Commentary on the Greek voicemod.... [Archive]

hellenes

12-06-2006, 19:14

I don't see any need to really discuss it really. Not that we won't - but we have done it already. We have one opinion, and a very specific group of people have another one that differs in a few places from ours (not that many really) but who are incredibly and feverently opposed to the differences.

As a mod, we are thrilled as we have exactly what we hoped for: someone who is greek and speaks modern greek and thus gets us an accent as close as we can hope, someone who has a very good voice for the project, and someone who is willing to use the pronunciations virtually the entire academic world believes the ancient greeks used. If there are disagreements about that or if some folks don't like it, please keep this in mind: given what we read and can take from what we think are the best and most unbiased sources, we did the best we could. Plus, we actually *did* it. If someone wants another version, they can make their own.

But thats my query:
Why the greek academic community has a 180 degrees stance to all the others?
Why Greek kids are being taught one way and NONE from abroad reacts?
If we are wrong why none from the global academic community has not even stated anything to his Greek colleages?
Im baffled with the whole thing since its like we live in a ghetto with no communication with the outside world....

khelvan

12-06-2006, 19:21

If we are wrong why none from the global academic community has not even stated anything to his Greek colleages?
Im baffled with the whole thing since its like we live in a ghetto with no communication with the outside world....Quite frankly, it isn't a big deal if people want to believe that an ancient language nearly mirrors their own modern language. This isn't the sort of thing that a human rights group brings to the world stage and protests.

I mean honestly, aside from stuffy academics in their ivory towers (just kidding, Dave :), who really cares if the language is being taught correctly in just one country? Besides, even if they did, I doubt it would be widely talked about within Greece itself.

I would imagine the thought process is "we don't care what they teach, they're free to believe whatever they want." Protesting things isn't the way of academics.

keravnos

12-06-2006, 19:29

Well, seems like the welcoming comitee is here. Hellenes, you are wrong. It's ok, but you still are. Since I expected this all along, I will now show you the thread where I discuss this thing.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=66990

I cannot convince you if you can't accept what Learned people from Outside of Greece, and many Greek scholars have proven time after time to be true.

Shigawhire WILL release a guide for voicemod making shortly. You can use it as a guide to make a modern greek voicemod and let your hoplites shout..." ΠΑΝΩ ΤΟΥΣ ΠΑΛΗΚΑΡΙΑ" and " AEPA!!!" to your hearts' content.

As for involving the Greek government, well, it is your choice really. You can call an ΕΙΣΑΓΓΕΛΕΑ (DA) to tell him that I am a traitor and a ΓΡΑΙΚΥΛΟΣ and basically whatever you want. I consider myself a Greek to the bone.

I will respond that it is a documented fact that the Ancients spoke the way they wrote. We still write, mostly the same way, but the way we pronounce it has changed. It has become easier to speak Greek. 2278 years have passed since the time this intellectual creation known as a PC game took place. To actually believe that Greek language hasn't changed in that period of time is well, wrong.

I will also tell him that I feel that it has been a mistake to ONLY concentrate the teaching of Ancient greek in so far as syntax and grammar is concerned. That we need to be taught the ancient PRONOUNCIATION, of it too, because in this way, we will have a whole picture of the way they were. Otherwise, well meaning, or not so well meaning :laugh4: people will go about making accusations.

And to close my argument, I will inform him that because of this game, people will deffinitely know more about Greece. They can't avoid it. Even if playing for the glory of Rome, they will still have to conquer 2/3 of the map that ARE Greek. That this mod is talking about the GREATEST era of our nation, Hellenistic one. That anyone/everyone playing EB will come out of it, KNOWING about Ancient Greece. Maybe, just maybe even wanting to find out more. And that is the whole point of the mater, isn't it. Knowing. Desire for knowledge about Greece. In the words of the immortal Isokrates" ΕΛΛΗΝΕΣ ΚΑΛΟΥΜΕΝ ΤΟΥΣ ΤΗΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗΝ ΠΑΙΔΕΙΑΝ ΜΕΤΕΧΟΝΤΕΣ", or "we call Greeks those who partake in the Greek education", or "We call Hellenes(Greeks) those who immerse themselves in Greek culture". Hearing Ancient Greek as they were spoken (most scientists think so, GREEKS INCLUDED), can be pretty immersive, if you ask me. :idea2:

Hellenes, we are a small country which has a HUGE shadow. This shadow is history. We can either ignore it an play it safe in our small little room (crying that the whole world outside is wrong and unfair), or let the light shine in our small land and in our soul. Accept the legacy of our Ancestors and try to become ALEXANDERS not just another civil servant.

As an EPIROTIS, both my grandfathers fought in the 1940's war, including one of my grandmothers, she was one of those (ΓΥΝΑΙΚΕΣ ΤΗΣ ΠΙΝΔΟΥ) which carried guns and ammo to the troopers and then joined the resistance to fight the Germans and all that which probably doesn't interest you. Fathers' side, Grandfather's brother was an Lt and died at Smyrna in 1922. Mother's side, her father came from Kerasous, Pontos. I am Greek and proud of it. My family has shed blood for all of us to be where we are, and how we are today. Doubt whatever you will, but NOT THAT.

For anything else, please refer to my sig.

Teleklos Archelaou

12-06-2006, 19:29

True, it really very very rarely matters. This is one of the only places you'll probably find this sort of possibility for the two sides to come much into contact. An interesting point khelvan. When you are just concerned with reading it, it doesn't much matter. Especially if the only times you read it aloud are with other people who learned just like you did (whether we're talking about one group or the other).

hellenes

12-06-2006, 19:32

Politics.

The Greek buildup of the Erasmus straw-man was politically motivated. Governments and people do not have any desire to change things they WANT to believe to be true. In many cases things get subverted due to politics.

This happens in every country. Governments allow the teaching of things that are untrue. In the US this happens, though less frequently than in the past.

Now I only mean the above as an explanation. I do not want this to devolve into a political discussion. Any political discussion will get moved to the Backroom.

You describe the Hellenic Democracy as a totalitarian regime that has imposed a ulimatum of established approach on the Ancient Greek pronounciation not allowing any different voice to be heard...
Just to inform you the Junta of colonels has fallen since 1974 and we have freedom of speech in wich ANYONE can express his opinion....
I cant believe that teh entire academic community in Greece is under hostage and there is NONE from the lowest high school teacher to a Athens Univercity professor to correct our possible wrong doing...

khelvan

12-06-2006, 19:42

You describe the Hellenic Democracy as a totalitarian regime that has imposed a ulimatum of established approach on the Ancient Greek pronounciation not allowing any different voice to be heard...No I didn't, I said governments allow the teaching of things that are untrue.

Here in the US, school districts are being allowed to teach creationism as "science." Again, I don't want people to start a political debate about that, it is just an example.

Countries that allow free speech are no less at risk of having untrue things taught in their schools than countries that are totalitarian.

Please direct me to where I said that the government of Greece was totalitarian.

Moros

12-06-2006, 20:08

I can't come up with a country where false things aren't been teached. I can recall a lot of stuff from history or science class that weren't true. Sometimes because what is being teached is outdated, sometimes they keep teaching false stuff because it is more interesting or romantic or just to widely spread,... For example gravity. We learned it was a force and all that blabla, cf Newton. While we should learn that gravity isn't a force, cf Einstein. Or when we learned about Galileo Galilei, they made it seem as it was the number one enemy of the pope (quite the contrary). Or during my latin class, Romans are presented to be the only "civilized" men except for the Greeks who were somewhat civilized. The rest would have been real barbarians, like Conan (not the silly one with the red hair). And you know that Celts, Persians,... were no Neanderthals.
It's not just Greece - and Greece isn't a totalitarian regime (as far as I know) - it's anywhere, In every country. From Japan to Iran and from Honduras to the US. And yes Greece is one of them, just like Belgium.

keravnos

12-06-2006, 20:10

You describe the Hellenic Democracy as a totalitarian regime that has imposed a ulimatum of established approach on the Ancient Greek pronounciation not allowing any different voice to be heard...
Just to inform you the Junta of colonels has fallen since 1974 and we have freedom of speech in wich ANYONE can express his opinion....
I cant believe that teh entire academic community in Greece is under hostage and there is NONE from the lowest high school teacher to a Athens Univercity professor to correct our possible wrong doing...

And here I am expressing my freedom, heck I even got a sig pronouncing that freedom, and you go asking for the Government to intervene. Freedom is for the others too you know.

As a Greek citizen, I voted and will still vote. I can also speak for the Greek Academic community. THEY ACCEPT ERASMIAN ACCENT. Most of them do, a lot have mixed opinion about it. I can speak for one such Philologist who spent 35 years employed in the Uni of Ioannina, that is my mother. I learnt early on, how the scientific community perceived of the ERASMIAN accent and more importantly WHY.

Truth of the matter is that the professor you had in high school didn't bother teaching you Erasmian accent. He just concentrated on syntax and grammar.

khelvan

12-06-2006, 20:20

oudysseos

12-06-2006, 20:55

My Greek is poor (don't get anywhere without Liddell-Scott) so maybe I'm not entitled to an opinon, but my grounding in logic and forensics is top notch.
Hellenes, you have made a number of assertions. Would you care to document them?
1. Please to post links to sources showing the polls taken about the opinions of Greek academics as to how Hellenistic Greek should be pronounced. The issue of whether a minortiy of Greek academics ( if there indeed is one) are correct about an issue that a majority of other academics seem to be in agreement on can then proceed in a more discliplined fashion. Books citations will do, I have access to an excellent collegiate library and a very good classics prof.
2. And how do you respond to the fact that the man making this horrendous mistake about greek pronounciation is himself Greek? I have read many of your posts from other threads, and the crux of your argument is the assertion that only Greeks know how to pronounce hellenistic era greek. Leaving aside, for a moment, the fact that your assertion is unconvincing to most people on the forum, if we do believe your claim that only Greeks can pronounce greek, then you can see that the mod team took you very seriously indeed.

Oh and I would appreciate not reading anything more about 'drunk germans' and so on. That offends me.

Thanks so very much to the guy who actually did the work, it must have taken a long time.

hellenes

12-06-2006, 20:58

And here I am expressing my freedom, heck I even got a sig pronouncing that freedom, and you go asking for the Government to intervene. Freedom is for the others too you know.

As a Greek citizen, I voted and will still vote. I can also speak for the Greek Academic community. THEY ACCEPT ERASMIAN ACCENT. Most of them do, a lot have mixed opinion about it. I can speak for one such Philologist who spent 35 years employed in the Uni of Ioannina, that is my mother. I learnt early on, how the scientific community perceived of the ERASMIAN accent and more importantly WHY.

Truth of the matter is that the professor you had in high school didn't bother teaching you Erasmian accent. He just concentrated on syntax and grammar.

Allow me to disagree with you.
1. If you READ my posts carefully youll see that I never asked our government to intervene...I just asked if WE are right why the government doesnt do anything to enlighten the rest of the world...OR if we are wrong why theis wrong doing continues?

2. Ive been taught in high school NOT only syndax and grammar...We had to READ ancient texts out LOUD and how did we read them?
ANDRA MOI ENEPE, MOYSA,. POLYTROPON...
ANDRA MI ENEPE MOUSA,. POLYTROPON...
Now how it happened that youre one of the few pupils taught the "real" pronounciation and the rest of us didnt? Do they teach students (future teachers) at the Uni at Iwannina how to teach kids ancient Greek?
Why is the Erasmian accent practically non supported in Greece? Where are the professors that accept that accent? And can you explain what you mean by some having "mixed opinion"?

3. And last can you please give me a symbol in ancient greek that symbolised the sound V...

Shigawire

12-06-2006, 21:05

1st Ive commented on the "Greek" voicemod...I havent played any celtic faction yet...and to me the supposed "ancient greek" sounded VERY much like Spanish and Portuguese...

Portuguese and Spanish did not exist in this era. Keravnos is neither Portuguese nor Spanish. I did not think it sounded similar myself..
I can understand that it would sound "different" to yourself, being hellenic.

a. Either the Greek academic community is right and everyone outside of Greece is wrong, in which case why the Greek government doesnt do anything about it?

b. Or everything that we have been taught since high school right through the higher academic study is false in which case WHY is it false? WHY none comes here to correct our wrong ways? Can you imagine if the Greek educational system taught that the earth is flat? Wouldnt anyone react to it?

Ok first, you are building up a false mythos that there are 2 groups:
1)Those inside of Greece who overwhelmingly believe modern and ancient greek were identical or indiscernable from one another.
2)Those outside of Greece who hold the belief that there are noticable differences between the ancient and modern.

This is erroneous.

Hold your horses. Let's not forget that Keravnos is Greek, and that his mother is a Classical philologist with a background in Ancient Greek.. wow - where do these people come from? Well, I guess we just happened to turn over a stone..

There are two groups of people within a society:
1)Intellectuals
2)Population
These two groups may have very different opinions on the whole, in different countries.
Keravnos' mother is in the "intellectual" group, she knows the "pulse" of academia.

The view you hold may be a majority view of the population, promulgated in miseducation. But the so-called "Erasmian" view is held as a majority view in the academic community. Your own view is a minority in Greek academia - despite its position in popular society.

it wont be as far from Ancient Greek as its believed....

Now, I don't quite get where you got the idea that Ancient and Modern Greek are so different!

Look at modern Norwegian and Norse from viking era.. HUGE difference, and only 1000 years passed! Today the people in Iceland speak an ancestor of Norse language. While we in Norway speak a very different language. We do NOT understand eachother.. we don't even want to try. We can barely read eachother languages..

Yet here you are demanding that Ancient Greek should sound identical to Modern Greek. We're talking about even MORE than 1000 years?! That's not insane? Your language, Greek, has changed FAR less in 2300 years, than Norse has changed to Norwegian in 1000 years. Your language still retains the SAME basic grammar, partly because your language has been reconstituted after Greece was ruled by the Turks for so long. Modern Norwegian does not have ANYTHING similar to the old Norse grammar.. Norse grammar is based on noun-cases like latin and greek. Modern Norwegian has no such thing..

The written Ancient Greek is tremendously similar to written Modern Greek. Some words are different of course.

Pronunciation is very different in Ancient and Modern Greek. Did this surprise you? Or does it simply shake a world view you hold? There's no way to know, since you are not postulating an alternative view.

You should be satisfied (or proud) that your language has changed so very little.. yet you think it's too much of a change...

And if you're suffering miseducation at school, I'm sorry for your country and people. If that is the case, it could be a backfiring of national sentiments due to the fairly recent cessation from the Turkish territory.

Usually when nations are formed or RE-formed, national sentiments are high, and it becomes necessary to build up the national self-image. A national theme song is composed, national poetry is suddenly being rapidly accumulated, a flag is decided upon.. Inherent in this process, a language is reconstructed.

This was the case with Israel's formation in 1947. Hebrew was a long defunct language, and the language which was reconstructed for the Hebrews was actually a Phoenician dialect. Meaning, the language modern Hebrews speak in Israel today is not true Hebrew at all, but a phoenician dialect. Still it is called "Hebrew."

And it was certainly the case with Greece's cessation from Turkey in the period of 1821-1834, that language was reconstituted from its past.

In such a process, it follows naturally that this self-image might become embellished in certain ways. One example of embellishment is national myths. Every young or reborn nation, has these national myths. Some are based on embellished stories, some are based on embellished virtues, some on language etc.

That Ancient Greeks spoke identically to Modern Greeks is of course a fallacy. I'm not even sure you disagree with this, but I'd be surprised if you did disagree. Now, the question becomes one of DEGREES. To what DEGREE did ancient sound like modern? And what linguistic process affects languages over time? I would point to you sir, that Palatalization is a crucial process which affects pronunciation of consonants. It is HERE that you do not postulate an alternative, even though you should.

To understand the view held by a majority of Greek academia, read up on the process of palatalization. Read up on "ancient greek." Talk to teachers or professors at school about the role of this process in Greek (as well as all languages).

keravnos

12-06-2006, 21:45

Allow me to disagree with you.
1. If you READ my posts carefully youll see that I never asked our government to intervene...I just asked if WE are right why the government doesnt do anything to enlighten the rest of the world...OR if we are wrong why theis wrong doing continues?

Ok, if I am wrong, forgive me. I made the conclusion and it sounded logical. Well, to answer you, the wrong continues because those who know it is wrong, don't do anything about it, or, if they do, are publicly hushed out as betrayers, soldouts, traitors, etc.

2. Ive been taught in high school NOT only syndax and grammar...We had to READ ancient texts out LOUD and how did we read them?
ANDRA MOI ENEPE, MOYSA,. POLYTROPON...
ANDRA MI ENEPE MOUSA,. POLYTROPON...
Now how it happened that youre one of the few pupils taught the "real" pronounciation and the rest of us didnt? Do they teach students (future teachers) at the Uni at Iwannina how to teach kids ancient Greek?
Why is the Erasmian accent practically non supported in Greece? Where are the professors that accept that accent? And can you explain what you mean by some having "mixed opinion"?

I read andra mi enepe mousa polytropon as well, and was a bit dumbfounded by it, as I had read why it shouldn't read like that so I asked my teacher. She told me that Erasmian accent was just an unproven theory. WELL THAT TO ME SOUNDS MORE LIKE THAT THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION IS JUST A THEORY, but I couldn't get anything else out of her. I was taught the "real" pronounciation because the one who taught me happened to be my mother. A philologist hereself much like the ones who taught you" ANDRA MI ENEPE...etc". I suppose what the Uni prof. teach theese days is much PRO ERASMIAN than anything that happened when my mother was a student there.
-Erasmian is not supported in Greece because it falls in the "Just another theory" category, not the "established fact" category. In fact everyone who speaks out against "established fact" is treated almost like an outcast. I can't mention names right now. It has been YEARS since I last spoke with Uni Profs about that. And to be frank, I wouldn't give those names if I had them. This notion that anyone accepting ERASMIAN accent is a traitor is a bit disturbing and, well, if you need to point at someone point at me. The buck stops here.

3. And last can you please give me a symbol in ancient greek that symbolised the sound V...

Sorry can't help you there. There WASN'T one. where we modern Greeks have... B(V), X, Φ, Ψ, Ξ, the ancients had B (as in Bulldog), K+h, P+h, P+s, K+s. Justme on another post reminded me of a theory that ancient Makedonians, spoke their Greek a bit differently, using Φ as your V, and quoting Φερενίκη as being written like that in Attic Greek (whereas it is known that Verenike is what the Makedonians called her) but still that is ambiguous at the least. Makedonian greek had some different sounds, but our knowledge of them is very limited. We know too much about Attic Greek, and not nearly enough about all the other dialects of the time, Dorian Greek and its' subdialects Hepirotan Greek, Makedonian Greek, even Spartan Greek.

The ones not accepting Erasmian accent point to examples like the one above, claiming it has gaps. It does. It tries to make ancient greek words sound like the sounds they made 2278+ years ago. It isn't easy, and there were A LOT of dialects back then. But the notion of having Ancient Greek sound like a mix of Cypriot Greek and Pontian Greek, well is complementing one. Both have too many Hellenistic Koine sounds to accurately portray spoken ancient Greek (NOT HELLENISTIC KOINE). I should know, I trace my ancestry in Pontos and spoke a tiny bit of Pontic as a kid.

So the basic question is this... Do you like more a big huge neon sign with "OUZO, MOUZAKA, ROOMS TO LET, RENT A DUCK" or an ancient statue, with all its little timemarks and possibly cut nose and ears, even head, that would make you wander what was...? I, would choose the statue. Because like Kolokotronis said "Γι' αυτά πολεμήσαμεν". I don't have a monopoly on truth, far from it. However, until, some better theory comes along I have to stick with the logic theorem constructed by scientists for hundreds of years now, in which ancient greek, its use and soudn fall under a unified theory. That ancients spoke what they wrote, and wrote as they spoke. Until changed by Hellenistic Koine that is. You can check for more info on wikipedia, if you want.

Teleklos Archelaou

12-06-2006, 22:01

And now continue the complaints on the twc board too about EB not listening to anyone else, a bunch of embarrassing european academics, labelling all who question them as "nationalistic freaks or whatever". All complaints from a handful of greeks on these fora. This is just sad. I will say this - if modern greeks made a voice mod of it all with their view of the pronunciations, you wouldn't have all of us showing up on their threads over and over and over and over telling them they were wrong and arrogant and etc. And I'd certainly have downloaded it and put it in my game too if we didn't have this one. It would be a lot better than nothing. But I suppose this is worse to them.

This has been the single most complained about aspect of this whole mod guys. Think about that. Since 0.72. Anyone care to suggest something else is? I doubt it.

Krusader

12-06-2006, 22:23

Well. If you don't like our voicemod you have basically two options:

1) Make your own voicemod.

2) Quit playing EB if you don't like the voicemod.

khelvan

12-06-2006, 22:43

Mikael, we've shut this discussion down long enough - now that the voice mod is out there we have to at least let people discuss it.

There are many debates about, for instance, Holocaust denial, and whether or not that small group of people who deny that it existed, or it was as severe as it was, should be responded to and their ideas refuted, or they should just be ignored. That is an ongoing debate.

I am on the side of the fence that thinks that debates should happen but only if they are tightly controlled. Facts should be presented and debate should be civil. When and if one side devolves into simple political propoganda, which does happen, it should be shut down.

I feel the same way here. Have the debate, but if it goes down the same path as all the others on this subject, I'm shutting it down.

keravnos

12-06-2006, 22:51

Keravnos, and here I would have believed based on what hellenes was saying that the entire Greek academic community was at a 180 degree difference from the world community at large. Thank you for enlightening me!

What science stands for is cold facts and what can those stand for. Simple things like the inclusion of Pneumata..., BH BH sound, all that. Herodotos called the Pashtun of today ΠΑΚΤΥΕΣ. As there was no SH sound in Ancient Greek, and -ES was added to all words especially foreign ones, Y of ancient greek must sound like the U from Pashtun, like french tu. Basically retracing proper pronounciation of Ancient Greek is so damn easy, it needn't have been debated. All can be taught to see how it evolved. It is NO rocket science.

Khelvan, sorry I missed that before. Greek scientists are no less scientists than Americans or Germans. It is just that people tend to make their own opinion the prevalent one. Be it accepted scientifically or not. And speaking PRO ERASMIAN in Modern Greece (in public) can be ugly for any potential professional advance. Here, you can understand why.

@Hellenes,
For the record, I know it sounds different. You say it sounds like Portuguese or Spanish. To my ears it sounded almost Germanic, Nordic to be precise. Of course it is neither. It is how we perceive Ancient Greeks to have spoken. No tears, No shouts. Pure facts as we can understand them. Even to my ear it sounded weird at first, and I was the one doing the recording. Hell, I lost many batches to speaking with Fff. THthth, etc. Some are still there to be heard under extreme distress.. (hint, hint).

You get used to it in time, though. It is more of an acquired taste like wine, or Expressionist art. I can understand your disliking or even hating it. I didn't do this to get voted into office. I just wanted it done right to the limits of my ability. To my mind, it is ok. You must know the adverd..." Ουδείς προφήτης στον τόπο του"..." No one can be a prophet in his homeland"

hellenes

12-07-2006, 00:06

Ok, if I am wrong, forgive me. I made the conclusion and it sounded logical. Well, to answer you, the wrong continues because those who know it is wrong, don't do anything about it, or, if they do, are publicly hushed out as betrayers, soldouts, traitors, etc.

I read andra mi enepe mousa polytropon as well, and was a bit dumbfounded by it, as I had read why it shouldn't read like that so I asked my teacher. She told me that Erasmian accent was just an unproven theory. WELL THAT TO ME SOUNDS MORE LIKE THAT THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION IS JUST A THEORY, but I couldn't get anything else out of her. I was taught the "real" pronounciation because the one who taught me happened to be my mother. A philologist hereself much like the ones who taught you" ANDRA MI ENEPE...etc". I suppose what the Uni prof. teach theese days is much PRO ERASMIAN than anything that happened when my mother was a student there.
-Erasmian is not supported in Greece because it falls in the "Just another theory" category, not the "established fact" category. In fact everyone who speaks out against "established fact" is treated almost like an outcast. I can't mention names right now. It has been YEARS since I last spoke with Uni Profs about that. And to be frank, I wouldn't give those names if I had them. This notion that anyone accepting ERASMIAN accent is a traitor is a bit disturbing and, well, if you need to point at someone point at me. The buck stops here.

Sorry can't help you there. There WASN'T one. where we modern Greeks have... B(V), X, Φ, Ψ, Ξ, the ancients had B (as in Bulldog), K+h, P+h, P+s, K+s. Justme on another post reminded me of a theory that ancient Makedonians, spoke their Greek a bit differently, using Φ as your V, and quoting Φερενίκη as being written like that in Attic Greek (whereas it is known that Verenike is what the Makedonians called her) but still that is ambiguous at the least. Makedonian greek had some different sounds, but our knowledge of them is very limited. We know too much about Attic Greek, and not nearly enough about all the other dialects of the time, Dorian Greek and its' subdialects Hepirotan Greek, Makedonian Greek, even Spartan Greek.

The ones not accepting Erasmian accent point to examples like the one above, claiming it has gaps. It does. It tries to make ancient greek words sound like the sounds they made 2278+ years ago. It isn't easy, and there were A LOT of dialects back then. But the notion of having Ancient Greek sound like a mix of Cypriot Greek and Pontian Greek, well is complementing one. Both have too many Hellenistic Koine sounds to accurately portray spoken ancient Greek (NOT HELLENISTIC KOINE). I should know, I trace my ancestry in Pontos and spoke a tiny bit of Pontic as a kid.

So the basic question is this... Do you like more a big huge neon sign with "OUZO, MOUZAKA, ROOMS TO LET, RENT A DUCK" or an ancient statue, with all its little timemarks and possibly cut nose and ears, even head, that would make you wander what was...? I, would choose the statue. Because like Kolokotronis said "Γι' αυτά πολεμήσαμεν". I don't have a monopoly on truth, far from it. However, until, some better theory comes along I have to stick with the logic theorem constructed by scientists for hundreds of years now, in which ancient greek, its use and soudn fall under a unified theory. That ancients spoke what they wrote, and wrote as they spoke. Until changed by Hellenistic Koine that is. You can check for more info on wikipedia, if you want.

If 270BC to 14AD entailed the Hellenistic period then I have no doubt that using the Classical Attic (and having the HELLENISTIC Seleucid/Ptolemaic/Makedonian troops shout it who were far from intellectual athenian elite) is the same thing as having a movie about modern Greece where actors speak the language from 1821...
By having the Hellenistic Koine in the mod you cover all the Era up until the start of Christianity so a Pontian/Cypriot dialect approach would be more appropriate instead of clining to a dying dialect as the Attic was....

As for the whole concpiracy theory of "antiErasmian" domination, you said it yourself that there is NOTHING 100% known about the pronounciation so there is NOT a solid fact which is exaggeration at best, plus having these whole network setup by the entire second grade education in Greece just to keep the masses in darkness doesnt sound that convincing...

Lastly I would like to point out that using Latin to figure out the pronounciation while being one of the major sources (due to the absence of any other way) entails many traps as nations rarely keep other nations words intact, their accents change the pronounciation so it doesnt sound like the original people spoke it...Just look at the English speaking people pronouncing Greek name today...Why wouldnt the Romans change the Greek words and pronounce them as it fitted their latin tongue....

Teleklos Archelaou

12-07-2006, 00:33

272. That's what we are trying to depict. Not a single bit of koine that we can find evidence of had become common at that time. It's just like our cities - why not put a huge first century BC city in there instead of some 272 city? Because we're trying to depict it from 272 on. Not 100 bc on.

johnmk

12-07-2006, 00:52

Obviously this is an emotional issue for hellenes . . . I would counsel his learning some much-needed tact, nevertheless. De-escalating the emotional brink is imperative to clear thinking and to convincing others.

keravnos said:

When and if one side devolves into simple political propoganda, which does happen, it should be shut down.

Isn't it better to lock people, and not threads?

khelvan

12-07-2006, 00:53

As for the whole concpiracy theory of "antiErasmian" domination, you said it yourself that there is NOTHING 100% known about the pronounciation so there is NOT a solid fact which is exaggeration at best, plus having these whole network setup by the entire second grade education in Greece just to keep the masses in darkness doesnt sound that convincing...
There is no conspiracy theory, there are only those who examine the facts and those who choose not to accept what evidence we have and instead say that nothing is proven or 100% known.

All science and history is based on examination of evidence and drawing conclusions based on these. NOTHING is 100% proven in science or history. That argument is spurious. We should not throw out the evidence we do have because it doesn't fit to someone's, or some zealous group's, world view.

There is no network, there is only public opinion and the dangers of group think. Ask Teleklos what having some of the less popular, but more accurate, views of history means to someone in his academic field. Having such views in an environment of fierce nationality only makes it worse. You need no conspiracy to have problems dealing with public opinion. It is a problem of politics.

However, feel free to deny the evidence as useful because it isn't suited to your own view, or that of the popular one in your country. Not coincidentally, the argument you make above is a common one among both Young Earth Creationists and Holocaust deniers. Draw from that what you will.

Isn't it better to lock people, and not threads?If this were possible...probably, yes.

Sarcasm

12-07-2006, 00:57

@Hellenes,
For the record, I know it sounds different. You say it sounds like Portuguese or Spanish. To my ears it sounded almost Germanic, Nordic to be precise. Of course it is neither. It is how we perceive Ancient Greeks to have spoken. No tears, No shouts.

Don't even bother with this one mate. He clearly has no idea what Spanish or Portuguese is.

And I agree with you.

MarcusAureliusAntoninus

12-07-2006, 09:21

My two cents: I took a class on ancient greek (biblical greek to be exact) and on the first day, our teacher made sure to impress apon us that knowing that greek wouldn't mean we could understand people if we went to Greece.

(On a related note: I love clicking on a HK general and hearing them yell out there name that is like thirteen sylabuls long.)

Tiberius Nero

12-07-2006, 09:59

I tried the mod yesterday and would like to congratulate whoever made the Greek voicemod. I was expecting with horror that it would be in moddern Greek accent and was indeed pleased to hear it in clear (not blurbed English-like), correct ancient Greek accent. So congratulations again!

P.S. I am a Greek myself if anyone wonders.

keravnos

12-07-2006, 11:15

That would be me Tiberius. Thank you very much for the kind words. I tried to make it sound as correct as I can, at least.

Tiberius Nero

12-07-2006, 12:13

Great work, Keravne, I knew it must have been a Greek doing the voices, because they sound very clear indeed :)

Now as to that:
Why the greek academic community has a 180 degrees stance to all the others?
Why Greek kids are being taught one way and NONE from abroad reacts?
If we are wrong why none from the global academic community has not even stated anything to his Greek colleages?
Im baffled with the whole thing since its like we live in a ghetto with no communication with the outside world....

The Greek academic community does NOT support that ancient Greek sounded like modern Greek. From the very first year in uni we were introduced to the correct way of pronounciation which does NOT 100% coincide with "Erasmian" accent. This mainly has to do with the matter of true diphthongs, since some diphthongs like "ei" and "ou", in some environments, which have been written as EI and OY after the early 4th century, were not written thus before, but as E and O respectively. So "EINAI" was actually written "ENAI" before the spelling reforms. This shows they were not actually diphthongs, but Erasmian pronounciation again for reasons of convenience makes no distinction of these.

Foreign academicians don't react, because they don't care and why should they. And again I have no idea where you get the "noone has stated anything to his Greek colleagues". They don't need to, because if you have attended 4 years of Greek uni and actually attended even 10% of the classes on linguistics, Ancient Greek and epigraphy/palaeography/papyrology, you would know that Ancient Greek sounds a whole lot different and there is good evidence to support it.

The whole pronounciation of ancient Greek in a modern Greek environment is a matter of convenience; we use the same script, the same orthography and we are just too damn lazy to learn to pronounce what is perfectly Greek to us ( ~;) ) in a way that reminds most modern Greeks of Norwegian.

I hope that helps to clear things a bit.

Shigawire

12-07-2006, 15:31

https://img125.imageshack.us/img125/5927/472imageiu0.jpg

hellenes

12-07-2006, 16:11

Great work, Keravne, I knew it must have been a Greek doing the voices, because they sound very clear indeed :)

Now as to that:

The Greek academic community does NOT support that ancient Greek sounded like modern Greek. From the very first year in uni we were introduced to the correct way of pronounciation which does NOT 100% coincide with "Erasmian" accent. This mainly has to do with the matter of true diphthongs, since some diphthongs like "ei" and "ou", in some environments, which have been written as EI and OY after the early 4th century, were not written thus before, but as E and O respectively. So "EINAI" was actually written "ENAI" before the spelling reforms. This shows they were not actually diphthongs, but Erasmian pronounciation again for reasons of convenience makes no distinction of these.

Foreign academicians don't react, because they don't care and why should they. And again I have no idea where you get the "noone has stated anything to his Greek colleagues". They don't need to, because if you have attended 4 years of Greek uni and actually attended even 10% of the classes on linguistics, Ancient Greek and epigraphy/palaeography/papyrology, you would know that Ancient Greek sounds a whole lot different and there is good evidence to support it.

The whole pronounciation of ancient Greek in a modern Greek environment is a matter of convenience; we use the same script, the same orthography and we are just too damn lazy to learn to pronounce what is perfectly Greek to us ( ~;) ) in a way that reminds most modern Greeks of Norwegian.

I hope that helps to clear things a bit.

So if I correctly understood the "EI" and "OU" is wrongly pronounced "EΪ" and "ΟΟΎ" by the foreign academic community? Like the word "ΗΠΠΕΙΣ" was written "ΗΠΠΕΣ"?
Then its wrong to pronounce it as "Hππεΐς"? So there is a disagreement at that topic?
Also is it OK for the Erasmian pronounciation to change things for its convenience (as you said) and not OK for us to do the same?
Despite Shigawire's sad attempts to make fun of me (that sadly for him lowers himself) Im not bashing anyone....Im just trying to find the truth and the reasons for the current situation in Greece....

Tiberius Nero

12-07-2006, 16:23

In "Hippeis" actually yes, in that case of the ending of third declension nouns the "ei" is not a true diphthong and this is the reason you also have the spelling ΙΠΠΗΣ (as for the title in Aristophanes' comedy). The -ei ending of verbs is actually a true diphthong on the other hand, pronounced correctly as -ei. OY as in the word meaning "no" is indeed a true diphthong correctly pronounced as "o-u". -ou as the ending of 2nd declension nouns like "theou" is not a true diphtong as per the case of -ei above. You can also actually see the Doric version of this ending as a long "o", an omega, in doric texts. "Theou" would have been written "ΘΕΟ" in Attic inscriptions before the spelling reforms. It takes a language historian to be able to tell where the diphthong is true and where not, if one doesn't have ready access to the testimony of pre 4th century inscriptions, and since all greek texts since the 4th century up to now have used pretty much the same spelling convention, in a foreign academic context, scholars don't make distinction of true and false diphthongs for reasons of convenience, because it isn't easy to tell on the fly which of the two it is.

As for whether it is ok for us to ignore the rest of the world for our convenience, I really can't say. Imo it would have been beneficiary for modern Greeks to adopt a stance of learners towards the ancient form of their language, which means to be ready to accept that it is a fundamentally different language, even though remarkably similar in more respects than any modern language is to its ancient counterpart (except Hebrew maybe). Most Greeks think that Ancient Greek is somehow part of their DNA and that simply needs to change, if more of us are indeed to learn the language in depth.

keravnos

12-07-2006, 16:36

Γειά σου και πάλι Τιβέριε!

I am very interested in your views about the ancient GR voicemod. If you have some time and feel like it, do check the samples. I know I have made mistakes. Some were intentional, like the incorrect spelling of fricative F (which ancient Greek didn't have), when Hellenic speaking units flee, yet most must have slipped under the radar. I would love to get the ancient greek voicemod 100% correct, if I can.

Thanks again for setting the record straight!!!

Shigawire

12-07-2006, 16:38

The "Erasmian" pronunciation has always been a strawman that have been set up to be attacked, because the ancient pronunciation agreed upon today is a much more refined one, as Tiberius notes. Not the system from the 1500s that so many tend to refer to.
The Erasmian is very similar to the one agreed upon today, but not 100% similar.. For the voicemod, we did not use the pure Erasmian (1500s) pronunciation, but a modern perception.

If you have great difficulty seeing how this is even possible, miseducation occurs even today, in the best of countries as well as worst.
It depends on what kind of school you go to. Basic school will most likely teach you such myths, while higher education will tend to have a more refined view.
It's typically in basic schools where group delusions or historical myths persist.

Tiberius Nero

12-07-2006, 16:42

Ok, Keravne, can you tell me which files to look for the samples in? I will do so when I find some time and get back to you.

Shigawire

12-07-2006, 17:03

Tiberius Nero

12-07-2006, 17:18

Thanks for the vote of confidence; I will look into it and let you know, if I find anything amiss. :D

NeoSpartan

12-07-2006, 17:36

Thats one HELLOFAJOB!!!!

That would be me Tiberius. Thank you very much for the kind words. I tried to make it sound as correct as I can, at least.

I don't know squat about Greek but its sounds awesome and totally different. I was begging to get used to KH speaking Lating and that REALLY bugged me. Nice to see that was fixed.

Like I said, EB is the S(beep)! :thrasher:

keravnos

12-07-2006, 22:20

Tiberius, some background:
I'm the one who organize all the voicemods
Teleklos Archelaou made the translations back in Jan 2005.
Keravnos recorded all the voices just recently..
I compiled it together and edited textfiles for EB 0.8

You will find the soundfiles here:
\EB\DATA\SOUNDS\GREEK\
:yes:

If you find things to correct, we'd appreciate it if you told us what you think we should use, and reasons for doing it.
Thanks.

Yep, Shigawhire made it all possible. Teleklos laid the foundations for what you will hear. We 're a team. I MADE the voicemod, only so far as recording it and a very basic editing, goes. *Many commands are also done by me HEAVILY influenced by Xenophon. Kyrou anabasis books 1+2. Shigawhire handled the rest. Now, as for finding probable mistakes on the voicemod, do use the path he gives, put them all into either winamp or media player and let'em rip!

Cataphract_Of_The_City

12-08-2006, 11:38

Well, I just heard the Greek voice mod. I am not going to argue their validity since you guys know much more. But it struck me as very crude. Especially with all the fuss the Greeks made about their refined language.

keravnos

12-08-2006, 11:53

Well, as to that this is a general, a leader of men shouting to his troopers, trying to get some basic things understood in the least amount of time, trying to get his voice heard over the noise of battle. We thought that was the best approach, and will stick by that.

Xenophon and his accounts were used for most of the commands you hear, a merc. recounting battle.

If you expect flowery prose and a calm voice, a battlefield is NOT the place to search.

Tellos Athenaios

12-08-2006, 12:35

First: great to see that it actually came into being, I can remember that thread we had here...

Probably mentioned before, but still: if a word ends on -oi (like prodromoi) it seems to sound as -o-i, rather than -oi. So it's a bit like French people not accustomed to English, trying to sound English... Weird.

Now, I thought this could have been because you figured out that in those days it was exactly that way. So I asked about it, and heard that the very reason scholars believe those sounds are pronounced as one (like in English: boy) was based on ancient texts such as Euripides' plays and Homer's Illiad. Question remains, why did the Ancient Greek Voice Mod take a different approach?

EDIT: You can hear this also in the Rome Total War\EB\Data\Sounds\Greek\units\agrianikoi_pelekephoroi file, 'watch' the 'agrianikoi' bit. It seems as if it depends, sometimes the -oi suffixes are pronounced as in boy, sometimes as -o-i. :inquisitive:

Tiberius Nero

12-08-2006, 12:46

It sounds right to me as o+i. It just has to be pronounced faster together but the sounds are still distinct as o+i.

edit: Perhaps your confusion is because of the stress/accent: in agrianikoi the accent falls on the final -i of the -oi actually, so that is why it sounds weird to you probably ~;)

Cataphract_Of_The_City

12-08-2006, 13:29

Hold your horses Keravne. I am not attacking you. The effort you put in this thing alone, regardless of what people think of its validity, is worthy of respect. Like I said, you guys are much more knowledgable so even if I believed that the pronunciation is not correct, you have enough evidence to wrap me up and send me home. :P

I was not talking about the tone of the language being crude, but the language itself. Is that Attic dialect? It is kind of hard to imagine Pericles giving his "Epitaphios" speech sounding like that.

Tiberius Nero

12-08-2006, 14:17

hellenes

12-08-2006, 14:33

Keravnos
IIRC Xenophon lived 100-150 years BEFORE EB's era...so having the pronounciation is like having modern Greeks sound like the rebels from 1821...:dizzy2:
What is the reason for not having teh HELLENISTIC pronounciation that albeit MOST of the troops had?
How many Seleucid/Makedonian/Ptolemaic troopers sounded like an Athenian philosopher?
Was the Attic taught to every general/officer?
Isnt the Hellenistic pronounciation more approriate to cover the era from 272 and onwards?
And last what about Tiberius' -EI=E aki OY=O cases? Are they valid so should ΗΠΠΕΙΣ sound like ΗΠΠΕΣ?

Tiberius Nero

12-08-2006, 14:43

It should sound HIPPES with the second E sounding like the first e in German ablehnen. Also we don't have exact evidence about how Greek sounded every year in history. There are conventions that have to be followed and most of our evidence is for the classical period. And anyway, I find it unlikely that cataclysmic changes had occured so early in the hellenistic period and besides, those of non Greek stock who learned Greek as a foreign language pronounced it in unpredictable ways; in Egypt natives rarely make a distinction between t and d for example, as one can see from spelling mistakes in the papyri, they use them interchangeably, as it must have sounded pretty much the same to them, just like few foreigners today can actually pronounce modern Greek gamma and delta correctly.

Shigawire

12-08-2006, 15:08

Ummm... I am not sure what you mean, Cataphract, but this is really as close as to what we know Greek sounded like. If you find it crude, ummm, fine, what's to be done then? :P

There is a common misconception floating in the air that Greeks were to the ancient world equivalent to what the Eldar in Tolkien's universe are; well, no, generally, Greeks were quite ordinary people really, e.g. when they sneezed it sounded like sneezing, not like Beethoven's 9th.

Hear hear! :laugh4:

If some people think it sounds 'different' from what they 'expected' to hear - that is totally irrelevant to us. Indeed, EB has already squashed a number of historical misconceptions or myths already. Such as the misconceptions people have of Gauls. Only in EB, did they get treated as something more than "generic hairy barbarians." So, it's really a healthy sign when people admit they have no idea about X, yet complain that X "appear" or "sound" different from what preconceptions those people had about X. It means we are helping squash yet another historical myth or misconception, it's a sign that people are being educated.

But if someone DO know about X, and there is something specific they would do differently, we suddenly become interested in this - provided the argumentation is sound. Vague opinions is something that we simply do not care about. To my brain, vague opinions come across as "bzzrrt!" It's more fruitful to give specific and targeted criticisms, such as the diphtong-discussion.

Cataphract_Of_The_City

12-08-2006, 15:45

Tiberius Nero

12-08-2006, 16:31

Oh, right, sorry, didn't know you are Greek, Cataphract. Yes it sounds a lot rougher than moddern Greek, to my moddern Greek ears too, that's for sure. But as to what "refined" in language is, this is one of those terms which cannot be objectively defined and therefore don't really mean anything; why is saying "vlima" more "refined" than saying "bleema" why is "evghenis" more "refined eugenees"? What are your objective criteria of establishing refinement? ~:)

Note that I am not arguing, I simply want to disspell some misconceptions so painfully common in our country and the more unfounded they are, sadly the more widespread.

keravnos

12-08-2006, 17:32

Ok. First things first. Thank you Tiberie for all the hard work.

Short answer about dipthongs.... I thought it had become a non issue by the time we talk about, with the dipthongs sounding as you heard them in the mod.

Long answer...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4th_century_BC

4th century started in 400 ( Right when Xenophon was taking arec little trip through the middle east along with 10000 other naturalists...) If I immitated compeletely Xenophon, I should probably use it entirely, and try to find out the false/true dipthong thing.

However this is 272. The language has changed , but only some. Not in its wording but in the way it was spoken. In fact the only obvious difference to the previous one is that there are pneumata (This doesn't affect Greeks, since only non Greeks have troubles with the intonation that those pneumata were created to facilitate). Dipthongs also become double vowels. (they were single before, and became single again later, as I will show further down)

In fact if what I have read is correct, Native Greeks in the Hellenistic era tried to be MORE correct than they should. Hire Athenians to tutor their kids, have rhetoric classes in wherever Greeks could be found from Emporion to Baktria, and generally be SUPER correct, since, for the most part, correct pronounciation is what separated Hellenistic Aphentes, from subservient peoples. (Genetic exchanges being what they are in many cases...:laugh4: ) Hellenistic states, especially Arche Seleukeia and Ptolemaioi were becoming very much Greek Supremacists, which sped up their downfall among other things. One of the other consequences is that they tried conciously to pronounce and accent everything (hence the change from IΠΠΗΣ to ΙΠΠΕΙΣ).

In the greek voicemod, as I pronounced it I should try to be a bit more brief in the ending of each and every word with a dipthong... aka EIS or OI, basically every word. However, not doing that was conscious as well. Having been in the military, and a sargeant to boot, I believe I have an "ear" as to how a military order should sound. So I lenghtened, just a bit all orders. We 're talking half a second, or lower. Shorter ones just didn't sound right for a voicemod. Longer ones sounded right for my "grunt" ears. So the choice was a no brainer really.

To be able to further explain what diphtongs are about *to any non greek, or non greek educated reading this...
HIPPEIS you heard in the mod and its history...

HIPPES ... (In the Gallic mod it is EPOS, EPONES, same Indoeuropean root)
HIPPEES, or in greek ΙΠΠΗΣ, (attic greek lenghtened e, to ee aka η )
HIPPEIS, (after the dipthong alteration TIBERIUS is talking about
HIPPIS, Hellenistic Koine and Biblical Greek pronounciation.. 150 BC and on..
IPPIS, ... medieval and modern greek.

Tiberie, I had two ancient greek philologists friends of mine go through both the voicemod. One warned me of the dipthong thingie, but observed that by the time of EB, it would probably be a non issue. The other mentioned that at that time the Generals tried to sound like Orators, to shout to the world their 100% Hellenism roots and upbringing, even pronouncing subscripts in some cases, (as do I).

Thank you so very much about your input.
@Shigawhire, I know it is a given, still, thanks for the support,
@Kataphrakt, I wasn't aiming at you or trying to be harsh in any way. Just wanted to intonate my position. I really don't want you to think that there is any malice towards you, because there isn't.
@Hellenes, all your points have been answered earlier. I hope this here little account answers the rest.

If you will permit a joke...

One thinks I sound harsh, the other that I sound like an Orator, not a warrior, hell I must be doing SOMETHING right.

Shigawire

12-08-2006, 18:47

It seems that you guys are so used to being attacked that you can't take a compliment. I pretty much expected this to happen. I clearly said that I do believe this is how the Greeks of the period spoke. But it sounds crude to my modern Greek ears. I am sure you will agree that modern Greek is much softer and refined "phonetically" compared to ancient Greek. I just said that is sounds crude to me, not that its not accurate. Is my observation so insignificant that you have to be aggresive?

Anyway, I would rather stop here. Congrats on the new mod release.

I'm sorry if that's the impression I gave you. You must have misunderstood me just as much as I misunderstood yourself. We appreciate your compliments. :beam:

I misunderstood your opinion that it sounded 'rough' - because it came across as a linguistic observation we ought to listen to, rather than the subjective observation which it was. Of course now that you have refined the opinion, it's clear you meant it as a personal/subjective observation. Of course, we are all egocentric when we make judgements on historical variants of our own languages. For example, when I listen to old Norse and compare it to Bokmål (modern Norwegian) - completely different languages! As a Norwegian, I of course observe that it sounds "rough." What do I mean by rough? I mean that it's difficult for myself to pronounce. Now, that is indeed not an objective criteria as Tiberius have pointed out. Because if I grew up in 900 AD speaking the old Norse, I would think the modern Norwegian sounded 'rough' - and would feel comfortable with Norse! It would most likely be easier for a non-Norwegian to be objective about the differences between Norse and Norwegian.
Ethnocentricism clouds the judgement for some of us, but egocentricism clouds the judgement for all of us. Despite the best intentions.

The Greek language, like all other human developments - in languages or technology, has had a development towards laziness. Too lazy to make the effort to pronounce Beta? Make it Veta.. Of course, it didn't happen consciously necessarily, but the tendency is the same as with technology - which IS conscious. Too lazy to learn to sling? Learn to use a Bow - too lazy to learn to use a bow? Use a musket.. etc etc. All human development has been towards simplification and less expenditure of human physical energy. From manual labour to automated factories. Our evolution is moving us toward expending more intelligence than physical labour.
What can I say. We humans are clever lazy buggers..

Tiberius Nero

12-08-2006, 18:55

Thank you, Keravne, it is not hard work at all for me, I actually enjoy those kinds of discussions and wish I had the opportunity for more of them. ~:)

Now I am not sure if I have interpreted what you say correctly, but are you saying that after the 4th cen. BC spelling reforms, which orthographically meant writing a lot of the older long vowels as diphthongs, those vowels were actually pronounced as true diphthongs? This is a linguistic impossibility, not least because as you see the general tendency in languages (and the history of Greek bears witness to that) is towards simplification. If anything the true diphthongs themselves must have been on the way of being pronounced in the same way as the non true ones, i.e. as long closed vowels (like German ablehnen or bedrohen), not previously inexistent diphthongs cropping up systematically. I don't recall seeing this (reverse) tendency in any relevant language I have studied (like Sanskrit, Arabic, or Hebrew), if anything diphthongs tend to become contracted into long vowels in time. So the word "horsemen" would have never been pronounced HIPPE-IS, the universal appearence of EI in orthography, in places where you found true and not true diphthongs previously, is more likely signifying a variety of a long E distinct from the one which the letter H signified after the reforms. The same should apply to OY-O. So I think that for the period that interests us, probably the pronounciation of EI and OY as diphthongs should not be there at all in any context, those orthographic signs must universally simply denote long closed vowels (as in the examples from German I gave earlier). All these observations of course don't apply to AI and OI which are still diphthongs in the time period of EB.

Also as you said about the aspirates Φ, Θ, Χ those must have still been pronounced as voiceless aspirate stops and not fricatives (but you intentionally ignored that as you say, why?). Even by the end of 1st cent BC it must have been so, since I remember reading that Cicero was making fun in court of some Greek (witness? I don't remember) for not being able to pronounce Latin F but pronouncing it PH (Φ) instead.

Shigawire

12-08-2006, 19:13

Also as you said about the aspirates Φ, Θ, Χ those must have still been pronounced as voiceless aspirate stops and not fricatives (but you intentionally ignored that as you say, why?). Even by the end of 1st cent BC it must have been so, since I remember reading that Cicero was making fun in court of some Greek (witness? I don't remember) for not being able to pronounce Latin F but pronouncing it PH (Φ) instead.

You must have misunderstood or haven't listened to the sounds. We took great care to use the voiceless plosives of Chi, Theta and Phi. Not the fricatives. As a non-Greek outsider, I was able to spot many of the "mistakes" that Keravnos recorded, and I prompted him to redo them. This happened a lot, but Keravnos kept going.. Also with regard to acting. I thought the retreat sounds he made were not convincing enough, so I made him record over again. This happened some 5 times, and he kept going. Until his throat couldn't do any more.. Not to mention he was not exactly in good health when he was doing this.

Only in some "retreat" sounds does Keravnos' native fricatives sometimes sneak in. But I think he came up with a rationalization for this.. overall though, I proof-listened to many of the sounds, and made sure these fricatives on the whole did not exist. :beam:

Tiberius Nero

12-08-2006, 19:21

True I haven't listened to the sounds yet, and I am way too early in my pontic campaign to have come across many units, but I am pretty sure I hear FALANGITAI, not PHALANGITAI. :S I will listen to the sounds carefully then and come back to this.

Idomeneas

12-08-2006, 21:28

There seems to be a misunderstanding here.

Teleklos and other members said that some Greek people complain about the voice mod again and again and that they are not respecting the efforts needed to be done for it. Well i cant talk for others, i ll say what bothers me. if EB said that ''we have this view on the subject, this is our work you can agree or disagree'' i would have absolutely no problem. The thing is that EB presents itself as a solid historical research project. Indeed its the most highly researched mod and members deserve every credit, BUT its a conclusion of opinions of the members that did historical research and sources they chose to base their work on not the absolute true. Why not? Cause we cant possibly know for sure we just speculate. So grabbing pitchforks and torches and burn the heretics that wanna discuss the subject and have a diffrent view is not the indicated way in my book.

There are many scholars and many opinions, you know... everybody has one. Even in Greece there are people that have the same views as your team. What i expected was a discussion where you discuss and prove to the point possible your case. instead we have people that propably cannot say ''goodmorning'' in greek writing aggresive posts that if they were mine i would be damned to tartarus by your admins.

Trying to say that people that not share your views exactly are nationalists, living in a bottle or have notions that classical greek are identical to modern greek can only be considered hits bellow the belt and demagogic tricks.

Shigawire accused me in twc that i built a case on just the ''bee'' ''bee'' if he wanted to sit for awhile and think what i posted (in terrible engleish i admit) and most of all knew greek he would understand my point. There are many other animals that in modern greek we changed the name but when we use the verb of its sound we speak the ancient the came from the ancient assigned sound. I cant recall how you call ΤΖΙΤΖΙΚΑΣ n english, its the characteristic summer bug. In ancient it was called TEΤΥΞ. When we reffer to the sound we use the verb ΤΕΡΕΤΙΖΩ which is the ancient form. I know that my english doesnt help so i hope Keravnos can make it clear.

My questions are to you and if you want you reply. Why all greek populations speak D and B the same way if there was an alteration affecting only greece?
If thre was a general transformation on the pronounciation of those dipthongs when did it took place? Is there a theory why it happened? Eclessiastic psalms are the very same since dark ages so i assume that the ''change'' happened earlier.

If we use a work case where soem englishmen will be called to speak modern greek, we will see that they tone the words wrong and pronounce the letters different as its expected. The same for a greek group trying to speak in short time fluent english. I spent when i was in Russia 10 minutes just to say ''lighter'' in russian and everybody laughed at the end. So if a modern englishman cannot speak easily modern greek, why a roman, gaul, iberian, persian wouldnt alter the sounds and adjust them to their accent?

I dont claim that i know the truth quite the opposite, im interesting in finding the truth and i seek a logical answer not ''it is, cause i am big scholar of that uni and i say so''.
And for the last time just drop those ancient=modern and nationalistic arguements cause i cant see how they serve the discussion especially when i dont reffere to such points at all.

abou

12-08-2006, 23:38

Has anyone actually provided information on why they believe the pronunciation of Greek has not changed? The most I have seen is this:

Eclessiastic psalms are the very same since dark ages so i assume that the ''change'' happened earlier.Not that it is a bad argument per se, but it is hard to swallow. Latin is perhaps the best example of what a church can do to a language.

Languages change - Shigawire's comments on palatalization in other threads being one of the best arguments. More so, modern Greek does not use pitch accents and itacism goes against the logic of spelling.

So if a modern englishman cannot speak easily modern greek, why a roman, gaul, iberian, persian wouldnt alter the sounds and adjust them to their accent?Latin and Greek have many similarities and for a number of reasons. They are very closely related. Also, the Romans added letters - not just altered spelling, but added letters - to accommodate Greek words and many aristocrats learned Greek at a very young age from Greek slaves or Greek educators. For example, Caesar's teacher was from Rhodes and was allowed to address the Senate and do so in Greek.

My questions are to you and if you want you reply. Why all greek populations speak D and B the same way if there was an alteration affecting only greece?
If thre was a general transformation on the pronounciation of those dipthongs when did it took place? Is there a theory why it happened?
Now, these questions are a bit harder to answer. As to why the changes occur in consonants, palatalization seems to be the culprit. When it happened is much more difficult, but I am sure someone knows the answer to that.

khelvan

12-09-2006, 01:14

You ask why EB members react aggressively? The best answer I can give you is that we are human.

I can't speak for all EB members, but three things that get me angry more than any other thing in modding are:

- People who attack us for nothing more than attempting to follow the evidence
- People who state EB is ahistorical for following the evidence
- People who aggressively attack without provocation

In the past, in most threads on this subject, modern Greeks (not all, individuals) have met all three of these conditions. So consider this a very sore spot for us, which is why we at times react poorly to challenges here. For two years we faced constant, unfounded attacks simply because we took an objective view rather than a Greco-centric view of the evidence.

It felt like a lost cause because as far as I knew personally, the reputable scholars throughout the world had one view, and those within Greece had another. Now I come to find out that the latter is not true, and it changes my perspective on what is going on here.

I personally apologize for my behavior. Allow me to explain through an analogy. Imagine if our mod were not set in the bronze or iron age, but in the early history of China. Now imagine if you will that we are happily modding, attempting to do our best researching the primary and secondary evidence, and all of a sudden a small group of people comes along, dismisses the majority of the primary evidence, and states our mod is completely ahistorical because our mod predates the creation of the world as told in the Bible. They have plenty of arguments on behalf of the world being created only a few thousand years ago, and dismiss all evidence to the contrary.

Can you imagine how we would feel if we started being constantly attacked in this manner? We never claim to hold any absolute truth. I cannot say 100% for sure that the world existed 5000 years ago. My conclusion based on the available evidence is that it is, but someone else will come along and say that plenty of people disagree with my conclusion (true) and that I cannot 100% prove the world existed (true) and that my evidence is wrong because of a long list of reasons, each of which have logical flaws, but are restated with vehemence each time the subject is brought up.

This is my frustration with this sort of argument. The danger with arguing against ideology is that you can never win. Researching history is all about following the available evidence and drawing conclusions based on them. It is important to be objective in following this evidence lest incorrect conclusions be drawn, or evidence be given greater weight than it should simply because it supports a conclusion that someone wants to make. Historians, like other scientists, should not approach their research with a conclusion in mind. They should approach it with an open mind and allow the evidence to point them wherever it may. Thus, people with personal religious or political ties to a particular subject tend to make less effective researchers of such a subject due to those personal ties. We are all egotistical and it is only fair that our own feelings will interfere with any objectivity we may have.

So here we have someone who comes along and challenges our metaphorical old planet. Someone who wants an honest debate about the planet's age, and can't understand why we would feel as though we should dismiss arguments against the age of the planet, not having had the experience we have had in the past with such arguments. I would love to see even a handful of peer-reviewed scholars argue against our metaphorical old Earth with solid evidence. But I fear this is too much to ask.

So we take the metaphorical position that we will assume the world is old and that unless someone approaches us with real research on the subject, we have no interest in debating it any longer. And I don't mean the sort of research that metaphorically tries to tear down carbon dating or fossil records. I mean honest, solid evidence to the contrary, to prove our metaphorical world is young.

Until that point, I think it is only reasonable if we assume that the metaphorical Young Earth Creationists have allowed their religion to cloud their judgement. I think our position is understandable, if not our recent methods. There are many opinions on many different subjects, but that does not mean that they all deserve merit. Some are transparently religious, or transparently political, which is apparent to those who are not extremely close to the subject matter at hand. Only solid evidence to support points can show that this is not the case.

For which I, for one, wait, but not very patiently.

Tiberius Nero

12-09-2006, 01:19

The only point that is arguable really is the pronounciation of Β,Γ,Δ as b,d and g respectively. That they must have been originally pronounced as such, it would seem undeniable to one trained in comparative linguistics: words of the same roots in related languages have them. Now as to when the shift started: first it might have not been universal at the beginning; I recall that there is an inscription from Boiotia (could be wrong, its been years since I studied those things) that has an interesting spelling mistake: it presents a digamma where a beta should have been. If the scribe made such a mistake it might lead us to think that the digamma (presumably pronounced as "v") and the beta sounded the same (spelling mistakes and mistakes in general are our friends, seriously, don't correct people in the way they talk or write, future linguists will thank us for this). Now iirc this inscription dates from sometime in the 4th cent BC. But again it would only prove that Greek as spoken in a particular place was moving towards the shift in question, towards a softer pronounciation of Β,Γ,Δ. It would certainly be rash to claim that this proves a universal tendency in Greek. And again all this concerns one of the three letters in question. Evidence for when the pronounciation shift of these is very hard to come by. What I can say, is that to my knowledge, Latin never rendered Greek B in borrowed words (and there were a lot around the 1st and 2nd cent AD) as anything else than b, at a time when the Latin V must have sounded like v today, that is the exact sound of the modern Greek pronounciation of beta. Why would this have been so at this point in time if B did not still sound like b?

Shigawire

12-09-2006, 01:34

Just to correct, the Classical Latin V sounded more like the english "W" - a mix between U and V. Depending on the word..

Tiberius Nero

12-09-2006, 01:43

Yes, but that must have changed rather early, just like the pronounciation of C before e and i. Otherwise its universal appearence as v and the universal palatalization of C before e and i e.g. in Romance languages are very hard to explain; those changes must have taken place before Latin actually spread to places like Gaul and Iberia if we are to explain this type of uniformity in Romance languages; but lets not argue about this here too, Greek is enough of a headache!

Casmin

12-09-2006, 02:10

What in god's name is this debate about?:dizzy2: Hellenes, who cares if the accent sounds this way or that? It's a game mod and they did the best they could and it turned out a lot better than what we wished for.

So because the modder's voice has a different accent than what you expected there's some kind of academic conspiracy involved?:inquisitive:

Shigawire

12-09-2006, 02:31

Palatalization of C in front of i, e..

You know.. The letter G was invented by a grammarian by the name of Spurius Carvilius Ruga around 3rd century BC, and it was passed into law by Censor Appius Claudius Caecus in 312 BC.
The letter G was created because letter C had 2 sounds.. One hard (K) and one soft (G).. and Spurius Carvilius Ruga wanted to put that difference to paper. To demonstrate it. So he added an extra line to the "C" thus creating "G."

The very same process would have occurred when V branched out into U and V, and when I branched out into I and J..

I am not sure I agree with you that the palatalization of C occured as early as you predict.. I think the general consensus is that it occured some time between 300-450 AD. But I haven't studied this intermediary face much, I've mostly studied on the great change from the hard "K" of "Caesar" (Kaisar) versus the palatalized C in "Cesare" (Chessare) in Italy today.. and of course the G in "Giovanni"..

keravnos

12-09-2006, 09:21

Tiberie,

On Dipthongs, I either made a big mistake or I misunderstood completely what my philologist friend was trying to say. Either way, I must do some more research on this... :book:

For the reccord, the "ΙΠΠΕΙΣ" you see was "ΙΠΠΗΣ" originally. Teleklos had written it this way. I changed it because I considered it to be mistaken, while it seems to be a phonetic version of the change in dipthongs Tiberius is talking about. (HIPPEIS or rather ΙΠΠΕΙΣ was and is the written version).

You heard Falangitai, e? :oops: Do tell me if you find more glaring obvious mistakes like that so that I can :skull: them..

Thanks.

Vorian

12-09-2006, 11:18

keravnos

12-09-2006, 12:51

Actually I tried the Greek campaign and when I heard "Hoplites Aploi", I thought there was some kind of mistake. I am not an expert in ancient Greek and my school grades were very bad actually so I didn't know these theories you mention keravnos. Anyway, even though it sounds strange to most Greeks, I don't think the pronanciation is so bad, 2000 years have passed for God's shake you can't be sure how they talked, right?

Keep up the good work.

Thanks on behalf of all the team. I voiced it but it wasn't and has never been a one man's show. We DON'T KNOW how they talked. We can theorize and speak among ourselves ad infinitum. Yet we have some certainties, and we can cover the rest with a tiny bit of speculation. Just don't expect to ever hear modern Greek in EB, because you won't.

As for the TETYΞ aka TZITZIKAS thing, I just don't know. Maybe I can find out more about it on my research.

Tiberius Nero

12-09-2006, 14:41

Originally posted by Idomeneas:

My questions are to you and if you want you reply. Why all greek populations speak D and B the same way if there was an alteration affecting only greece?

It is not quite clear what you are asking here; what are the Greek populations you are referring to (I assume outside Greece)? Can you elaborate on the point you are trying to make, because honestly I don't follow.

Idomeneas

12-09-2006, 15:48

It is not quite clear what you are asking here; what are the Greek populations you are referring to (I assume outside Greece)? Can you elaborate on the point you are trying to make, because honestly I don't follow.

yes i mean the ones outside mainland. some may say that the greeks of mainland changed their pronounciation for some reason, and in a small geographical space its more possible than a big general space. So why Greeks of Pontus, Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria etc spoke b and d the same way? Is there a region with greeks that speak that way even as dialect? In local dialects today there are loads of ancient to foreign influence elements, why we dont have an example of diffrent Δ Β pronounciation?

What are the elements that point to the Β=b Δ=d theory except the ''bee'' ''bee'' point which i think i showed how it can be argued. Do we have examples beyong doubt?

hellenes

12-09-2006, 16:27

Tiberius Nero

12-09-2006, 17:09

yes i mean the ones outside mainland. some may say that the greeks of mainland changed their pronounciation for some reason, and in a small geographical space its more possible than a big general space. So why Greeks of Pontus, Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria etc spoke b and d the same way? Is there a region with greeks that speak that way even as dialect? In local dialects today there are loads of ancient to foreign influence elements, why we dont have an example of diffrent Δ Β pronounciation?

What are the elements that point to the Β=b Δ=d theory except the ''bee'' ''bee'' point which i think i showed how it can be argued. Do we have examples beyong doubt?

How do you know that Greeks of Pontus, Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria etc spoke b and d the same way in ancient times? We don't really have evidence as no living Greek dialect has survived directly through ancient times to our age in places remote from Greece. Pontic Greek might have archaisms and so does Cypriot, but those places had been under the authority of the Greek speaking Byzantium for ages. Of course at Byzantine times Greek was pronounced as today. So you can't use modern Pontic Greek for example to say that Greek speakers of Pontus must have spoken like this from ancient times. Do not forget the influence of Greek in Byzantine times, those people probably speak Greek in pretty much the same way as Greeks of the mainland because of the unifying influence of the Byzantine empire, which was Greek speaking officially.

Hellenes, as for the AI, OI etc just think for a minute why on earth they wrote this way (and of course why on earth ancient grammarians called these diphthongs, if they in fact were simple vowels) if they didn't actually speak this way and see if you can come up with a plausible answer. Anyway, basic knowledge of how morphology works tells you beyond a shadow of doubt that those AI and OI were not pronounced E and I, but you need to take a morphology 101 class to see for yourself and be convinced. As of now, don't push where you really can't: pronounciation of AI and OI as diphthongs is beyond question.

As I said the only thing that is in question is when the shift started in pronouncing B,Γ,Δ in a softer way, and this isn't really easy to answer. First let me say that the Bee bee argument is frankly, imo, rubbish. You can't base anything on how a sheep sounds to someone. That said, it is beyond doubt that at least up to some point in history they must have been pronounced as b,g,d, as I said before, because equivalent words of the same roots in related languages have them i.e. ιδειν==videre. Now when the shift started is not easy or maybe it is impossible to say for this set of sounds, because few if any spelling mistakes or dialect variations indicate anything meaningful, and how certain words appear in other languages can be said that it proves nothing.

What I am waiting to hear at last is an argument about why you people think that Greek pronounciation hasn't changed, that is a positive argument finally, instead of negative arguments.

Birka Viking

12-09-2006, 17:28

Teleklos Archelaou

12-09-2006, 17:47

I can only agree with u man......How the hell can pronunciations cause such big debate ~:rolleyes:
As I said earlier in this thread, this is the single biggest debate that has existed over the whole mod. It's utterly ridiculous. I've totally removed myself from it as I have better things to do continuing to make the mod better and finish it rather than engage in this game. People who aren't actually trying to make the mod or any others actively may not actually realize that we aren't just here for a debate, but to make a mod. Complainers complain, but what keravnos and shiga have actually done immediately shows everyone that results are what matters, especially results that the mod team is very very happy with.

Tiberius Nero

12-09-2006, 18:00

You know, some people like arguing about Star Trek physics others like arguing about ancient pronounciation. Who are you to judge?

Anyway, Back on topic, let me provide the thoretical outlines of the theory of the BGD pronoungiation: phonetic stucture of a language is called like this, because there actually exists structure, that is method to madness. Ancient Greek has no voiceless fricatives: Φ,Χ,Θ were pronounced ph, kh, th that is the first like "p" in "pot" the second like "k" in "kit" and the third like "t" in "tip". This we know because even the letters Φ,Χ,Θ do not exist in old inscriptions but you find ΠΗ, ΚΗ, and ΤΗ in their place, that is stops with the sign of aspiration (H). Corresponding to this class of consonants there are their non aspirated variants Π,Κ,Τ. Now, there really isn't much sense in a phonetic system of this sort that those varieties of consonants coexist with a class of voiced fricatives, i.e. β,δ,γ (moddern pr.), because those would not correspond to any other class of consonants. If they are stops, they do correspont to Π,Τ,Κ as their voiced variants. The advantage of such a system is that it is homogeneous, as classes of consonants naturally correspond as variants of others. The existence of β,δ,γ in the consonantal system of Greek would have been a rather major aberration.

Birka Viking

12-09-2006, 20:35

As I said earlier in this thread, this is the single biggest debate that has existed over the whole mod. It's utterly ridiculous. I've totally removed myself from it as I have better things to do continuing to make the mod better and finish it rather than engage in this game. People who aren't actually trying to make the mod or any others actively may not actually realize that we aren't just here for a debate, but to make a mod. Complainers complain, but what keravnos and shiga have actually done immediately shows everyone that results are what matters, especially results that the mod team is very very happy with.

Yes and Iam realy happy with it also....Nice job EB team!!!!!:2thumbsup:

Casmin

12-10-2006, 00:28

You know, some people like arguing about Star Trek physics others like arguing about ancient pronounciation. Who are you to judge?

The difference is that here we are on the EB team forum berating them for something that they went beyond the call of duty of. As much time, research and trouble they went through to get this job done I hardly think these kind of discussions make them feel appreciated for their diligent work. The other difference is that Hellenes is claiming that there is some sort of conspiracy in the study of ancient Greek outside of Greece. I don't even think Baigent and Leigh could come up with such a far-flung conjecture.

hellenes

12-10-2006, 00:54

The difference is that here we are on the EB team forum berating them for something that they went beyond the call of duty of. As much time, research and trouble they went through to get this job done I hardly think these kind of discussions make them feel appreciated for their diligent work. The other difference is that Hellenes is claiming that there is some sort of conspiracy in the study of ancient Greek outside of Greece. I don't even think Baigent and Leigh could come up with such a far-flung conjecture.

Hmmm...can you provide me with a QUOTE?
Where did I say that there is a conspiracy?

Tellos Athenaios

12-10-2006, 11:04

Not a comment, but a question on the Greek voice mod:

will the team be including the standard battle sentences such as "Gods be praised the enemy general is killed! Fear makes a home in the enemies' hearts" etc.?

Shigawire

12-10-2006, 18:07

Those are the "battle_events", and we were actually thinking of making them. However, currently we've simply muted them, because they are a nuisance.
"The day is oours!" :dizzy2:

MarcusAureliusAntoninus

12-11-2006, 00:46

I wondered where (though didn't miss) the pubesant roman, overly gruff barbarian, greek guy with a mysterious accent, and eastern guy who can control the tone of his voice went. Good to hear they may be replaced.

Tellos Athenaios

12-11-2006, 01:00

A nuisance, but one that allows you to switch off another nuisance called 'event cutscenes'...

Anyway, I've been doing some further thinking on this, and here's what I've come up with so far (I can't 'do' accents including spirita, so that will have to be sorted out):

INITIAL:

"Gods be praised the enemy general is dead! Fear makes a home in our enemies' hearts!" >>> "χαιρετε, ο γαρ πολεμιος στρατεγος επεσον, και νυν φοβησονται ημας!" = "Rejoice, for the enemy general fell, and now they'll fear us!"
"The enemies flee from the battle!" >>> "Οι πολεμιοι φοβουσιν τηι μαχηι!" (each iota after an eta should be an iota subscriptum - another thing I can't get to work.)

EDIT 1:

"We have taken the walls!" >>> "Ειλομεν τα τειχεα!" (Ε should have a spiritus asper) To be used in in conjunction with something bound to happen later on (for there's an aoristus and not a perfectum involved here.)
Outro 1 "We achieved a great victory, now it's time to send a messenger to spread the word (of our victory)" >>> "Ενικησαν μεγαλως, νυν δε δει στελλειν αγγελον σεμαινοντα νικησαντας ειναι." = "We've won 'in a great fashion', and now we must send a messenger who will spread the message that we are victorious."

EDIT 2:
Outro 2 (You wanted something a-Vanilla, here you are then) "Bring on the wine, and take care of the wounded." >>> "Φερετε τον οινον και κομιζετε τους τραυματους."
Outro 3 "Let's start looting." >>> "Φερωμεν τε και αγωμεν."
Intro 1 (Vanilla style again) "We should slaughter them from a distance." >>> "Χρη αποκτεινεσθαι τους πολλους των εχθρων υπο των ψιλων, πριν η μαχη αχεται ως αληθως." = "Most of the enemies must be killed by the psiloi, before the battle really begins." The latter part of the Greek sentence could be used for any statement ending with the message "the real fight begins".

EDIT 3:
"Today is a good day to die, but it's better still to live and tell our grandchilderen of our victories" (Vanilla, indeed) >>> “Καλος μεν εστιν ο εν τηι μαχηι θανατος, ο δε βιος τε και ο της νικης μυθος εισιν βελτιοντες.” = "Dead in battle is beautiful, but life and the story of the/our victory are more beautiful." (each iota after an eta should be an iota subscriptum - again.)
"The walls have been taken (by the enemies)." >>> “Ηιρηνται τα τειχεα (υπο τους εχθρους).” (each iota after an eta should be an iota subscriptum; due to the way a perfectum is translated this may also stand for "We have lost the walls", for the result of your enemies taking your walls equals (that of) you losing your walls.)
"Our general is dead!!!" >>> “Τεθνηκεν ο στρατεγος ημετερος!!!” (This, of course, can't do without a perfectum so that's why.)
"The enemies are fleeing in terror!" >>> “Οι πολεμιοι ατυζονται!”

Most likely impossible, just wishful thinking on my part; if you could script a general with a hatred for the particular enemies he's facing today to call them "εχθρους" (acc, pl, m) but should he feel no particular hatred for them then he should call them "πολεμιους" (acc, pl, m). Why? Because the former, "εχθρους", may also stand for 'those who are hated' (and therefore probably it came to be 'enemies' as well); whereas the latter simply means 'enemies'.

EDIT 4:
Outro 4 "We have won, and no one can argue about it." >>> "Ουδεις αντιλεγοι αν μη τηνδε νικην ημετεραν ειναι." = "Nobody could question that this victory (here) is ours."

EDIT 5:
Intro 2 "There is no advantage in numbers to either side." >>> “Τοσουτοι εν ημιν εισιν, οσοι εν τοις πολεμιοις εισιν.” = "Amongst us are as many as amongst the/our enemies."
Intro 3 "I have never lost a battle against those people, and why should I start losing now?" >>> “Τι αρα δει τηνδε μαχην νυν πεφυκεναι τραυμα, ουδεμιαν γαρ τινων εμων εκεινοις πολεμιοις μαχων πεφυκεν τραυμα;” = "Why should this battle here result in a defeat now, as none of my battles with those enemies resulted in a defeat?"
Intro 4 "With men such as you under my command." (Could be used in conjunction with other phrases, so I adressed this bit separately.) >>> “Νυν εγω ειμι ο στρατεγος εχων υμας υπο της εμης ηγεμονιας .” = "Now I am the general with you under my command."

I might come up with some more, but for now let's see if this sort of thing is kinda possible. (If so, I'll stick to editing this particular post, rather than creating new posts within this thread.)

Shigawire

12-11-2006, 06:47

What about making entirely new battle events, instead of translating the old ones?

My main concern is of course that battle-events have a function for the player, explaining an important event, and if we record them in some ancient language the player most likely wont understand, it just loses the purpose. We can of course make subtitles, as a part of the battle_event "cut-scenes."

The player does receive the battle-event in the form of a message that drops down on the left.. that will suffice for now I think. On to other languages!

Tellos Athenaios

12-11-2006, 22:55

It's altogether quite 'do'-able to make entirely different battle events, but I thought let's start with the basic Vanilla ones - those who should be in one way or another, 'to the letter' or 'free form' - as they are about the very basic things a general must be informed about. I'd say that it isn't all that important to make them really understandable; one could play battles without listening to such message, because of those drop down boxes. (After some battles people will get used to them; and so the way such a message sounds is sufficient to recognise whatever it is about.)

So for now I'll try to keep the basic things 'Vanilla style translated', and will only be playing around with 'The day is ours' like statements; those who are quite redundant, yet give a battle more flavour.

fallen851

12-11-2006, 23:37

Countries that allow free speech are no less at risk of having untrue things taught in their schools than countries that are totalitarian.

Let me correct you:

Countries that allow free speech have a good chance of having untrue things taught in their schools, while countries that do not have free speech guarentee untrue things will be taught in their schools.

As incredible and wonderful an effort the EB team made in even attempting such an amibitious project as these voicemods, it doesn't shield them from criticism. The goal of this mod (as least I think?) is to make as realistic as possible Rome Total War. Thus anything they do that goes against their goal, should be criticized, to whatever extent it takes for them to fufill their own goal.

So while TA argues that he is here to mod, and not to debate, sadly debating is the process through which you best decide whether or not something is realistic, and thus fufills the goal of the mod. And of course this relates directly to my correction of Khelvan's quote.

Let me ask the EB team again, and hopefully for the last time. Do not use arguements like "if you don't like it leave, make your own, we are here to mod...". Most people are not arguing on their behalf, their arguing on your behalf when they say "you want your mod to be realistic, change this". Maybe EB should change its party line to "A Realistic Mod, not necessarily to the time period, but for EB members only".

Now, I have no idea what ancient Greek should sound like, but whatever, I just don't like when people give stupid reasons for people not to criticize.

Edit: Looks like someone beat me to this.

khelvan

12-12-2006, 01:22

There is nothing more to be learned from this debate. The response to criticism on this subject is due to past history with the presentation of this "argument." There are many things open to debate; the time for learning from this one passed a long time ago. I find it hard to believe that you just don't understand that we can actually decline to debate one point, while being open to it in another. That we accept criticism when it is constructive and supported, and reject it when it is not constructive or supported.

However, feel free to make sweeping generalizations. It shows how much thought you've put into this.

In a similar vein, those who like to argue with us seemingly just for the sake of argument or based on an agenda should really be aware that we passed the point of listening to them a long time ago.

Foot

12-12-2006, 01:54

In a similar vein, those who like to argue with us seemingly just for the sake of argument or based on an agenda should really be aware that we passed the point of listening to them a long time ago.

We've evolved! :grin:

Foot

Sarcasm

12-12-2006, 02:20

We've evolved! :grin:

Foot

https://img150.imageshack.us/img150/3791/evolutionjn0.jpg

Teleklos Archelaou

12-12-2006, 02:32

I have no problem stating that I'm just plain tired of about two or three people at most hounding us over and over. I'll play the devil if that's what someone wants, but if we had our own forum I really don't think we'd have to listen to this mess over and over from two people out of 10,000.

QwertyMIDX

12-12-2006, 03:50

It's also unfair to say that we didn't debate this. It's just that the our greek linguists are sick of doing it. The same debate happens over and over and eventually people get tired.

khelvan

12-12-2006, 04:00

We've evolved! :grin:

FootWhich is against the law in Kansas now.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/55807

Tellos Athenaios

12-12-2006, 20:52

Apart from debates and such, that may or may not become a thread spoiler...

Could the people who have been/ are involved with the Greek Voice Mod take a look on my posts on the previous pages of this thread/ give me a hand?

Note: so far Shigawire is the only one who responsed, but I'd appreciate some comment of others (for example Teleklos Archelaou, Keravnos) who (have) worked on the Voice Mod.

Sarcasm

12-12-2006, 21:15

Which is against the law in Kansas now.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/55807

Wankers. The lot of them.

Chester

12-14-2006, 10:57

I'm too stupid to understand what's going on. One guy says that ancient greek is the same as modern and another guy says it's slightly different?

How is it possible for a language to not change over 1000s of years? Don't the working classes always end up slurring and shortning words? I always thought it was a class thing.

Any how, Greeks rule.

Tellos Athenaios

12-14-2006, 23:03

Updated my prior post with some new, more free form in battle statements.

keravnos

12-14-2006, 23:59

Updated my prior post with some new, more free form in battle statements.

Please continue, if you feel like it. I cannot guarantee if/when this will be used, as I had started to work on my own, but they are VERY GOOD!

Do go on...:2thumbsup:

Tellos Athenaios

12-15-2006, 20:19

Please continue, if you feel like it. I cannot guarantee if/when this will be used, as I had started to work on my own, but they are VERY GOOD!

Do go on...:2thumbsup:

Thanks! Well, I did go on - so there are a few more included with that post. From now till next thursday at least, I won't be updating as I'll be abroad (and I won't be seeing a PC then).

Maybe it would be a good idea, if you posted the sentences you came up with so far? (To enable me to avoid doing sentences that alread have been done.)

keravnos

12-16-2006, 08:47

Thanks! Well, I did go on - so there are a few more included with that post. From now till next thursday at least, I won't be updating as I'll be abroad (and I won't be seeing a PC then).

Maybe it would be a good idea, if you posted the sentences you came up with so far? (To enable me to avoid doing sentences that alread have been done.)

Well, checked my notes, and it seems that I actually DIDN'T. I have done some other commands you will hear at a later date (can't say more on this), but none of the ones you work on. Must have slipped my mind, sorry. Fill them up at your leisure. :2thumbsup:

Tellos Athenaios

12-21-2006, 19:09

I'm back again and I just did a short update. (One sentence.) Maybe I'll be doing another today, but if not the next one will be tomorrow.

Tellos Athenaios

12-22-2006, 19:08

A new update this day, containing 3 new outro sentences.

:idea2:
Since there is most likely also a hardcoded limit to the amount of speeches that the engine can handle, it would be a good idea if that limit was figured out and that a sort of whishlist was created, in which all sentences that definetly should be in, are included.

Dindylas

01-25-2007, 14:35

Hello,

I don't want to beat on a dead horse (this thread is old after all), but I came to this thread through a link in a closed thread in twcenter. I have a great interest in your discussions, but not because I want to change the way you do things, or I want to change your minds on anything, but because the subject is just very close to me and somewhat of a very very mild hobby (partly because I am a Greek and partly because, when I am not playing, the Greek antiquity is my field of work. I am not a philologist though). Your efforts are amazing and I salute your for that. Now to my two questions:

1. Is the Greek voice mod already in the latest EB version (my download has just started)?
2. Is it possible to hear online some of the Greek sentences used, if it is not?

PS: As I said, I don't want to offer my opinion to the whole matter, but having a heated argument on a subject that is nearly as uncertain as the location of the old Hekatompedon on the Acropolis (eventhough everybody knows where it is, they just can't agree on it! :wall: :inquisitive: :laugh4: ) is quite extreme, when it comes to a game. I am looking forward to enjoying Greek in TWR, whether I agree with the opinions of the EB member in charge or not. That is why I salute you again!
PS2: Excuse my ignorance, just in case my questions have been answered thousandfold. I am very new to this whole mod-ing thing.