Talk:Ancient Greek phonology/Archive 1

message: First I'd like to point out that the "phonology changes" section is already described in detail in Koine Greek, where it belongs. I removed all ignorant edits from the "sounds" section of Ancient Greek, not only because they were reaching ridiculously polemic overtones, but mainly because like User:Andreas said, they belong to a different article. I'm not only referring to the edits made by User:Thrax, but also the edits from other supposedly neutral editors from the opposing party who literally tried to fight fallacies by adding more fallacies. I found particularly insulting and childish the constant remarks of the type "Non-Greek scholars have concluded...blah, blah...and yet the nationalist, stupid and insignificant (->implied) Greek scholars continue the propaganda... blah blah blah). I really wonder whether the person who wrote this has actually read one single page of a Greek linguist's works. Since this person is ignorant of the fact that Greek scholars does NOT mean Caragounis, such claims and generalisations on "Greek" and "non-Greek" scholars is nearly propaganda material. For the record, it is Greek linguists who are considered as the expert sources on the history of the Greek language, not because they are genetically constructed to know better, but because they have been historically more interested and therefore made more research than the others. For those who doubt this and yet are too lazy to read two different books on the same topic in order to find out, they can directly skip to the "sources" section of a random book on the history of Greek. Miskin 19:16, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Φαίνεται περίεργο, ωστόσο είναι γεγονός ότι η αρχαία Ελληνική και η βυζαντινή μας γλώσσα, για το κύρος που είχαν διεθνώς - και ιδιαίτερα στην Ευρώπη - οι κλασικές και, λιγότερο, οι βυζαντινές σπουδές, μελετήθηκε περισσότερο από ξένους γλωσσολόγους και φιλολόγους . (http://www.mesogios.gr/arxeio/2001/10/17/g01.htm)
--Macrakis 15:36, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  End of discussion 

message: For a bibliography of the history of the Greek language see: http://www.philology.gr/bibliographies/glo_ist-glos.html Andreas 15:14, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bibilography 

message: I've started re-working the article, on what I hope will be a less contentious but more systematic approach, discussing the vowels and consonants separately. There's still quite a bit more to be done, particularly on the consonants, but maybe this could be a place to state both the generally received theory and the alternatives, without some of the misinformation and confusion that still characterises much of this article. I'm also trying to make it clear that the classical (5th century Attic) pronunciation is one stage in a continuous history. --rossb 23:07, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A new approach 

message: Advocates of the Erasmian system can edit the "Evidence for Erasmian Pronunciation" while leaving the section title "Evidence for Greek Pronunciation" intact. I will not touch the Erasmian section any further as long as the title includes the term Erasmian or Scientific Pronunciation to distinguish it from the Greek Pronunciation section. --Thrax 22:09, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not a solution.  The Caragounis position is not the Greek position, as Andreas and I have shown with quotations from Babiniotis (prof. at U. Athens) and Petrounias (prof. at U. Thessaloniki).  Caragounis is a professor of theology (not of linguistics) in Sweden who published your favorite article in Spain.  Perhaps we should call it the Hispano-Swedish pronunciation. --Macrakis 22:23, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Babiniotis does not represent the Greek position. He has been castigated by his own people. I have already posted details of a conference where the Erasmian position was castigated as a falsification of history. Caragounis has already shown evidence of both Greek and non-Greek academics who advocate the historical Greek pronunciation of Ancient Greek. Where is the evidence for the Erasmian/Scientific pronunciation that dates any later that the 19th century. There isn't any is there. You certainly have not provided any and Allen does not count since he is regurgitating 19th century research so is no different to Caragounis. You can't have it both ways. --Thrax 22:37, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Each to his own

message: Is there agreement on Dionysios Thrax description of the Mediae. If so can it be moved to the section on Aphona in a neutral manner. The same thing goes for Dionysios Thrax description for the pronunciation of Zeta. Can that be moved to the Hemiphona in a neutral manner. Neutral meaning a basic translation that we can all agree on and nothing more. Does everyone agree on the translation given or can they suggest another ? --Thrax 22:45, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The Mediae

message: I have corresponded with Prof. Dillon, one of the presenters at the Litohoro conference Thrax mentions.  Dillon's paper was primarily about how to pronounce Ancient Greek in the classroom, not about the scientific reconstruction of ancient Greek, and he advocates what he calls a "Hellenistic" approach, "clearly post-classical" in his words. He went back to Erasmus's original paper, and has read both Caragounis and Allen.  He does question some of the standard reconstruction (documented by Allen), but his primarily goal is practical: what to teach.  He also said: "there was more heat than light shed at the Litochoro conference". --Macrakis 20:12, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Dillon

message: How did the ancient Greeks speak? Did they have idioms like we have in Modern Greece? Which theory is the majority view and who support it? 
:The field of linguistics has always been devised mostly along racial grounds rather than scientific grounds. The majority view is not necessarily the most accurate or the correct view. --Thrax 16:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Erasmian and "scientific" pronunciation is different in every country. The majority view in English speaking countries is the English scientific view which pronounces ancient Greek and Latin like English. In Germany ancient Greek and Latin are pronounced like German "scientifically" justified. In Holland they are pronounced like Dutch "scientifically" justified. In Italy Latin is pronounced like modern Italian and in Greece ancient Greek is pronounced like modern Greek with equal scientific justification. --Thrax 16:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: The so-called "scientific" pronunciations (and every country has their own specific variety) have no scientific credibility whatsoever. Linguists cannot even agree on how proto-Indo-European was pronounced. According to one theory the unvoiced stops were p, t, k and the voiced stops were b, d, g and the voiced aspirates were bH, dH and gH. According to another theory, the Glottalic theory these same stops were pH, tH, kH and t', k', g' and bH, dH and gH in that order. Note that all of these theories are the work of Slavs and Germanics not Greeks. If Greece had as many linguists then no doubt the proto-Indo-European stops would be π, τ, κ and β, δ, γ and φ, θ, χ pronounced like modern Greek. --Thrax 16:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Neither Germanic nor Slavic have phonemic aspiration, so by your logic, it is strange that they would reconstruct it for PIE....  And, by the way, your terminology isn't quite right: the modern Greek pronunciations of β, δ, γ, φ, θ, χ are not "stops" at all, but fricatives.... --Macrakis 03:18, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: It is interesting to note that the German pronunciation of final G (ie. Guh) is pretty close to the Greek pronunciation of Gamma whereas the English pronunciation of G is not. On the basis of comparative linguistics it is clear that German final G is a relic from proto-indo-European pronounced like modern Greek. Now all I need is to do is to sponsor enough academics to agree with me or set up enough universities and professorships supporting my point of view and this will become scientific fact. After all isn't that the way the English pronunciation became scientific fact in England and America. It was all paid for. --Thrax 16:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thrax: do not bring further own-research arguments in favor of any theory. concentrate on providing sources. Also, this belongs to the article Indoeuropean languages. (There is no German word Guh and there is no sound in the standard German language resembling the modern pronunciation of <γ>, see German phonology#Consonants.) Andreas 16:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That is not true. Boris Becker gave a lecture on the German pronunciation of G in "They Think its All Over" yesterday night on BBC1 and the pronunciation he gave for the name of football manager Arsen Wenger was Vengher (ie. Venγer) where the G was pronounced gutturally almost like gamma and not g as the English pronounced it. --Thrax 17:08, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: We are trying to agree on a translation of Dionysios Thrax  definition of the Mediae and the dasea and psila and the hemi-phona and aphona. Do you have any suggestions ? --Thrax 16:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  questions 

message: This must be a huge dispute, according the many tags!!! Bomac 22:08, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  WOW!!! 

message: It seems to me that part of the trouble with this article is a confusion between on the one hand the question as to how Greek was pronounced in ancient times, and on the other hand how ancient Greek has in practice been pronounced in schools, which are two very different matters. I've created a new article Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in western countries to address the latter point, including the history of western pronunciation of Greek from the Renaissance onwards, and covering the publications by Erasmus and others. So I now propose that we delete all the stuff about Erasmus from the Ancient Greek phonology article, which would then deal only with the question of how Ancient Greek was pronounced (which is surely what people looking at this article would want to know). rather than the history of how the current views have been arrived at. --rossb 18:24, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No. The dispute still remains and Erasmus is at the centre of it. There is no agreement whatsoever that the English pronunciation (which masquerades as being the reconstructed scientific pronunciation, but is far from being scientific) was the way ancient Greek was pronounced. The dates are totally disputed, the accent is totally disputed and the pronunciation of the dasea and mediae consonants is totally disputed and will continue to be disputed since the English pronunciation was concocted in the mid 1800's and is now taught as dogma not as sciecnce outherwise other pronunciations such as the historical Greek pronouncation (which is documented since at least the early 1800's) would be taught to the same students with equal merit. The history of Erasmus is essential to understand the arguments of both sides. --Thrax 18:49, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes. The two issues - Ancient Greek phonology and Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in western countries -are separate issues that have to be dealt with separately. Andreas 19:04, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

text: The Erasmian pronunciation belongs on Pronunciation of Ancient Greek (aka. Ancient Greek phonology) along with the historical Greek pronunciation and the so-called reconstructed pronunciation. Those are the 3 main opposing points of view as far as the reconstruction of ancient Greek pronunciation is concerned and all must be included in order to comply with NPOV policy. --Thrax 19:34, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes to rossb; No to Thrax.  The practical teaching pronunciations are one thing; the reconstruction is another.  For better or worse, almost no one teaches the reconstruction in teaching, for the practical reasons that have been discussed above and in the new Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in western countries article. If the Caragounis pronunciation were accepted by mainstream scholarship (which it is not), it would belong in the phonology article.  But the modern Greek pronunciation certainly belongs in the teaching pronunciation article. --Macrakis 19:47, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

text: The historical Greek pronunciation is accepted by mainstream scholarship and is not the modern Greek pronunciation. You have not even read the article on the main page. --Thrax 20:49, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh?  I believe what you are calling the "historical Greek pronunciation" is the Caragounis position.  You have presented no evidence that the Caragounis position is accepted by "mainstream scholarship" and others have presented much evidence that it is not. --Macrakis 02:22, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Secondly the Ancient Greek phonology article is not about the reconstructed (English) pronunciation but about all attempts to reconstruct ancient Greek. Restricting that article to just one point of view is why NPOV notices have been plastered all over it and on anything connected to it. You are not going to solve this problem and get the notices removed by trying to impose your point of view on that article. You will have to accept that there are opposing points of view and that they have an equal right to be documented. With the article as it now stands the only matter of debate is weather what has been said about the reconstructed (English) pronunciation, the Erasmain pronunciation and the historical Greek pronunciation is accurate. The Erasmain pronunciation and the historical Greek pronunciation can be verified from Caragounis article. If you do not think that what has been said is an accurate portrayal of the views of the historical Greek pronunciation then say so. The claims of the reconstructed (English) pronunciation have not been verified. Someone needs to verify them and cite sources just as I have done with the other two and then we might have this dispute resolved. --Thrax 21:16, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation in Western countries 

message: From the few things I've seen so far, the one way is the Erasmian (or Erasmic), which has probably evolved during the last centuries, and the other one is Reuchlinian. I think the Erasmian (or reconstructed?) is the majority view, and the Reuchlinian (or traditional?) is the minority view. I've seen Aristophanes "βη βη" while glancing at Vox Graeca, and it's very interesting (Caragounis tried a not very good counter-argument with dogs and frogs at his online paper). On the other hand Allen's claim that "τον πατέρα" is pronounced as "tombatéra" and not as "ton patéra", isn't very convincing (subnote 32 of Caragounis, page 22 of Allen). +MATIA  ☎ 12:17, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The softening of π after μ and ν is well documented, see Greek language#Sandhi rules. It comes naturally, therefore most speakers are not aware of it. It is not observed with speakers from Northern Greece and in the Pontian dialect.  In formal speech, the letters ν and π are pronounced separately. Andreas 13:05, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The same example (about "the father"), that's interesting. Does this mean that Allen isn't the only one who supports that in modern greek, you might hear someone say tombatera? It still seems very strange to me, but let's leave it for now. +MATIA  ☎ 13:28, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  MATIA part 2 

message: In making my translation in english i made several errors, in fact i omissed some parts that are translated in the other version of the translation, and then in reanissance latin, in lucem prodiit means print as well, while i instead i wrote as recovering the truth, thinking that was a classical latin text in wich should be understood as " Impress on light things" so REcovering the truth. Philx Philx 13:48, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Do everyone agree with one of the translations? (and which one) +MATIA  ☎ 20:46, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lil'bit of confusion 

message: ::I can't believe I am reading this. Beta was pronounced as a b in ancient Greek, as a rule. Aside from sheep and frogs, we have words like bombos (a booming, humming), bombeo (to make a booming, humming), which would lose all their onomatopoeic effect without the deep bass sound provided by the b, not the v sound. Indeed, bombos was transliterated into Classical Latin as bombus (a Greek loan). There is also Doric boa (a loud-cry, shout, battle-cry), Attic boe (this has a Latin equivalent, not a loan: boo, booare, "to shoat, roar, echo"). Again, this word would lose all effect without the bass provided by the b sound. As a war-cry, boa had to be articulated with an initial burst of bass. You aren't going to intimidate a flea unless you put some bass in your voice. Alexander 007 18:45, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you ever heard a cannon or a gun firing at a distance. They do not go boom nor is there any overwhelming bass (the barrels are not even resonant to bass sounds). They both go crack. There is overwhelming mid range and treble to the point of deafening you therefore the Greek word Βομβος pronounced Vomvos better describe that sound than the English boom. That you have been convinced that these sounds denote bass is a result of the fake soundtracks Hollywood movies which don't sound like the real thing. As for battle cries, they are screams and yells and screams and yells are mid range and treble and nothing to do with bass. Therefore it is clear that the Greek Voa best denotes the cry of war and not The English boo. --Thrax 19:21, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As for Aristophanes, the argument for using animal sounds to signify pronunciation is weak. Has there ever been any research done on the subject. Has the species of ancient Greek sheep been identified. Has the cry of every species of sheep been recorded and put through a computer speech processor to wore out what the sound actually is ?  --Thrax 19:21, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: No, boa is more likely with a 'b'. The equivalent Latin form was even used by Romans, with a 'b'. By the way, bombos was for booming and humming sounds, not for the sound of actual bombs and cannons, which weren't invented yet. Alexander 007 19:24, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The Romans are using a transliteration convention based on orthography not sound. Hebrew has two pronunciations for the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Veth or Beth so how do you know that when the Romans adopted the Greek alphabet beta was not Vet and B was not V. Humming is the sound of a bee or a wasp so if the ancient Greeks said Vomvos denoted humming that indicates that beta was pronounced V and not B since V can be sustained whereas B cannot.  --Thrax 19:38, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't see why the Romans would have represented the v sound with the letter b. When a word actually was pronounced alternately with a b or v sound, this was represented in Latin. See batillum, alternate form vatillum. On the other hand, when it was invariably a b sound, there are no variants. Alexander 007 19:50, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: But Latin U was not pronounced V until Christian times so since the Romans did not have a different symbol for V when they adopted the Greek alphabet would they not have used B instead. The fact that two versions of the same words existed with B or V indicates that when beta was introduced into Latin is was with a V sound which later changed to B or had a duel sound as in Hebrew and when B became dominant U took on a dual nature instead. --Thrax 19:58, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Okay. Let me rewind a bit. The Latin word boo!, booare! ("roar, shout, battle-cry") was not a loan from Greek, rather a kindred expressive form. And it proves that such a cry/shout can indeed be with a b sound. There is no reason why the Romans would have written it with a b, if it was pronounced as a v or Classical w (represented by v, according to references). I still don't see support for your apparent claim that Latin would have represented "woo" "wooare" or "voo" "vooare" as boo, booare. Alexander 007 20:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  DIVVS, Divus, latin didn't make distinctio between V and u, latin b is a labial not fricatrive, in plauto and other archaic latin writers for example, the verb boao,wich is used thanks to a contaminatio(insertion of entire greek scenes and text) from a menader comedy wich appears in  the aulularia, is written with B not v, so, verb Βοαω sounded boao. othe examples of translitterting words of greek word in latin are, βασιλεα, used still by plauto who wrote Basilea not vasilea, thus basilica, not vasilica. F.S.S.D Philx Philx 20:57, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  more details about '''b''' and '''v''' 

message: These are all interesting discussions (vivi vs. bebe etc.), but Talk pages are not the place to resolve issues like this. As Wikipedia's official policy states:
* If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
* If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
* If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.
I believe it is well-established that the pronunciation described by Allen is the one described in "commonly accepted reference texts", both Greek and non-Greek.  So far, no one has named a "prominent" contemporary adherent of the Caragounis position, nor a single reference work (not a research paper) using it.  So it seems that the Caragounis position falls in the third category, and I will reemphasize: regardless of whether you can prove it or not. --Macrakis 20:48, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Does Allen agree with Erasmus? +MATIA  ☎ 20:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Allen's system is the modern continuation of the Erasmian system.  That said, no one today agrees with Erasmus in detail; scholarship has moved on in 500 years!  Similarly, no one today agrees with Copernicus in detail.  In both cases, people use "Erasmian" or "Copernican" as a shorthand, in contrast to Reuchlinian and Ptolemaic.  "Erasmian" as a description also has the practical disadvantage that it is often used loosely to refer to various pronunciations used in teaching. --Macrakis 21:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: So far so good. I think that Erasmian can be called reconstructed but not scientific (Reuchlinian is scientific too). I thought that in this article we should discuss (among other things) the evolution of the Erasmian system, do you agree with that? +MATIA  ☎ 22:12, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Here we go again. This is not about how many people agree with Erasmus. It is about the EXISTENCE of an Erasmain view (infact many) and this view must be documented. There is 100% agreement that the Erasmian view exists. People here are trying to hijack this article and turn it into a one sided POV rant in favour of the so-called reconstructed pronunciation and exclude everything else. Wikipedia is NOT a guide to how to pronounce ancient Greek but a repository of knowledge. --Thrax 22:32, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please Thrax, be patient and avoid phrases that might be considered as personal attacks. Do you agree that the Erasmian system is the majority view even in Greece? If you do, we could search for the "evolved Reuchlinian system", that is the traditional pronunciation system (I think traditional sounds better than historical, I'd like to know what the rest editors think) and write it in a proper way, as minority view. After we gather up everything and do a little clean up, this would be a very interesting and neutral article. +MATIA  ☎ 22:54, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The Erasmian system is not accepted in Greece at all by the majority of Greeks including academics if you want to talk about majorities. The Erasmian system is a point of historical reference and should be given equal merit with the historical Greek pronunciation (which is the majority view in Greece) and the so-called reconstructed pronunciation. This article is not about choosing one over the other but about documenting them all. If you want a better name for the historical Greek pronunciation then call it the "Greek pronunciation" since that is exactly what it is. Its the way the Greeks pronounce their own language not the way the foreigners pronounce it. If the Greeks pronounced the mediae and the dasea and zeta like the Germans then why did they call the Germans barbarians meaning they could not speak Greek properly ? --Thrax 23:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Bambiniotis and Hatzidakis are the two most known greek linguists, and it would benefit the discussion if you accepted that they are the majority view in Greece. I do believe that, as Allen supports an evolved Erasmian system, there must be some academics (if they are greek or not it doesn't matter) who support the Reuchlinian system better than Caragounis (that means we need more modern scholars who support Reuchlinian/traditional/historical/whatever system, to document it properly here). And we also need to find what aspects of the modern/evolved Erasmian system are disputed - I doubt that everyone agree 100% with Allen. For example what Dillon exactly thinks about it? +MATIA  ☎ 23:26, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Bambiniotis and Hatzidakis are teachers of linguistics and that's about it. They are neither scientists, classicists nor historians. They are no different to teachers of languages, who are not scientists, classicists or historians either. If they are teaching the so-called reconstructed pronunciation then they are teaching it as established dogma since this pronunciation is taught is as it was concocted in the mid 1800's. It is nothing more than a patronising convention used by the English speaking world. It is not even scientific and has never been scientifically proven. It is a convenience which is not accepted by the majority of Greeks. In Greek universities ancient Greek is taught using Greek pronouncation, not Erasmain nor reconstructed. What does that tell you. Where are the scientific proofs of the reconstructed pronunciation, where are the research papers on native born speakers of the various Greek dialects (well we apparently have a reference to one paper on Macedonian that some people are trying to suppress), where is the documentation of these dialects, where is the statistical correlation of all of this and the mathematical relationships. It neither exists today nor did it exist in the 1800'a when the reconstructed pronunciation was concocted because the reconstructed pronunciation is pure conjecture based on personal interpretations of ancient texts (that even a classics novice can show that they have misinterpreted or have dissembled choosing only the parts that suit them) and speculations on comparative linguists where the modern pronunciation of Greek and Italian has been deliberately excluded. Anyway this is not about who agrees with whom and what is the majority view but about documenting all the opposing theories equally. It is only in this manner that we can enable Wikipedia to be used as a research tool, otherwise people will just search the web for what they want somewhere else. --Thrax 00:24, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Why we don't need to argue

message: Somewhere amongst the above I've seen a statement supporting the Caragounis view of the letter Zeta, to the effect that if it is pronounced sd or zd then a double zeta — ζζ — would be difficult to pronounce. This seems somewhat persuasive, but I've been racking my brains to think of an ancient Greek word including ζζ (in its standard Attic orthography of course). Can anyone suggest any examples, please --rossb 06:51, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Azzeioi (CIA I, 238, 12, 442 B.C.), Buzzantioi (CIA I, 230, 10 b, 450 B.C.)  --81.178.214.51 12:53, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Both of these appear to be misspellings of proper names: certainly neither appears in Liddell and Scott. I'm inclined to think that ζ was never doubled in standard Attic orthography, which would be very consistent with its reconstructed value of sd or zd. --rossb 18:19, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You are missing the point. If Zeta was zd then the misspelling would never have occured. It is obvious the someone thought that Byzantioi broke down into the following syllables Byz and zyanti. This mistake would never have occurred if Zeta was zd and can only have occurred if Zeta was z. Nobody would ever consider repeating zd twice in a word like Byzantioi but since Zeta is actually pronounced z which is a sound that can be sustained it is likely that people would make the simple mistake of pronouncing it as Byz-zantioi and this is shown by the inscriptions. --Thrax 19:11, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  a specific question 

message: Please use this section only for things that we need to look up, that might be relevant to this article +MATIA  ☎ 20:34, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  articles that we need to check 

message: The pronunciation of all of these groups of letters in proto-Indo-European is totally disputed. The bottom line is that anyone's personal theory is as good as anyone else's. The standard theory is where the psila are un-aspirated p, t, k and the mediae are b, d, g and the dasea are bH, dH and gH, but even in the standard theory the prononcation of the dasea is disputed by the proponents of the theory itself who suggest that these might actually be spirants . Since spirants are the same as modern Greek fi, beta, theta and delta the idea that the dasea in ancient Greek were pH, tH and kH is completely ridiculous. If this were so then the dasea would go from being spirants to aspirated plosives to spirants again. Further more the dasea in Latin are never described as aspirated plosives but as fricatives, f, f and h and even in Sanskrit the dasea are given the sounds bH, dH and h so why should Greek be any exception. It is obvious that the claim that the dasea were aspirated plosives is totally unfounded and is based on nothing more than a deliberate academic fraud where all the evidence of modern Greek pronunciation, the account of Dionysios Thrax and the evidence of inscriptions was either deliberately ignored became it did not suit the reconstructionists point of view or it was dissembled to make it fit that view. --Thrax 03:54, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We cannot put popular misconceptions (such as the idea that all languages derive from Greek) on the same level as modern scholarship. As for Dionysios Thrax it is quite possible that /b/, /d/ and /g/ had become fricatives by his time - but that does not prove that they were in Attic or Homeric Greek. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 11:09, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The evidence of proto-Indo-European theory clearly indicates that no change took place since the dasea in proto-Indo-European may have been spirants and therefore the dasea in ancient Greek must have always been fricatives. All the weight of proto-Indo-European theory is against the reconstructed pronunciation. --Thrax 14:04, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If the proto-Indo-Europeans existed then they were clearly not blond Germanic people. That only stands to reason since Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, Persians and Indians are all dark haired. The Germanic people were therefore not native speakers of proto-Indo-European and Germanic languages should not serve as a guide to the pronunciation of Greek or any other Indo-European languages since the Germanic languages have undergone changes and corruptions that are not present in other Indo-European languages such as Greek and Latin. --Thrax 14:04, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This has nothing to do with hair-colour. And the reconstructed pronunciation of Ancient Greek is certainly not based on the reconstructed pronunciation of Proto-Germanic. In the standard reconstruction of Proto-Germanic the consonant system is in fact very similar to the Modern Greek one - with fricatives aplenty. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 14:13, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Let's leave PIE and it's relation with evolved languages out of this article. We have a big enough "to do" list already :) +MATIA  ☎ 12:23, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Proto-Indo-European theory is totally relevant to this debate and there is evidence that the so called reconstructed pronunciation is inconsistent with it. The reason for that is obvious. The reconstructed pronunciation was concocted in the mid 1800's and has remained unchanged since then and is uninfluenced by modern development in linguistics and discoveries of new evidence and inscriptions because it is dogma not science. The reconstructed pronunciation is out of date and is nothing more than an ethnocentric theory based on Germanic languages and English pronunciation of Greek. It is inconsistent with proto-Indo-European theory and the pronunciation of other Indo-European languages such as Latin and Sanskrit which have the dasea as spirants or fricatives because it takes no notice of them. It is clear to any objective reader that the reconstructed pronunciation is wrong because it is totally unscientific and the result of an academic fraud. --Thrax 14:04, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 14:13, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Explain why ? What are you disagreeing with. Where is the evidence that the reconstructed pronunciation is consistent with modern developments in linguistics. As far as I am aware it is frozen in the past for dogmatic reasons. --Thrax 14:16, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You think that the reconstructed pronunciation of Ancient Greek is an ethnocentric theory and that your theory that the pronunciation of Greek has never changed and that Greek is the mother tongue of all Indo-European languages is an objective theory. I think the reverse is true. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 14:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: But you haven't answered my question. Where is the evidence for the reconstructed pronunciation being consistent with modern linguistics or has taken into consideration new evidence ? Where Allen takes into new evidence into consideration he comes out in favour of modern Greek pronunciation. --Thrax 14:42, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You answered your own question. Allen is my idea of the modern reconstructed pronunciation and he takes new evidence into consideration as you just said. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 18:20, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Babiniotis and Hatzidakis are the ones arguing that Greek is the mother of all European languages. Proto-Indo-European has only around about 600 word steams. Most of the words in other European languages came directly from Greek and Latin not Proto-Indo-European. --Thrax 14:42, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The psila, mediae and dasea in proto-Indo-European, Greek and Latin.

message: I've checked his contributions in the article, and the two problems are that they aren't exactly NPOV and he needs to bring more than just Caragounis. Beside my disagreement with that POV I can verify that some of his edits are acurate (for example Thrax had said that in Germany the reconstructed system was rejected for a longer time than in England, and as I've said before that has something to do with Reuchlin). I encourage anyone to check my previous comments here and I still believe this article should cover the answers to those questions (and more evidence for each disputed letter etc). +MATIA  ☎ 11:44, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  a note about user Thrax 

message: Prove that the reconstructed pronunciation is nothing more than pseudo-science concocted in the 19th century. Where is the evidence for this theory ? Name the present day linguists who have done research on this theory and what do they say. Prove that this theory is not sterile. You say Caragounis says no one knows where this theory came from. Ok then, you tell me where it came from if you think he is spouting nonsence. Since you are going to write an article about it I'd expect to see some scientific evidence and not wacko conjectures like sheep bleeting.
Where does the idea that ancient Greek zeta was prononced like zd come from. Caragounis has cited his sources. Where are yours, the primary sources I mean and even some secondary ones that can be verified. Would it be Dionysios Thrax ? If its not Dionysios Thrax then tell me who or has it all been made up.
Where does the idea that the dasea were aspirated plosives come from. Why aren't they aspirated plosives in Latin and Sanskrit ?
How can Dionysios Thrax account of the mediae and their very name which says that they are midway between the psila and dasea in pronunciation be reconciled with the reconstructed pronunciation. It can't be can it and you know it because Dionysios Thrax can only be describing fricatives. Tell me how in only 200 years these aspirated plosives suddenly become fricatives. Where is the statistical evidence (I do hope you have some) which shows that such a rapid change is possible simultaneously all over the Greek speaking world.
Is it not true that the reconstructed pronunciation is nearly 200 years out of date and is taught as it was in the 19th century after all the evidence against it was ignored. Is it not true that the reconstructed pronunciation ignored and still ignores the pronunciation of both Greek and Latin by their native born speakers so the statement you made about the pronunciations of borrowings to and from Latin cannot be justified since the reconstructed pronunciation presuppose that Latin was pronounced like English and not modern Italian which sounds closer to Greek. Is it not true that reconstructed pronunciation could not be proven in the balance of probabilities let alone beyond reasonable doubt (and still cannot) and the only reasons it was adopted by the English speaking world was solely because of nationalistic lines. There were more of them than us and that's what it all boils down to. The reconstructed pronunciation is an academic fraud.
But don't tell me Professor Dionysios Karvelas is a nationalistic bigot along with Anna Tziropoulou-Eustathiou and Professor Chrys C. Caragounis and Professor Kariofilis Mitsakis, Professor Napoleon Mitsis, Professor Nicholas Petrohilos and Professor Panagiotis F. Christopoulos. Tell me, is every Geek who supports the historical Greek pronunciations a nationalistic bigot. I put it to you that the same can be said of the creators and supporters of the reconstructed pronunciation. --Thrax 03:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Both theories are scientific methods and both theories have pros and cons. WP:NPOV, WP:CITE and WP:NOT are related to our discussion. +MATIA  ☎ 11:39, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That is not strictly true. The advocates of the reconstructed pronunciation can not provide one iota of scientific evidence in support of their view because it is all based on a publication by Erasmus in which he presented all of his arguments in a dialogue between a bear and a lion. That is the equivalent of using Aesop's fable to prove that the sun is more powerful than the wind which is hardly scientific but wholly conjecture. Erasmus did not provide any scientific proof for his argument but only conjectures and the reconstructed pronunciation is based not on scientific evidence but on Erasmus conjecture alone. --Thrax 12:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Allen, Bambiniotis and before a century Hatzidakis support scientificaly the reconstructed method. While this article needs someone better than Caragounis who supports the traditional method, and surely needs NPOV and cleanup (keeping what we know so far), the traditional method will also be analysed. +MATIA  ☎ 12:45, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prove it 

message: Dealing with kwami's following statement.
"English /r/ used to be a trill, and English /b d g/ were voiced stops (they're now close to [p t k] at the beginning of words), but such changes will not be reflected in the orthography. Greek β could have gone from [mb] to [b] to [β] to [v] to [w] to [hw] to [kw] to [gw] to [b] to [mb] again, and as long as it remained a distinct phoneme all this time, there would be little evidence for any of this in the orthography. (Note I'm not claiming that this happened!)"
So you say that beta could have gone through all of these changes just as long as it remained a distinct sound, by that I take it that you means that is  meaning it remained distinct from the other sounds in other groups of letter such as the psila and dasea. I agree with you but why don't we apply this rule to English as lets see what we get. Grimm's Law states that the psila, mediae and dasea in all Germanic languages started out as p, t, k and b, d, g and bH, dH, gH and these became f, th, h and p, t, k and b, d, g in English respectively. But if all of these sounds have to be distinct then this change cannot have possibly taken place using the initial start values because there would have been total and utter confusion of the dasea with the mediae when for example the daseon bH became b which is also a meson. This confusion would also have occurred when the meson b started to became p which is also a psilon. Since change is an entirely random process there is no way that a confusion between the psila, mediae and dasea in all Germanic languages could not have occurred. Unless Grimm provides statistical evidence of a substantial confusion of Germanic of psila, mediae and dasea compared to other Indo-European language then his initial start values for the psila, mediae and dasea cannot be right. In fact the only way for a confusion of the psila, mediae and dasea not to have taken place in Germanic is if the initial values for the psila, mediae and dasea were pH, tH, kH and v, the, gh (ie. modern Greek β, δ, γ) and bH, dH, gH. If these start values are used then even if half the population start pronouncing bH as b it cannot be confused with the sound of β. Similarly if half the population start pronouncing β as p (unaspirated) it cannot be confused with aspirated pH and aspirated pH can alternate quite safely between pH and f without any confusion taking place. It is blatantly obvious from the above examples that Grimm was wrong and it is time for linguists to admit it and when they admit it they must also admit that the mediae in ancient Greek were always pronounced β, δ, γ and that the dasea in ancient Greek could never have adopted the transitional values of pH, tH, kH because they would have been confused with the psila. If Grimm had not been deceived by the academic fraud of Erasmus and the totally unscientific conjecture of the reconstructed pronunciation of ancient Greek he would have never made this basic error which invalidates his work and would have concluded that the initial start values of the psila, mediae and dasea in proto-Indo-European were pH, tH, kH and v, the, gh (ie. modern Greek β, δ, γ) and bH, dH, gH. Thank you kwami for your suggestions because without them I would not have been able to prove my initial hypothesis which I initially suggested to Andreas on my talk page as a compromise. Now I have proven it beyond any reasonable doubt. The reconstructed pronunciation is wrong and I have now satisfactorily proven it. --Thrax 12:33, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please consider reading the article on the High German consonant shift before advocating this theory any further. Stefán Ingi 14:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That article explains that the evolution of the psila into fricatives took place over 400 years and then the change of the mediae into voiceless stops took place. What about the change of the dasea of proto-Indo-European into voiced stops. When did that happen. I do not see any statistical evidence in that article that proves the evolution of the psila into fricatives took place over the 400 years claimed and neither do I see any statistical evidence that the change of the mediae into voiceless stops was not coeval with that time. Provide the statistics and prove that there was no confusion between psila and mediae. If there is no statistical evidence I will assume that this theory is pure conjecture and is therefore not scientific at all. Also provide an explanation for why the dasea were not been confused with the mediae during all of this thim when they became voiced stops. Also note that nothing in that article contradicts my theory about Gimm being wrong. My theory works better than Grimm's and it does not require time limits or ordering. --Thrax 17:26, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grimm got it wrong 

message: Can anyone translate the German in Caragounis note 12
"12 Regrettably the argumentation sometimes exceeded scientific propriety. F. Blass, for example, impelled by the nineteenth century Romantic view of ancient Greece, according to which all subsequent development was a retrogression (cf. his evaluative comment that the Italians are not "die reine Nachkommen der alten Römer", 1st ed. p. 8) called the Modern Greeks as well as the Byzantines "half-barbarians" ("Wohl sind die Neugriechen und waren die Byzantiner micoba&rbaroi" [1st ed. p. 8]) and condemned Modern Greek as barbarous, corrupt and worthless (despite the fact that the three editions of his book give ample evidence that he was not acquainted with Modern Greek phonology), cf. e.g. 1st ed. p.7: "Die Sprache eines Homer oder Platon nach derjenigen der Syrer des dritten Jahrhunderts oder der verkommenen Byzantiner umzuwandeln, wäre die reine Barbarei"; 
:"To modify the language of a Homer or a Platon in accordance with that of a Syrian of the 3rd century, or with that of the degenerate Byzantines, would be barbaric indeed." --transl.:Lukas 23:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Thus, the historical basis claimed by the Reuchlinians for themselves as opposed to us is completely moot and worthless."--transl.:Lukas 23:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

text: "Our pronunciation, in all other matters of vocalism, has solid foundations enough, as being the - at least approximately - true and genuine one, and that not only for the Homeric period, but for the whole hayday of the Greek nation."--transl.:Lukas 23:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

text: "But the real language is likely to have been even more varied, and that makes it entirely clear what immense difficulties Greek pronunciation must have presented to the foreigner. We are in an easier position, since nobody is there to control us; and even though it would not be right to be completely indifferent about a better or worse pronunciation, we should nevertheless not act like pedants, as if we expected that one day the ancient Hellenes might arise from the dead and hold us responsible for how we have perverted their beautiful language."--transl.:Lukas 23:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This constitutes evidence that the so-called reconstructed pronunciation was never an objective scientific theory but one sided theory which imposed Germanic pronunciation on Greek and despite the evidence presented against it which was more than enough call its credibility into question even by the admission of its own advocated it was only adopted because the Greeks could not fight back. This evidence should be included in the article to show that the reconstructed pronunciation has never been scientifically proven but was adopted purely on racial grounds. Its nothing more than the local Germanic pronunciation of Greek and a a deliberate academic fraud by the admission of its own advocates. --Thrax 15:46, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm afraid the last two phrases (has never been scientifically proven till fraud) are absolutely wrong and do the opposite than supporting your arguments. I've posted in this talk page some links before, please check them (for example  review of a greek translation of the Dialogue). My personal advice is to forget about Caragounis and find a better scientist (someone like Allen but from the other side) who supports your view, or criticizes the reconstructed system. +MATIA  ☎ 16:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Call this scientific

message: I propose that the discussion of the Traditional Greek (Caragounis) position vs. the widely-accepted reconstruction be moved to a subpage.  That discussion has come to take over this Talk page.  Once we do that, the discussion on Caragounis and criticism of the usual reconstruction can continue there, while discussion of the usual reconstruction and other consensus matters can proceed more smoothly here. --Macrakis 17:23, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm very sceptical about this one. Can you please clarify? I think that identifying the traditional system with Caragounis is more wrong than identifying the modern reconstructed system with Erasmus. +MATIA  ☎ 17:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

text: No since it would constitute an attempt to turn the page on Greek pronouncation in to an unchallenged POV rant on the totally unscientific reconstructed pronunciation. The next step would be to remove all links to the new page and then to attempt to have the new page deleted entirely. --Thrax 17:37, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: To clarify, I was proposing having a separate Talk subpage, not a separate main page.  --Macrakis 18:03, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

text: By all means, this page is getting too big. But I'm afraid this is not going to solve our structural problem. As long as Thrax is determined to dictate his agenda to the rest of us, there's no way of stopping him, and he'll likely continue to follow the discussion wherever it goes, and make any page spill over. :-( --Lukas 20:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We can at least separate out the Caragounis discussion, so that more serious issues can be discussed here. If the discussion spills over onto this page, we can clip & paste it into the Caragounis subpage. kwami 22:41, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Move "Traditional Greek" (Caragounis) discussion to subpage?

message: I've moved this from further up to its own heading for comment.
In Hebrew the letter Pe has two pronunciations P or F therefore when this letter was adopted by the Greeks from the proto-Sinaitic script which was also used by the Phoenicians and Hebrews it must also have been of dual value, just like Bet in Hebrew is of dual value B or V and Kaf in Hebrew is of dual value K or Kh (as in German ich) and Hebrew Tav is of dual value, T or S. Further more the name of the Hebrew letter Tav clearly indicates that the au diphthong in Greek Tau should be pronounced as av like it is in the Hebrew name. On top of this Hebrew has a letter called Zayin and two letters called Tzade (one of them is only used at the end of words) therefore if Greek Zeta was pronounced as ZD or DZ why wasn't the Hebrew letter Tzade used by the Greeks instead of Zayin which is a pure Z sound. It is clear that all of the evidence from Hebrew supports the historical Greek pronunciation and completely demolishes that fraudulent reconstructed pronunciation which pays no heed to any comparative linguistics but instead based all of its conclusions on the German mispronunciation of Latin and even then nobody ever claims that Latin F was ever pronounced pH. If Pe had a dual pronunciation in Hebrew then why not Greek. That would also explain why P was originally used in Latin to represent both P and F before the digamma was adapted to represent F and the Fi symbol was added to Greek to replace PH. --Thrax 16:51, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's seriously non sequitur - but we should probably not discuss this further here. If this isn't "Original Research", then what is? I should very much urge that arguments along these lines, which are Thrax' invention and his alone, should not be included in the article on any account.--Lukas 20:04, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have proven that there were never any changes in Greek pronunciation of the consonants period because Hebrew used fricatives and dual value letters that correspond to the Greek fricatives since at least the 6th century when the bible was written otherwise the Hebrew letters in Hebrew names which did not exist in Greek would have been transliterated directly with the same letters in ancient Greek instead of different ones if a transition to becoming fricatives had only just started in both languages in Hellenistic times. The fact that Hebrew has three letters Zayin, Tzade, and Tzade (terminal) and that only Zayin was used in Greek proves that zeta could never have been pronounced as zd or dz since the time the Hebrew/Phoenician alphabet was devised. This proof is in addition to Caragounis independent and not reliant on Caragounis proof using Greek inscriptions and Dionysios description of the sounds of the mediae which can only be apple to modern Greek pronunciation. Therefore together these proofs totally and utterly demolish the reconstructed pronunciation in its entirety and that's not even including the fact that Latin represents the dasea as fricatives and Sanskrit represents the letter corresponding to Hi (χ) with the sound of H which is enough to bury the reconstructed pronunciation period. --Thrax 19:06, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transliteration of Hebrew into ancient Greek 

message: Thanks, Andreas, for your initiative towards a rewrite. I agree with the idea, I've just corrected the summary of Caragounis' position and added a bit more concrete information on that of Teodorsson. I ought to look it up so we can include more precise datings as he gives them. I took out the reference to Proto-Indo-European, because I think that didn't fit Caragounis' position well enough. To be sure, it would be the logical consequence if one were to follow up his argument consistently, but he himself is plainly not interested in reconstructions going back beyond ancient Greek.--Lukas 20:15, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Andreas' changes 

message: If thrax's accounts are true someone has to explain me that:
F is digamma, pronounced V.
* Greek    Latin  Myceneum
* Foinos   vinum  wono(s)
* Foikos    vicus  woiko
* Fanax            wanaka
* Fesperos   vesper
So why semitic veth wasn't supplied by digamma and beth by beta? F.S.S.D  Philx 20:25, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hi Philx, no offense, but I think we ought not to go down this road of discussing the Phoenician>Greek alphabet links too, at least not on this page that's already spilling over. Just very quickly, Lat. <V> and Greek <F> and Semitic <waw> are all thought to have been [w], not [v] (i.e. like English "wine", not Italian "vino"). I'm not sure what the relevance would be with respect to beth. We can move this to our talk pages, if you like. --Lukas 20:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Digamma was originally pronounced W in Greek and Latin and in Hebrew it is also pronounced O and U as well as W. Hence the Hebrew name YHWH is pronounced Yahweh in Hebrew not Jehovah. --Thrax 22:42, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Greek digamma 

message: Is this phrase "Koine had seven vowels, two of which η and ω were long, two ε and ο were short and three α, ι, υ were either long or short." a fringe view? +MATIA  ☎ 22:56, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not a fringe view, but technically incorrect. Correct is that Greek has seven vowel symbols, of which two stood for long vowels, two for short vowels and three for either long or short. As a linguist I'd insist it's vital to keep the terminology clear in this respect. How many vowels (i.e. vowel sounds) there were, is a different question. Sorry I can't right now find what context that sentence stands or stood in; I guess whether or not it needs fixing or can be deleted will heavily depend on the context. --Lukas 23:43, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Difficult to read on my machine right now. I'll give it a try later.--Lukas 23:43, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I looked at them. Thanks for posting this. Yes, the article is useful, insofar as it supports our reference list of what were the principal proponents of the relevant views up to c.1900, and they support the view that mainstream linguistics within Greece has turned towards accepting the Erasmian view, with Xadzidakis as the decisive figure around the turn of the 20th century. That can easily be worked in.--Lukas 08:48, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  question: "fringe view" 

message: An Aesop's fable in the form of a Latin dialogue between two animals that was written by Erasmus and which he later disowned and told all his friends to disown.
::I'll re-word the passage in the article to avoid this kind of misunderstanding: the Dialogus is not a fable, much less an Aesopian one, and its protagonists aren't animals. Read it. They are just fictional characters, clearly supposed to be humans, living in the real world of 16th-century Germany. It's just that their names are "Leo" and "Ursus" (both of which are also perfectly normal christian names for people.) It's simply a piece in the traditional literary genre of the philosophical dialogue, just like Plato. It was a very common device for presenting ideas at the time.--Lukas 07:45, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Evidence for the reconstructed pronunciation. Discuss 

message: I counted 9 reverts of the same material by Thrax in under 2 hours, and have therefore blocked him for 24 hours. Please use this time to consolidate a consensus version of the article, and to work out any issues that the rest of you might have with each other. 
Since there were so many editors reverting Thrax, and Thrax was in such gross violation of 3RR, I did not take the time to examine the contents of all of your changes during the past 24 hours. However, in the future please be aware that supporting a 'concensus' version is no excuse for violating 3RR, and that I will need to block anyone who goes over, not just Thrax. As long as your contributions are well supported by the editing comunity, 3RR shouldn't be a problem. kwami 23:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've lifted Thrax's block with the warning that any further reverts within 24 hrs of his last edit today will again put him in violation of 3RR. kwami 02:56, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  blocked Thrax 

message: Congratulations to Lukas and anyone else involved in the current draft, which is a vast improvement. Now that we've got the history so clearly stated I withdraw my previous suggestion that the references to Erasmus should be removed. --rossb 11:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: about WP:NPOV: This article name used to be Ancient Greek pronunciation. While I don't exactly understand the difference between phonology and phonetics, I don't think it's a good idea to move this article around renaming it (one can check the history for the various title changes). WP:NPOV is the policy we should comply with, at all events. The (modern) reconstructed system, Allen's Vox Graeca, the (original) erasmian system, Dionysious Thrax's grammar (see external link), the (reuchlinian) traditional system, Caragounis position and User:Thrax's contributions are 7 different things, yet most of them are related to the article. My suggestions are to improve the article instead of renaming it, engaging edit wars and splitting it. Let's get this article into a higher quality level with the help of all interested parties. Thanks for reading this and good luck to everyone. (I'll probably take a wikibreak one of these days) +MATIA  ☎ 12:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A vast improvement