# Ancient Greek using Modern Greek pronunciation



## James Bates

Does it really make a difference which pronunciation one uses to learn Ancient Greek? For example, in Modern Greek the accent marks stress but it doesn't in Ancient Greek. If I were to follow the rules of Modern Greek and stress the syllable with the accent would it make a difference?


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## Perseas

James Bates said:


> If I were to follow the rules of Modern Greek and stress the syllable with the accent would it make a difference?


Hi,
this is what we do at school. We read out ancient texts as if they were Modern Greek. Besides, who can be absolutely sure about the Ancient Greek pronunciation?


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## fdb

When Aristophanes has his sheep saying βῆ βῆ it is perhaps useful to know that he pronounced it /bɛɛ bɛɛ/ , not /vi vi/.


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## James Bates

Interesting.


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## Nikolaos_Kandidatos

Basically, we need to make a distinction between phonology and phonetics here - we certainly can't be sure about the "absolute" phonetic values (you know, as in what a physicist would measure with an instrument of some sort) but we do know a lot about the "relative" phonemic values - for example, that η was used in Plato's time to mark a front vowel that was a) long as opposed to short, b) more open than ι and ει but more closed than α. So when we look at the way what we get is pretty much a long ε, as fdb says.

As to the relative merits of both systems, both have their pros and cons. I started myself with the reconstructed classical pronunciation and found it was a HUGE aid to learning the morphology and orthography of ancient Greek, because the modern pronunciation blends together so many endings that learning them may become more difficult (Greek speakers who grow up with modern Greek have the advantage that they learn basically the same (with minor changes) orthography for modern Greek so it's easier to memorize all the different spellings and even then it's difficult). 

However, when I got confident with the language, learned modern Greek and settled in Crete, I started preferring the modern pronunciation - once you know what you're doing, it feels so much more "alive" than the dusty classroom pronunciation, which I now use only when looking at texts of a certain period from a linguistic point of view. It depends on your personal preferences and perhaps also the period you're interested in: as a Byzantinist the modern pronunciation comes much more naturally to me, whereas, to take an extreme example, it feels somehow weird when reading, say, archaic dialect inscriptions from 500 BC.


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## Ben Jamin

Pronouncing ancient Greek using modern Greek phonetic values of the letters has as much sense as pronouncing Latin with French phonetic values of the letters. Not much sense, but highly esteemed both in France and in Greece. Let it be the local custom.


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## James Bates

Thank you both!


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## Nikolaos_Kandidatos

Ben Jamin, I would respectfully like to disagree with you - why should we take it for granted that Latin should "correctly" be pronounced with Cicero's accent and not that of, say, Jerome and Augustine? Or Bede, or Dante, or <insert random medieval name> which is much closer to modern Italian or French? In all cases, even when talking about Cicero, a case can be made for using the historical pronunciation of the time the texts were read, not only the time they were written. For example, as I said, I mainly deal with Byzantine Greek texts, and if I were to investigate, say, the reception of Homer in Late Byzantine literature it would make far less sense for me to use the ancient pronunciation than the modern one, which was used by the Late Byzantine consumers of Homer's text.


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## Perseas

fdb said:


> When Aristophanes has his sheep saying βῆ βῆ it is perhaps useful to know that he pronounced it /bɛɛ bɛɛ/ , not /vi vi/.



We can't ascribe with safety sounds of animals to human phonemes. How do we know that "βη βη" was pronounced exactly /bεε bεε/ and not otherwise?
Is /bεε bεε/ the way all people "render" the sound of the sheep?  Ancient Greeks said "υλάκ", Modern Greeks say "γαβ" and English "bark". In English it is "cock-a-doodle-doo", in Modern Greek "κικιρίκου". So I don't think that "βη βη" proves much.

Moreover, what's the point in trying to find out the ancient pronunciation since there is no sound document of the past. Besides, antiquity was a large period of time and the pronunciation was not always the same. The wisdom of the ancient texts lies in their meaning. Verba volant, scripta manent!


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## apmoy70

Ben Jamin said:


> Pronouncing ancient Greek using modern Greek phonetic values of the letters has as much sense as pronouncing Latin with French phonetic values of the letters. Not much sense, but highly esteemed both in France and in Greece. Let it be the local custom.


How does a classicist who wants to make sense pronounce the name of god «Ποσειδῶν» ?
Because Plato in his dialogue Cratylus writes that the name of Poseidon derives from the fact that he is the foot-shackler («Ποσίδεσμος») of seas: 
«Τὸν οὖν ἄρχοντα τῆς δυνάμεως ταύτης θεόν ᾠνόμασεν Ποσ*ει*δῶνα ὡς Ποσ*ί*δεσμον ὄντα». 
A can of worms thus opens for the dogmatic followers of classic reconstructed pronunciation


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## Scholiast

χαίρετε!

Perseas writes (#9):



> Moreover, what's the point in trying to find out the ancient  pronunciation since there is no sound document of the past.



That's precisely the point - there is no sound document, so we have to try to infer it. I would argue that especially for understanding and appreciating ancient rhetoric and particularly poetry, we should at least make the effort to apprehend and appreciate the sound-effects. And the fact that the conclusions at which we arrive may at best be an approximation does not render the exercise pointless.

And he continues:



> ...  antiquity was a large period of time and the pronunciation was not  always the same



Indeed. And over a wide geographical expanse, as is evidenced by the dialectical variations in orthography between Doric, Aeolic, Ionic and _koine_ forms of Greek. Aristophanes (in e.g. _Lysistrata_) plays on the Doric in the words he gives to Lampito. These surely reflect what were at the time well-known differences of accent, at least, rather than merely of spelling (as is the case in written US English, in comparison with British).


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## Nikolaos_Kandidatos

Perseas said:


> We can't ascribe with safety sounds of animals to human phonemes. How do we know that "βη βη" was pronounced exactly /bεε bεε/ and not otherwise?
> Is /bεε bεε/ the way all people "render" the sound of the sheep?  Ancient Greeks said "υλάκ", Modern Greeks say "γαβ" and English "bark". In English it is "cock-a-doodle-doo", in Modern Greek "κικιρίκου". So I don't think that "βη βη" proves much.
> 
> Moreover, what's the point in trying to find out the ancient pronunciation since there is no sound document of the past. Besides, antiquity was a large period of time and the pronunciation was not always the same. The wisdom of the ancient texts lies in their meaning. Verba volant, scripta manent!



Perseas, it is true that there are no sound documents but that doesn't mean we don't have a great deal of material on which to base our conclusions. The case of βη βη in Aristophanes in itself proves next to nothing, as you say, but no linguist would claim it does - it just happens that it is often used to illustrate the process of reconstructing the ancient phonemic inventory, since Desiderius Erasmus is said to have used it as an example in his seminal work. 

The phonological reconstruction of Ancient Greek which is taught in universities both here in Greece and abroad does not lie on an insecure basis and in general terms is taken as established fact by historical linguists working with the language - uncertainties concern specific details rather than basic facts such as those which I mentioned above for the pronunciation of η. The most extensive material is based on errors of orthography. As you know from personal experience, Perseas, spelling errors are an everyday occurrence and many less educated people make <<πεντακόσια λάθη>> even in simple sentences. The spelling errors occurring in ancient inscriptions and papyri - especially private documents - have been studied in detail and the statistics reveal the changes taking place during antiquity. For example, in archaic/classical Attic the distinction of e.g. η, ει, ι or αι, ε or ο, ω is clear from the lack of confusion of these spellings, whereas from the hellenistic period onwards we have increasing confusion. My point is that the reconstructed phonology is not based on guesswork of the type "how does a sheep bleat in Greek" but on extensive statistical study. Other material is available in e.g. transcriptions of Greek names and words in Latin (which is why Aristophanes is still written in English in the LAtin form Aristophanes and not Aristofanis, which would have been equally acceptable in the Roman alphabet if it had been pronounced that way the time Romans first heard the name being used)

Your last point about the pronunciation being different in different times is of course true, and we might add that it was also different in different places. However, thanks to the large amount of material this can be taken into account. The reconstructed system on which school pronunciations are based (they are never the same since concessions to the students' mother tongue are always made in some form or another) attempts to reproduce the Athenian pronunciation of about 400 BC, but if someone should wish it (and some do) there is no reason why similar reconstructed pronunciations could not be used for e.g. New Testament κοινή or Early Byzantine Greek. 

As Scholiast points out, one reason we do need to be informed of the phonology of different forms of Ancient Greek is correct appreciation of metre and rhythmical effects. Another is dialectology, since the development of AG dialects would be incomprehensible without the sound system. And, of course, for linguists the history of the language in itself is reason enough to study phonology.


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## Scholiast

Greetings once again

To Nikolaos_Kandidatos' excellent points in his latest post (#12), one might add that the science - and indeed it is that - of comparative philology can extrapolate general principles of linguistic, including phonological, developments from contemporary phenomena, just as from fossils and astronomy palaeontologists and physicists can derive knowledge of the far-distant past beyond the reach of any direct observation. It is sometimes possible to work backwards from an existing arrangement of pieces on a chessboard through the moves that brought the players to the position their pieces are in.


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## Ali Smith

I remember someone saying that she told a native speaker of Greek that there was a difference of opinion as to whether β was originally pronounced _b_ or _v_. The native speaker replied, "It's pronounced _v_. We should know!" The lady replied, "Why? Are you 2,500 years old?"


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## Αγγελος

To go back to the original question, which was not about pronunciation in general but about stress in particular:
I believe that, since one will inevitably stress one or more syllables of any long word, one might as well stress the accented syllable of ancient Greek words. After all, the accented syllable must have stood out in _some_ way, or the accent marks would not have been invented; and whatever that distinctive feature was, it did turn into stress in the first centuries AD and has remained so to this day. Stressing ancient Greek words on the accented syllable also helps one remember where to put the accent when writing; _which _accent to use is a different question, for which there are _some _rules.
The practice of stressing Greek words as if they were Latin, saying Sòcrates, Eurípides, Meneláus etc. is absurd.


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## ioanell

Ali Smith said:


> The lady replied, "Why? Are you 2,500 years old?"



A bit of a very cold joke! The "educated" lady asked a contemporary native speaker of 'everyday' Greek about matters which took a very long time for specialists to come to some conclusions.


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## Αγγελος

ioanell said:


> A bit of a very cold joke! The "educated" lady asked a contemporary native speaker of 'everyday' Greek about matters which took a very long time for specialists to come to some conclusions.


The lady didn't 'ask' anything; she expressed a doubt about the 'original' pronunciation of the letter B. The other fellow presumed to know the truth merely by virtue of his being a native speaker of _modern _Greek. Her answer was quite appropriate!


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## ioanell

Αγγελος said:


> The lady didn't 'ask' anything; she expressed a doubt about the 'original' pronunciation of the letter B. The other fellow presumed to know the truth merely by virtue of his being a native speaker of _modern _Greek. Her answer was quite appropriate!



The lady didn't express a doubt, at least she didn’t say that, but, without presenting any evidence (the posting doesn’t state something relevant), she just told a native speaker of Greek that there was a difference of opinion (among specialists, with certain view each side) as to whether β was originally pronounced _b_ or _v_. She referred to the past (was originally pronounced) and the reply she received was "It's pronounced _v_ (now). We should know!". The lady did not understand by their reply that, although she mentioned about a difference of opinion, the native speaker was completely ignorant of the known controversy over the matter, that they couldn't possibly understand how this was possible to be happening even in the past and that by "It's pronounced v" she received an answer referring to the present and not to the past. Her interlocutor did not say “β couldn’t even then be pronounced as b”; if they had done so, then her own reply would have been absolutely appropriate. With the reply she received, her own reply "Why? Are you 2,500 years old?" was inappropriate, in my humble opinion.


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## ianis

The b-v sound of β is a curious thing because in my country the opposite happens, untill this day people in the North pronounce the v as b.
As for the original question, for self taught students of both it is certainly easier to use one system alone and that would be the modern Greek one. Besides that's what people did untill the late Middle Ages and still do in Greece


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## Ali Smith

Our professor is teaching us the scansion of Homer's poetry and I don't think it would work well if one used the modern pronunciation.


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## Perseas

Ali Smith said:


> Our professor is teaching us the scansion of Homer's poetry and I don't think it would work well if one used the modern pronunciation.


With regard to the vowels I agree, but what difference would it make if you pronounced v and γ instead of b and g?


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## Αγγελος

Hardly any. But the original question was specifically about accent and stress. Stressing the accented syllables messes up verse rhythm completely. On the other hand, there seems to be no way of conveying a sense of ancient Greek rhythm: even if we pronounced long vowels long and didn't stress any syllables (assuming that was feasible), we would still not get any sense of harmony. I wonder if, say, Serbians, whose language does distinguish between long and short vowels and between various kinds of accent, do manage to perceive harmony in ancient Greek verse.
In teaching prosody (not in ordinary reading of verse), the heavy syllable of each metrical foot is sometimes artificially stressed. This presumably does convey a sense of ancient rhythm, at least in Homer: thus, the first line of the Odyssey
Άνδρα μοι έννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ός μάλα πολλά 
scans perfectly in the modern pronunciation if one stresses the last word as πόλλα. But because of the faculty of replacing most dactyls by spondees, this method doesn't always work.
W. Sydney Allen has conjectured that maybe ancient Greek did have a stress, which fell on the last long syllable of words, and he asserts that in this way most dactylic hexameters and 3/4s of iambic pentameters do scan acceptably. But I don't think he has convinced other specialists...​


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## Ali Smith

και εγενετο ως απηλθον απ αυτων εις τον ουρανον οι αγγελοι και οι ανθρωποι οι ποιμενες ειπον προς αλληλους διελθωμεν δη εως βηθλεεμ και ιδωμεν το ρημα τουτο το γεγονος ο ο κυριος εγνωρισεν ημιν

If we used modern Greek pronunciation we would be left wondering where Vithle'em is.


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## ianis

Ali Smith said:


> και εγενετο ως απηλθον απ αυτων εις τον ουρανον οι αγγελοι και οι ανθρωποι οι ποιμενες ειπον προς αλληλους διελθωμεν δη εως βηθλεεμ και ιδωμεν το ρημα τουτο το γεγονος ο ο κυριος εγνωρισεν ημιν
> 
> If we used modern Greek pronunciation we would be left wondering where Vithle'em is.


Why would that be? They haven't changed it to Μπηθλεέμ and still know where it is, Βηθλεέμ - Βικιπαίδεια.


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## ianis

BTW don't know very well how Ancient Greek pronuciaton works (usually skip that chapter not to get confused), and this may be a coincidence, but in this video starting at min. 33:40 the teacher explains the Greek origin of many English words and several of them end up with a pronunciation of the vowels in English similar to modern Greek. Like "kiss" which comes from ἕ-κυσ-α, but υ in AG is supposed to read u, or not?

And some are very similar to how we say in Portuguese like διά, we say dia.


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## Ali Smith

It’s pronounced like the French _u_ or German _ü_. It’s called a high front rounded vowel.


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## ianis

Thanks, was going to correct that, we pronounce it the same way, Mastronarde calls it French u, but I'm under the impression it is the same in several latin languages.


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## Perseas

Ali Smith said:


> It’s pronounced like the French _u_ or German _ü_. It’s called a high front rounded vowel.


Initially υ was pronounced /u/.
Yes, from 6th c. BC. until 9th/10th c. AD it was pronounced as you said. 
After the 10th c. AD /i/.



ianis said:


> BTW don't know very well how Ancient Greek pronuciaton works (usually skip that chapter not to get confused), and this may be a coincidence, but in this video starting at min. 33:40 the teacher explains the Greek origin of many English words and several of them end up with a pronunciation of the vowels in English similar to modern Greek. Like "kiss" which comes from ἕ-κυσ-α, but υ in AG is supposed to read u, or not?


Old English had _cussan_, German has _küssen_ and other Germanic languages have y or u. The Ancient Greek verb was _κύσσω_ and it's probably a cognate. See here.

But don't believe that the origin of that verb or other words like _after, day, yes_ etc. is Greek. According to some language myths,  English is a Greek dialect or Greek was the mother of all languages!


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## Ali Smith

Perseas: I think you mean "Initially it was pronounced /y/".


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## Perseas

Ali Smith said:


> Perseas: I think you mean "Initially it was pronounced /y/".


By "initially" I mean before the 6th c. BC. I modified my previous post.


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## ianis

Perseas said:


> Initially υ was pronounced /u/.
> Yes, from 6th c. BC. until 9th/10th c. AD it was pronounced as you said.
> After the 10th c. AD /i/.
> 
> 
> Old English had _cussan_, German has _küssen_ and other Germanic languages have y or u. The Ancient Greek verb was _κύσσω_ and it's probably a cognate. See here.
> 
> But don't believe that the origin of that verb or other words like _after, day, yes_ etc. is Greek. According to some language myths,  English is a Greek dialect or Greek was the mother of all languages!


Thanks. If it's a cognate it's a similar thing or not? Either in words like κύσσω the υ sounded like in modern Greek or kiss, and other corresponding words, suffered a similar evolution, that is, from French u to i.

BTW the u you mentioned is the French u?


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## ioanell

Ali Smith said:


> If we used modern Greek pronunciation we would be left wondering where Vithle'em is.



Dear Ali Smith,
If this is a joke, it is smart and cute  . Otherwise, it is certainly a big exaggeration. As it is known, the ancient Greek letter B[>β] started being pronounced as /v/ from the 4th-3rd cc. BC and on; so in the time of Evangelist Luke, and especially when he wrote his Gospel (indifferent if it was before or after 70 AD), the letter B[>β] had already been pronounced as /v/ for quite a long period of time and Luke and his contemporaries must have pronounced it accordingly.


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## ianis

To be honest that's why the puritanism regarding AG pronunciation is difficult to understand, otherwise one should go around with a chronological table of pronunciation to know how he should read the manuscript.


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## apmoy70

ioanell said:


> Dear Ali Smith,
> If this is a joke, it is smart and cute  . Otherwise, it is certainly a big exaggeration. As it is known, the ancient Greek letter B[>β] started being pronounced as /v/ from the 4th-3rd cc. BC and on; so in the time of Evangelist Luke, and especially when he wrote his Gospel (indifferent if it was before or after 70 AD), the letter B[>β] had already been pronounced as /v/ for quite a long period of time and Luke and his contemporaries must have pronounced it accordingly.


Actually the consensus is that β was initially pronounced as the bilabial plosive /b/ and reached the modern pronunciation /v/ by the late Roman period, via /β/ the bilabial fricative found in Modern Spanish: /b/ > /β/ > /v/


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## Perseas

ianis said:


> BTW the u you mentioned is the French u?


/u/ is this.
/y/ is like the French u, it's this.


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## ianis

Perseas said:


> /u/ is this.
> /y/ is like the French u, it's this.


Thanks. Then I guess the French u is not the u we use around here. Amazing how they were able to pronounce Οδυσσεύς.


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## ioanell

ianis said:


> in this video starting at min. 33:40 the teacher explains the Greek origin of many English words



ianis, unfortunately, among educated people there are several persons, so language-chauvinists that they very often are led to, and express, illogical and most absurd views and theories, like “Greek is the mother of all the European Languages”. These persons are so much engrained with this “ideology”, that they deliberately want to ignore the fundamentals of linguistics, scientific findings about PIE roots, about cognates in the parallel evolution of the languages etc, etc. I watched the video which you are referring to at # 26 above; one of these persons undoubtedly is the teacher with these video lessons of Ancient Greek, who, although in the long presentation of her views said several things worth listening to, every now and then expressed chauvinistic standpoints, totally unreliable, which at times made me feel ashamed to hear and which I can’t comment on here. I think you shouldn’t believe tutorials expressing such unreliable views.


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## ianis

Thanks for the heads up ioanell, here we have an old saying that "one should not inspect the teeth of an offered horse", there aren't many channels uploading content about AG language and culture and so I'm grateful to them for doing it and these etymological demonstrations have been very helpful in memorizing words and interpreting them. To be honest being fairly ignorant on this issue I usually tended to believe in what they are saying and never had considered the cognates hypothesis, in the future will take this as a less accepted theory.

The way things have been lately the only way is for people to agree on disagreeing


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## ioanell

Hello everyone,

On the occasion of the World Day for the Greek Language on 9th February (_a day on which the Greeks also honour the memory of Greece’s national poet Dionysios Solomos_), I would like to contribute here by highlighting the Greek language’s fundamental role and defining contribution to the development and establishment of the European and Western literacy and culture. One should have in mind the enormous influence that the Greek Language (and culture) has had on the Latin language (and culture) already from the Greek Antiquity, the Hellenistic Era and the Roman Era, and then from the Renaissance on to date on all Western National languages. Beside languages of the Indo-european family, it also affected languages belonging to other major language families, such as the Fino-Ugric and the Turkic family (see e.g. Turkish language).

Greek is a language which greatly has affected and enriched international scientific discourse; more than any other, it is the language which developed, shaped and expressed the beginning of many scientific theories, philosophical thoughts, and literature in most of the modern-day languages of the Western world. By virtue of the accuracy of its vocabulary provided a large amount of special terminology to almost every scientific and technical / technological field as well as it influenced part of the everyday vocabulary.

As the prominent Linguistics professor and former Education Minister Georgios Babiniotis notes: “It is a language that has been spoken for nearly fifty centuries without interruption, from its proto-hellenic form up to now. It has also been written in the same way, using the same alphabet, for 28 centuries, and it has held to the same spelling rules for 24 centuries”

While Greek is a language which is native only to 13-14 millions of people worldwide, specialists, scholars, scientists and common people around the world admit that its influence and contributions to the entire world have been unparalleled.
Below is an indicative vocabulary.


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## Αγγελος

ioanell said:


> [...] By virtue of the accuracy of its vocabulary provided a large amount of special terminology to almost every scientific and technical / technological field [...]


Ι strongly disagree with the first part of that statement. If you look at any Greek dictionary, you will see that every word has at least half a dozen meanings or shades of meaning. Greek did provide a large amount of special terminology to almost every scientific and technical / technological field, terminology mostly created by Western scientists _on the basis_ of Greek roots.  A 'barometer' is not a weighing device!


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## ioanell

Αγγελος said:


> If you look at any Greek dictionary, you will see that every word has at least half a dozen meanings or shades of meaning.



As stated, the above was a posting dedicated to the contribution of the Greek Language in general with no intention of making a more extent presentation. As our foreign friends can ascertain, if one looks up a Greek word in a foreign dictionary, one will also see not only one meaning, but meanings corresponding, more or less, in number and in contents to those of the Greek dictionaries (see, for instance, episode, scene).



Αγγελος said:


> terminology mostly created by Western scientists _on the basis_ of Greek roots.



This is true, although it is no new information, and none, neither me, claimed it didn’t happen, because in the dedication above there wasn't any discrimination between Greek words passed unaltered into the modern languages and words made by scholars and scientists. As it is well known, a large number of Greek words were produced in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries by scientists or scholars who combined Greek stems with whole words in order to produce new words sufficient to name new ideas / concepts / senses / procedures / processes and techniques as well as new products, which were created owing to the rapid development of sciences and crafts.



ioanell said:


> By virtue of the accuracy of its vocabulary provided a large amount of special terminology to almost every scientific and technical / technological field





Αγγελος said:


> Ι strongly disagree with the first part of that statement.



Obviously, you are questioning the accuracy. Leaving aside the huge chapter concerning the Latin language in the formation of special terminology, the question is why they didn’t choose stems and words from another language to meet the new needs, but they chose them from Greek. Might that be that they acknowledged and appreciated their accuracy / precision, expressiveness and adaptability? Otherwise, what might be the reason in your opinion for this choice of theirs?

Let me quote for the readers of this posting two or three indicative examples below. Any educated person can understand that (although there were words like philology, theology, antilogy) the word *oncology* couldn't have been in the Greek antiquity as it is a modern medical term. The scientists, however, appreciating (for what they wanted to express) the accuracy of the ancient Greek word *'ὄγκος'* (=tumour) and the suffix -*λογία* (=denoting science [or a status, quality] concerning sth), derived from the verb λέγω (=to say, speak, express sth), combined them and made the word-medical term "oncology" (=the study and treatment of tumours).
In the same way anyone can understand that the words *psychoanalysis* (<French. Psychoanalyse) and *photosynthesis* (<German Photosynthese), as newer scientific terms, couldn't have been in the Greek antiquity, but the words *analysis* and *synthesis*, through Latin and then through the medieval and the newer language forms, passed unaltered into the modern languages, where scientists and scholars by using other ancient Greek stems as well produced words like psychoanalysis (<[psycho< psykhē=soul]+analysis), metanalysis and photosynthesis (<[photo<phos=light]+synthesis), chemosynthesis, polysynthesis.



Αγγελος said:


> Ι strongly disagree with the first part of that statement.



Consequently, where does your disagreement lie? Wasn’t there any accuracy, expressiveness and adaptability in the Greek stems and words that the scientists and scholars used to make new words? Why did they choose them? Or what?


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## Scholiast

χαίρετε, ὧ φίλοι



ioanell said:


> Consequently, where does your disagreement lie? Wasn’t there any accuracy, expressiveness and adaptability in the Greek stems and words that the scientists and scholars used to make new words? Why did they choose them? Or what?


Ioanell (# 42) is quite right in this much, that physicians and scientists from the Renaissance to the present day have resorted to Greek more often than to Latin stems when coining terms for newly discovered phenomena. The chief reasons for this are (a) that classical Greek vocabulary is far richer than Latin (and therefore more precise) in observation of nature—D'Arcy W. Thompson's _Glossary of Greek Fishes_ is a splendid illustration; hence the fact (for example) that LSJ is by some margin fatter than Lewis & Short; and (b) that ancient Greek philosophy and science (which of course in antiquity largely overlapped) had already pointed the way, thanks to the facility with which the language compounds nouns (as modern German does).

Σ


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## ioanell

ianis said:


> here we have an old saying that "one should not inspect the teeth of an offered horse"



ianis, we also have the same saying, a very old one, reading in Greek: "Γάιδαρο τού χαρίζουνε και τον κοιτά στα δόντια" or in another, slightly differentiated, version: "Σε χαρισμένο γάιδαρο [ή άλογο] τα δόντια δεν κοιτάνε", the meaning being "When you are given an important gift, it's foolishness and ungratefulness on your part to look for defects and imperfections on it".


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## Αγγελος

ianis said:


> here we have an old saying that "one should not inspect the teeth of an offered horse"


"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" in English.


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## Αγγελος

ioanell said:


> As our foreign friends can ascertain, if one looks up a Greek word in a foreign dictionary, one will also see not only one meaning, but meanings corresponding, more or less, in number and in contents to those of the Greek dictionaries (see, for instance, episode, scene).
> [...]
> Consequently, where does your disagreement lie? Wasn’t there any accuracy, expressiveness and adaptability in the Greek stems and words that the scientists and scholars used to make new words? Why did they choose them? Or what?


It was the  word 'accuracy' that I took exception to. It is odd that you should mention the word 'scene', which, as you know, originally meant (and still means) 'tent' in Greek. Of course, our remote ancestors, having invented the theater, needed a word for the scene... and took one that already existed in their language. Likewise, in inventing geometry, they took the existing  words 'cube' (=die), 'cone' (=pine cone) and 'sphere' (=ball) and used them to denote the corresponding solids. It was we moderns who specialized those words in their theatrical / mathematical sense. 
My impression is that the words of ancient Greek were no more 'accurate' (=precise) than those of any other language, but that we moderns simply took advantage of their availability and adaptability to coin our modern precise scientific/technical terms.


----------



## Hulalessar

Αγγελος said:


> It was the  word 'accuracy' that I took exception to. It is odd that you should mention the word 'scene', which, as you know, originally meant (and still means) 'tent' in Greek. Of course, our remote ancestors, having invented the theater, needed a word for the scene... and took one that already existed in their language. Likewise, in inventing geometry, they took the existing  words 'cube' (=die), 'cone' (=pine cone) and 'sphere' (=ball) and used them to denote the corresponding solids. It was we moderns who specialized those words in their theatrical / mathematical sense.



Very telling points. English has mined Greek for scientific terms. German has (at least in part - I cannot speak for the totality since I have never studied German) adopted the Greek way. English has "hydrogen" while German has "Wasserstoff". Of course the Greeks did not have an ancient language to mine.



Αγγελος said:


> My impression is that the words of ancient Greek were no more 'accurate' (=precise) than those of any other language, but that we moderns simply took advantage of their availability and adaptability to coin our modern precise scientific/technical terms.



Agreed. No language is more precise than any other; they are just differ in the ways they are precise.


----------



## ianis

ioanell said:


> ianis, we also have the same saying, a very old one, reading in Greek: "Γάιδαρο τού χαρίζουνε και τον κοιτά στα δόντια" or in another, slightly differentiated, version: "Σε χαρισμένο γάιδαρο [ή άλογο] τα δόντια δεν κοιτάνε", the meaning being "When you are given an important gift, it's foolishness and ungratefulness on your part to look for defects and imperfections on it".



The problem in this case, of course, like you pointed out is that if one wants to follow the more scientifically established theories it may be necessary some examination if one does not want to give the horse away.

Found an article, although got lost after a while, about the  digamma that has some very different opinions including that it entered the latin alphabet as F from the Phoenicians via the Etruscans and not via the Greeks. Unless one believes the Phoenicians were Greeks like it seems to be the case in the alternative theory.


----------



## Perseas

ianis said:


> Found an article, although got lost after a while, about the  digamma that has some very different opinions including that it entered the latin alphabet as F from the Phoenicians via the Etruscans and not via the Greeks.


From the Phoenicians via the Greeks and the Etruscans.


----------



## ianis

From the text I understood that Latins got it from the Etruscans and these and the Greeks separately from the Phoenicians.



> Η ομοιότητα δεν είναι τυχαία. Το «αγγλικό» γράμμα “F,f” προέρχεται από το λατινικό γράμμα *“F,f” *το οποίο, με τη σειρά του, προέρχεται από το ετρουσκικό γράμμα “F” που, όπως και το ελληνικό δίγαμμα, προέρχεται εν τέλει από το φοινικικό *wāw*.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Οι Ετρούσκοι χρησιμοποίησαν το σύμβολο “*F*” για να αποδώσουν τον φθόγγο* [w/v]* και τον συνδυασμό “*FH/HF*” για να αποδώσουν το τριβόμενο */f/* (η άηχη ποικιλία του ηχηρού /*v*/). Η ετρουσκική συνήθεια “FH/HF” = /f/ υιοθετήθηκε από τους αρχαίους Ενετούς.


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## Perseas

ianis said:


> From the text I understood that Latins got it from the Etruscans and these and the Greeks separately from the Phoenicians.


The text doesn't say that Greeks and Etruscans adopted the digamma separately from the Phoenicians, but that the origin was Phoenician.
In a wikipedia article about the Etruscan abecendarium we read this:
_It dates from about 700 BC, and lists 26 letters corresponding to contemporary forms of the Greek alphabet, including digamma, san and qoppa, but not omega which had still not been added at the time._
Etruscan alphabet - Wikipedia


----------



## ianis

Sorry, my bad Perseas, Wikipedia also says: " The Etruscan alphabet derives from the Euboean alphabet used in the Greek colonies in southern Italy which belonged to the "western" ("red") type, the so-called Western Greek alphabet. Several Old Italic scripts, including the Latin alphabet, derived from it (or simultaneously with it). "

And the other article speaks about Euboean origin for the v based on the Υ that replaced the digamma in Greece: 





> Έχω εξηγήσει σε προηγούμενη ανάρτηση την ενδιαφέρουσα ιστορία της προφοράς του γράμματος “F” στον Ιταλικό κλάδο και τις δύο εναλλακτικές υποθέσεις (Ascoli vs. Rix) για την φωνολογική ιστορία του φθόγγου.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Η Υπόθεση Rix που παραδέχεται μία πρώιμη πρωτο-ιταλική τροπή *bh>vh>v, με το προκύπτον /v/ να απηχηροποιείται δευτερογενώς σε /f/ σε αρκτική θέση. Ένα από τα επιχειρήματα της Υπόθεσης Rix είναι πως οι ομιλητές των Ιταλικών γλωσσών δανείστηκαν το ετρουσκικό “F” (=/v/) _πριν από την δευτερογενή απηχηροποίηση v>f_ σε αρκτική θέση. Γι΄αυτό το λόγο, σύμφωνα με τους οπαδούς της Υπόθεσης Rix, το σύμβολο “F” που εν τέλει κατέληξε να συμβολίζει το λατινικό άηχο τριβόμενο /f/ κατάγεται από το ετρουσκικό σύμβολο για το ηχηρό τριβόμενο /v/.
> 
> 
> *Από την άλλη, οι Λατίνοι δανείστηκαν το σύμβολο “V” για τους φθόγγους /u/ και /w/ (αργότερα /v/) από το ευβοϊκό αλφάβητο της Κύμης. Πηγή του Λατινικού συμβόλου ήταν το ελληνικό σύμβολο “Y” (αν του κόψεις την κατακόρυφη «δοκό» γίνεται “V”) που, οπως έγραψα παραπάνω, επίσης προέρχεται από το φοινικικό σύμβολο wāw.*
> 
> 
> Αν δείτε τις παλιές λατινικές επιγραφές θα προσέξετε ότι χρησιμοποιούν το σύμβολο “V” και για το φωνήεν /u/ και για το ημιφωνικό /w/ που αργότερα εξελίχθηκε σε /v/, όπως λ.χ. χρησιμοποιούν το ίδιο σύμβολο “C” και για το άηχο /K/ και για το ηχηρό /G/ (λ.χ. *C*AI*V*S *V*ALERI*V*S *C*AT*V*LL*V*S = /*G*AI*U*S *W*ALERI*U*S *C*AT*U*LL*U*S/).
> 
> 
> Όπως θα εξηγήσω στην φωνολογική


----------



## ioanell

Αγγελος said:


> It was the word 'accuracy' that I took exception to.



When the Western scientists and scholars resorted to Greek stems and words to coin new terms, they evidently resorted to the original meaning and not to any secondary or metaphorical use of these words, which might have been created until that time and which may be included in modern dictionaries. The original, which, beside adaptable, must have also been accurate for what they wanted to express.



Αγγελος said:


> It is odd that you should mention the word 'scene', which, as you know, originally meant (and still means) 'tent' in Greek.



Surely, my phrase “more or less” in “_meanings corresponding, more or less, in number and in contents to those of the Greek dictionaries (see, for instance, episode, scene_)” wasn’t noticed. Although our main topic is not the meaning of σκηνή*, its original meaning seems to have been “a covered place” (which could be even under the branches of a tree) providing shelter (mainly from the sun), and then a tent (made of cloth) or a booth (more steady structure) serving the same purpose. And when “_our remote ancestors, having invented the theater, needed a word for the scene”_, they originally used the word ‘σκηνή’ not to name the stage and not in the meaning of ‘cloth tent’, but in that of a wooden wall (behind the προσκήνιον or λογεῖον=stage), with doors for the actors to come out and go in, whereas the theatrical sense of the word ‘σκηνή’ as ‘stage’ (and more broadly ‘theatre’) was already created in the antiquity and not in modern times.

* PIE root skai- > Skr. chāyāh [=shadow] and Gr. σκιά and σκηνή



Hulalessar said:


> No language is more precise than any other; they are just differ in the ways they are precise.



[Perhaps are ?] Correct, but, anyway, the scientists and scholars who coined the Greek-based words/terms must have made some research regarding these ways of precision and they must have had some reasons to end up with their final choices for what they wanted to express. Besides, this coinage wasn’t realised by a certain (perhaps biased) person or group at a specific time and at a specific place, but it was a coinage of thousands of words by different persons (or groups) at different times over a span of centuries and at different places in the western world. I think all these must be telling us something.


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## ianis

Don't know if this played a role but Greek words can be assembled, as building blocks, to express complex ideas, starting at minute 20,35 of this lesson the teacher Mitrou explains how thanks to this process with just one word Thucydides was able to express something that would require an entire sentence (πρόταση).


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## Perseas

ianis said:


> Don't know if this played a role but Greek words can be assembled, as building blocks, to express complex ideas, starting at minute 20,35 of this lesson the teacher Mitrou explains how thanks to this process with just one word Thucydides was able to express something that would require an entire sentence (πρόταση).


Ancient Greek  compared to modern Greek is a synthetic language, and modern Greek is more analytic.
In other words, modern Greek uses periphrastic forms where the ancient Greek used inflection, ie changes in the form of a word  to express a grammatical function as tense, mood, person, number, case, and gender.
For example, we modern Greeks say _ας πάμε_ (=_let's go_) or _ας μπορούσαμε να πάμε (=wish we could go)_, so we use more than one word, whereas ancient Greeks said  _ἲοιμεν, _so they used one word.
[_ἲοιμεν_ is optative mood (ευκτική έγκλιση) and this mood doesn't exist in modern Greek.]
Οther examples:
Future: _θα λύσω_ (mG);  _λύσω _(aG) [= I will solve]_._
Present Perfect:_ έχω λύσει _(mG)_; λέλυκα _(aG) [= I have solved].

But the fact that modern Greek is less synthetic than ancient Greek doesn't make it less precise. All natural languages have the ability to meet the needs of communication for their people.


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## apmoy70

ianis said:


> Don't know if this played a role but Greek words can be assembled, as building blocks, to express complex ideas, starting at minute 20,35 of this lesson the teacher Mitrou explains how thanks to this process with just one word Thucydides was able to express something that would require an entire sentence (πρόταση).


As a friendly advice: Avoid like the plague any article/video/"scientific" thesis, that refers to a language as the "divine/empowering/supreme/sublime" one. They often carry ugly buggage and a hidden agenda (far right, ultranationalist)


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## ianis

Perseas said:


> Ancient Greek  compared to modern Greek is a synthetic language, and modern Greek is more analytic.
> In other words, modern Greek uses periphrastic forms where the ancient Greek used inflection, ie changes in the form of a word  to express a grammatical function as tense, mood, person, number, case, and gender.
> For example, we modern Greeks say _ας πάμε_ (=_let's go_) or _ας μπορούσαμε να πάμε (=wish we could go)_, so we use more than one word, whereas ancient Greeks said  _ἲοιμεν, _so they used one word.
> [_ἲοιμεν_ is optative mood (ευκτική έγκλιση) and this mood doesn't exist in modern Greek.]
> Οther examples:
> Future: _θα λύσω_ (mG);  _λύσω _(aG) [= I will solve]_._
> Present Perfect:_ έχω λύσει _(mG)_; λέλυκα _(aG) [= I have solved].
> 
> But the fact that modern Greek is less synthetic than ancient Greek doesn't make it less precise. All natural languages have the ability to meet the needs of communication for their people.


Maybe the advantage here is not just precision but laconism, one can understand the advantage in conveying a great deal of information in one relatively small word when it comes to science. I don't think my native language could be used for that purpose. Maybe the languages that formed it like Latin. Don't know how Ancient Greek compares to it.

This doesn't mean other languages couldn't be used, like maybe Mandarin, however in the European context exactly what others could be?


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## ianis

apmoy70 said:


> As a friendly advice: Avoid like the plague any article/video/"scientific" thesis, that refers to a language as the "divine/empowering/supreme/sublime" one. They often carry ugly buggage and a hidden agenda (far right, ultranationalist)


I'm not trying to learn the ideology and don't think they can influence me on this issue, but thanks for another heads-up, it is the fourth if I'm not mistaken. The part of the less reliable scientific support for some of the claims they make  is a bit more tricky since I don't always have the basis to question what is said.

There are three channels, that I know of, in Youtube with a large quantity of Ancient Greek output, another seems a bit more mild, they still show pride on AG culture though, but it's owned by a famous Greek politician that doesn't rank very high among forum members. The third never got a review.

For someone trying to learn both on his own, and interested in the authors they dwell upon, these channels are really helpful and they are doing a good service to the community in that respect.


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## ioanell

ianis said:


> For someone trying to learn both on his own, and interested in the authors they dwell upon, ...



Congratulations on this, ianis!  



ianis said:


> I don't think my native language could be used for that purpose. Maybe the languages that formed it like Latin. Don't know how Ancient Greek compares to it.



As -judging from the various postings- most of our fellow posters seem to be specialists or experts, at least in language matters, I 'll refer you to Scholiast's posting #43 above, in case you haven't read it so far.


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## Hulalessar

ioanell said:


> [Perhaps are ?] Correct, but, anyway, the scientists and scholars who coined the Greek-based words/terms must have made some research regarding these ways of precision and they must have had some reasons to end up with their final choices for what they wanted to express. Besides, this coinage wasn’t realised by a certain (perhaps biased) person or group at a specific time and at a specific place, but it was a coinage of thousands of words by different persons (or groups) at different times over a span of centuries and at different places in the western world. I think all these must be telling us something.



The people coining new terms were well-versed in Greek and Latin. There was a belief that those two languages were in some ways superior to English. It was therefore not surprising that they chose to mine Greek and Latin. Once it started the fashion continued. It is only recently that terms such as "string", "charm" and "quark" have been adopted. Botanists use words like "peltate" and "hastate" to describe leaf shapes when "shield-shaped" and "spear-shaped" would serve as well.


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## ioanell

Hulalessar said:


> The people coining new terms were well-versed in Greek and Latin. There was a belief that those two languages were in some ways superior to English. It was therefore not surprising that they chose to mine Greek and Latin. Once it started the fashion continued. It is only recently that terms such as "string", "charm" and "quark" have been adopted. Botanists use words like "peltate" and "hastate" to describe leaf shapes when "shield-shaped" and "spear-shaped" would serve as well.



Ι fully respect your objection regarding this old “fashion” for Greek and Latin loans, although it might even be interpreted as an ideological contestation on your part of the importance of the contribution of Greek and Latin. Nevertheless, it would be useful, if you told us:

how came and all the people coining new terms happened to be well-versed in Greek and Latin’?
why, in your opinion, there was a belief that those two languages were in some ways superior to English? Was that only because they were ‘well-versed in Greek and Latin’?
beside your correct suggestions (from the dictionaries) for peltate [<Gr.] and hastate [<Lat.], what you would propose as (non-Greek-Latin) one-word alternatives for terms like, for instance, _telegraph/telegraphy, telephone/telephony [=A system for transmitting voices over a distance using wire or radio, by converting acoustic vibrations to electrical signals], photography, technology, ecosystem and [the hybrid compound, Gr.+Lat.] television_, taking into account and the so-called “economy of the language”. Please note that the German language, to which you referred in a previous posting of yours, has also adopted the same words with the according German endings, except _television_=_Fernsehen_.
how in your opinion, whereas other fashions cοme and go every now and again, this “fashion”, which started from the Renaissance (see Galileo’s ‘telescopio’ in 1611 and Kepler’s ‘telescopium’ in 1613 [both from Gr. τηλεσκόπος]), has been surviving for centuries to the modern era giving (among lots of others) terms like the _International [<Lat.] Phonetic [<Gr.] Alphabet [<Gr.]_ and the relatively recent linguistic terms _phoneme, lexeme_ and _grapheme_.
whether you think the English language would be significantly poorer, if, by a magical way, all Greek / Greek-originated and Latin / Latin-originated words were to be taken away from it.
I presume the above standpoint of yours only concerns the scientific / technical terms coined by means of and during this “fashion” and you don’t question the existence of the lot of other Greek or Greek-originated words within the everyday English language, like _air, alphabet, chair, church, centre, butter, chaos, electric, gas, police, school_ (to mention just a few indicative words), many of which passed into the Neo-Latin and the Germanic languages in older times through other channels. German has also these words, except _air_ and _chair_.


----------



## Scholiast

Ὦριστοι



ioanell said:


> how came and all the people coining new terms happened to be well-versed in Greek and Latin’?



Until the 19th century, classical Greek and Latin were the staple basics of an education anywhere in Europe, even if that education was restricted to a privileged few.

Latin therefore became the _lingua franca_ of science, as well as of humanistic letters—witness e.g. Newton's _Principia Mathematica_ or Carl Linnaeus' neo-Latin systematization of biological nomenclature. Latin had the advantages that it was fully international, not subject to dialectical variants, and had acquired already before the Renaissance a system of orthographic orthodoxy. It lent itself also readily to accommodation of Greek words in transliterated form (as in antiquity it already had).

Σ


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## Hulalessar

ioanell said:


> Ι fully respect your objection regarding this old “fashion” for Greek and Latin loans, although it might even be interpreted as an ideological contestation on your part of the importance of the contribution of Greek and Latin.



I do not in fact have any such objection nor do I have any idealogical axe to grind. The contribution of both Greeks and Romans in their different ways to Western civilisation is incontestable. The Greek and Latin contribution to English is important simply because it is there; without it English would be a different thing.



ioanell said:


> how came and all the people coining new terms happened to be well-versed in Greek and Latin’?



As mentioned above, it was the education system for the long time. It used to be said that if all copies of the Odes of Horace were destroyed the members of the UK Parliament would be able to reconstruct them from memory.



ioanell said:


> why, in your opinion, there was a belief that those two languages were in some ways superior to English? Was that only because they were ‘well-versed in Greek and Latin’?



It is a fact that at various times in various places some societies have considered some aspects of other societies to be superior to their own. The Romans themselves were somewhat in awe of the Greeks in many respects – timeo Danaos et dona ferentes being an exception. Early Japanese literature was in Chinese. Cricket is the most popular sport in South Asia.



ioanell said:


> beside your correct suggestions (from the dictionaries) for peltate [<Gr.] and hastate [<Lat.], what you would propose as (non-Greek-Latin) one-word alternatives for terms like, for instance, telegraph/telegraphy, telephone/telephony [=A system for transmitting voices over a distance using wire or radio, by converting acoustic vibrations to electrical signals], photography, technology, ecosystem and [the hybrid compound, Gr.+Lat.] television, taking into account and the so-called “economy of the language”. Please note that the German language, to which you referred in a previous posting of yours, has also adopted the same words with the according German endings, except television=Fernsehen



Since I have no objection to the words I have no proposals. “Anglish” can only ever be a fun exercise.



ioanell said:


> how in your opinion, whereas other fashions cοme and go every now and again, this “fashion”, which started from the Renaissance (see Galileo’s ‘telescopio’ in 1611 and Kepler’s ‘telescopium’ in 1613 [both from Gr. τηλεσκόπος]), has been surviving for centuries to the modern era giving (among lots of others) terms like the International [<Lat.] Phonetic [<Gr.] Alphabet [<Gr.] and the relatively recent linguistic terms phoneme, lexeme and grapheme.



I suppose it is no more than habit.



ioanell said:


> whether you think the English language would be significantly poorer, if, by a magical way, all Greek / Greek-originated and Latin / Latin-originated words were to be taken away from it.


It would certainly have a smaller lexicon. “Poorer” is subjective. The only thing which can be said is that if things had been different English could have found English words for everything which has a Latin or Greek derived word – just as the Ancient Greeks found a Greek word for everything they wanted to talk about.



ioanell said:


> I presume the above standpoint of yours only concerns the scientific / technical terms coined by means of and during this “fashion” and you don’t question the existence of the lot of other Greek or Greek-originated words within the everyday English language, like air, alphabet, chair, church, centre, butter, chaos, electric, gas, police, school (to mention just a few indicative words), many of which passed into the Neo-Latin and the Germanic languages in older times through other channels. German has also these words, except air and chair.



As explained above, my standpoint is not what you think it is. I am happy with the English language as it is – indeed I revel in it.


----------



## ioanell

Hulalessar said:


> I do not in fact have any such objection nor do I have any idealogical axe to grind.



Glad to read that. Thanks for taking the trouble to answer my questions.


----------



## Helleno File

This has been a fascinating and informative discussion.  And of course as is regularly mentioned here the traffic between Greek and English is now very much in the opposite direction and includes very many everyday words and not just technical and scientific terms.  In a recent article in the Observer newspaper Babiniotis complains particularly about the  needless introduction of many English words into Greek as a result of the covid _pandemic_.  I presume be writes similarly in the Greek press. BTW I didn't know he claims credit for coining the word διαδίκτυο!

Obviously the internet makes loan words more available than in earlier times.  I think the adoption of loan words is not just about what comes to hand it may also sometimes be about (to use a french one) _cachet_ - the first english equivalent that comes to mind for that is "snob value".  (How do I say that in Greek?!  ) In other words there can be an intention to convey exclusivity or superiority.  Although I agree with previous posts here about the futility (and sometimes ugliness) of linguistic nationalism you can see why it might start. I think even the Académie Française may have started to realise you may possibly slow the flow with local alternatives but you can't stop it.


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## apmoy70

The majority of the English words into Greek have entered through the TV, mostly by lazy journalists or sciolist "experts" demonstrating their polyglottery. Babiniotis is partially right, I wouldn't worry too much about it though, Greek has demonstrated through the centuries a remarkable instinct of perseverance and survivability


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## Perseas

Helleno File said:


> This has been a fascinating and informative discussion.  And of course as is regularly mentioned here the traffic between Greek and English is now very much in the opposite direction and includes very many everyday words and not just technical and scientific terms.


Sure. Some of the newest words that came into Greek as a result of the pandemic are "click-away", "click-inside". I don't even know if these words exist in English or if they exist with the same meaning as in Greek.


Helleno File said:


> BTW I didn't know he claims credit for coining the word διαδίκτυο!


I haven't heard of that. He doesn't mention it in his dictionary.


apmoy70 said:


> I wouldn't worry too much about it though, Greek has demonstrated through the centuries a remarkable instinct of perseverance and survivability


I agree.


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## Helleno File

Perseas said:


> "click-away", "click-inside". I don't even know if these words exist in English or if they exist with the same meaning as in Greek.


Babiniotis mentions the first of these in the article I quoted. I don't recognise either of them but can work out what they must mean for an English speaker, but as you say they may be used differently in Greek. I may be of the wrong generation to comment with any validity! 

The other aspect of loan words into Greek is that sometimes they start out written in English/Western European script but then become hellenised ???such as ντελίβερι mentioned a few posts back.  But are some of the newest refusing to take on Greek clothing?  Is "lockdown" becoming "λόκνταουν"? Having to read or even write different script must be annoying.


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## ianis

Weren't many words from French incorporated in Greek language in the past too? English becoming the international lingua franca is a relatively recent phenomenon, I'm under the impression that for most of last century French was considered more relevant.


----------



## ianis

There are a lot of foreign looking words in the media though, like ρεπορτάζ, ντοκιμαντέρ, μοντάζ, μακιγιάζ and so on. Probably similar words were introduced somewhere down the line in my native language only they seem more camouflaged.

Κανάλι, πρόγραμμα, επεισόδιο, βαλίτσα, κουζίνα, κουρτίνα, παντελόνι, ομπρέλα, σαλόνι, μπαλκόνι, ντους, πόρτα, γάτα, παλτό, τρένο, βαγόνι, μπαλόνι, μπάλα, μπλούζα, μπάνιο, ροζ, μπλε, παλάτι, τούρτα, κέικ, καναπέ, πάρτι seem to be of foreign origin maybe mostly French and Italian, although some have Greek roots..


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## Αγγελος

ianis said:


> From the text I understood that Latins got it from the Etruscans and these and the Greeks separately from the Phoenicians.


That is indeed what the text suggests, but I don't think Σμερδαλέος really intended it that way.


----------



## Αγγελος

In Middle English, the remorse of conscience was called "the Gainbite of Inwit" (there is a famous mid-14th century moral treatise by that title). One can only wonder what modern English would be like if the native word-forming capacities of the language had been exploited more fully. A telescope might be called a spyglass and a theater a playhouse -- as indeed they sometimes are! Dutch tried that approach: mathematics is called _wiskunde, _philosophy_ wijsbegeerte _and chemistry _scheikunde. _But even so, it is full of French (and, nowadays, English) loanwords, such as _militair, electricien _or even _cadeau _(which they needed a word for, as _gift  _means 'poison' in Dutch!)
But I am straying too far from Greek, and the moderator will put a stop to my ramblings if I don't do so myself...


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## ioanell

ianis said:


> Weren't many words from French incorporated in Greek language in the past too?



Yes, that's true. As it's known, the Greek State (and the Greek elite) was greatly affected by the French language and culture, especially after its official establishment in 1830.



ianis said:


> English becoming the international lingua franca is a relatively recent phenomenon, I'm under the impression that for most of last century French was considered more relevant.



Roughly speaking, the following have been already known. Although English had spread all over the colonies of the British Empire over the last five centuries (and it still is an official language in the Commonwealth countries), in Europe French was the dominant language in European politics and diplomacy, and through these, in many cases, even in education and culture in the 19th century and most of the 1st half of the 20th century.

It was only after 1945 when the USA boomed through trade, cultural invasion (music, movies, television series), and even military and scientific power, that English started also prevailing in a more or less ravaged Europe. Without the rise of the USA in the 20th century, and especially after its very decisive participation in the WWII, the world’s language landscape would most probably look very different.


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## ioanell

ianis said:


> ρεπορτάζ, ντοκιμαντέρ, μοντάζ, μακιγιάζ, κανάλι, πρόγραμμα, επεισόδιο, βαλίτσα, κουζίνα, κουρτίνα, παντελόνι, ομπρέλα, σαλόνι, μπαλκόνι, ντους, πόρτα, γάτα, παλτό, τρένο, βαγόνι, μπαλόνι, μπάλα, μπλούζα, μπάνιο, ροζ, μπλε, παλάτι, τούρτα, κέικ, καναπέ, πάρτι seem to be of foreign origin maybe mostly French and Italian, although some have Greek roots..



Out of the words you’re quoting:

Two are completely Greek, i.e. *επεισόδιο*: < αρχ. ἐπεισόδιον και *πρόγραμμα*: < αρχ. πρόγραμμα. Both have passed into other languages for centuries now.

Three are reborrowings, i.e. *καναπές*: αντιδάνειο < γαλ. canapé < μεσν. λατ. canopeum < λατ. conopeum “κουνουπιέρα” < μεταγενέστερο _κωνώπιον _[=κρεβάτι με κουνουπιέρα] < _κώνωψ_ “κουνούπι”, *μπάνιο*: αντιδάνειο, μεσν. < ιταλ. bagno < δημώδ. λατ. bannium < λατ. balneum/balineum < αρχ. βαλανεῖον, and *πανταλόνι*: < ιταλ. pantaloni < κύρ. όν. Pantalone < Pantaleone < αρχ. κύρ. όν. Πανταλέων < Παντολέων (< παντ-ός [<πᾶς] + λέων) or Παντ-ελε_ήμ_ων (< παντ-ός [<πᾶς] + ἔλεος or ἐλεήμων)

Seven are medieval with Latin (or dialectal Italian) origin, i.e. *γάτα:* μεσν. < μτγν. κάττα < μτγν. λατ. catta < κελτ. αρχής, *κανάλι:* (στη σημασία «θαλάσσιο πέρασμα») μτγν. κανάλιον < λατ. canalis, *κουρτίνα*: μεσν. < κορτίνα < μτγν. λατ. cortina, *μπάλα:* μεσν. < διαλεκτ. ιταλ. balla, *παλάτι:* < μτγν. παλάτιον < λατ. palatium, *πόρτα*: μεσν. < λατ. porta και *τούρτα:* < μτγν. τούρτα < λατ. torta.

Out of the rest of the words you’re quoting, regardless of their first origin: ρεπορτάζ, ντοκιμαντέρ, μοντάζ, μακιγιάζ, ντους, μπαλόνι, μπλούζα, ροζ, μπλε came into Greek from French, βαλίτσα, [βεν.] κουζίνα, ομπρέλα, σαλόνι, μπαλκόνι, παλτό, τρένο, βαγόνι came into Greek from Italian and κέικ and πάρτι came into Greek from English.


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## Αγγελος

ioanell said:


> Out of the words you’re quoting:
> [...]
> Out of the rest of the words you’re quoting, regardless of their first origin: ρεπορτάζ, ντοκιμαντέρ, μοντάζ, μακιγιάζ, ντους, μπαλόνι, μπλούζα, ροζ, μπλε came into Greek from French, βαλίτσα, [βεν.] κουζίνα, ομπρέλα, σαλόνι, μπαλκόνι, παλτό, τρένο, βαγόνι came into Greek from Italian and κέικ and πάρτι came into Greek from English.


_salon, balcon, paletot, train, wagon_ also exist in French. I don't see how we can say that they came into Greek from Italian rather than from French -- particularly σαλόνι, which is _salotto _in Italian.


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## ianis

ioanell said:


> Out of the words you’re quoting:
> 
> Two are completely Greek, i.e. *επεισόδιο*: < αρχ. ἐπεισόδιον και *πρόγραμμα*: < αρχ. πρόγραμμα. Both have passed into other languages for centuries now.
> 
> Three are reborrowings, i.e. *καναπές*: αντιδάνειο < γαλ. canapé < μεσν. λατ. canopeum < λατ. conopeum “κουνουπιέρα” < μεταγενέστερο _κωνώπιον _[=κρεβάτι με κουνουπιέρα] < _κώνωψ_ “κουνούπι”, *μπάνιο*: αντιδάνειο, μεσν. < ιταλ. bagno < δημώδ. λατ. bannium < λατ. balneum/balineum < αρχ. βαλανεῖον, and *πανταλόνι*: < ιταλ. pantaloni < κύρ. όν. Pantalone < Pantaleone < αρχ. κύρ. όν. Πανταλέων < Παντολέων (< παντ-ός [<πᾶς] + λέων) or Παντ-ελε_ήμ_ων (< παντ-ός [<πᾶς] + ἔλεος or ἐλεήμων)
> 
> Seven are medieval with Latin (or dialectal Italian) origin, i.e. *γάτα:* μεσν. < μτγν. κάττα < μτγν. λατ. catta < κελτ. αρχής, *κανάλι:* (στη σημασία «θαλάσσιο πέρασμα») μτγν. κανάλιον < λατ. canalis, *κουρτίνα*: μεσν. < κορτίνα < μτγν. λατ. cortina, *μπάλα:* μεσν. < διαλεκτ. ιταλ. balla, *παλάτι:* < μτγν. παλάτιον < λατ. palatium, *πόρτα*: μεσν. < λατ. porta και *τούρτα:* < μτγν. τούρτα < λατ. torta.
> 
> Out of the rest of the words you’re quoting, regardless of their first origin: ρεπορτάζ, ντοκιμαντέρ, μοντάζ, μακιγιάζ, ντους, μπαλόνι, μπλούζα, ροζ, μπλε came into Greek from French, βαλίτσα, [βεν.] κουζίνα, ομπρέλα, σαλόνι, μπαλκόνι, παλτό, τρένο, βαγόνι came into Greek from Italian and κέικ and πάρτι came into Greek from English.


Thanks hadn't check most of them and included επεισόδιο wrongly in the list. I am aware that some words originated in Greek developed in other languages and reentered Greek. However was not aware of some nuances, Βικιπαίδεια says that πρόγραμμα is a σημασιολογικό δανείο the word is Greek but the meaning French, from what I understand, hadn't noticed this and thought it to be one of the re-borrowed words.


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## bearded

Αγγελος said:


> σαλόνι, which is _salotto _in Italian.


Oh, but we do have _salone, _which can mean a big hall or (in Southern Italy) a barber shop.


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## ioanell

Αγγελος said:


> _salon, balcon, paletot, train, wagon_ also exist in French. I don't see how we can say that they came into Greek from Italian rather than from French -- particularly σαλόνι, which is _salotto _in Italian.



Linguistically, the fact that these words also exist in French and the fact that they came into Greek from Italian are two different facts. That’s why we can say that they came into Greek from Italian. Although the mechanism of one word passing into another is not always exactly detectable, don't you think that the fact that Italy is the immediate neighbour of Greece to the West could be a possible reason, regardless if a word has a farther origin?

σαλόνι < ιταλ. salone < sala
sources: 1. G. Babiniotis, 2. salon | Search Online Etymology Dictionary 3.* salone - Wiktionary (*salone m (plural* saloni) *_Descendants_ French:* salon 4. Saloon | Definition of Saloon by Oxford Dictionary on Lexico.com also meaning of Saloon* 5.* Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής*
salotto=soggiorno

μπαλκόνι < ιταλ. balcone <*γερμ. αρχής, πιθ. * balkon
Πηγές: 1. Nik. Andriotis 2. G. Babiniotis 3. balcony | Search Online Etymology Dictionary 4. Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής

παλτό < ιταλ. palto < γαλλ. paletot < μέσ. αγγλ. paltock < uncertain origin Sources: 1. Nik. Andriotis 2. G. Babiniotis 3. Paltock | Definition of Paltock by Oxford Dictionary on Lexico.com also meaning of Paltock 4. Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής

τρένο < ιταλ. treno < γαλλ. train < γαλλ. ρ. traîner < Vulgar Latin *traginare, < *tragere < Latin trahere "to pull, draw". Although it came from Italian, older scholars thought it French, that’s why they rendered it as “τραῖνο”. Sources: 1. Nik. Andriotis 2. G. Babiniotis 3. train | Search Online Etymology Dictionary 4. Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής

βαγόνι < ιταλ. vagone < αγγλ. wagon < μέσ. ολλ. wagen Sources: 1. Nik. Andriotis 2. G. Babiniotis 3. Wagon | Definition of Wagon by Oxford Dictionary on Lexico.com also meaning of Wagon 4. Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής

Sources: 1. Nikolaos Andriotis, Etymological Dictionary of Current Modern Greek 2. Georgios Babiniotis, Dictionary of Modern Greek Language. Anyway, I quoted my etymological sources. If you have any more reliable sources vitiating the above and proving the opposite, we’d be glad to hear/read them.


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## Perseas

I agree. Just a note about παλτό: According to Babiniotis, it came into Greek directly from the French paletot. The Italian palto has the same origin. On the other hand, the online ΛΚΝ says that the Greek word came into Greek from Italian.


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## ioanell

Perseas said:


> I agree. Just a note about παλτό: According to Babiniotis, it came into Greek directly from the French paletot. The Italian palto has the same origin. On the other hand, the online ΛΚΝ says that the Greek word came into Greek from Italian.



Surely, the Italian palto has the same origin. The question is through which channel it came into Greek. According to the two different editions of Babiniotis's dictionary which I own, παλτό came into Greek directly from Italian. I don't know if in a newer edition of his dictionary that you happen to own he updated his view. An additional source (with any importance it might have) for the Italian channel is this: παλτό - Βικιλεξικό


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## Perseas

ioanell said:


> Surely, the Italian palto has the same origin. The question is through which channel it came into Greek. According to the two different editions of Babiniotis's dictionary which I own, παλτό came into Greek directly from Italian. I don't know if in a newer edition of his dictionary that you happen to own he updated his view. An additional source (with any importance it might have) for the Italian channel is this: παλτό - Βικιλεξικό


I own the «Ετυμολογικό Λεξικό», which is not that new (2009), and the last edition of ΛΝΕΓ (2019). Both agree that παλτό came into Greek directly from French.


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## Helleno File

So what did the Greeks say for coat before they acquired acquired the posh new french word παλτό? It gets pretty cold up North in winter so even the poor villagers must have worn something and people in Iannena and Metsovo could probably afford proper coats.


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## ioanell

Helleno File said:


> So what did the Greeks say for coat before they acquired acquired the posh new french word παλτό?



Ancient times: In Homer *φᾶρος *(τό), ionic and attic *χλαίνη* (ἡ), doric *χλαῖνα* (ἡ), and with similar meaning *χλαμύς* (ἡ), *ἐπένδυμα *(τό)* / ἐπενδύτης* (ὁ) and *μανδύας *(ὁ) or *μανδύα *(ἡ) or *μανδύη *(ἡ).
Later antiquity and Roman times: *χλαίνη, ἐπενδύτης *and *μανδύας*.
Byzantine times until even post-revolution times: while the immediately above continued to be used by, mainly, the literate people, new words came into use, like *κάπα *(η) or (more folksy)* καπότα *[< Lat. cappa] which passed into Greek sometime following the Roman conquest, *πανωφόρι *(το) [< απανωφόριο < επανωφόριον < επάνω + φέρω],  *απανωκλίβανο[ν] *(το) [< επανωκλίβανον=επιθωρακίδιο] used, especially, when involved in warfare, *γαμπάς*/*καμπάς *[< Ven. gaban] and *κόττα* (η) [< Ital. cotta] in the meaning of χλαίνη (which χλαίνη was reused in the last centuries in a military use).
The word παλτό nowdays isn't used as much as in previous decades. My sense is that πανωφόρι is used much more, followed by τζάκετ and μπουφάν.


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## Helleno File

Thanks ioanell for a fantastic answer! It's perhaps not surprising that classical and military terms have survived in the sense of being understood. 

Perhaps this might deserve a separate thread.  It strikes me that there can be many different words for specific variations of items of clothing depending on what could loosely be called "fashion".  So coat or shoe could be a class noun with subsidiary terms for kinds of e. g. coat, scarf or shoe. So in English we would have (19th century) frock coat, pashmina and brogue.  For specific historical garments such as you mention we are entirely dependent on contemporary descriptions, surviving examples or more recently illustrations or photographs in order to understand exactly what they were. Class nouns may also come and go but more slowly with fashion or general linguistic processes. And specific terms may end up as class nouns. 

So I'm interested in your final three contemporary examples.  I wasn't aware that παλτό is less common these days.  I know πανωφόρι but have thought it was the equivalent of "overcoat" - a longer coat of thicker material, but a word used rather less in English these days. I know μπουφάν (?? < French)  a short garment often padded for warmth, usually fastened with a zip, currently very popular, but I can't think we have a specific English word for it.  We would say coat or possibly jacket.  Which takes me to your "τζάκετ". That's new to me.  As jacket in English can have a range of meanings could you explain?


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## ioanell

Hi,


Helleno File said:


> As jacket in English can have a range of meanings could you explain?



Although *πανωφόρι* / *επανωφόρι* is rather a general term, most people usually mean a long (extending below the hips and many times, especially for women, below the knees), thick (rather woolen), not rainproof, winter garment, worn over other garments, even over a *σακάκι*, in other words *παλτό* (=overcoat). By *τζάκετ *[<Engl. jacket < Fr. jaquet{te}] is meant a usually thick winter garment with waterproof qualities outside, extending to the hips, worn over other garments, even over a sweater. The same description applies to *μπουφάν *[<Fr. bouffant, pres. part. of the verb bouffer=puff up, blow]*, *except that it’s shorter, up to the waist, as you sufficiently described it above. In many cases τζάκετ is interchangeable with μπουφάν. By *σακάκι* is meant either a twill jacket / blazer or the upper part of a suit.



Helleno File said:


> I know πανωφόρι but have thought it was the equivalent of "overcoat" - a longer coat of thicker material, but a word used rather less in English these days.



This is exactly the meaning of παλτό in Greek.

Here, I ‘ve tried to convey the basic meanings of the words “*τζάκετ*” and “*μπουφάν”,* as used in Greek. It’s certain that there is a number of other intermediate descriptions as well. Maybe other co-posters would like to enrich or partially amend the above descriptions.


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