Ancient Greek Wikipedia

Here you can discuss all things Ancient Greek. Use this board to ask questions about grammar, discuss learning strategies, get help with a difficult passage of Greek, and more.
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Carolus Raeticus
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Ancient Greek Wikipedia

Post by Carolus Raeticus »

Hello,

I am not personally involved in anything ancient Greek, but while surfing the net I stumbled upon the Wikimedia Incubator-project Ancient Greek Wikipedia. The Incubator-site is a site...
"where potential Wikimedia project wikis in new language versions of Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wiktionary and Wikivoyage can be arranged, written, tested and proven worthy of being hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation." This specific one does not seem to be ready, but perhaps with some more input...
For more information about the Wikimedia Incubator, see their Main Page.

Valete,

Carolus Raeticus
Sperate miseri, cavete felices.

daivid
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Re: Ancient Greek Wikipedia

Post by daivid »

Thanks for that. I have wondered why (given there is a Latin wikipedia) why there isn't a Ancient Greek Wikipedia - it now seems that this has been around for seven years.

It does not seem to be very active at the moment. On reflection I'm not sure if would be a good thing if it took off. There are rather few people in the world who can write good ancient Greek and don't think creating a Wikipedia is the priority.

When someone posts on the composition subforum of textkit it is clear who wrote it. We get to know who writes good Greek and who is writing as an exercise and thus should be read first of all to see if you can spot their mistakes (my posts are all sadly in that latter category).

On a wikipedia while it is not impossible to find out who wrote what it is awkward to do so and what everyone writes is hopelessly mixed up. Hence while on some level the idea is appealing to me I don't think it is actually a good idea.
λονδον

Laurentius Mons
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Re: Ancient Greek Wikipedia

Post by Laurentius Mons »

Well, I've heard the same kind of objections made against the Latin Wikipedia, which allegedly is plagued by sub-par Latin. I haven't really used it much, so I can't tell whether that is true or not, but even if it were, I still think it's good that Latin and ancient Greek Wikipedia projects exist because a) it might show some people that these languages are not as dead as one might think and b) it offers those who like to write in Latin or Greek an easily accessible place to publish their writings and allows others to read them (with a critical eye, of course). I don't really see anything problematic about it.

daivid
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Re: Ancient Greek Wikipedia

Post by daivid »

Laurentius Mons wrote:Well, I've heard the same kind of objections made against the Latin Wikipedia, which allegedly is plagued by sub-par Latin. I haven't really used it much, so I can't tell whether that is true or not, but even if it were, I still think it's good that Latin and ancient Greek Wikipedia projects exist because a) it might show some people that these languages are not as dead as one might think and b) it offers those who like to write in Latin or Greek an easily accessible place to publish their writings and allows others to read them (with a critical eye, of course). I don't really see anything problematic about it.
The case for a Latin Wikipedia is far stronger, Latin has a far larger community. There are loads of children's books translated into Latin while Greek has only Αρειος Ποτήρ which is the hardest Greek I have ever encountered. When there is as much comprehensible reading in AG as in Latin I will be a lot less nervous about us being spread too thinly.
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Laurentius Mons
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Re: Ancient Greek Wikipedia

Post by Laurentius Mons »

Okay, if you present this a being a choice between people writing either Greek Wikipedia articles or graded readers that are suitable for beginners and allow them to read Greek extensively, then I agree. However, I'm not sure if that's really the case. I think there are other reasons for that.

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