Talk:Modern Greek

message: I made some additions and editing on this article. In my opinion what was said in the older article was not false, but it was badly written and sounded biased. However Modern Greek DID assimilate foreign vocabulary such as Turkish, Italian and French, but a great part of it DID get wiped out by kathareuousa, so in a way Modern Greek of today is purer than the Demotike of the Ottoman Era. And due all the respect Project2501a but you're obviously not an expert yourself. Pointing that modern Greek has significant loan words from SLAVIC languages is pretty ignorant. Loan words came primary from the Latin, Romance and Turkish languages, and much less if at all from Slavic (except maybe some gardening tools). I'm from France but my origin is Greek (from Constantinoupolis), I can speak the language and I have also done studies on it. Even when I had no prior knowledge of Ancient Greek, I could read texts of the New Testament that were written in the 3rd century BC and understand them almost perfectly. I've come across medieval Byzantine literature texts of the 11th century AD (in Demotike) and the language is almost similar to today's. So Modern Greek DOES steam directly from Hellenistic Koine, which in turn is another dialect of ancient Greek that steams from Attic. During the Ottoman period the people's language didn't really evolve, which means that instead of creating new words for every new concept or object that was invented, those words were borrowed from foreign languages - hence the late stage of Demotike. In specific circles however (such as the Phanariots and the Eastern Orthodox Church), the language DID evolve and gave birth to Kathareuousa. The some 150-year co-existence of Kathareuousa and Demotike gives birth to Modern Greek, which is also referred as Demotike - because that's what it is.
As I speak French, English and Greek, I think I'm in better position to tell the degree of foreign influences those languages have 
: Ah. Argument from authority. 
had. Yet in an article on the Modern French or the Modern English language, no-body would stress that they have had enormous influences from other languages and assimilated massive foreign vocabulary, but in an article on Modern Greek (which is 10 times closer to Mycenaean Greek than what modern English to medieval Anglo-Saxonic), for some reason everyone will try to point out and stress how it has had assimilated some foreign vocabulary (without being able to verify it themselves of course). And why is that? Because Modern Greek is part of the infamous language family called GREEK, whose dialects were spoken by Socrates and Plato and its influence is found in almost every language of the planet, therefore it MUST be judged stricter. Is that an "unbiased" and "neutral" perspective to you? Because if it is, then maybe we should seek for a common definition of those terms. I think all the pseudo-linguists (most of which don't speak the languages they judge) should make up their minds on what we can define as "foreign influence" on a language. Does the use of foreign vocabulary count as an influence that has to be stressed? Does a foreign influence become part of the language (and therefore doesn't have to be mentioned at all) after a certain period of time? If yes, then how long is that time period? Until those questions are answered, the majority of the articles on the Greek language (in comparison to the articles on the rest modern languages) can be considered officially BIASED. And eventhough most of you are Greek-speakers as well, I don't think that anyone has the ability nor knowledge to prove me wrong. Finally, I also think that this section should be part of the Greek language article. Another anonymous coward.
: You are more than welcome to make any changes in the article you see fit. And no, I am not a linguist; I am a computer scientist. If you read the history of the talk page, you'll see that i was asking for the concatentation of this and the Greek language article but other people disagreed. On my part, I made the point to emphasize that modern Greek does not directly descent from ancient greek, mostly to counteract official Greek propaganda. About Anonymous Cowards: as the article on the matter mentions, it's my way to brand people that like to do one-time drive-by's: They come in here, they fire their fireworks off, much like any greek politician would do, and leave, never to come back. they only state their opinion, and that they are an expert on the matter and that we are all wrong, and greece is the best country in the world, and if we don't like it, we should turn in our passports and leave the country, "ELLAS, OLE OLE OLE", nationalistic frenzy at its best...
: Wikipedia, and me as a humble reciepient of Jimbo's WikiHoneys, *YES MASTER! WILL DO MASTER* ;) encourages changes to all articles. I'll conclude this reply with a quote from Linus Torvalds: "Show me the code or get our of my way".
Project2501a 12:48, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  I think you should all to stop judging something you're not familiar with. 

message: I'm puzzled by the reference to a "Macedonian empire" and to Koine as its vernacular language. Alexander the Great's empire broke up after his death and was followed by the confused period of the Diadochi and then the longer-term replacement by the Ptolemaic, Seleucid and Antigonid dynasties in their respective realms. Are you referrning to these collectively as the "Macedonian empire"? — clearly they were not a single entity. And moreover although Koine Greek may have been a language of administration and to some degree literature over all this area, it was certainly not the vernacular — there will have been many vernaculars, Persian, Egyptian, various languages of Anatolia ... Could we perhaps rephrase it as "the vernacular of Greece and the Greek diaspora in the Hellenistic and Roman periods? rossb 08:44, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In either case, I would suggest that the phrase "Macedonian Empire" is anappropriate. rossb 14:14, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't think this is correct. I think the particular sound changes mentioned above happened after the koine had largely superseded the ancient dialects. The differences between the ancient dialects had to do with for instance the use of double sigma compared to double tau, and the prevalence of eta versus long alpha (Ionic preferring eta, Attic eta or alpha depending on context, and other dialects alpha) and the presence or otherwise of an /h/ sound. Surely the noteworthy changes are those between Ancient Greek (including Koine) and Modern Greek, and are very relevant in an article on Modern Greek, given that many readers may have some smattering of Ancient Greek (classical, New Testament, or otherwise) and be interested to know how Modern Greek differs; similarly those with a knowledge of Modern Greek would be interested to see how it had changed from ancient times. rossb 14:14, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it's not what it's called. More specifically there was no such thing. I was puzzled when I first encountered the phrase in this article, and thought "I don't ever remember it being called that" but of course there never was a Macedonian Empire as such, except possibly for a few years under Alexander. It very soon broke up into three separate parts, and the Greek-speaking world was not united under one rule again until the Roman period. rossb 19:26, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Macedonian Empire? 

message: I changed "Tsakonic" to "Tsakonian" because nobody says "Tsakonic" in English.  I don't want to start a massive edit war, but you have to realize how bad it sounds in English - and that it conflicts with Wikipedia guidelines. I *know* that Τσακωνικά or Τσακωνική διάλεκτος is the correct form in Greek, but this is English.  Like it or not, "Greece" is the standard name for Hellas (or Ellas, or Ellada) in English - the latter name being used mainly by poets - and the word "Tsakonic" doesn't exist at all.  If you want to make "Tsakonic" productive in English, you're going to have to get published and wait for it to filter into tertiary sources like Wikipedia.  Until then, we have to observe Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms. --Jpbrenna 18:54, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tsakonian vs. "Tsakonic" 

message: Could people interested in this article please have a look at a discussion I instigated at Talk:Greek language, regarding a proposed restructuring of the whole series of Greek-related language articles. Thanks! Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:27, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Greek language article series 

message: Article names in Wikipedia are usually nouns. So, we would say: "Greek is a beautiful language", where "Greek" is a noun. The correct translation of this is "τα Ελληνικά" or η "el:Ελληνική γλώσσα". The second form is the more formal one and is also the one used in the Greek Wikipedia. Similarly for the dialects such as 
*el:Καππαδοκική διάλεκτος
*el:Κατωιταλική διάλεκτος
*el:Ποντιακή διάλεκτος
*el:Ελληνική Κυπριακή διάλεκτος   Andreas   (T) 16:50, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ελληνική vs.Ελληνικά 

message: At Modern Greek#Consonants, it says that the letter Ρρ is generally pronounced a trill, and is pronounced a flap in an intervocalic position. Are you sure, because I don't think a trill ever occurs in Greek. --Tzekai 11:44, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure if this as been dealt with already but... I would say the truth of the matter is that in modern Greek a flap and a trill are non-contrastive. I think there are definitely cases where a Greek pronounces ρ as a trill (I often hear my pappou trill the ρ in τραγούδι or in μπράβο) but I don't think it's thought of as a different phoneme than a flap. I'd also say, at least based on the Greek I hear, that the statement "Ρρ is generally pronounced a trill, and is pronounced a flap in an intervocalic position" makes more sense inverted. flaps are far, far more common than trills. --Skoulikomirmigotripa (talk) 16:32, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ρρ = flap or trill 

message: Re. the recent additions about other languages with synthetic passives: The Irish category in question is not a "passive" in the true sense but an "impersonal" form; I don't know if it is etymologically related to an old passive or not (it might). The north Germanic synthetic passives are a recent innovation, as far as I know, so it wouldn't be correct to say that these languages "preserve" that category. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  synthetic passive 

message: Turkish language had exactly the same sort of list, which they have moved to List of Turkish phrases, replacing it with a poem as an example.  Why not do the same for Greek?  It would be nice to include a Cavafy poem as an example. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 12:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Common words and phrases 

message: Moreover, in bad English:
(Geographical distribution)
During the last years, Modern Greek has become the language of all high educated people of Balkans[citation needed] and the regional lingua franca that all immigrants from Balkan countries have transmitted back to their countries and all significant universities have introduced in their schedule. Another factor of this language distribution is the financial control of Balkans by Greek companies[citation needed] that prefer employees speaking Modern Greek. 216.254.71.25 
In the Balkans, as anywhere in Europe, there is no lingua franca (that is, between peoples with mutually incomprehensible mother tongues) but English. This will be even more so in the future. Greek is an isolated language - one can hardly imagine how a "highly educated" Bulgarian would converse in modern Greek with a Serb or a Croat, as their own languages are mutually comprehensible, not to speak of Bulgarian and Macedonian, historically the same language. Even more exotic would be to imagine a Turk conversing in Greek with an Albanian. All highly educated Balkan people (with the possible exception of Francophone Romanians and Italophone Albanians) would converse in English if they had no other common language. 
The Greek colleagues should bear in mind that today, Greek is spoken - and the Greek alphabet is used - by (let's take the claims in the article at face value) 14-17 million people, while Slavic languages are spoken by more than 300 million, and the "Bulgarian" alphabet* (the Cyrillic alphabet originated most likely in present-day north-eastern Bulgaria) - by 280 million. Russian is a de facto regional lingua franca in much of eastern (and parts of central) Europe, the Transcaucasus and central Asia, forming a circle that Greese is no part of. Turkish is also a regional lingua franca between persons of Turkish/Turkic background and "Turkish" Roma in the Balkans, the Black Sea region and the Caucasus. 
* True, Cyrillic is mostly a modified Greek alphabet with added characters, but then Greek is a modified Phoenician too.  
(User talk:216.254.71.25) 16:04, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to remove that passage. It was recently added by an anonymous contributor with no explanation and no supporting sources. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:44, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Ridiculous claims

message: Regarding these reference additions by user 150.140.229.171:
:"from the 3rd c. BC to 10th AD.1. Encyclopedia of Modern Greek Literature By Bruce Merry 2. Academic American Encyclopedia By Grolier Incorporated 3.The New International Encyclopædia edited by Daniel Coit Gilman, Harry Thurston Peck, Frank Moore Colby 4. Academic American Encyclopedia By Grolier Incorporated 5. After Antiquity By Margaret Alexiou"
(1) Which changes exactly do the figures "3rd c. BC to 10th AD" refer to? Certainly not all of those features that make "Modern" Greek "modern". I guess the source may be referring to the iotacistic vowel changes, but that's only one small part of the whole story. (2) please learn to cite sources properly. What is "After Antiquity By Margaret Alexiou"? A book entitled After Antiquity? In that case, we need publication place and year, plus publisher if possible. Please cite something like: "Alexiou, Margaret (19xx). After Antquity. Place: Publisher".
Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:08, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Refs by 150.140.229.171 

message: I am very skeptical of any statement which says Modern Greek was not made by artificially altering Koine. Do you mean to imply or state this?--173.21.19.155 (talk) 18:20, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Natural Continuation 

message: The name "Ρομαίικα" (romeika) is a historic name used today only as a colloquialism and should therefore not appear in the infobox. Also, the attribute "Nea" is used only as an opposition to Ancient Greek when clarification is needed; the language is called simply "Ellinika" in most contexts.  Andreas  (T) 22:32, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the Νέα in Νέα Ελληνικά is only ever used to emphasize that the topic is specifically modern Greek in the same way that "modern English" or "modern Hebrew" might be used to emphasize the modern versions of those languages. However, since there are ongoing issues regarding the differentiation of the Greek Language article and the Modern Greek article I think it should remain in the infobox, at least for the time being. That being said, I definitely agree that this article should make it clear that modern Greek is far more often referred to simply as Greek/Ελληνικά by people familiar with it. So, I'm going to use Modern Hebrew as an example and include this information in the top paragraph of this article. --Skoulikomirmigotripa (talk) 17:28, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name in Infobox 

message: I have simplified the phonetic transcription scheme used in this article, replacing the overly narrow  and the recently added  with the simpler and perfectly adequate  respectively. This is in line with general practice in the literature, e.g. Holton & Philippaki-Warburton (1997) and others. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:22, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Over-narrow phonetic transcription 

message: Hello All,
I am new to editing on wiki, and am not that good of a writer. However I found that there is something missing from this page. I am first generation Greek American, and both my parents are from the Ionian Island of Zakynthos "Zante". I know for a fact that there is a specific dialect of the seven Island chain. I have heard many words used, some by my parents, and more by my grandmothers generation. It is from the strong influence that Venice had on the Islands for so many years.  I have a Zakynthian dictionary, if that would help, but would to get a category put in to represent the dialect of the Island. Any advice?
Thanks,
Feradotd  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Feradotd (talk • contribs) 22:49, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello Feradotd, and welcome to Wikipedia, καλώς όρισες. We have a special article on Varieties of Modern Greek, which is probably the best place to add to for this kind of topic. It doesn't currently go to a high level of detail on any particular dialect, but it could of course be expanded. I suggest you go have a look there to see how coverage of Ionian and other local dialects could be integrated there. Just keep in mind that we don't really want to cover this through mere lists of dialect words (as in a dictionary); what's more interesting is the structural information (the sound systems, grammar etc.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:28, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

text: Eυχαριστώ πολύ, I didn't find much in the other article, I will also ask some questions on that page. I have spoken to some Greeks, and they said that in Greece, the Ionian Islands(Επτάνησα) are considered to have had there own dialect, which is not spoken that much anymore, but is still alive. Some terms are used commonly, and others are only used in rural villages, by the older generation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Feradotd (talk • contribs) 
Hello Feradotd,
I am a second generation Greek living in Melbourne, Australia. My parents are from Ithaki in the Ionian but they left as young children so they don´t know much Ionian dialect. If you know any phrases or words in this dialect I would love to know. Eυχαριστώ.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.174.176.173 (talk) 09:09, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ionian islands dialect 

message: Two issues with the claim that polytonic remains popular among intellectual circles. First of all, there is no reference to back it up. Second, in recent times, I have only encountered very few (as in less than a handful) intellectuals who insist on writing in polytonic; there are, however, nationalists and members/publications of the far-right and the Greek supremacist/nationalist mysticist faction (such as Adonis Georgiades' "Elliniki Agogi" magazine) who do insist on using the polytonic. Or, I should say, mangling it, because they don't even know how to use it.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.85.69.194 (talk) 16:56, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Popularity of polytonic?

message: What consonant is [ɡ̄] meant to represent? As far as I can tell, this is not official IPA usage, unless it's meant to represent a voiced velar stop with a retracted tongue root - but wouldn't that just be a uvular [ɢ]? 
If [ɡ̄] is meant to represent a geminate, standard IPA practice is doubling the consonant [ɡɡ] or (less commonly) adding the length diacritic [ɡː].  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yatınǫ̀daà (talk • contribs) 15:06, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I think a velar letter with a minus sign means post-velar or pre-uvular: between velar and uvular. — Eru·tuon 21:42, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  [ɡ̄] 

message: I added a link to a free service where a Greek teacher answers any question about the Greek language ().  It is a small Questions and Answers forum does not even require a registration to ask a question.  The answers seem good.
The link was removed as "commercial link".  
The small forum is indeed part of a commercial forum.  However the service is completely free and unique, I have not found anything like this on the web.  
The following is also part of a commercial website, however it is in the "external links" section of the article:
* Audio example of Modern Greek
Not sure about the rules exactly.  I suggest we keep both links.  What do you think?
Leontaurus (talk) 08:56, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Free service ASK-GREEK 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130429113237/http://languagecharter.eokik.hu/sites/languages/L-Greek_in_Hungary.htm to http://languagecharter.eokik.hu/sites/languages/L-Greek_in_Hungary.htm
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131213095022/http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/Play/rumiwalad.html to http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/Play/rumiwalad.html
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thread_title:  External links modified (February 2018) 

message: Which points of the article need additional citations for verification and which sources are the most reliable in order to do so? Anonfreud (talk) 11:44, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Template Message

message: Why is the Monastic Republic of Mount Athos not stated under "Official Status" "Official Language in"?
It should be mentioned there! Informationskampagne (talk) 15:47, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Because it's not a separate state. The status of Greek on Mount Athos is no different from that in the rest of Greece, of which it is an integral part just like any other. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:46, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monastic Republic Mount Athos 

message: I know for a fact that Welsh and Irish have synthetic passives as well, possibly other Celtic languages too. Maybe this should be changed to "Modern Greek is one of a very few languages to retain a synthetic passive". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 09.145.27.207 (talk • contribs) 23:38, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: "Modern Greek and Albanian are the only two modern Indo-European languages that retain a synthetic passive"