Talk:Greek language

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Catearmi (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Zoe1117.

Additional Thoughts

article looks great. Spelling and grammar all looks good too. One thought would be for you to possibly add maybe a phonetic chart? I would say the oly other big thing would be to add a few more citations and references. Other than that it looks very nice. Zoe1117 (talk) 23:44, 29 July 2017 (UTC) zoe1117

Thanks to Catearmi (talk · contribs) for these [1] high-quality reference additions. I just have one question: The reference ""HarvardKey Login". academic.eb.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2017-08-01." is behind a members-only login at Harvard. Could you please provide the actual title details of the document you are referring to? Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:04, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

It would be nice to have dates when the various forms of Greek language were active. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cpa-db (talk • contribs) 23:53, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Official status?

Hi guys, Is there a reason for no official status to be listed in the infobox? Greek is most certainly the official language of Greece and is recognized nominally in Cyprus alongside Turkish. Where is this in the infobox, as it is in the infobox for all other official/recognized languages by all sovereign states (as well as nations, etc.)

Thanks and hope we can figure this out.

Neddy1234 (talk) 04:20, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

The infobox you are looking for is at Modern Greek, which is the specific variety of Greek which is the official language. This article is about the overarching concept of Greek language, which includes many other varieties. ResultingConstant (talk) 15:56, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Number of words

Hi,
sorry for phlogging a not so healthy looking horse, but isn't the sentence "Greek is a language distinguished by an extensive vocabulary" not so much wrong as not even wrong, i.e. meaningless? One might as well say that "Greek has a vocabulary". Here's an article on some researchers cataloguing German words: https://www.welt.de/kultur/article167820246/Es-gibt-viel-mehr-deutsche-Woerter-als-wir-wussten.html . At present, the count stands at ca. 23 million words actually used, and that is excluding i.e. the ca. 20 milllion terms for chemical compounds. One might, grumpy on monday, add that German has German words for many Greek loanwords ("Wirtschaft" for 'economy', etc. etc.), giving German a wider register ... But this is not to say that German has more words than Greek, or any other language, but that counting words is futile, like counting numbers to see which country has the highest number.
Wouldn't the paragraph be better if that curious sentence was simply deleted?
T 88.89.217.90 (talk) 20:28, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Recent disruption

An anon editor has been edit-warring an uncited fringe claim into the infobox that Greek is a "language isolate". Just to clarify that this will of course be reverted again. There's really nothing to discuss about it, per WP:V, as there is not the slightest doubt about the Indo-European ancestry of Greek anywhere in the relevant literature. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:13, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Anonymous user's replies

Hello, I am the anonymous user who "claims that Greek is a language isolate". I am Greek in origin and, since I naturally speak Greek, I can explain how I came to this conclusion since this is a discussion page. This can be historically and linguistically proven. The Sesklon culture was the first advanced civilization in Europe and the first Pre-Indo-European people in 7.150 B.C.E and the Cycladitic civilisation the third one. They both spoke languages closely related to Proto-Greek. So Greek peoples came in Greece at 3.000 B.C.E deriving from the upper Hellenic tribes. So the Hellenic languages can be classified as following:

Hellenic languages

Sesklon language, Cycladitic language, Greek language, Macedonian language(?).

Furthermore, there are many words not classified as Indo-European and cannot be classified as Tyrsenian or Kartvelian for all the exact historical reasons.

For example, the Greek verb "fthino" which means to end is classified as Hellenic. Plus, Greek is the only language that ends with not all the consonants except "n", "r" or "s", etc. 5.144.209.20, Talk:Greek language (edit) Revision as of 14:34, 26 May 2019.

Wikpedia isn't the venue for your speculation. Wikipedia is based on reliable sources, that is, experts in the field of historical linguistics and the place of the Hellenic languages within the history of European languages. The experts are unanimous that the Hellenic languages lie incontrovertibly within the Indo-European language family. Fringe "scientists" are ignored in the face of the overwhelming flood of scientifically demonstrated fact just as the crackpots who claim that the earth is flat are ignored. Your opinion "as a native speaker" is not a reliable source. Our personal opinions count for nothing in Wikipedia. --Taivo (talk) 15:44, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

My conclusion is based on Sesklon toponymic findings dating back to 7.000 B.C.E, study of the Greek language's structure, George Babiniotis', one of the best historical linguists who, also, has written a lot of Greek dictionaries, book "A brief history of the Greek language" and many other historical facts which can lead anyone to the conclusion that the Greek language is not Indo-European, such as the arrival of colonizers from Chalkida, Euboia, Greece to Italy and how the formed the now widely used Latin alphabet and the lend of more than a million Greek words, the conquest of Great Alexander who systematically lent a really large amount of words to the Armenians and Indo-Iranians, the foundations of a large number of colonies from Iberia to Phrygia and Anatolia which led to the lending of a few more hundred words to the Celts, Vasconics, Phrygians (this is a very special occasion, because Phrygians borrowed some of the grammar and syntax), Illyrians and Armenians and the fact that the Greek tribes had already established advanced civilizations even way before the Sumerian settlements in Sumer and Akkad. Greeks have an isolated tribe since time immemorial and all the rest are just conclusions or opinions that cannot be verified of misplaced. 5.144.209.20, Talk:Greek language (edit) Revision as of 14:34, 26 May 2019.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.177.124.195 (talk • contribs)

Sorry, but this is really too confused to respond to. But in any case, the main thing you still fail to understand is: it doesn't even matter whether your arguments are correct (which, incidentally, they are not.) What matters is that in order to get any of this into a Wikipedia article, you'd need to be able to cite reliable sources. Actual, published academic references by professional linguists that have proposed these ideas. Of course, you haven't got those references. Without them, you're really just wasting your own time as much as ours by arguing here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:13, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

I do not need any "academic sources" to prove my conclusion to is proven by history itself and I think that you, Future Perfect at Sunrise, should study more about my language or how Greek helped your language to develop. 5.144.209.20, Talk:Greek language (edit) Revision as of 14:34, 26 May 2019.

But if you want any academic sources Demoule, Jean-Paul; Perlès, Catherine (1993). "The Greek Neolithic: A New Review". Journal of World Prehistory, here you go. I can upload more if you want. 5.144.209.20, Talk:Greek language (edit) Revision as of 14:34, 26 May 2019.

"Future Perfect at Sunrise", do you speak Greek? ("Μέλλον Τέλειο στην Ανατολή του Ηλίου", ομιλείς την Ελληνική γλώσσα;)

The Demoule source you give says nothing about language. --Macrakis (talk) 16:35, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes it does, I own the book.

The Sesklon language, the Cycladitic language, the Greek language and Ancient Macedonian perhaps are classified as Hellenic and not Indo-European. So Greek as the only survivor of the family is a language isolate.

5.144.209.20, Talk:Greek language (edit) Revision as of 14:34, 26 May 2019.

One fringe source compared to, literally, thousands of reliable scholarly sources is baloney. You can find crackpots who write books that the earth is flat, too. We ignore them because they do not reflect the rock-solid, irrefutably proven, majority opinion of scholars. --Taivo (talk) 19:12, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Let's not forget he hasn't even got as much as a single fringe source. The only source he cited so far is quite reliable, but simply doesn't say anything even remotely related to what he claims. Macrakis was of course quite correct about that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:15, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

I just read the article myself and there is not a single, solitary word about language or linguistics. Not one word. Future and Macrakis are right, it's a reliable source for archeology, etc., but says nothing about language or linguistics. --Taivo (talk) 19:21, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Anon claims to "own the book". But it's a journal article, not a book. --Macrakis (talk) 20:06, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Eyynvika listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Eyynvika. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:31, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Official status, again

I think listing the countries in which Greek has official status in the infobox is warranted, on the following grounds:

• The information is useful to our readers.
• This is the main go-to article for the Greek language. It has significantly higher page views than Modern Greek. The latter is a more technical article, and many readers will not read that article.
• The argument that this information belongs in Modern Greek is not an argument against including it here. There is no reason this information cannot be included here if it is also included in Modern Greek. It's not an either-or situation.
• Most other language articles, including those of languages with a similarly long recorded history and distinction between "modern" and "ancient" forms (e.g. Persian language, Hebrew language) have similar information included in the infobox. The fact that a language has ancient and modern forms is not an argument against including this information. With this logic, we should also be removing the number of speakers, but obviously that would be nonsensical and unhelpful to our readers. It's the same with official status. Khirurg (talk) 14:36, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

I think the problem is that there is too much overlap between the two articles Greek language and Modern Greek. I am not familiar with the history behind the creation of two articles, but I will suggest that either the two articles should be merged, or the content of the two articles should be split in a way that reduces the overlap. It is a bit odd that there are "two languages" that both are official in Greece and Cyprus etc. and are identical. Not a big issue, though. --T*U (talk) 14:51, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

This article isn't about a modern language, it's about the history of a speech form. Modern language recognition doesn't recognize ancient forms, but only modern forms. Hungary does not recognize Attic or Byzantine Greek as official minority languages since the number of people who speak them as a native language is zero. Hungary recognizes only Modern Greek as official (whether overtly labelled that or not in the law). The "official minority status" is not relevant to this article because this article isn't about the modern language, but about the language trajectory over time. --Taivo (talk) 15:15, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

No, this article is very much about a language, not the history of a speech form, whatever that means. It's Greek language, not History of the Greek language. Hungary, and several other countries, recognise the Greek language as a minority language. The official status is very much relevant, and withholding this information on weird technicalities is unencyclopedic and unhelpful to our readers. Khirurg (talk) 16:46, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Could anyone please enlighten me about the scope of this article as compared to Modern Greek? --T*U (talk) 17:00, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

That's exactly the problem. "Greek language" means two different things: The entire range of the Greek language from Mycenean to Modern and just Modern. To say that Hungary recognizes "the Greek language" and then make that recognition extend to the entire history of the Greek language is utterly stupid. IF this article only covered the Modern Greek language, then that would be fine, just like English language only covers the modern language and there is a separate article for History of the English language. This article should be called History of the Greek language (the current History of Greek article should be folded into this article) and then Modern Greek could then be called Greek language and the nomenclature problem is solved. But User:Khirurg's argument is ridiculous that Hungary recognizes the language of Aristotle as a minority language. Khirurg should spend his time fixing this article mess instead of trying to push the ridiculous notion that modern recognition involves all historical varieties of Greek. --Taivo (talk) 17:21, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

But User:Khirurg's argument is ridiculous that Hungary recognizes the language of Aristotle as a minority language. Straw men, taunting, and trolling, as per the usual M.O. Anyway, I won't waste time arguing with Taivo, since everyone here knows how pointless that is. Instead, the only way to resolve this is with wider community input. Khirurg (talk) 17:28, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

RfC

Should the infobox contain official usage information, as shown here [2]? Khirurg (talk) 17:30, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Support, per my arguments above. Khirurg (talk) 17:37, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

• No. This is a gross simplification of the real problem, which I have stated above, but that User:Khirurg chooses to ignore. Here is what needs to happen to make sense of this tangle of articles and the ridiculous claim that historical Greek is a recognized minority language of Hungary:

• Modern Greek is the real language that countries recognize, so it should be renamed "Greek language".
• History of Greek should be folded into this article since it's nothing more than an outline.
• This article should be renamed "History of Greek]].

Problem solved. The population figures and official recognition figures still point to "Greek language", an article on the contemporary language, but not to this article on history. This article on history of the language is properly named. --Taivo (talk) 17:35, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

What a total load of malarkey. What an utterly ridiculous and convoluted "solution" to a "problem" that only exists in your head. Khirurg (talk) 17:39, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

• No. There is no need to have this information duplicated. The article on the language that is official in present-day Greece and Cyprus is at Modern Greek, and that's where the related infobox stuff should go. This here is a diachronic article about the development of Greek through the ages, and things like official status, which apply only to the last few decades, are off-topic here. This treatment is intentionally different from most other language articles, because Greek just has that exceptionally complex history and an ancient stage that is of equal or greater prominence even for present-day readers than its modern stage; that's what justifies the split into several articles. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:38, 22 August 2019 (UTC)