Talk:Greek languages

should maybe be merged with Greek dialects? dab (&#5839;) 15:34, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes! The title "Greek Languages" is abhorrent to me.  If there is anything remarkable about Greek, it's the degree of organic unity it shows throughout the millenia, a unity unparalleled among all European languages.  I vividly recall how reading "eneka" in Linear B in Chadwick's book "The Mycenaean World" brought tears to my eyes.  35 centuries bridged by a word unaltered!

Please read this:

http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1979/elytis-lecture-e.html

"Referring to personal circumstances would be a breach of good manners. Praising my home, still more unsuitable. Nevertheless it is sometimes indispensable, to the extent that such interferences assist in seeing a certain state of things more clearly. This is the case today.

Dear friends, it has been granted to me to write in a language that is spoken only by a few million people. But a language spoken without interruption, with very few differences, throughout more than two thousand five hundred years. This apparently surprising spatial-temporal distance is found in the cultural dimensions of my country. Its spatial area is one of the smallest; but its temporal extension is infinite. If I remind you of this, it is certainly not to derive some kind of pride from it, but to show the difficulties a poet faces when he must make use, to name the things dearest to him, of the same words as did Sappho, for example, or Pindar, while being deprived of the audience they had and which then extended to all of human civilization"

Read the whole lecture if you find the time.

Science can be a path to the truth. And drenching a living, breathing body in formaldehyde and dissecting it can be science. The Greek language is a beautiful, living, breathing body. Shall we be its vivisectionists? Chronographos 12:56, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * well, I admit it is customary to speak of Greek dialects, not languages. Still, dialects imply inter-comprehensibility, and I very much doubt you would be able to converse with a Mycenaean, or even with Sappho, without a dictionary and a lot of practice. Ok, so we shall merge this with Greek dialects. For a larger scheme of renaming articles, see Talk:Greek language. dab (&#5839;) 13:35, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Agamemnon or Sappho would be a challenge :) but if Sappho could converse in Attic I could give it a shot (NO dictionary! - proper pronunciation would require real effort because I have been brought up to read Ancient Greek the modern way, just as if it were katharevousa).  Why, I might have less difficulty than an Alabaman redneck talking to a Scot Highlander in their respective idioms. That's not my point though, so let me illustrate it with examples.  Koine texts are perfectly comprehensible to modern Greeks, practically regardless of their education.  One can witness this in church: when the priest concludes the reading of Paul's epistle regarding marriage and recites "&#919; &#948;&#949; &#947;&#965;&#957;&#942; &#943;&#957;&#945; &#966;&#959;&#946;&#949;&#943;&#964;&#945;&#953; &#964;&#959;&#957; &#940;&#957;&#948;&#961;&#945;", every Greek bride worth her salt will step on her bridegroom's foot (I'll tell you who's the boss!) and the congregation will erupt in laughter.  And that's just one example. No Greek will remain sitting when a priest about to read the Gospel says "&#931;&#959;&#966;&#943;&#945;, &#959;&#961;&#952;&#959;&#943; &#945;&#954;&#959;&#973;&#963;&#969;&#956;&#949;&#957; &#964;&#959;&#965; &#913;&#947;&#943;&#959;&#965; &#917;&#965;&#945;&#947;&#947;&#949;&#955;&#943;&#959;&#965;.  Is it comprehension or is it memory?, you will ask.  And my answer is what's the difference? Chronographos 14:39, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * :o) no, no, I quite agree, Greek dialects it is. Although comprehension is only possible because your priest collapses all vowels into [i] (Aristphanes' sheep bleating b&#275; b&#275;[vi vi] and all that) dab (&#5839;) 15:24, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Last time I slaughtered a sheep for Easter, it bleated vi-vi, I swear!  :-P    A thing you might not know is that by the time the Gospels etc were written, pronunciation was already practically the same as now (-&#945;&#946;- often mis-written as -&#945;&#965;-and vice versa, etc etc), with the exception of the diphthong'"&#959;&#953;"', which was then pronounced as French 'eu', and '"&#965;"', which was still pronounced as originally (French y-grecque).  This is derived from spelling errors in manuscripts, where all [i]'s were spelled willy-nilly except &#959;&#953; and y.  &#932;hen, in Byzantine times, &#965; and &#959;&#953; pronunciations converged (another onslaught of novel spelling errors), and then everything turned to [i], and manuscripts began looking like my younger nephew's copybook :))) Chronographos 15:45, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)  (Indeed iotakization may have started very early - I believe there is 3rd century BC Athenian graffiti that reads Sokratis!)