The error of Erasmus - has anyone seen this?

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bernardo
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The error of Erasmus - has anyone seen this?

Post by bernardo »

I'm starting (again...) to learn greek. One subject that always bothered me was pronunciation, which seems to be a personal guesswork from the author of the particular grammar or course I might be reading at the time. Of course I read a few threads here on this subject, and then I found an article while surfing the web; http://www.bsw.org/?l=72081&a=Art06.html

It defends the abandonment of any attempt at a "scientific" pronunciation of ancient greek. Apparently we should just listen to how greek people speak today; not how ancient greeks spoke, you can argue, but any other guess is just that. To make things worse, the author of the article, one Chrys C. Caragounis (greek family?), says the Erasmian pronunciation, which seems to be respected by a large group of scholars, was developed because of a joke!

It's well worth reading a post (from a very nice greek language site) which led me to the article: http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/koinonia ... OPIC_ID=86

Since no one seems to have written about this article, or at least its theory, I'm posting this to gather opinions; so, what's yours?

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Re: The error of Erasmus - has anyone seen this?

Post by annis »

bernardo wrote: says the Erasmian pronunciation, which seems to be respected by a large group of scholars, was developed because of a joke!
This is typical of the fabrications in that article. The author's passion is not, unfortunately, matched by any sound knowledge of basic linguistics. We have discussed it here in the past (it occurs half way through this thread). It's useless. Here is a lengthy analysis by someone who actually knows something about linguistics: Notes on Chrys Caragounis’ paper.
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
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Re: The error of Erasmus - has anyone seen this?

Post by Aristoklhs »

I first learned ancient greek, pronouncing it the way I pronounced modern-and twice a day I still pronounce either the orphic or the homeric hymns this way, except I don't neglect the subscript i- and as our teacher once read aloud an ancient greek text with the Erasmian pronounciation, the first thing I thought was, she were reading dutch.

Of course the pronounciation must have changed through the years, why should they have 6 "i"s, 2 "e"s and so forth.

But to tell you the truth I am very sceptical when linguists try to reconstruct the indoeuropean language, or the first language at all. I find sometimes their arguments, when they do not have to do directly with linguistics, as much to simple.

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Post by IreneY »

The thinning down of the pronunciation of U towards I is also confirmed by the fact that already in classical times U had lost its original sound of U, which now came to be expressed by OU
(quote from Caragounis article).

The thing is upsilon "held out" till the Byzantine times really. At least that's what I learned in my Uni!

I pronounce ancient Greek the modern Greek way (obviously). I can
use the reconstructed pronunciation but, for reasons that have no place here, I don't.

Not using the reconstructed pronunciation is one thing; claiming that no one should because we pronounced ancient Greek the modern Greek way from way back then is just ludicrous (Bible Greek is another matter altogether since I think that the pronunciation was by then close enough to modern Greek to be "closer" to MG than any of the reconstructed pronunciations I know of).

Elpenor is a site of rather fanatical Greeks I'm afraid who, as all fanatics, refuse to live and let live.
I'd be really pissed if anyone claimed that the way I pronounce ancient Greek is inherently wrong since it isn't. I imagine it's the same for anyone pronouncing it differently.

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Post by bernardo »

thanks for all replies

once I'm more knowledgeable about linguistics (I'm getting there...) I'll be able to study this matter more closely; for the while the tone of the articles, and some research, leads me to believe Caragounis is wrong. A few doubts left:

Would a native greek using reconstructed pronunciation sound "more correct" than a french? Perhaps it would be easier for him to get it right?

I'm studying Homeric right now, and after Attic I'll probably want to read some Koine, which is said to be more similar to modern greek. In any case, the pronunciation is different, right? So what do you do? Can you read what seems to be the same language (spelling, alphabet) only differently? Isnt' that too much to ask of someone's brains?
:(

Irene Y:
I pronounce ancient Greek the modern Greek way (obviously). I can
use the reconstructed pronunciation but, for reasons that have no place here, I don't.
Being the only one from Greece, would you care to say what are the reasons why you dont use the reconstructed pronunciation when you could?

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Post by IreneY »

bernado some of the reasons (random order):

a) I am too lazy to actually force myself to remember to use a different pronunciation when reading i.e. Homer, Sappho, Lyssias and the gospels.

b) I am not an expert on linguistics but I am not entirely convinced that the proposed pronunciation is always the right one and not an educated guess

c) for the last 2000 years more or less, the pronunciation of the Greek language is almost the same as the modern Greek. The differences existing are not big enough for this period of time. I can't see why I should pronounce the earlier work in a different way than so many of my ancestors used.
It's almost necessary to know the differences, at least when it comes to poetry or anything that involves meter but I don't see why I should use a reconstructed pronunciation since I am not going to actually talk to any ancient Greek which would mean I would have to try to make him understand what on earth I'm saying.

d) Greek has retained the greater bulk of the vocabulary from the ancient times, some times making changes in either the meaning or the form * or not. I don't have to learn the words to begin with. I know them. I just pronounce them differently. Why search for the differences? Why emphasise them? I know they are there and I think that's enough.

*examples:
Meaning: παιδε?ω = (modern Greek) pester, give someone a rough time (I always loved thinking about how this one changed meaning hehe.

Form : ανή? = (modern Greek) άνδ?ας (in most cases of the third declension masculine, the same change has occurred)

No change (bar the loss of dative that is= ου?ανός, οδός (the second declension is actually the one that, apart from the loss of the dative, hasn't changed at all)

That's it in a nutshell really. Hope it makes some sense.

As for pronouncing Koine. If you want to be precise you'd have to use a more "modern"-like pronunciation. As far as I know, non-Greeks who have studied former forms of the Greek language, don't generally go though the trouble of doing so which is and isn't understandable ;)

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Post by bernardo »

Thanks Yrene

By this time I'm convinced that linguistical attempts to reconstruct ancient pronunciation does have some validity, even if it's not ideal; and that especially for meter.

Has anyone here in Textkit made the transition Homeric-Attic-Koine, and how he or she has managed to succesfully change pronunciation? Can you go on reading both Homer and NT, "switching" pronunciation as needed? Or do you have to spend some time with a period before this "switch" is made?

Hu

Post by Hu »

bernardo wrote:Has anyone here in Textkit made the transition Homeric-Attic-Koine, and how he or she has managed to succesfully change pronunciation?
Homeric-Attic isn't going to be all that complicated, just a few vowels and diphthongs (u, ei, ou). The majority of classical authors can be covered with only a few changes in pronunciation. Attic to Koine is much more of a change, though.

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Post by Aristoklhs »

I think everybody reads the way it suits him.

In a german book- Griechische Lehrgang I,II,III from Günter Zuntz- it says that the Germans are not consequent, because they pronounce theta the classical way, but phi like "f" and khi like in ("ich"). Well it is known that Germans cannot pronounce english "th". (I don't sink so...), (Zis is very nice) etc.
And of course they don't use accents either.

The reconstructed way has the advantage that one doesn't have problems with the orthography.
But if one is reading texts from different periods one has to pronounce them many different ways. One for Homer, one for Plato, one for Aristotle, maybe 2 for tragedies, one for Plutarch.
I think that is the main point of Caragounis. But his mistake is that he wants to prove Erasmus totally wrong.
And Lukas Pietsch tries to prove that ancient greek wasn't pronounced the modern greek way- besides defending reconstruction-, although that is not the point.

Greeks cannot pronounce "h". They pronounce it like "χ".

As for accents Chinese manage to "sing" their language. Mandarin has four accents, Vietnamese and Thai more I think.

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Post by IreneY »

Aristoklhs wrote:Greeks cannot pronounce "h". They pronounce it like "χ".
Yes we can! How do you think I pronounce it in English? We don't use it in the Greek language that's true, but that's quite different from not being able to pronounce it. For the German and the French "r" sounds I would agree wholeheartedly with you since, even the closest pronunciation of them I've ever heard was not quite there.
"H" however is simple (unless we're talking about Hebrew and what is depicted as an " ' " in the script when using Latin characters. That took me a while to do properly! (although this too is not impossible as the aforementioned "r"s are for me)

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Post by Aristoklhs »

IreneY wrote:
Aristoklhs wrote:Greeks cannot pronounce "h". They pronounce it like "χ".
Yes we can! How do you think I pronounce it in English? We don't use it in the Greek language that's true, but that's quite different from not being able to pronounce it. For the German and the French "r" sounds I would agree wholeheartedly with you since, even the closest pronunciation of them I've ever heard was not quite there.
"H" however is simple (unless we're talking about Hebrew and what is depicted as an " ' " in the script when using Latin characters. That took me a while to do properly! (although this too is not impossible as the aforementioned "r"s are for me)
:lol: :lol:
Well I am sure your accent is envied by all scholars in Oxford and Cambridge :twisted: :twisted: , but since this sound doesn't exist in modern greek some people may pronounce it wrong. It is only logical. It is the same case with the French or the Germans.

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Post by IreneY »

Nice! Remind me to thank you later Aristoklh. After you point out where I said that my accent is perfect obviously.

Some sounds don't exist in a language but are easy (or easier if you wish) for them to pronounce (Greek doesn't have "sh" either and that's one no Greek has ever difficulty in pronouncing). Others are more difficult. Does this sound irrational to anyone?

P.S. It is obvious that I am talking about modern Greek and not ancient Greek when discussing the "h" sound.

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Post by annis »

bernardo wrote:Has anyone here in Textkit made the transition Homeric-Attic-Koine, and how he or she has managed to succesfully change pronunciation?
Since Homer as he comes to us has been squeezed through Attic anyway, I stick to the pronunciation given by Allen, Palmer, etc., for all my Greek. I have few dealings with Koine.
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Post by Bert »

IreneY wrote:
Some sounds don't exist in a language but are easy (or easier if you wish) for them to pronounce (Greek doesn't have "sh" either and that's one no Greek has ever difficulty in pronouncing). Others are more difficult. Does this sound irrational to anyone?

P.S. It is obvious that I am talking about modern Greek and not ancient Greek when discussing the "h" sound.
Sounds rational to me.
I can't imagine anyone having much trouble learning to pronouncing an H but a trilled R is a different story. That is how the R is pronounced in the Netherlands but it takes some Dutch children quite a while to get it right.
I had a lot of trouble pronouncing the TH when I moved to Canada. Come to think of it, at times I still have trouble when TH alternates with T or S in a sentence.

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Post by bernardo »

I’m sorry to repeat myself, but once again, thank you all very much for all the posts. This forum is great; learning Greek would be twice as hard without this community.

Whenever I think of learning a language, one of my main concerns is to pronounce it right; oddly as it may seem, this to me has more to do with reading than with speaking with a native without embarassing myself. English itself is a foreign language to me, and I like to HEAR an american when I’m reading Hemingway, and I like to HEAR an english when I’m reading Henry James. Both examples are prose, as this to me has nothing to do with meter, but with “ringing true?.

It’s not without some sadness that I realize that as far as Ancient Greek is concerned, we do the best we can, though it’s not ideal. We don’t have the luxury of hearing some example of “perfect? pronunciation as something to aim at.

I guess that’s why I was trying to find out what - given unlimited resources and time - would be the best way to prononce ancient greek. Should one aim at a Modern Greek accent (as in English with a French accent, or with a German accent) while at the same time respecting reconstructed pronunciation(RP)? An american will speak greek (with RP) and sound american, a german will sound german, etc; can one say a greek will sound better than the others, or that, as far as we know, a greek is as much “correct? regarding accents as a russian, or a chinese, or a mexican?

Aristoklhs, who I imagine is greek, said that when he heard his teacher reading ancient greek with Erasmian pronunciation he thought she was speaking Dutch. Should that concern someone learning Ancient Greek, or is that another example of how Modern Greek is as alien to Ancient Greek as any other language; I read that at times americans cannot follow a Shakespearean play just by ear (let alone Chaucer), much of what is said sounds foreign. Wouldn’t it be the same for greeks today regarding Homer or Plato?

Annis,

Allen and Palmer were already in my to-buy list, I’d just like to know if reading them this early in the learning curve would be helpful or the opposite.

Hu

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Post by GlottalGreekGeek »

Why would you want to read Henry James with a British accent? He's an American writer.

Me, I read almost everything in English with my native proto-Norcal accent, whatever the speech of the original writer (if you want to know what I'm talking about

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Post by GlottalGreekGeek »

Why would you want to read Henry James with a British accent? He's an American writer.

Me, I read almost everything in English with my native proto-Norcal accent, whatever the speech of the original writer (if you want to know what I'm talking about

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Post by GlottalGreekGeek »

Why would you want to read Henry James with a British accent? He's an American writer.

Me, I read almost everything in English with my native proto-Norcal accent, whatever the speech of the original writer (if you want to know what I'm talking about

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Post by GlottalGreekGeek »

My computer is acting really weird - please delete all of my posts above this one.

Wow, this post actually worked. Let's see if I can paste in my original post.

***

Why would you want to read Henry James with a British accent? He's an American writer.

Me, I read almost everything in English with my native Norcal accent, whatever the speech of the original writer The only exception I can think of is G.B. Shaw, but that's because he's so obsessed with dialect/accent it makes the reader concious too. Of course, I might also be jarred occasionally by a locution which is peculiar to the dialect of the writer (or the dialect the writer is trying to use) into adjusting the accent of the words as they sound in my head for about a page.
I read that at times americans cannot follow a Shakespearean play just by ear (let alone Chaucer), much of what is said sounds foreign.
This is as true for British English speakers as American English speakers. After all, there are practically no dialects of English which still use the word 'puling' (a word plucked from Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II, Scene 1). But to be quite frank, Shakespeare's English is not terribly different from most Modern English. The main reason which Shakespeare is incomprehensible when it is recited/performed is that the actors/reciters are not doing their job properly, and I have seen enough productions of Shakespare to know. When Shakespeare is performed well, he is very easy to understand with my American ears, I assure you. It is particularly easy to gauge acting skill in a Shakespeare play because the audience will understand the good actors better than the bad actors. In a production of Lear that I saw a few months ago, they got a superb actor to play Lear (of course, that is a requirement for any self-respecting production of Lear), and Goneril and Reagan also gave excellent performances. 60% of the cast were able to hold their own weight, though their performances were not memorable. Some of the actors, though, seemed to be drowning under the weight of the words.
I don't know what was going on with the actress playing Cordelia, but it was definitely the weirdest performance in the production, and it made her difficult to understand. Anyway, it was odd to see a production of Lear where a) Lear was the character whose speech was most easily understood and b) where Goneril and Reagan were much easier to understand than Cordelia, which warped the relationship between the sisters in a way which I do not think the director intended.

In fact, most experienced/educated theatre people, on both sides of the Atlantic, believe that American speech is closer to Shakespeare's speech than contemporary British speech. Some British theatre people even claim that the clipped nature of British speech clips out the soul of Shakespeare's words, though Americans are too polite to say the same :wink: Of course, British productions of Shakespeare are still predominantly in contemporary British English, but that's so they can access their audiencce better. I have heard that the closest contemporary speech to Shakespeare's is either a) an Appalachian dialect or b) an Irish dialect. I know for sure that there is some Appalachian dialect which is remarkably close to Chaucer's English - so much so that an Appalachian found Chaucer much easier to read than most modern English works.

TO BRING THIS DISCUSSION BACK TO GREEK -

I myself tend to use a blend of American/French accent (not on purpose, but I think it's the blasted continental vowels which make my tongue want to transition into a semi-French accent) when reading Ancient Greek with a reconstructed pronounciation a l' Allen, but I rarely deal with Koine. I do not necessarily recommend this specific system (certainly not the French bit) to anybody else, though I do recommend using a system which makes the meter scan right.

I wonder, how would one treat the work of Lucian, which is Attic but written in Koine times?

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Post by Aristoklhs »

IreneY wrote:Nice! Remind me to thank you later Aristoklh. After you point out where I said that my accent is perfect obviously.

Some sounds don't exist in a language but are easy (or easier if you wish) for them to pronounce (Greek doesn't have "sh" either and that's one no Greek has ever difficulty in pronouncing). Others are more difficult. Does this sound irrational to anyone?

P.S. It is obvious that I am talking about modern Greek and not ancient Greek when discussing the "h" sound.
Well you asked me how do I think you pronounce "h", so I didn't dare say something else. :D

As for "sh" most Greeks have a problem pronouncing "s" and they say "sh" instead. :D

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Post by Kinadius »

Interesting to see a discussion about Caragounis' paper here, since it was reading that that helped convince me to use Modern Greek pronunciation in my Ancient Greek studies.

One difficulty I've faced taking that route, however, is the question of how to pronounce certain things from AG that no longer exist in MG and hence are not found in MG pronunciation charts. (For instance, how one pronounces ᾳ, ωυ, etc.) Is there a more or less standard way to pronounce such things among the modern Grecophone community, or is it simply a matter of personal taste?

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Post by IreneY »

Aristoklh you do have a strange (for my taste) sense of humour and I am glad to see that you assume a degree of familiarity with people you hardly even met (and we're talking about a "net" aquaintance) that always takes me much longer to.

Hu, I am tired of explaining what's the relation between MG and AG. Either buy a book about it or study modern Greek too and find out yourself :D


Kinadius, Caragounis convinced you? I am surprised really since there are quite a few mistakes in his paper.

As for ᾳ, ωυ: We either go Koine like for the first (or in other words simple alpha or pronounce it as alpha and iota. Omega ypsilon are pronounced seperatedly ( I am talking about MG pronunciation in both cases mind you)

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Hu

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Post by Kinadius »

IreneY wrote:Kinadius, Caragounis convinced you? I am surprised really since there are quite a few mistakes in his paper.
Helped convince me. I was already leaning in that direction before I came upon his paper, which is how I found it in the first place. In case you're wondering: no, it wasn't because I believed his claims that historical linguistics verges on being junk science. ;) I just agreed with the idea that a stress-accented MG pronunciation is no worse than a stress-accented English pronunciation, which is what I was contemplating using at the time. (I had already made the decision early on not to use the pitch accent, for various reasons I won't go into here.)
IreneY wrote:As for ᾳ, ωυ: We either go Koine like for the first (or in other words simple alpha or pronounce it as alpha and iota. Omega ypsilon are pronounced seperatedly ( I am talking about MG pronunciation in both cases mind you)
Interesting. Does this practice vary from speaker to speaker, or is it more or less standard?

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Post by annis »

Hu wrote:I think Modern Greek would be the best choice at what to "sound like" since it's the closest living language to Ancient Greek.
But that just doesn't follow. There are several descendants of Latin, several of which can lay claim to being very close living relatives indeed, and none of them have sound systems much like Latin at all. A lot changes in a language in 2500 years, even with literacy slowing things down.
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
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Post by annis »

bernardo wrote:Allen and Palmer were already in my to-buy list, I’d just like to know if reading them this early in the learning curve would be helpful or the opposite.
Palmer I think would be very good. Allen is quite a bit more technical, and could come now or later. Both books bear re-reading, and offer more as you know more.
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

Hu

Post by Hu »

annis wrote:
Hu wrote:I think Modern Greek would be the best choice at what to "sound like" since it's the closest living language to Ancient Greek.
But that just doesn't follow. There are several descendants of Latin, several of which can lay claim to being very close living relatives indeed, and none of them have sound systems much like Latin at all. A lot changes in a language in 2500 years, even with literacy slowing things down.
I think what bernardo was suggesting was using MG to supplement the reconstructed pronunciation where necessary. MG would be the best thing to use for this, though the utility of doing so is (as you mention) limited, particularly in things like prosody where it would be needed the most.

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Post by annis »

Hu wrote:I think what bernardo was suggesting was using MG to supplement the reconstructed pronunciation where necessary. MG would be the best thing to use for this,
Well, no. That's what I'm objecting to. If we admit that MG's sound system is quite different from Ancient Greek's, why should the MG pronunciation be privileged?

Also, where is supplement necessary? The Ancient Greek sound system isn't very exotic, actually, and the internal logic of it should be used to fill any missing spots.
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
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Post by IreneY »

Kinadius in general we just despense with the squiggle :D.

Some of us just like to add it up. When teaching I won't pronounce it for instance (after explaining all about how it was pronounced obviously) since most of my fellow teachers don't and it would just confuse kids.

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Post by Aristoklhs »

bernardo wrote: Aristoklhs, who I imagine is greek, said that when he heard his teacher reading ancient greek with Erasmian pronunciation he thought she was speaking Dutch. Should that concern someone learning Ancient Greek, or is that another example of how Modern Greek is as alien to Ancient Greek as any other language; I read that at times americans cannot follow a Shakespearean play just by ear (let alone Chaucer), much of what is said sounds foreign. Wouldn’t it be the same for greeks today regarding Homer or Plato?
Aristoklhs is half Greek and half Dutch. Dutch is nothing foreign to my ears.

As far as I have read in "Griechischer Lehrgang" the reconstruction doesn't seem to be complete yet.

But I can't help thinking two points. One that the erasmians, from the various solutions of a problem, the first they would come up with, would be a "european" solution.
The second is that except for the last 60 years, many european scholars tried to make ancient Greeks appear germanic. They said that they had blond hair, blue eyes etc. Especially Germans wanted to appear as the heirs of the greek civilization as French of the roman. I don't remember where I got that, maybe it is just an exaggeration, but I don't think it's impossible.
So I am asking myself how far could the contemporary linguists separate true from false results.

Hu

Post by Hu »

annis wrote:Well, no. That's what I'm objecting to. If we admit that MG's sound system is quite different from Ancient Greek's, why should the MG pronunciation be privileged?

Also, where is supplement necessary? The Ancient Greek sound system isn't very exotic, actually, and the internal logic of it should be used to fill any missing spots.
Alright then. I was mainly thinking about things that aren't known with a whole lot of certainty, but I can see now how there isn't any input from living languages needed.

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Post by Kinadius »

IreneY wrote:Kinadius in general we just despense with the squiggle :D.
Cool, thanks for the info. :)

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Post by PeterD »

Aristoklhs wrote:But I can't help thinking two points. One that the erasmians, from the various solutions of a problem, the first they would come up with, would be a "european" solution.
That would be called bigotry today.
Aristohlhs wrote:The second is that except for the last 60 years, many european scholars tried to make ancient Greeks appear germanic. They said that they had blond hair, blue eyes etc. Especially Germans wanted to appear as the heirs of the greek civilization as French of the roman. I don't remember where I got that, maybe it is just an exaggeration, but I don't think it's impossible.
You're quite right, A. Ever hear of Fallmerayer's theory on Modern Greek ancestry? According to that dead windbag, Modern Greeks are anything but Greek---the Chinese are even more Greek! Thankfully, modern anthropology and DNA analysis has completetly discredited his theory.
A wrote:So I am asking myself how far could the contemporary linguists separate true from false results.
If only they had the smarts, A. Seriously, I had one university professor with a Masters Degree in linguistics ask me once what is the expression for "happy holidays" in Greek. Normally I wouldn't be taken aback by such a request---except that she had been a teacher of Classical Greek for over 20 years!
Last edited by PeterD on Sat Oct 21, 2006 9:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Fanatical ranting is not just fine because it's eloquent. What if I ranted for the extermination of a people in an eloquent manner, would that make it fine? Rather, ranting, be it fanatical or otherwise, is fine if what is said is true and just. ---PeterD, in reply to IreneY and Annis

annis
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Post by annis »

Aristoklhs wrote:So I am asking myself how far could the contemporary linguists separate true from false results.
Do you have specific critiques of the reconstructed pronunciation? Because anxiety-causing insinuations of a Germanic conspiracy don't naturally lead to phonological understanding. At least not for me.
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

Aristoklhs
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Post by Aristoklhs »

annis wrote: Do you have specific critiques of the reconstructed pronunciation? Because anxiety-causing insinuations of a Germanic conspiracy don't naturally lead to phonological understanding. At least not for me.
I never insinuate anything. And I don't believe in conspiracies of any kind.

I just say that linguists are human beings as well and they must be affected by their surroundings.

PS: I am an electrical engineering student.

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Post by PeterD »

~~~
Fanatical ranting is not just fine because it's eloquent. What if I ranted for the extermination of a people in an eloquent manner, would that make it fine? Rather, ranting, be it fanatical or otherwise, is fine if what is said is true and just. ---PeterD, in reply to IreneY and Annis

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