Hello everyone! I have just a simple question about Greek. As of late I have encountered much bewilderingly passionate praise of this enigmatic and (at least I am led to believe) most expressive of languages… for those who may be perhaps ignorant of this aforementioned praise, examples include "“I would make them all (English boys) learn English: then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honor, and Greek as a treat” Winston Churchill, “Learn Greek, it is the language of wisdom” George Bernard Shaw, "“If it is true that the violin is the most perfect of musical instruments, then Greek is the violin of human thought” Helen Keller. Most bold of all, is that Voltaire dubbed Greek “le plus beau langage de l’univers”*–not just the best language in Europe, not in the World, but in the UNIVERSE
There are many more such praises that I have found, but indeed they are too many to list here. My question is, finally, what is so majestic about this language? What is it about Greek that has made all these noble men and women of intellect gush so fervently? Can anyone elaborate on the reasons some of these intellectuals have given (such as, what Voltaire said in his Dictionnaire Philosophique, about Greek being full of vowels and compounds and so on)? Thank you all for your time and patience.
The pitch accent in terms of euphony is what distinguishes Greek from almost every modern language. Instead of stressing syllables as the Romans did and English does now, the Greeks raised and lowered the pitch of their voices on certain syllables, endowing the language with a musical quality. Poetry and prose rhythm are based on the succession of long and short syllables, which is a much more flexible system than one based on accent, for it is near impossible in a system based on accent to have a succession of five or six unstressed syllables, but in Greek a succession of five or six short or long syllables is much more easily achievable, allowing Greek poetry and prose to have much more flexibility in terms of meter.
Flexibility is a thorny issue. Some would say that Greek has a free word order, while others would say that it is more structured, but based on logical and pragmatic determinants instead of syntactic ones (See especially the work of Prof. Helma Dik, who happens to be a member of this forum).
Greek shares with German a proclivity for forming compound words. If you are interested in Greek pronunciation, see Vox Graeca by Sidney Allen.
I would suggest that Westerners have celebrated by proxy the language that produced the works of philosophy, literature, and science that they already enjoyed and venerated. As you know, other people have made similar statements about a wide variety of languages throughout history, so ‘degree of beauty’ is not something quantifiable. Think of how people talk about their lovers. What would once have been defects are soon transformed into testaments of supreme beauty, etc. In other words, idealize the Greeks and you will idealize their language.
Beyond inherent linguistic parameters, I think it is the content of ancient greek texts that has made people of all times to amaze greek litterature… The language itself is of course of great beauty, as also of dialectical - genre differentiation; furthermore, its historical evolution is apparent through a lot of sources; and all those things make greek one of the most interesting languages to learn or study. But cultural achievements of ancient greek civilization are perhaps the reason in the most prominent position for learning greek (philosophy, theater, democracy, history, poetry, architecture-sculptury-pottery… etc…). As a modern Greek myself, I am not perhaps in the position to express objectively the reason why someone may wish to learn ancient greek (not for academic reasons). I suppose loss of (morphological) case in a lot of modern languages (e.g. english, french, italian, spanish…) make a lot of people admire the structure of ancient languages, including latin, from which many modern languages are evoluted or influenced by any lingusitic aspect.
While I agree that the pitch or musical accentuation of Ancient Greek makes it distinctive in the Indo-European branch of world languages, nearly all modern languages in the Sino-TIbetan language group, spoken by nearly one third of the population of the planet, use pitch accents.
The philosopher Martin Heidegger said: “Greek language and it alone is logos.”
I often wonder if Heidegger is right, that there is something inherent in the Ancient Greek’s conception of language that make it somehow better suited for discussion of phenomenology. The purpose of language is to help us grasp the phenomenon of the world. If we take it that language itself is a phenomenon, that is, it possesses it’s own “being”, which is necessarily different than the “being” of the phenomenon language describes, Heidegger seems to contend that the Greek language is somehow inherently closer to the “being” of the phenomenon than other modern languages.
Modern philosophers often argue whether language evolves to name an existing reality, or whether it influences our conception of reality itself.
So, perhaps, from a philosophical point of view, Greek gives us a vocabulary for the expression of phenomenon that is unique.
Isn’t Swedish a pitch-accented language? And I’ve always thought that Swedish sounded kinda silly. I think the supposed euphony of languages is purely subjective.
Wow. It’s just another language; it’s not magic. I think that people claim that they think Greek is the most beautiful language because they think that is what they are expected to think. The original poster quoted Churchill. From what I’ve read, Churchill got lousy marks in Latin, much less Greek, so how would he know? It’s like the Bible and Shakespeare; lots of people have them on their bookshelves, but few people read them.
Well, if languages were women, Greek would certainly be a best bride to win. She has some of the best experience and examples of art, wisdom, and politics, but not only that she has a very melodious voice and even a very pleasant appearance to the sight. Who may ask for better?
This is just so much mystification. It seems to me Greek comes in for this for a few reasons.
As others have said, because of the quality of the Greek material that has come to us.
Because we don’t understand it well. There are still particles, say, and some facets of the verb system, which still defy consensus analysis. Anyplace there’s a lack of knowledge, people tend to fill it with their own fantasies. See the oddball theories around Sumerian for an especially clear example.
Because as we read the texts come to us slowly. When I was first starting to read Homer with something like pleasure, I noticed that sometimes the intensity of the mental images I was getting was much stronger than I get in my daily reading in English. I mean, some hero chopping off some other guy’s arm was pretty visceral to me, more so than reading the same text in English would be, or even than I get now with more Greek under my belt. Because we have to focus so closely on the texts we read — because our command of these languages is still imperfect — it makes the texts seem more powerful.
That might be true, but isn’t the pitch accent of Ancient Greek something of recent (re)discovery? I doubt Voltaire and Churchill knew anything about it.
Voltaire might have known about it — the ancient grammarians certainly discussed it. I’m not sure when people started to dig into the details and attempt to reproduce it, though.
Churchill was probably still of a generation that pronounced Greek and Latin according to the rules of English spelling and pronunciation. Notice how the particles are rendered as names in this: A particular Dialogue (from 1959).
Nonsense. A language like English is like a violin; it can be used to make the most beautiful music, or horrific screeching sounds. It all depends on who plays it.
Nonsense. A language like English is like a violin; it can be used to make the most beautiful music, or horrific screeching sounds. It all depends on who plays it.
True, too bad most users of English (myself included) are more apt to take their violin and smash it against the ground. Actually, I will admit I am fine with English. I just like Greek better!
I’m no Shakespeare, but I do have one thing in common with him; he had little Latin and less Greek, I have little Greek and less Latin. And I must admit that I prefer the language I feel most confortable with and fluent in, which for me definitely means English.
I think because I am most comfortable and fluent in English, I see only the flaws and miss any of its own beauty. Because I am not as comfortable with Greek, I see how it fills up the features that English is lacking, and I view those as beauty. Maybe…or maybe because I am so comfortable with English, I feel like I can make fun of it. It is fun to make fun of it. Maybe both.
I agree. But I think that is more generally true for all languages, rather than special to English itself.
(I would also change “It all depends on who plays it.” to “it depends on the skill/manners of who plays it”. As long as you play it with good skill it shall play well, regardless of who you are.)
Your first statement is appropriately PC, but I’m not sure one way or the other whether it’s true. It’s possible that some “primitive” languages do not have the … richness … that makes the eloquence and nuance possible that is possible with English. Most modern languages that have a respectable literature, though, sure.
As for the second statement, I agree completely. That was what I was going for.
And I must admit that I prefer the language I feel most confortable with and fluent in, which for me definitely means English.