attic greek 'upsilon'

[Bereta_Eder]

If you're really interested in tracking down variations in pronounciation of Greek and you are the traveling type, I have a suggestion: Greek is pronounced differently in different parts of Greece etc, of course.
However some places were relatively isolated compared to the larger Greek populations.

Such places were Cyprus or tiny little communities really away from "civilization". One of those is the village in Mt. Olumpus which is situated in Karpathos, an island between Rhodes and Crete on the SE Aegean. The people who live were untill recently completely detached from the rest of the greek world. It is fascinating to hear them speak. They use very old syntax and grammar that has become obsolete a long time ago. Be aware though that it is very difficult to reach and you'll have to wlak in a mountain side for a LONG time.
In Cyprus it is the same. People of Pontiac origin the same. Actually all diferently but all "deviate" from the "core" greek speaker that's why I say "the same".
It might be interesting to go or search literature on this.
A propos, in Olympus in Karpathos they say f the same but drag their epsilons. Of course you'll have to sepnd your whole life studying those things to come to a conclusion.

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by The Andy-Man
But we can tell, or at least guess, how letters where pronounced from roman transliterations. why spell it 'ph' and not 'f' if it was an 'f'?

that's a good point. but translitarations of greek to roman ar notorious for mishaps and mistakes. (actually a reason for the filiokve misunderstanding ). Did they write every Ö as an ph? Maybe you should also try the arabic translitarations of greek texts for a more global approach.

Modern greek is a different language entirley, like italian is from latin, and english is from old english.

The comparison with english is a bit mute since they dont span the same time frame at all. Basically english derives heavily from french. A more simplified french maybe. You have a point about Italian and modern Greek though certaintly altough IMO the link has been much stronger in the latter.

[The Andy-Man]

Originally posted by paiktis22
If you're really interested in tracking down variations in pronounciation of Greek and you are the traveling type, I have a suggestion: Greek is pronounced differently in different parts of Greece etc, of course.
However some places were relatively isolated compared to the larger Greek populations.

Such places were Cyprus or tiny little communities really away from "civilization". One of those is the village in Mt. Olumpus which is situated in Karpathos, an island between Rhodes and Crete on the SE Aegean. The people who live were untill recently completely detached from the rest of the greek world. It is fascinating to hear them speak. They use very old syntax and grammar that has become obsolete a long time ago. Be aware though that it is very difficult to reach and you'll have to wlak in a mountain side for a LONG time.
In Cyprus it is the same. People of Pontiac origin the same. Actually all diferently but all "deviate" from the "core" greek speaker that's why I say "the same".
It might be interesting to go or search literature on this.
A propos, in Olympus in Karpathos they say f the same but drag their epsilons. Of course you'll have to sepnd your whole life studying those things to come to a conclusion.

I think there are villages in scicily aswell

I am interested, as i said, i have been looking on all these sites etc etc. I don't think we can ever 'know', but the scholars have done alot of work for us on this from transliterations etc, and i think those are the best evidence.

[Bereta_Eder]

Their work has been amazing. English french and german scholars have done wonders for the reasearch of ancient Greek culture and at a time when there was no "Greece". However their "drawback" IMO is that many times they were based solely on what was relevant to them. It's like analyzing something without doing a field study and dirive points from there as well.
Such studies have been done in recent decades though but one has to seek them out.

[Keygen]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

First of all, it's Mongolian, not Mongolic.

Secondly, Mongolia never made any English-speaking countries its *****, so it's rather silly to use it as an analogy to the Turkish language that was forcibly pushed on the weak Greeks.

This guy is actually smart!

He can't distinguish an irony from literal sense

Not sure where your original comment fits in this thread.
A guy asks of what is the pronunciation of the Greek letter Y in Attic dialect and you come up with the intelligent trolling about modern Greek language.

Congratulations

[Keygen]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

I'm not completely trolling. The Turkish occupation did indeed have a great effect on the modern Greek language

So did the Roman occupation. It is a natural thing. What you suggested with your previous post though, about being easier to learn Turkish, is that the Turskish language affected the Greek one which is not actually true, since only Turkish words - some hellenized - were added but no extended grammatical adoptations made, if any. What the Turkish occupation and not language affected was that it lead to the gradual simplification of the Greek language. However after the independence there were two major streams: puristic greek which was closer to the ancient language and extencively used in publications and official documents - succesfully or not - and demotic, the most simplified version spoken by the majority of people. There was a long strife between these two but after many decates the demotic prevailed.

[Bereta_Eder]

Actually the turkish language didn't influence greek at all considering the time span of the occupation. For two reasons: turkish langauge is incredibly simpler than greek.(no female/male gender for example) Thus the inlfuence went the other way greek -> turkish which I think it was good for the turkish language which eventually became latin based from arabic lines based with the help of the french and ataturk's mania to belong to Europe. (thats why he even wanted to begin the turkish orthodox church in turkey after the ottoman empire had collapsed following the second greek liberation movement).
two: the languages and the people were segregated. greeks couldnt speak turkish and turks couldnt speak greek albeit some exceptions which were merchants, scholars (very few during the ottoman occupation), diplomats etc.

If you want to see the amount of turkish words in the greek vocabulary they are insignificant. Just opening a greek dictionary and count the words from turkish origin is enough. of course even those few words have now been hellenized so I think it is part of us now. Interestingly enough most of them are in greek slang.

[Bereta_Eder]

kai to amerikanaki pou to steilane iaponia synehizeri na ton pairnei asystooooolos. kalitera, afou kamia yiaponeza den tou ka8etai me tetoia mouri

[Drake Tungsten]

I love you guys.

[Bereta_Eder]

I know

[Bereta_Eder]

Forgot a very interesting part about the pure versus the demotic language. This has nothing to do with any kind of occupation Keygen, language evolved naturally untill the "purist experiment". We were basically victims of the rampant Phillelinism (=love for Greece) that was spreading like wild fire across Europe at the time.

One of the main philosophical currents of Europe at that time was the theory that Europeans could hope to achieve the thought levels of ancient Greeks only if they spoke ancient Greek. (laughable now but they beleieved it then) Thus many european intellectuals started learning it. Of course it was impossible for their populations to start speaking ancient Greek since their languages were far too different.

However in Greece being the continuators of the Greek language, the "experiment" of reverting back the language close to its ancient Greek roots was not an utopia. It could be done. Luckily the pionneers of the evolution vs preservation of the Greek language prevailed and we have a language that is the product of 2,500 years of continous evolution instead of the "purist" one. A very wise decision as far as I am concerned. The "purist" version would have reverted back to old forms of syntax and grammar (since words, verbs and the articles are virtually the same in ancient and modern greek - hence keeping their noematic depth - that's a difference beween italian and modern greek) instead of just letting the language continue its natural evolution.

As a side not that phillelinistic current was responsible for the petition to include Greek as the national language of the then new born US.

[The Andy-Man]

As a side not that phillelinistic current was responsible for the petition to include Greek as the national language of the then new born US.

personaly, i think ancient greek should be taught as second language to every school child. Never hurts to have an intelectualy language, especially when all the difinitive literature is written in it.

[Bereta_Eder]

If this can be done not in the expense of other things like new technologies classes and other things that are important in today's world I agree.

[Ancyrean]

Gia sas, paidia (Hi guys)

I don't speak ancient Greek but I have the Oxford Classical Greek Dictionary, and centring on Attic Greek, it concurs that upsilon (Y) is to be pronounced as the french u, or the German ue...Also:

ita (H) is long e (like AIr),
ai (alpha-iota) 's loke whwn you say "hIGH"
au (alpha upsilon) like hOW
ei (epsilon iota) like in fiancEE
oi (omicron iota) like in bOY
ou (omicron upsilon) like in pOOl
eu (epsilon upsilon) like "bELt in Cockney" (this should be something like "aey", if I'm guessing correctly

Originally posted by paiktis22
Actually the turkish language didn't influence greek at all considering the time span of the occupation. For two reasons: turkish langauge is incredibly simpler than greek.(no female/male gender for example) Thus the inlfuence went the other way greek -> turkish which I think it was good for the turkish language which eventually became latin based from arabic lines based with the help of the french and ataturk's mania to belong to Europe. (thats why he even wanted to begin the turkish orthodox church in turkey after the ottoman empire had collapsed following the second greek liberation movement).
two: the languages and the people were segregated. greeks couldnt speak turkish and turks couldnt speak greek albeit some exceptions which were merchants, scholars (very few during the ottoman occupation), diplomats etc.

I have lived in Greece (Thessaloniki) for 3 years, and personally I was astonsihed to find out the number of Turkish words in everyday spoken Greek...It is also true that there are words of modern Greek origin (many fish names, for example) in Turkish and that words of ancient Greek origin from science and technology surely made its way into Turkish. But in terms of spoken language, the direction is the other way round...Not only many names of foods, but even swearwords and surnames (the ones ending with "-oglou" for example, oglu in Turkish means "son of", so "demirtzoglou" for example means son of the ironsmith, "karamanlis" means a guy from the town of Karaman (-li is the suffix in Turkish for designating an origin), Karagiorgo means a guy named Giorgo who had dark complexion, etc, etc)...

The reformation of the Turkish language, which is of Altaic origin, not Indo-European or Semitic, was more about Turkifying it rather than enriching with Greek words (a process similar to the Greekification of the Greek language after Greek independence as you describe here).

Another misperception is that people didnt speak each other's language when Turks and Greeks lived together. After the population exchange of 1923-24, hudreds of thousands of Turks and Greeks moved to their motherlands, and when they arrived they spoke the language of the country they left as good as their mother tongue. I have personally met many old people who, as sons and daughters of refugees, understood Turkish just fine when I spoke it. This "abomination" disturbed the "native" Greeks so much that they called the newcomers "Turkosphoroi" (seed of the Turks) in transparent despise.

The phenomenon is true for both Turks and Greeks, though. If you think of Greeks, the first generation of refugees from Turkey were perfectly literate in Turkish. The second generation that grew up in Greece understood it (as it was spoken at home by their parents), and the third generation lost it completely. The same happened with Turks from Greece, they were perfectly literate in Greek. Not only this, in areas of high mix of communities, neigbours understood eachothers language if not speak it too.

If you want to see the amount of turkish words in the greek vocabulary they are insignificant. Just opening a greek dictionary and count the words from turkish origin is enough. of course even those few words have now been hellenized so I think it is part of us now. Interestingly enough most of them are in greek slang.

Well, this is not exactly true, the number of Turkish words in spoken Greek is hardly just a few, and actually somebody did the counting. Maybe this link would prove interesting in illustrating this. That list, with english explanations, is aimed to collect the COMMON words, and apart from recognising the words of Greek origin in Turkish, you guys will no doubt see that the amount of words from Turkish is enough to prove my point.

http://ns.foto.hut.fi/~arzu/GreekTurkish.html

There is also a sublink there to an article in Ta Nea newspaper, but unfortunately only in Greek. The author, Iraklis Milas, is a Greek from Istanbul who spent his academic life on the similarities of Turks and Greeks.

[http://ta-nea.dolnet.gr/neaweb/neafi...660&m=N24&aa=1

I believe it is approppriate for me to make another point here. My purpose here is not to assert that this or that language is superior to one another. Nor is it to determine which language is "stronger". This is completely irrelevant, and I do apologise in advance for any such misunderstanding. I have always thought of the common words that you find there as a strong link that binds us, that proves how close we are culturally. It shows that we have nothing to fear from being similar. I have many friends from Greece, and I really must emphasise very strongly here that the stereotype about Turks and Greeks at each others throat are plainly UNTRUE. There cannot be any other two people that can make better friends on an individual level. I know this from personal experience, when I had Greek friends while I was studying in Britain, and also when I was in Greece. Therefore, please view my remarks under that light.

Cheers

[Bereta_Eder]

Welcome Ancyrean!
I don't have something to add to what you say, I agree with it. I just pointed out that in a vocabulary of some 50 millions Greek words the 481 of turkish origin that can be found now in Greek, or the 5,000 common words that existed in the past, are not that many.
It is also true about the Karas and oglou and I'm glad to see you think the same that many of the other Turkish words that survived can be found in slang Greek. Actually I'll have you know that many of the words of Turkish origin found in Greek slang are considered particularly Greek and particularly cool/nasty! Others such as Barberis in Greek, Barber in Turkish, as I see in the website, have been gradually phased out and replaced with the former Greek onces, Koureas or Kometis in this instant.