Talk:Greek (name)

message: The new country was officially named "Kingdom of the Hellenes" (later "Hellenic Republic"), or Hellas, and the people "Hellenes". In many countries, the modern Hellenes are called Greeks and their country Greece, while in other countries, especially in Asia, they are called Yunan and their country Yunanistan, from the Turkish word Yunan, derived from the Greek geographical term Ionia. In Turkey, Greeks from Greece are called Yunan, but ethnic Greeks in Turkey are called Rum, from Greek Rhomaioi.
usually the words that the countries in Asia use are not derived from the Turkish but from the Persian (the Persian word is derived from the Greek geographical term Ionia).
 as the new nation turned to the glory of the Ancient Hellenes as a source of national pride and inspiration.
Please discuss  whether this should be in the article here, rather than edit-warring :
Thanks Septentrionalis 16:23, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

message: The article on the history of names of the Greeks was rather poor (and rather inaccurate) so I took the liberty of re-writing it, hopefully for the better. The only disadvantage I think it has is its length. It may be too lengthy for the purposes of Wikipedia, but I think its necessary for the names to be attached together for the better of the whole. The section of one name puts the next section in prespective. I havent rule out yet seperation and editing into a "series" of a sort, especially since the article in unfinished. I intend to continue writing into the Ottoman and Modern era with at least two or three more section added. With that, the article will definitely exceed the recommended 32KB limit, but I'll try to minimize it by removing unecessary information from the whole. Its appearence is also too "essayistic" and hard to the eye, without any pictures, but I plan to make it more readable, in time.
For now, and as it is, I think overall it's a great improvement over the previous article.--
=== Too long, too esoteric ===
Quite honestly, I disagree. It is perhaps interesting to someone already familiar with the subject, but as an article for someone wishing to learn the basics, this is just too confusing.
The subject often comes up. As a Greek American, I've been asked "so the Greeks are gone, and now the hellenes live in Greece in their place, right?" by a well meaning wasp friend. The previous article answered the question in a format that would help my friend "get it". The average person would probably stop reading the new article after the first few hundred words.
As Greeks, we have a great history. We should promote it. Look at how brands effectively promote themselves today. Quick, clear and to the point. 
I am not going to revert the article myself. I hope you will. Most of the information you added belongs in other articles that could be linked from this page. Sysin 21:10, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major Update 

message: Quite honestly, I disagree. It is perhaps interesting to someone already familiar with the subject, but as an article for someone wishing to learn the basics, this is just too confusing.
The subject often comes up. As a Greek American, I've been asked "so the Greeks are gone, and now the hellenes live in Greece in their place, right?" by a well meaning wasp friend. The previous article answered the question in a format that would help my friend "get it". The average person would probably stop reading the new article after the first few hundred words.
As Greeks, we have a great history. We should promote it. Look at how brands effectively promote themselves today. Quick, clear and to the point. 
I am not going to revert the article myself. I hope you will. Most of the information you added belongs in other articles that could be linked from this page. Sysin 21:10, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too long, too esoteric 

message: I dont think that quality must necessarily be against quanitity, although I do agree with you that the article in its current state may be discouraging to casual readers who might see it "bulky". I dont understand though why we should limit ourselves to a brief article. Wikipedia isnt aimed for the quick reader only, and many, if not most articles go into depth on the topic they deal with. Briefness sets an upper limit to the quality aspired for and given the subject, there's simply no way for it to be credible unless we're willing to go into depth. Having that said, I agree that there's room for improvement in the article as far as readability goes.
The problem is that we need to explain and justify how the greeks came to have so many names, and not just list the names with a three sentense summary beneath each one. The reader, anyway, needs not finish the whole thing on one go. Articles are divided into sections for that very reason: to guide him through the subject and enabling him to jump into any section any time. It was never my intention to leave the article at is current state but the previous article was far too short on information to the degree of misdirection. It dealt only partly with the plurality of the Greek names and most importantly, offered no justification whatsoever for its sources. For such an oblivious subject we need to be as scrupulous as possible. 
As a Greek myself, I too used to wonder how we had come to have 7 different names when others have 1, 2 or 3 at best. And when I began researching I discovered a vast literature on the subject I never knew existed, proving how complicated the subject is, even for academics.
These are the points that I think need at least to be raised for a comprehensive article are:
:1) Pelasgian - the name encompassing all Helladic tribes during the Prehistoric era.
:2)Achaeans - the name of the Greeks during Homer.
:3)Hellenes - the name of the Greeks during and prior classical antiquity.
:4) Hellenes and Barbarians - how non-Greeks also came to be known as Hellenes during late antiquity.
:5) Hellenists - why non-Greeks came to be known as Hellenes during late antiquity.
:6) Graeci - the name Greeks came to be known from the West.
:7) Yunan - the name the Greeks came to be known from the East.
:8) Infidel Hellenes - why Hellene came to mean pagan during the middle ages.
:9) Romans - the name of the Greeks during the middle ages.
:10) Byzantines - the name the Greeks of the middle ages are known by today.
:11) Revival of Hellene - how Hellene re-acquired its classical meaning during the middle ages.
:12) Constest between Hellenes, Romans, Graeci - the dilemma of the Greeks to choose one of the three names after Independence from the Ottomans.
:13)Final disputes - Popular reaction in the 20th cent. against the promotion of Hellene over Romans and Graeci.
The numbers above dont correspond to respective sections in the article which may include one or more points.
The older article focused on 3), 6), 7) and 9), with brief references to 12) and 13). While 1) may be neglected since academics themselves are divided over the issue, the rest of the points are far too important to be left out. There is no explanation on why the Greeks changed their name from Danaoi to Hellenes and why they later dumped Hellenes for Romans, which is the most important development. The first questions non-Greeks ask themselves is why did the Greeks change their name (Hellene) in the first place? That is why I focused so much on 4) and 5)- in order to explain the developments that were to follow. There's also a problem with: "While in general the citizens of the Byzantine Empire were called Romans, the Greeks assumed the name Græco to distinguish themselves from the rest of the Byzantines." This falsely suggests that the various peoples of the empire were Romans in a strictly legal sense only, while maintaining their own ethnonyms seperately, when infact Greeks were much more Roman in both legal and national contexts than anybody else. Non Greeks had their own seperate identities. The article also fails to explain why or how the name Hellene came to suggest attachment to old religions, or how it later lost this attachment. In general the article was more incomplete than wrong, but it suffered the most from the lack of citation. Without references to back up a statement, anybody can claim his own opinion as the truth and distort the text, and nobody would have any sources to defend with.
We should not revert for the sake of brevity. Overinformation can be as bad as misdirection so we should work on delivering  more efficiently the correct information, than settleing with lower quality just because its easier to read.
So far, I've completed 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) and  10), with 11), 12), and 13) pending. On my part, I'll do my best to re-write each section, cutting away excess text and rephrasing, making it easier to read. I'm not trying to enforce myself over others. I realize that you have spent time in making that article and I respect that. I just think that there are so much more that need to be told in this article.Colossus 09:20, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia isnt just for the basics 

message: When interest did arise, English historians prefered to use Roman terminology (Edward Gibbon used it in a particularily belittling manner); while French historians prefered to call it Greek. 
Comments:
*Anglo-Saxon is probably unnecessary (it's as fancy as 'Hellene'), unless there was an American Byzantinist before 1850. 
*Gibbon's manner is no guide to the manner of his countrymen.
*Are you sure this distinction is true? Even Gibbon used "Greek empire" sometimes. Septentrionalis 20:22, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Gibbon