Hello, I haven’t posted in this forum in a while, and my studies of Latin and Ancient Greek have come to a halt when I picked up Japanese, but I still plan to learn them, one day, maybe.
Anyway, I have entered into a debate with a native Greek-speaking Italian guy of Albanian origin(!) who after looking at the book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” in Ancient Greek, replied to me it is not Ancient Greek, but Katharevousa and that any modern Greek speaker would understand the language. Now, I don’t believe him, but he made a bet with me if I can find him any Greek-speaker who would agree with me.
He disregarded the article written by the translator himself and I am not sure what evidence to give him, since I don’t know any Greek speakers, of Modern or Ancient Greek. Maybe if someone posted some proof here, even just their opinion on the matter, it might convince him. Or not.
Anyway, I am more intrigued by the fact he thinks its not Ancient Greek rather than winning a bet or making a point. I read about psychology so these kinds of quirks of the human mind fascinate me.
Today (18th February) a Greek photographer sent by Eleutherotypia, the Greek newspaper, spent the afternoon doing a series of portraits. He led me to believe that I’d soon by the most-recognised Englshman in Greece: unfortunately the effect of this was somewhat undermined when I asked him if he would be buying it. “Of course not, Ancient Greek is like Chinese to us!”
From a comment to the article:
Although saddened by the fact, I find that the comment made by the photographer from “Ελευθεροτυπία” about classic Greek sounding chinese to contemorary Greeks is quite true.
Classic Greek was removed from the syllabus in high schools in the early 1980’s and there is a whole generation of young Greeks that have lost the historic continuity of their language.
I hear there are translations now of such writers as Papadiamantis and Roidis (end of 19th beginning of 20th century). I wonder what’s next…Apostolos Ioannidis
virtually all the performances of Attic drama in Greece are in modern Greek translations. I searched high and low for evidence of somebody in Greece doing drama in the original language and all I could find is a group called Theatre Erineos. Heres a sample:
I don’t know how much Greek your friend knows, but I think the first thing to raise issues would be the claim that if something is written in Katharevousa, then it would be understandable by most Greeks. That is absurd. Katharevousa is an artificial dialect of Greek, shaped in the XIX century, that had the purpose of bringing it as close as possible to the Ancient language — the name itself means “the purified [tongue]”. People had to learn it, though the distance isn’t that far as to learn directly Attic Greek. Think Koinê one further step removed. Another thing to note is that Katharevousa wrote the breathing marks and the accents just like Ancient Greek. Modern Greek lost those in 1974 in its official version (some odd books and newspapers still use them). My guess is that your friend saw the breathing marks and accents, instantly linked it to Katharevousa, and then made those dubious comments concerning the ability of Greeks to understand it if it were.
For instance this thread has some useful comments, particularly that by mwh. I really should like to read Ἅρειος Ποτήρ for the sake of it, sometime. The only thing in this world popular enough to prompt an Ancient Greek translation.
As to non-specialist Greeks speaking of Ancient Greek, I have learnt to be very suspicious having heard so much poppycock. (Obviously it’s a generalisation, though.)
