Getting To Know You, Getting To Know All About You

[charisjulia]

Are we allowed to wander off into subjects unrelated to the FAQs on 
this list? I suspect not. Looking at this post now it rather seems as 
if it ought to belong to the OT-Chatter. . . Anyway, Melody asked, so 
I'm answering:

>You know. When I first started the language, and it was still rough
>waters to wrap my head around it, I kept thinking of those two year
>old ancient Greek boys that ran around talking in it. I kept thinking
>of the five year old little girls in Greek "kindergarden" that were
>learning precisely what I was trying to do. I kept think, "if *they*
>could do it, so then I can." I mean, it is not like the language is
>impossible.

LOL! That reminds me of a Greek politician who once went to China and 
on his return was asked by a reporter what impressed him there the 
most. "The Chinese children", he replied. "Such little kids speaking 
a language as difficult as Chinese" As the Greeks say: "*Doooo*ing!!"

>I was told that modern Greek is quite different from ancient Greek. 
>Kind of like Old English is tough for us now. Glad to know it is not
>that different, and you can still follow it. 

Hm, yeah, except that ancient Greek appeared about a millennia or two 
before one can start talking about English. <eg>

Yes, ancient Greek is considerably different from the modern version, 
but they are still obviously the same language. Modern Greek is 
simply the Ancient Greek 2500 years further on. Of course, like I 
said in my other post, it depends on what you mean by Ancient Greek. 
I couldn't understand Homer without a dictionary, no, the tragedies 
are also tough (this is poetical language after all), but the Bible 
is easy peasy, Plato's ok, Aristotle is so simplistic he's boring. 
You've got to keep in mind that all these texts where written at 
different periods, with different intentions in the mind of the 
author and were addressed to different kinds of audience.

And then, well, it all depends what you mean by "modern" Greek as 
well. I'd have to delve into modern Greek history to really get you 
to understand this, but to make a long story short: there are roughly 
two "modern" forms of the language: "demotic" (eg. Of the "demos", 
the people) Greek, which is what's spoken in Greece nowadays, 
and "katharevousa" (the word comes from "katharos" meaning "clean"). 
Katherevoura is much closer to the original, "pure", "real" language 
of the ancients. It was really in many ways an academic construction 
which appeared at around the end of the 18th century as a reaction to 
the, err, sullied language spoken by Greek peasants. This movement 
caught on big time after the Greek revolution (1821), as the Greeks 
set about trying to find their national identity and therefore turned 
to Our Ancient Ancestors, while violently rejected anything Turkish 
that reminded them of the Ottoman rule.

So you got a real battle between "demotikistes" 
and "katharevousianoi" raging throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. 
What language was being taught in the schools largely depended on 
what government was in power. Finally the matter came to an end after 
the fall of the junta in 1974: Demotic has been the official language 
of the country ever since.

BUT: the influences of katharevousa are still very much present. For 
example one or two of my law books at University are still in 
katharevousa (mainly because nobody's bothered to translate them) We 
also studied texts in katharevousa at school: one of Greece's most 
acclaimed (and boring, not to mention maniac depressive) authors, 
Papadiamantis, wrote in katharevousa. The Constitution was only 
translated in the late 80s and the Orthodox Church still uses all the 
original Greek texts of course.

So, yeah, connections with older forms of the language are still 
there. A friend of my mother's is an interpreter in the European 
Parliament and I went to visit her up in Brussels a couple of weeks 
ago and we got to talking about languages and she mentioned how her 
colleagues who interpret from Greek where utterly bemused and 
helpless when a Greek MEP gave a speech,  numbered his points and 
used the Ancient Greek names for the numbers. Apparently the 
interpreters where severely ticked off called the MP a uncooperative 
show—off. But using old-fashioned phrases and words is very common in 
Greece esp. when giving official speeches. From my point of view, it 
was without a question the interpreters who weren't living up to the 
expectations of their profession.


>Could I follow you if
>you wrote in Greek to me even though all I have studied is the 
ancient
>version?

Probably not. I don't think it works that way around. In WW2 the 
British chose Oxbridge men who had studied Ancient Greek to be 
stationed in Greece with the idea that they would be able to 
communicate with the local population. LOL. Fat chance! First of all, 
the pronunciation is completely different. I do kinda have an idea of 
what Erasmian Greek sounds like from talking with German friends of 
mine, but no, I'd even speak Ancient Greek the modern Greek way. And 
the grammar has changed a lot too (e.g. there's no Dative in demotic 
Greek. But again every school child knows what the Dative is and how 
to form it.) and, needless to say, so has vocabulary. There was, for 
example, a notable lack of words meaning "CDRom", "lollipop" 
or "trousers" in Ancient Greek. <g> 

I think however, that having study Ancient Greek you would find it * 
much* easier to learn modern Greek should the fancy ever strike you. 
In fact, I don't think it's really possible to learn fluent demotic 
without studying at least the basics of Ancient Greek. My mother 
certainly had to.

Now, that was more information than you bargained for, wasn't it? Ah, 
well. . .

Charis Julia, noting that the Greek for `It's all Greek to me" 
is "it's all Chinese to me" and wondering what the Chinese say.