Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Greek)

message: It has been a long convention in the Western world, which received largely Greek sources through Latin, to use the Latin suffix -us where the Greek -os, and sometimes -as normally was (and therefore we have Evagrius instead of Evagrios, Anastasius instead of Anastasios, Odysseus instead of Odysseas, etc.). While there is a historic reason for this, a correct transliteration of Greek names to English does not have any reason to pass through the grammar of Latin. Unless a name has a much more common form in English (Gregory instead of Gregorios or George instead of Georgios), it is not correct to use Latin grammar for Greek names. A policy of rendering Greek names (ancient, medieval and modern) according to their native grammar, should be adopted.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.178.1 (talk) 17:37, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There is an actual reason for it: it is normal in English text (we should not use -us in feminine placenames, where it is no longer normal); our readers will come to us having seen Anastasius, Odysseus, Heraclitus, and will see those forms elsewhere.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:27, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

text: Come to think of it, Odysseas? I see it has become the Demotic usage; but it is not Homer  (nor Thucydides, nor Vergil). This is the English Wikipedia; there is no need to introduce modern -er- tweaks. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:08, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

text: Thanks for your input, but we are not "correct" or "consistent". In each article, we try to use the   and we can't create a  here to do anything different. If the most common English form is Latinate (it often is), that's what we go with. If you want to "fix" that, start publishing scholarly articles on obscure figures and terms using your preferred romanization and getting your fellow classicists to follow your lead. You're right that the article should focus more on explaining our policies than trying to explain the history of Greek romanization, though. That's a different article. — LlywelynII 15:16, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Greek versus Latin suffixes 

message: The page appears to be trying to describe how to "construct" the correct anglicized/latinized form for Greek names. This is futile.
The only thing the guideline needs to be aware of is "most common form in English usage".
It isn't predictable whether Aristarchus or Aristarch is the form used in English. This is simply a matter of checking with reputable secondary sources.
There are special cases like Ulysses that are completely irregular. 
This page should give advice on where and when close transliteration ("lang:grc-Latn") or pronunciation details should be given, but the question of anglicizations of latinized Greek is beyond its scope. That simply falls under the main "stick to English usage" rule. --dab (𒁳) 09:27, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the improvements to the article.  I appreciate the effort to streamline and clarify, and I was pleased to learn that grc is a recognized language for Template:lang; I hope this will help editors make sure that ancient names are provided in Ancient Greek as opposed to Modern Greek.  Now, the one thing that gives me some pause is that the sentence The normal English practice is to use the Roman standard, rather than attempting a phonetic transcription. was simply removed rather than edited into something more logical.  I wouldn't want to see a chaos of moves (for example Philodemus to Philodemos, where "most common" is not as effortlessly clear as, say, Euthyphro vs. Euthyphron) justified by the absence of any guidance here.  Would it be acceptable to include a statement that when Latinized and transliterated forms are both in use, the longer-established Latinized ones are generally preferred?  Wareh (talk) 14:29, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right, The normal English practice is to use the Roman standard, rather than attempting a [transliteration from Greek directly]. But this isn't really the scope of this page, it's simply a matter of WP:UE. I.e. "Philodemus" is already English and thus "Naming conventions (Greek)" shouldn't even be invoked. I didn't like the appearance that Wikipedia is prescribing "use the Roman standard" when this is simply an observation on the de facto situation in English (and of course there are exceptions, like "Athens"). In my book, Philodemus is lang=en, i.e. it is simply a name to be used in English language context without any markup. Philodēmos is a transliteration, to be italicized and tagged as lang=grc-Latn, and Φιλόδημος should of course just be tagged as lang=grc. --dab (𒁳) 10:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

text: The article could do with a little bit more in that direction. We shouldn't be saying "this is better" w/r/t article names at all: it's only an issue of . If both the Latinate and Hellenic forms are common, there might be some guidance in the direction of movement and the quality of the sources involved (e.g., we switched to the spelling "Beijing" ahead of some places, but after the movement in that direction was already inexorable and very prestigious sources had gone over.). In the relatively few iffy cases, though, it is something that should be worked out case by case. Like you said, any other policy is going to be futile and contradicted in many particular cases. — LlywelynII 15:15, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Latinization rules

message: Since there's some controversy regarding the transliteration of some consonant clusters in modern Greek, let's discuss them. The issues are about γκ, μπ and ντ. In this reference, that discusses the UN system we chose in 2006 (see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Greek)/Archive 1#Modern Greek), these are transliterated as gk, mp and nt respectively. One exception: μπ is transliterated as b at the beginning and at the end of a word. Other transliteration systems (e.g. BGN/PCGN) make other choices, and I think it's important to stick to our choice of one system, in order to avoid all those nice variant names like Pirgos, Pirghos, Pyrghos. I know this doesn't reflect English pronunciation, and it isn't meant to. Markussep Talk 14:59, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I for one don't see why we have to "stick" to any particular system. There are several transliteration systems, all of them valid and usable as the occasion demands. The guideline must recognize existing usage, not prescribe a system and try to straitjacket everything in it. γγ and γκ are traditionally transliterated as "g" or "ng", and more recently as "gg" or "gk" respectively. Personally, I heartily loathe the latter forms, as they are an obvious way to directly transcribe the individual letters but misses the whole point of the cluster being a single sound, but my personal taste doesn't have a say in the matter. I don't really see the problem with having Ioannis Giagkos alongside Theodoros Pangalos, provided that the usage is established (Giagkos for instance is officially written in this way). Also, IMO, the guide here should be how recognizable a name would be to an English-speaker: for instance, both "Andonis" and "Antonis" can be found as transliterations of "Αντώνης", but only the second preserves the visual hint to the original Latin name that is familiar as "Anthony". Similarly, no one would use "nt" to render "Αντρέας", and vice versa one wouldn't use "nd" to render "Αντίπαρος". Same goes for the μπ cluster.  Constantine   ✍  16:13, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: What I certainly want to avoid, and you'll probably agree, is different transliterations for the same name, like Palaiochori vs. Paleohori. I agree that we should follow English usage, if there is a clear preference for one version in English. To my experience, there are many cases where existing usage is extremely scattered or not very logical. See for instance Chalkidiki, Hersonissos, Alonissos, Kalabaka. About your Giagkos and Pangalos examples: if that's what they're called in English, I see no reason to force them both to "gk" or "ng". I think your Αντίπαρος, Αντώνης and Αντρέας examples also illustrate the problem: who decides what's the best transliteration for those, if we decide not to follow a system? Markussep Talk 21:35, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I quite agree with you, I merely do not think that following any one system too rigidly is the way to go. Common usage should override transliteration in cases where a form is long-established like Chalcidice, Messenia, Athens or Elis. Similarly, "Andreas" must be recognizable to being related to "Andrew" and the "Anti-" element in Antiparos must be clear as well. Otherwise we can be lax, it is not so important if it is spelled Alonnisos or Alonnissos. To answer your question, it is we who decide. There is no consistent usage, no guideline on how to transliterate modern Greek names, and Greeks themselves mix things up constantly. The only requirement should be that the form we choose is recognizable so that someone with knowledge of Greek can back-transliterate it, and that it should if possible help in pronunciation. As an example, rendering Μπάμπης as "Mpampis" is technically accurate but useless, as the name is pronounced "Babis" or rather "Bambis". Personally, my preference is for the "traditional" way, with some nods to phonetic pronunciation: retain the ai, ei, oi, ou, and y, render γγ and γκ as ng/g, μπ as b, mb or mp, chi as ch and gamma as g. Constantine   ✍  07:33, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

text: Nope. If there are multiple common English forms of the same name, the more common one goes in the title and running text and the other one also appears in bolded text, either in the lead sentence (if it's very important and common) or lower in the article (if it is less so). We don't want to give  weight to every possible variation but we can't just ignore (or leave our readers clueless about) the variations people will in fact see in the wild. Where we should be consistent is only in the detailed transliteration following the Greek text in the lead sentence or infobox. — LlywelynII 12:06, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transliteration for modern Greek: consonant clusters 

message: Should the page make clear on the issue of "gg" not "ng" e.g. Aggeliki Daliani, actress, Angeliki Karapataki, water polo player, Aggeliki Tsiolakoudi, javelin thrower. Just a question? In ictu oculi (talk) 05:24, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I think γγ is always "ng". That's also what it says on this naming conventions page (under "consonant clusters"). If the person is commonly called "Aggeliki" in English, or calls herself that way, I supoose we should follow that, but generally it should be "Angeliki". Markussep Talk 10:35, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: This. The page could be clearer but that the common English form is always followed, not any particular arbitrary rule. W/r/t the transliteration of the Greek itself (not the article title or running text), then I favor the transliteration form of the ISO standard, but that's something for talking about below. — LlywelynII 11:57, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: gg in names

message: Most of the changes I just made were to link the relevant general Wikipedia policies or to provide more common examples. I also provided mention of the  template, which seemed like a helpful pointer.
One thing where I did change the wording of a policy was where it previously read
:Transliterations are usually acceptable; they will be more accessible to most of our readers, and Hellenists should be able to infer the Greek.
I emended this to
:Articles on people, places, and technical terms from ancient Greece should provide the Greek form of their name in the lead sentence... All appearances of Greek text must be given a romanization, rendering its content in Latin letters. This romanization should be italicized...
Surely this is already the standard practice and surely everyone agrees it's preferable to have the Greek text rather than just a transliteration, where possible. If there is some reason for a consensus to the contrary, though, lemme know. — LlywelynII 23:36, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Minor tweak: ideally include actual Greek, not blind translit

message: It seem that Wikipedia policy for Ancient Greek Transliteration is The American Library Association and Library of Congress romanization scheme, namely ALA-LC. However, Wiktionary policy for Ancient Greek Transliteration is scientific transliteration scheme. This does inconvenience me. Can we unify policies here? 
I have put up this problem in talk page of Wiktionary policy for Ancient Greek Transliteration. Maybe we need a vote or something. But the real problem may be that too many articles have already been written in these two policies in Wikipedia and Wikitionary respecitvely. We need a lot of work.
--Qijiang ok (talk) 17:08, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transliteration of Ancient Greek 

message: Greetings. The relevant section states that "No diacritics should be used in Wikipedia article titles." What is the reason for this rule, please? Thanks in advance. -The Gnome (talk) 17:48, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Diacritics

message: Hi. At Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss, we noticed that a lot of articles contain Greek words like tetartos, e.g. Archon (Gnosticism), Byzantine music, Echos, Hagiopolitan Octoechos, Nenano. Is this OK as-is (is there a template that can be used to language-tag it?) or should these articles be switched to use the Greek-script form τέταρτος? If this isn't the right page to ask at, I'd appreciate if you could move this question to wherever is best. -sche (talk) 21:36, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Greek words mentioned in Latin script form 

message: What about Koine Greek? Which romanization it would follow?
—Yours sincerely, Soumyabrata 06:03, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Koine Greek 

message: In Africa–India relations, the note for the image says.
Coins of king Endybis, 227–235 AD. +. The left one reads in Greek "AΧWMITW BACIΛEYC", "King of Axum". The right one reads in Greek: ΕΝΔΥΒΙC ΒΑCΙΛΕΥC, "King Endybis".
I'd like to put the greek words into greek. I know that the "C" should actually be a Lunate Sigma. But what should the W be. I presume it is an alternate form of Omega, but I can't find that anywhere to copy it in.Naraht (talk) 11:03, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proper for "W" 

message: This word shows up quite a bit in Wikipedia. Under what situation should it be done with the Lunate Sigma as shown above and in which with the (non-lunate sigma)?Naraht (talk) 16:19, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  ΒΑϹΙΛΕΥϹ ?