what does Δημητριος mean

[QwertyMIDX]

I read Beowulf with the help of a tutor (fifteen years ago) and he called it Old English- but referring to my (autographed!!) copy of Seamus Heany's translation the language is interchangeably called Old English or Anglo-Saxon. It was composed between the seventh and tenth centuries (not 1100 AD).

Old English and Anglo-Saxon are the same. My 1100 AD was refering to the dating of the manuscript that text came from, the poem was composed earlier obviously.

[Arman]

hellenes:
Lol imagine in 2500 years someone will find Greek transcription of English language! :-) Lol.
They will read Greek characters describing English sound and will try figure out how English was pronounced.

And you know how greek spell English sounds?

Tzarli Tzaplin
Ntonalnt Ntak
R-A-M-B-O
peKha(pH)
Kul (cool)
Tzarlz Ntikenson
Son Koneri

So if you we take Greek reprezentation of English sounds then

D - Nt
Ch - Tz
J - still Tz
Sh - s
G - gh

S-o mi ntier fr-i-e-nnts this wai Inglis will bi pronouncent in tu tousant years. If p-i-p-l w-i-l be stunting it from Grik transcription.

:-) no offense to anyone simply my fantasy. But this is reall issue. If they will be studing English from Greek transcription, that indeed will be what they will get. :-)

Just food for thoughs.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

You clearly are preparing your arguments for a peer-reviewed journal article on the topic it seems. Best of luck with it.

If this is all that can be mustered, I think another one of these has run its course. Glad you guys had fun again for a while.

[Arman]

Thanks, that's anyway in best case some hobbist debate, knewlageble people most probably have better arguments anyway. At the end what can we acheeve debating here except of some fun? :-) No one is going to take this thread as reference in his sceintific report ( I hope ) :-)

Let everybody keep his opinion, I hope no body got offended since I didn't mean any offence.
In any case in 2500 years, Modern Greek will become Ancient So however we pronounce it now in 2500 years todays Greek will be matching Ancient Greek absolutelly :-)

[Mouzafphaerre]

Isn't Kurdish is turkic language?

.
Kurdish is an Iranian language. (Indo-European > Indo-Iranian > Iranian)

The ê of Kurdish is already i in Farsi. Compare eg. erê vs. آری ("yea")
.

[hellenes]

You clearly are preparing your arguments for a peer-reviewed journal article on the topic it seems. Best of luck with it.

If this is all that can be mustered, I think another one of these has run its course. Glad you guys had fun again for a while.

I apologise Tilekle if I offended you but using a separate language to figure out ANOTHER language's pronounciation doesnt sound that serious...Does it? I know that the west has a decent amount of admiration about Rome and Latin in general thus Erasmus' whole efforts to disregard the Medieval Hellenism and to separate it from its roots have beared fruits in deed...
Its an undeniable fact that NO historian can prove beyond any doubt the pronounciation of ancient Hellenes, it seems that in the anger of labelling others "nationalists, analysts, sadomazochists" and anything ending to "-ists" this vital fact is being overlooked.

Hellenes

[khelvan]

Someone interested in finding evidence, not fitting evidence to a preconceived notion, will take the fact that there are no absolute proofs regarding ancient history as their first premise. It is similar to science. And, just like in science, those more interested in fitting evidence to an agenda don't take "we will never prove anything 100%" as a starting point, but use it as some sort of defense, or argument, rather than just sticking to supporting an argument with evidence.

[Arman]

Someone interested in finding evidence, not fitting evidence to a preconceived notion, will take the fact that there are no absolute proofs regarding ancient history as their first premise. It is similar to science. And, just like in science, those more interested in fitting evidence to an agenda don't take "we will never prove anything 100%" as a starting point, but use it as some sort of defense, or argument, rather than just sticking to supporting an argument with evidence.

Yes, but in this particular case we can provide only logical assumptions as an evidence to the case. I don't think that any link to similar to this discussion published in the web would be sufficient evidence in any case.

[Arman]

"Υπέρ της Αχαϊκής Συμπολιτείας πολεμήσαντες
Ανδρείοι σεις που πολεμήσατε και πέσατ' ευκλεώς·
τους πανταχού νικήσαντας μη φοβηθέντες."
Is this Ancient Greek?
Most of those words are still understandable.

"ΑΙΡΕΥΟΝΤΑΙ ΕΝ ΑΝΤΙ ΑΠΑΝΤΩΝ ΟΙ ΑΡΙΣΤΟΙ ΚΛΕΟΣ ΑΕΝΑΟΝ ΘΝΗΤΩΝ ΟΙ ΔΕ ΠΟΛΛΟΙ ΚΕΚΟΡΗΝΤΑΙ ΟΚΩΣΠΕΡ ΚΤΗΝΕΑ"

in this phrase I understand only "ΑΡΙΣΤΟΙ", "ΠΟΛΛΟΙ ", "ΚΤΗΝΕΑ".
Hellenes if he is native greek understand more probably.
Taking into account that Acient Greek is 2500 I can say it has changed considerably much less than some much younger languages. In that Algo-Saxon poem, you hardly find one familiar word.
This is irrelevant to discussion, just note, that Greek have been stabelized and established language, the changes are significant but still incomparable to how much other languages changed.

[oudysseos]

Arman- actually that is part of a poem by Constantine P. Cavafy, and so is in modern greek. Cavafy was one of modern Greece's first great poets- anyway he's the only one that I know about. When I was in school my tutor used Cavafy to illustrate someof the differences between modern greek and classical greek. I like Irony and Solipsism, which is why I used it as my signature.

[oudysseos]

It is true that the persistence of a greek language that is closer to its classical root than most other modern languages is remarkable.

I think it is only fair to point out that this outcome had a little help.

Καθαρεύουσα/Katharevousa was the 'official' form of greek until 1976, and had been 'invented' by Adamantios Korais mostly in Paris, as a pure form of greek free of all the trukish, slav, latin and italian loan words and grammar, essentially as a form of thelanguage that would have existed had greece remained continuously independent for 2500 years. Now, I didn't grow up in greece so I'm sure that I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I have read that the Demotic form of greek that is used today (even for official purposes) was influenced to some extent by the years of Katharevousa's preeminence. This surely has some affect on the ability real or supposed of modern greeks without an eductaion in the subject to read classical greek more or less easily.

This is a similar process to what happened in my country BTW. Irish Gaelic as a modern language aften looks and sounds suspiciously like english written in a "Celtic" style. I over-exaggerate of course but there are an awful lot of loan words for modern objects and concepts that gaelic never had the chance to develop words for as it it had all but died out until revived by the nationalists of the late 19th century. Recreating an Irish/Gaelic identity was part and parcel of the nationalist political agenda, and the use of Irish continues to be a part of some Republican groups' ideologies. But in order to achieve all this the language itself had to be more or less reinvented, especially in literature. I mention this only because I believe that a very similar process happened in Greece. I do know from a book tha I read about Byron and Codrington that the English Philhellenes became disenchanted with many of the 'Greek Nationalist' soldiers/banditos, not least because lots of them spoke Albanian, Slavic and Vlach dialects or Turkish but not a lot of GReek.

[L'Impresario]

Cavafy was one of modern Greece's first great poets- anyway he's the only one that I know about. When I was in school my tutor used Cavafy to illustrate someof the differences between modern greek and classical greek. I like Irony and Solipsism, which is why I used it as my signature.

Yes, an excellent choice. Actually Cavafy uses a mix of demotic and katharevousa, with those 2 forms helping to construct an extra layer of complexity in his poems, modifying the characters and the overall style of each poem in various way.
In short (and I'm being here a bit simplistic), demotic reveals the more earthly and realistic tones in his work, but with a superfluous expressiveness that comes along everyday speech, something that is being concealed behind the rigid,strict katharevousa. Katharevousa adds a somewhat cold objectivity, that in the end appears solely to be a mask with a giocondesque smile.

Καθαρεύουσα/Katharevousa was the 'official' form of greek until 1976, and had been 'invented' by Adamantios Korais mostly in Paris, as a pure form of greek free of all the trukish, slav, latin and italian loan words and grammar, essentially as a form of thelanguage that would have existed had greece remained continuously independent for 2500 years. Now, I didn't grow up in greece so I'm sure that I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I have read that the Demotic form of greek that is used today (even for official purposes) was influenced to some extent by the years of Katharevousa's preeminence. This surely has some affect on the ability real or supposed of modern greeks without an eductaion in the subject to read classical greek more or less easily.

It's true indeed. The natural language of 18th and 19th century greeks was quite far from demotic, not to mention katharevousa. It was actually a compromise between the various factions that loathed each other to death, but a construction nonetheless. Ofcourse with the rise of nationalism, most nations sought to justify their new status by delving deep into the annals of history, normalising the different traditions and customs found within the perceived borders of their state and turning them into folklore. Any standardization of the official language is definately relying on the ruling elite's decision to place the new state into a certain continuing historical timeframe that also provides legitimisation for the further advancement of many policies.

The katharevousa forms that still survive are really numerous, mostly adverbial forms,specific declinations and idiomatic expressions, that currently have a "cliché" status and can help recognise the speaker's style as "scholarly"(but most of the time not heh).

[oudysseos]

I found this link http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/agp/ which is from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and includes three samples of ancient greek pronounciation. Very interesting. Doesn't sound much like dogs barking to me.

[Arman]

Indeed Katharevusa was very good attempt to bring Greek back as civilized language, problem is that after turkish occupation Greek language suffered badly it become slangish. Lack of education in Greek downgraded peoples knewlage of their language to the basic daily needs.
Well Katharevusa was standartized Greek which sound very good and was very proper, mostly attibute of intelectually developed person, people still their intelectuality by throwing expression from Pure (Katharevusa) Greek. Pitty last 20 years it's not being enforced anymore. Today Greek Youth inserts whole sentenses in English as they talk to each other. I'm afraid Greek can really downgrade significantly again, many words that still used by my grandparents, youth replacing with English words.
Plus in 1970-1890 they were studing Ancient Greek as subject in school!
Today student study all sort of strange worthless subjects but no Ancient Greek.

[Arman]

It's true indeed. The natural language of 18th and 19th century greeks was quite far from demotic, not to mention katharevousa.

Don't expect any huge diferences tho, my grand ma went in school in 1920s just for two years. And left Greece in 1949 so she were not there when Katharevusa was introduced, still she speaks same Greek as most of people speak here now, with very small minor diferences , and those could be related to the fact that she is from North and I mostly hears South Greek.
Katharevusa was significantly diferent from what we use now tho, I got to say I don't undestand many phrases when they speak in Katharevusa in old movies, but again they mostly speak the dimotico Greek as we speak now. Katharevusa was used in schools, TV, and official news papers. So they were forcing people to learn it. But still only educated people could speak it.

[Arman]

Cretians still speak in diferent way, and pronouce sounds diferently.
For example instead of "ke" they say "che".
"che to ipa na pao na chemitho"
So obviusly if today greeks the basic sound k pronouce in deferent way within 500 square km arrea. Its most probable that in those days diferent city states could speak quite diferently but still they were able to undestand each other.

[QwertyMIDX]

Well Doric and Attic/Ionic (which aren't even the same, double tau in Attic is double sigma is Ionic for example, and contraction that exists in Attic doesn't in Ionic) are pretty seriously different. We don't really know if the Hellens were speaking to each other directly before the Koine developed, ancient sources aren't very good about mentioning the presence of translators. Alternatively one of the dialects might have been a sort of lingua franca.

[oudysseos]

We've gone pretty far from how to transliterate Δημητριος. Maybe we should rename the thread 'Discussion about Classical Greek' ?

[L'Impresario]

I don't have enough time to comment on Arman's posts but I'll only refer to the fact that ancient greek is still taught today (3 years in Gymnasium and 1-3 in Lycaeum) at least 3-4 hours per week IIRC) and that
katharevousa was a written language. The Cretan dialect is mainly bearing strong venetian (and ofcourse turkish influence) and the relative isolation from the mainland helped the evolution of such distinctiveness.
BTW there was a thread in the monastery dedicated to Ancient Geek ;)
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=54323

[Idomeneas]

I don't have enough time to comment on Arman's posts but I'll only refer to the fact that ancient greek is still taught today (3 years in Gymnasium and 1-3 in Lycaeum) at least 3-4 hours per week IIRC) and that
katharevousa was a written language. The Cretan dialect is mainly bearing strong venetian (and ofcourse turkish influence) and the relative isolation from the mainland helped the evolution of such distinctiveness.
BTW there was a thread in the monastery dedicated to Ancient Geek ;)
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=54323

I dont know today but when i was in school in gymnasium we had only ''translated'' greek texts and we only had ancient for 2 years in Lyceum. Now i think its even worse.

Cretans might have some Venetian influences but what of the highlanders? You know that no conqueror got there, no venetians, no turks, no germans. They have a HUGE amount of classical words in their dialect. Also most of them dont have the -akis ending in their last name. Simply cause they never had Turks up there.