandic vocabulary, with which I'm familiar, consists of 700.000-800.000 words. The German vocabulary is probably larger. The Scandinavian languages surely have a comparable vocabulary and so on. So how many words does Modern Greek possess to justify the assertion, that an extensive vocabulary is a special attribute of Greek - modern or ancient, come to that? All the best 85.220.22.139 (talk) 19:50, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * How about "In the past, the Guinness Book of Records ranked the Greek language as the richest in the world with 5 million words and 70 million word types!" . Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις  21:29, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Or "Nevertheless, the Greek language was already developing as the richest and most beautiful instrument of speech man has ever possesssed" . Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις  21:34, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It should (if it should) go under a new heading perspective or opinions or something similar. As for measuring (and comparing) a language's lexicon, a quick search should reveal how problematic that is. And wrt the Guinness claim--and assuming you speak Greek: . — Lfdder (talk) 22:21, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I am not sure why you gave me the sarantakos link. Is Mr. Sarantakos some great linguistics expert? In any case from his tone on the website you linked to it looks like a polemic against various people rather than some sober lingusitic analysis. He repeatedly mentions even the junta to try to discredit the people he is commenting against. In any case I am no linguistics expert and I did not come here to start any language arguments. But I do believe that the Greek language has an extensive vocabulary. However I have not checked as yet for any more reliable sources to back up the numbers above. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις  23:40, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I was hoping you'd look past his style of writing. Nor was I trying to incite an argument. — Lfdder (talk) 23:50, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Claiming that language X's vocabulary is larger or richer or better than language Y's is pointless and puerile. Not sure what Guinness had in mind by "word types" -- maybe inflected forms?  Anyway, surely agglutinative languages like Turkish have many more inflected forms with constructions like Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmışsınız all in one word. --Macrakis (talk) 00:28, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I quoted James Henry Breasted on the richness of the Greek language just randomly checking through Google books. If you think his arguments are puerile that's fair enough. I'm not sure why you chose the Turkish language as a counter-example however. I don't think this conversation related in any way to Greek-Turkish relations. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις   00:48, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Turkish is probably the first agglutinative language that comes to mind for most people. By contrast, Greek is mostly fusional. — Lfdder (talk) 01:10, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you Lfdder. I was not aware of that. I am impressed. If you are not a linguist you sure know how to appear like one. :) Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις  01:19, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * "Greek-Turkish relations"? I was discussing the languages, nothing to do with politics.  Turkish happens to have particularly productive agglutinative morphology, and I know more about it than I know about, say, Korean. --Macrakis (talk) 13:57, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the clarification Dr. Macrakis. I don't know too much about either of the two, especially about their agglutinative characteristics or any other linguistic morphology so I wasn't sure about the reason for the choice. Thankfully, your explanation and that of Lfdder made that very clear. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις  15:32, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * @Lfdder: I only know too well the types who try to make arguments by attacking other people. This guy even speculates if someone is a relative of a junta intellectual based on her last name. I am, almost automatically, turned off by these types of polemics. So I stopped reading right there. In any case I'm sure there must be much more sober and academically valid analyses if one cares to look for such types of arguments. However I'm just not sufficiently motivated to start any serious investigation into this field. Btw I didn't think you were trying to incite an argument. But I did get the idea that this field appears to be a rather touchy subject. I wasn't aware of that before. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις  00:37, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Probably. This was the first thing that came up on Google, and I didn't feel like digging too deep. It's not really a touchy subject; it's just that linguist types tend to dismiss this sort of thing as bogus. How many words are there in the English language? — Lfdder (talk) 01:01, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Just to make clear, I've no sympathy for the author's tone or personal attacks. — Lfdder (talk) 01:16, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I see. That was a nice reference. Thank you. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις  01:19, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Post ec: Re: PAs by linked author: No clarification was necessary. I was sure of that. Δρ.Κ. <sup style="position:relative">λόγος<span style="position:relative;bottom:-2.0ex;left:-5.2ex;*left:-5.5ex">πράξις  01:22, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear, when I mentioned Icelandic having 700.000-800.000 I was referring to lemmata. With all inflections the number is multiplied. Same for German. All the best 85.220.22.139 (talk) 14:31, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Learn Greek Online
I added the external link : Learn Greek Online under "Language learning" and it was later removed. I must have violated some rule, I was wondering which one. GeorgiaKar (talk) 00:02, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * That link goes to a commercial site selling services. See Spam. -- Neil N  <sup style="font-family:Calibri;"> talk to me  00:05, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I saw other links like this one Learn Greek. But now I realize this is not a commercial site. You are right. GeorgiaKar (talk) 00:20, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for understanding. If you see a link to a site that primarily sells services/products please remove it. -- Neil N  <sup style="font-family:Calibri;"> talk to me  00:23, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

←← — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.203.173.140 (talk) 13:40, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Greek or hellenic
Greek is the English word for Hellenic (the word Greek in Greek language). We should include it as a synonim in teh beginning of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.133.66.112 (talk) 01:54, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

child abuse and bananas?
clearly some vandalism — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.110.1.115 (talk) 17:30, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Classification
I disagree that if we include one classification in the table we have to include them all. They are very different proposals, with different levels of evidence, and they do not preclude one another: they could all be true, or all false. Macedonian is impossible to answer, as we don't have enough evidence to even attest to a Macedonian language. Armenian and Aryan are analogous to Italo-Celtic etc: the links are distant enough, and generic enough, that it's proven impossible to find any particulars that are convincing. Phrygian is an intermediate case: Enough data to establish a language, yet potentially close enough that a relationship could be demonstrated. And whether Phrygian was related to Greek has nothing to do with whether Macedonian or Armenian were. — kwami (talk) 19:58, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree, except for one thing -- 'Hellenic' is troublesome. If we're gonna be using Glottolog's classification, we should probably copy it wholesale (sans Hellenic). — lfdder 23:36, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * @Kwamikagami: Whatever is to be done, don't you think that it should be first reflected/explained inside the text? "They are very different proposal... or Armenian were". Accepting this as a working hypothesis, would the chance reader of this article (even having read Graeco-x, etc, articles) understand this without an explanation, an analysis? Or would the reader think instead that this would have come out of nowhere? @Lfdder!: "Hellenic' is troublesome...(sans Hellenic).". Eveything is troublesome; it's a highly conjectural field. Put a question mark next to it, for example, if you'd like and explain inside the text. No drastic deletions please... Thanatos|talk|contributions 07:44, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Hellenic is troublesome not only because of that; it means different things to different people. And yes, it should be addressed in the body of the article -- I made the same comment over at Hellenic languages the other day. — lfdder 13:00, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, of course the tree should summarize info in the text. That's just laziness on my part (and the fact that I'm reviewing hundreds of articles, many with greater classification problems than this).


 * Macedonian is too poorly attested to be established as a language by Glottolog's criteria, and we can't guess if they would have Hellenic = Greek + Macedonian if it were listed. Since we cover Macedonian and they don't, we can't very well use them as a guide for how to cover Macedonian.  They are consistent with the other conception of Hellenic, that Greek is not a single language.  We could always put a question mark or a parenthetical dab in the tree.


 * A primary use of the tree, however, is navigation through our articles. The immediately ascending node should be included, though marginal nodes above that might be omitted.  And the immediately descending nodes should be included, though things further down are generally left to those articles.  Whenever I come across a new family or language article, I try to verify that it's cross-referenced in its children (in their language boxes) and it in parent, either in its language box or in its list of languages, so that articles are easy to find without having to read reams of text.  Including Hellenic here, and Greco-Phrygian at Hellenic and maybe here as well, is consistent with our general approach.  — kwami (talk) 19:35, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * So if Glottolog's Greek is Hellenic (some other conception of it), then what Greek is this? I do note we have gree1276 for both in the infobox. This article doesn't even say Greek is a single language. — lfdder 20:26, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Whether Greek is a single language or not is thankfully irrelevant for classification purposes. If "Hellenic" is identical in scope with "Greek", it's synonymous and therefore redundant in the tree. I'd prefer Graeco-Phrygian instead of Hellenic, honestly. Graeco-Phrygian would be an elegant way to get rid of the Macedonian problem as Macedonian, whatever it was, was almost certainly part of this group. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:00, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * That might be a good solution.
 * lfdder, Glottolog is irrelevant because they don't address the issue. They only classify established languages, and Macedonian has not been established as a language.  — kwami (talk) 04:44, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
 * That wasn't the point I was making. — lfdder 14:23, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Grammar and phonology
Loss of the dative is mentioned, a recent development (last half-century), the dative being replaced by the genitive (?) - I assume it was meant the accusative. It is the accusative that marks indirect objects in demotic Greek, is that not so? Since the article discusses the Greek language and not simply demotic, there has been a loss of locative and ablative previously, a loss of the dual in Hellenistic times, a later loss of the subjunctive and optative modes and a gradual loss of the infinitive. The phonological changes (e.g. iotacism) seen in the Hellenistic period have a few precedents in occasional classical or archaic inscriptions. Prior to the 403 BC Attic reform for example, the eta was often written as EI and occasionally even as I (presumably misspelled) in early Attic. Skamnelis (talk) 02:06, 28 March 2014 (UTC)


 * No, what that passage refers to is indeed the replacement of the dative by the genitive, and it's most certainly not "recent". Think of constructions like the indirect object construction with "της/του", rather than "τῃ/τῳ" and so on. (The alternative system, where you have the accusative instead, is characteristic of the northern dialects of Demotic, but that isn't recent either.) No idea what you mean by something that happened in the "last half-century". (Of course we are talking about the development of mainstream demotic here, not the late demise of the artificial archaisms of katharevousa.) No idea what you think the occasional early precedents of iotacistic changes are relevant for either. They should of course be discussed in Ancient Greek phonology. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:24, 28 March 2014 (UTC)


 * There can be no form of language more artificial than one dictated by law. There are examples of Greek written in forms of vernacular but these are far from representative Greek unless we are referring to the last two centuries (and even then practically only in literary texts until recently). As for the Dative, I have trouble imagining instances where the Dative has been replaced by the Genitive rather than by the Accusative. Babiniotis also states that it is replaced by the Genitive, but only cites examples of the Dative being replaced by the Accusative (http://www.babiniotis.gr/wmt/webpages/index.php?lid=1&pid=20&apprec=45). Perhaps we can have some examples or a reference? Note also that although Babiniotis gives some early examples of a missing Dative, these are isolated examples. The Dative is used extensively in all the material in the Patrologia Graeca, even late texts. Iotacistic changes are mentioned under the relevant section on phonology. However, it is said that iotacism occurred in Hellenistic times, while there are earlier examples, e.g. from Boeotian Greek and from some archaic inscriptions.Skamnelis (talk) 16:17, 28 April 2014 (UTC)