This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
By whom, and where is the source to confirm this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Akula444 (talk • contribs) .
Nope, that would be false sign to the world community. Our country is Hellas. Greeks since this is what the records say, were a tribe in Northern Epirus. If so, then we do a very bad mistake, to turn a subgroup as definition of the whole nation. While true, globally, is known as Greece or Greeks the adverb, truly this is false. And sometime in the future should be this altered. Hellas and Hellenic do exist and are familiar even people from abroad. Not to mention the country's official name, "Hellenic Republic" it is.
In other words, while I do not know who edited the Hellenic Group, just by accepting and forgetting the original term, do not give pace neither to historical proof, but we accept further problems with subgroups or other nations that overlook our history ( like Skopians).
Greeks is subgroup of Hellas, Macedonians, Cretans , Cypriots or Pontians are subgroups of Hellas.
If we get rid of this term we loose our history.
Personally, I have no problem to say " I am Hellenas" or "I am Hellen" and when a foreigner speaks about "Greece" I answer "Hellas", and if can not understand and ask me, I can explain.
Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.167.181.37 (talk) 16:19, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
If linear B writing is consider as first form of Greek language then we must assume that this language is originated from Pelasgian language. We must accept that Pelasgian language is a indo –european language and since the oldest recognized such language is Albanian the oldest greek language is originated from oldest Albanian language “The law formulated in 1892 by J. Wackernagel, according to which unstressed parts of the sentence tend to occupy a position after the first stressed word normally situated at the beginning of a sentence qualifies Albanian as the oldest living Indo European language.” Dodona (80.78.74.68) 19:41, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I am doing research on how diacritical marks are discussed in various style guides on Wikipedia. (See: User:Buddhipriya/LanguageTransliterationStyleGuides) Is there a Manual of Style or Naming Conventions page that covers rules for when and how to include diacritics for Greek on Wikipedia articles? Thanks for your help with this. Buddhipriya (talk) 05:01, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Hey guys, why hasn't someone added a consonant and vowel chart for "Standard" Modern Greek? Phonetics and phonology are important, you know. 65.14.229.26 (talk) 16:05, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
In the section on Characteristics, I see a number of semi- and outright evaluative words being used, which strike me as superfluous, not impartial, and hard to support with independent evidence. Examples: "This technique of Attic prose (known as periodic style) is unmatched in other European languages." "Greek is a language distinguished by an extraordinarily rich vocabulary." And pretty much the whole paragraph starting "One of the most distinctive characteristics of the Greek language is its powerful compound-constructing ability." Io rightly pointed out some of this as "chauvinistic". Moreover, it's hard to believe any of it is true. 1. What exactly is "unmatched" in other ... languages? The ability to have multiple participial clauses? If so, that's not true. These phrases sound like some kind of vague bragging, not neutral linguistic description. 2. "extraordinarily rich vocabulary" Citation? Comparison class? I hear these kinds of claims from speakers of lots of languages all the time, but I've never read a single scholarly article that would back up such claims. Everyone's native language is "extraordinarily rich" for *them*, and we certainly don't want to start counting lemmata in dictionaries, no? 3. Compounding in modern Greek is basically limited to two elements. There are many with two elements (νεοελληνικός, ελληνόφωνος, ελεφαντόδοντο, οδοντίατρος, etc.) but try putting these together and the results are comical (*νεοελληνόφωνος [even the Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής (Α.Π.Θ. 1998) doesn't list that one], *ελεφαντοδοντίατρος: such 3+ compounds are perfectly unremarkable in the Germanic languages, for example: German 'Elefantenzahnarzt', Dutch 'olifanttandarts', English 'elephant tooth doctor', while they may not be attested, are perfectly understandable as neologisms. I recall a paper on compounding presented at the Thessaloniki conference (Angliko tmima) a few years back on this topic; I may try to find it if anyone's interested, but frankly, given the marginality of this phenomenon to begin with, and its limited interestingness anyhow, I'd much rather cut this paragraph and replace it with something about clitic pronouns, lack of an infinitive, definiteness spreading, comparative/superlative morphology, negative concord, or almost anything else that makes Greek especially interesting typologically. (And this is where a pointer to the excellent sprachbund article would be apt.) I'm happy to do this myself, if no-one objects... Mundart (talk) 22:09, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Just some trivia: Apparently the Greek Language contains over some 70 million words which include derivatives. Can anyone prove or disprove this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.131.40.195 (talk) 11:38, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
the anonymous poster is indeed referring to a minor 'urban legend'. it's along these lines: some guy heard that the TLG database contains a 'total of 90 million words of text', completely misrepresented it as 'the Greek lexicon totals 90 million words', posted the claim on his blog, another blog copied it etc. etc.87.202.49.224 (talk) 02:37, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
I thought of a couple of Greek words that exist in the English language that have more than one or two derivatives, however there are many: "phon" which means "voice" which seems to have quite a few derivatives, e.g., phonasthenia, phonate, phonation, phonautograph, phoneme, phonematic, phonetic, phonetics, phonetical, phonetically, phonetician, phoniatrics, phoniatry, phonic, phonics, phonedoscope, phonically, phonometer, phonocardiogram, phonocardiograph, phonocardiographic, -cal, -cally, phonochorda, phonogram, phonograph, phonographer, phonographic, -cally, phonography, phonolite, phonology, phonologic, -cal, phonologist, phonomania, phonometer, phonometry, phonopathy, phonophile, phonophobia, phonophotography, phonopsia, phonoscope. Another is "phot-, "photo" which means "light." E.g., photosthesia, photosthesis, photic, photics, photism, photoallergy, photoautotrophic, photobiology, photobiologist, photobiotic, photocatalysis, photocatalyst, photochemistry, photochemical, -cally, photochromy, photochromatic, photochromic, photochromism, photochronograph, photodrama, photodynamics, photodynamic, photodynia, photoecology, photoelasticity, photoelectric, photoelectron, photoelectricity, photogene, photogenic, photogeology, photogoniometer, photogram, photograph, photographer, photographic, -cal, -cally, photography, photoheliograph, photokinesis, photokymograph, photolith, photolithograph, photolithographic - photolithography, photology, photologic, photologist, photolysis, photolytic, photomacrography, photomagnetism, photomagnetic, photomania, photomechanical, photometer, photometric, -photometrical, photometrician, photometry, photomicrograph, photomicrographic, photomicrography, photomosaic, photon, photopathologic, photoperiod, photoperiodic, photoperiodical, photoperiodicity, photophilic, phtophily, photophobia, photophobic, photophone, photophonic, photophony, photophoresis, photophygous, photoproton, photopsia, photopsy, photoptarmosis, photoptic, photoscope, photoscopic, photoscopy, photosphere, photospheric, photostat, photostatic, photosynthesis, photosynthesize, photosynthetic, -cally, phototaxis, phototelegraph, phototelegraphy, phototherapy, phototopography, phototoxic, phototoxicity, phototroph, phototropism, phototropy, phototropic, phototype, phototypic, phototypy. I could list more but I don't have the time right now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.131.30.80 (talk) 09:07, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Take a look this
http://www.filol.csic.es/dge/index2.htm
without exageration, this work is one of the most comprehensive dictionary of Ancient Greek (Modern Greek is excluded) ever written. It is a proof of the lexical abundance of Greek. It has been edited 5 volumes but the work is just in its beginning. Crazymadlover
Lets not forget that the "English" language is predominantly made up from Greek and "Latin" (which contains Greek) and "Germanic" and from other languages to a lesser extent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.131.24.91 (talk) 00:33, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Britannica article includes Mycenaean Greek into Ancient Greek: Ancient Greek is subdivided into Mycenaean Greek (14th–13th centuries bc) and Archaic and Classical Greek (8th–4th centuries bc).[3] This is a correct update after the decipherment of Linear B in the '50s. Shouldn't we update also? A Macedonian, a Greek. (talk) 19:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
I think the whole set of articles on the Greek language suffers from some problems of scope. Much of this seems to be because an originally fairly well-planned series of articles has grown into unexpected directions, not least because there is uncertainty whether the term "Greek", when used on its own in an article title, should primarily refer to Ancient Greek (A.G.) or Modern Greek (M.G.). I'd therefore like to propose a rather large restructuring project for discussion:
Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:22, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Some time ago I had tried to organise the Greek language articles almost exactly as Future proposed above. Dab had agreed with me back then so he probably remembers. While everything seemed to be in order, some other people started complained about how the article didn't follow wikipedia's guidelines (using pretty much the same arguments as Andreas) and thus all the linguistic information from Modern Greek was moved to the Greek language, leaving the former in a much poorer condition. Miskin 20:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Fut.Perf. that the main Greek language article should be a diachronic overview, and that Modern Greek, Ancient Greek, etc. should cover the specific periods. This is for four pragmatic reasons: 1) there should be some place which presents an overview, and an article devoted specifically to Modern Greek is not the right place to do it; 2) the term "Greek" on its own often refers to ancient or koine Greek; 3) there are many existing wikilinks that would need to be disambiguated; 4) there is simply a large amount of material that needs to be divided in some logical way.
Michkalas mentions the WikiProject languages template, which is certainly handy, but I couldn't find anything in the related discussions which specified whether this template should be used for Greek, Modern Greek, Ancient Greek, Koine Greek, etc., or perhaps some or all of them. Perhaps there should be a discussion about Greek, but also Chinese and Arabic (where there is similar confusion), in the WikiProject.... --Macrakis 22:51, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
This comment is perhaps more appropriate for the "History of Greek Language" page but the author has not started a discussion page there. I would be interested to see a discussion in one of these pages regarding the relatively small Greek-speaking community today. The western Roman empire, which lasted into the middle of the first millenium, left a legacy of multiple Romance languages with a very large body of speakers all over Europe. This in spite of the fact that all of these areas were overrun by Germanic tribes which did not originally speak Romance. The eastern Roman empire was the most powerful nation in Europe into the beginning of the second millenium, and even while the western Roman empire still existed the eastern empire was the most significant and developed part of the empire. Yet today the speakers of languages derived from Roman Greek are mostly limited to the modern Greek republic with a few small pockets in other areas of Europe. One would think there would be more areas of Europe that speak Greek derivatives than Latin derivatives. Can anyone comment on the reasons this did not happen? That is, can anyone comment on why the western conquerors largely adopted the languages of the subjects whereas the eastern conquerors did not? MCorazao 26 July 2006
Just some interesting information I have come across and beg your indulgence: That English does not contain only 12% Greek but more like 40%- 70% Greek depending on branch of study/learning. According to a book called "oi Ellhnikes lexis sthn agglikh glossa” or " The Greek Words in the English Language" there are approximately over 52,000 words of Greek origin contained in the English language, The French language contains more than this and even Latin contains a large portion of Greek (when the Romans adopted the Greek alphabet they did not adopt the "Z" until the 2nd century A.D. and then also adopted a large proportion of Greek words as well.) Therefore anywhere where English, French and Latin are spoken, Greek is spoken. Greek is the only noematic language and all other languages are simiotic. Greek in contained in languages of South America, Indonesia, Japan, Spain, Italy, Polynesian and Hebrew (Hebrew linguist, Joseph Yahuda spent many years of his life comparing the Old Testament, written in Hebrew and a copy of Homer's Iliad written in Ancient Greek and concluded that over 90% of the Hebrew language is actually Greek, and even went on to say that even the Arabic languages have Greek as their foundation.) The Cyrillic alphabet that is used by some of the Slavic/Eastern Bloc countries (derived in the 8th to 9th century A.D. by the two Greek monks and brothers from Thessaloniki, capital of Macedonia, Greece) is also based on the ancient Greek alphabet. German grammar is based on ancient Greek grammar and also contains Greek. There is a very famous saying in America when something new is discovered and a word/words are needed to identify it - "The Greeks have a word for it." It seems the Greek language has a longer and more intricate history than we think or understand. It bears more investigation and study to understand it's full importance on other languages today. I will leave you with an adage that my mother likes to quote: "Wherever (in the world) you lift up a rock, there will be a Greek." So to say that Greek is spoken in just about every country of the world, it not so impossible or unimaginable lets keep an open mind. Just a small taste of some Greek words and the year that they were adopted into the English language: analysis (1667), synthesis (1611), antithesis (1529), problem (1382), hypothesis (1596), method (1541), theory (1605), practice (1553), empiric (1605), paradigm (1483), music (1250), orchestra (1606), melody (1569), rhythm (1557), harmony (1532), rhapsody (1542), organ (1000), hypocrisy (1225), theater(1374), drama (1515), tragedy (1374), comedy (1374), poetry (1447), lyrism (1859), symptom (1398), diagnosis (1681), therapy (1846), politic (1420), democracy (1531), tyranny (1374), anarchy (1539), despotism (1727), oligarchy (1577), idea (1430), ideology (1796), logic (1362), dilemma (1656), category (1588), program (1633), system (1638), organization (1432), etiology (1656), symbol (1450), syllable (1384), phrase (1530), dialect (1551), dialogue (1551), theme (1300), theorem (1551), axiom (1485), physic (1390), energy (1581), energy (1581), plastic (1632), meter (900), machine (1549), metal (1300), mass (900), magic (1386), myth (1838), mystery (1315), phenomenon (1639), period (1413), phase (1812), dynamic (1827), fantasy (1382), crisis (1543), criterion (1647), dogma (1600), psalm (961), bible (1095), church (825), martyr (900), liturgy (1560), orthodox (1630), catholic (1551), hymn (1667), symmetry (1563), asymmetry (1652), panic (1420), mania (1607), aesthesis (1879).
First names and surnames that are also of Greek origin include: Alexander/Alexandra/Alejandro/Alesandra/Lexie/Lexia/Xander/Sandra/Sandy, Philip/s, Andrew/s, Ellis, Evans (from Evangelos), George/s, Harris (from Harissiou or Haralambos) Campell from Kampana = bell, Milo, Myron, Sophia, Ambrose/Amber, Basil/Baz, Christopher, Christine/Chris/Christina, Dimitri/Dimitra/Dimi/Demi, Dion/Dionne, Doris, Dorian, Eugene/Eugenia/Nia, Gregory/Greg, Jason, Lea/Leander/Leah, Leon/Leonidas, Nick from Nicholas, Nicodemus, Peter, Petros/Petra/Petria, Stephen/Stephania/Steffi, Theodore/Theodora/Dorothy/Dorothea/Dora, Timothy/Tim, Ulysses from Odysseus, Ari/Aristotle, Agatha, Agnes, Althea, Aliki/Alice, Angela/Angelique/Angel/Angelina/Angelica, Ariana, Philomena, Philidyia/Lydia, Cassander/Cassandra, Catherine/Katerina/Katina/Tina/Ina, Cynthia, Delia, Margaret/Margarita/Rita, Penelope/Penny/, Elias/Eli, Evangelos/Evangelina/Lena/Vangelis/Evangeline/Evan/Melinda, Evanthea, Lily, Eunice, Urania/Nia, Euphemia/Mia, Olympia/Pia, Aristides/Arista/Aristea/Ari/Tea, Caliope/Caly/Poppy, Elektra, Hermione, Melissa/Leesa/Lisa, Melanie/Melania/Nia, Perry, Thierry, Troy, Hector, Andromache, Paris, Daphne, Konstantine/Konstantina/Constance,Dina/Dino/Dinah, Crystal, Sebastian/Sebastina, Christos/Christina/Christian/Kristian/Chistianne/Kristen/Kirsty, Adrian/Adriana, Zachary, Achilles, Antigone, Ptolemy, Eva/Eve, Ada, Rhea, Zoe, Larissa, Philomena/Mena, Zeta, Delta, Moira, Morpheus, Myrtle, Cypress, Nephele/a, Calypso, Calisto/Callista, Xenia, Zenovia/Zena, Nathaniel, Daniel, Emmanuel/Manuel/Manny, Michael/Mickey/Mikey, Rafael, Atticus, Celia/Lia, Haralambos/Charis/Harry/Charissa, Cicely, Coralia/Lia, Cora, Cynthia, Ida, Ina, Phaedra/Phaedron/Phaedon, Julius/Julia/Julian, Kimon, Molly, Polly, Cosmas/Cosmo, Stavros/Stav, Pericles/Perry/Perri etc., etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.231.19.172 (talk) 08:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
Why don't you just put in the nessecary details and not make it so long??? 6th graders are gonna think it's soooooo boring. And you have to add some life to it. Spice it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gymgurl (talk • contribs) 21:42, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
It might be long but interesting and so is the following:
JOSEPH YAHUDA:HEBREW IS GREEK – ΓΙΟΣΕΦ ΓΙΑΧΟΥΝΤΑ:ΤΑ ΕΒΡΑΙΚΑ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ
Posted by satyrikon στο Νοεμβρίου 21, 2008
Ο Γιοσέφ Εζικιήλ Γιαχουντά
ήταν δικηγόρος και καθηγητής τής Εβραϊκής.
Γεννήθηκε στις 29 Ιουλίου 1900 στο Ιερουσαλήμ. Ήταν ο γιος του Ισάακ Μπέντζαμιν Εζεκιέλ Γιαχουντά, ερευνητής και ερασιτέχνης γλωσσολόγος. Το 1982 ο Γιαχουντά έγραψε ένα αμφιλεγόμενο βιβλίο
με τίτλο
Hebrew is Greek (Τα Εβραϊκά είναι Ελληνικά),
στο οποίο ισχυρίζεται ότι οι εβραϊκές και αραβικές γλώσσες προέρχονται από την
Ελληνική
και ότι τα σύμβολα που αναγνωρίστηκαν διεθνώς ως Εβραϊκά -όπως το αστέρι του Δαβίδ- ήταν στην πραγματικότητα Ελληνικά. Πέθανε το 1995 στο Westcott, Surrey, Αγγλία.
Τα παραδείγματα των ετυμολογιών που πρότεινε είναι τα ακόλουθα: [1].
Israel < Is-ra-el < εις (‘ισχυρός’) + ρα (‘βασιλιάς’) + ηλ (‘ήλιος’) Cain < Ka-en < Κα ην < Γα ην < Γήινος (‘από τη γη’). ΠΕΡΙΣΣΟΤΕΡΑ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ
WikiDumper site
Joseph Ezekiel Yahuda (born on July 29, 1900 in Jerusalem and died in 1995 in Westcott, Surrey, England) was a British lawyer, freelance author and self-styled linguist. He was the son of Isaac Benjamin Ezekiel Yahuda, a longtime researcher and linguist. In 1982, he published a book entitled ”Hebrew is Greek, Greek is Hebrew”, in which he proposed the theory that the Hebrew and Arabic languages are Greek in origin. He claimed that virtually all Hebrew and Arabic words could be “derived” from Greek ones. Examples of the etymologies he proposed are the following:
Published Works:
I also have a list of criticisms made towards Yahuda’s 1982 work if you want. Leave a comment on my blog at hellenicempire@blogspot.com if you need anything else or if you agree/disagree about showing Joseph E. Yahuda on your blog.
Again, even if Yahuda’s linguistic theories are incorrect, people deserve to know who he is. Realistically, there are a plethora of scholars who provided theories that were eventually proven false. Yet, their contributions are still recognized in Wikipedia. Of course, one reason why the Yahuda article was deleted was because “there was no evidence of his book having sold over 5000 copies.” Another reason entails Yahuda not eliciting many Google hits. To me, these are not very good reasons.
Overall, I am happy to know that there is someone who actually cares about articles created on Wikipedia that are unfortunately deemed as “useless” even if they provide some positive contribution to humankind’s collective knowledge.
ΕΠΙΣΗΣ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ
Science Forum Index » Archaeology Forum
HEBREW IS GREEK
THE WORK OF JOSEPH YAHUDA
A book that “mysteriously disappeared” soon after its publication.
In 1982, a suppressed, ages-old, historical truth, was resurrected through the publication of a book by Becket Publications of Oxford, England (ISBN O 7289 0013 O). The book, published in English, and titled Hebrew is Greek, was written by lawyer, linguist and researcher, Joseph Yahuda, the son of Isaac Benjamin Ezekiel Yahuda, an ethnic Jew and longtime researcher and linguist. Though Jewish both by nationality and religion, J. Yahuda could be considered a Greek– according to Isocrates’ definition of a Hellene [see definition below. ed.], since his decades-long, unbiased, and meticulously thorough search reveals the linguistic relationship of numerous groups of words in Hebrew, Greek and Arabic. Work that was published without fear or hesitation by a scholar whose only concern was for the discovery of the truth.
Following the book’s publication, and while only a limited number of copies circulated for a few fortunate individuals, the book disappeared from the face of the earth. It was as if an invisible hand intervened and blocked its circulation. It cannot be found at any public library, it is not sold at any bookstore on earth, not even in a curiosity or antique shop. [Rare book dealers, in the U.S. and the U.K., have told TGR that there have been inquiries after the book, but that they have been unable to locate a copy anywhere. ed.] The only information available about the book throughout the world is its title. No book reviews on this book were ever published, neither positive nor negative, moderate or offensive. Nor, it seems, has there been any other evaluation of the work. One must eventually come to the inescapable conclusion that every one of the copies originally published was somehow withdrawn through some sort of a secret operation with a global reach.
Concerns posed by another Jewish intellectual who wrote the preface of the book.
The research published in the book covers 718 pages. The introduction was written by Jewish professor Saul Levin, though no enthusiasm on his part was evident in his introduction. He admits that following the 1977 publication of his book entitled, The Indo-European and Semitic Languages, J. Yahuda got in touch with him, and they maintained a fruitful relationship through correspondence, though they never actually met in person. The reason for the interest in J. Yahuda expressed by S. Levin, as he himself confessed, was the publication of several writings by J. Yahuda, such as the La Palestine Revisite, written in 1928, Law and Life According to Hebrew Thought (1932) and This Democracy (n.d.), published by Pitman. Professor Levin learned of the contents of the book [from the proofs which were sent to him from time to time] for which he wrote the introduction gradually, as it had already been sent to the printer. As Professor Levin disclosed: “It was J. Yahuda’s congeniality and my inherent curiosity that did not allow me to refuse the writing of the introduction.” [For a better understanding as to why Professor Levin was not enthusiastic about writing the introduction, consider the fact that] the black Jew, Martin Bernal, has stated: “Saul Levin was among the many Jewish individuals who worked on the publication of [my] book, Black Athena.” A book which has been deemed to be a disgrace and a discredit to serious scholarship by the vast majority of specialists who have read it.
Joseph Yahuda speaks about his work
In the preface of his book, J. Yahuda notes:
This ecumenical research will be reviewed by three separate specialists, one for each language researched, although each specialist does have knowledge of the other two languages. This is not an error committed only by me. I attempted repeatedly, yet unsuccessfully, to find more scholars who would be willing to assist me in my quests. As an example of what I was up against, at the very beginning of an hours-long meeting, one potential colleague exclaimed: “All of this is garbage and we are all wasting our time.” My answer was: “Both you, and I, will be judged for the words we say, whenever we discuss my work.” I hold no hostility or bitterness because of such small-minded opposition to my belief. In fact, during the progress of my research, I twice attempted to arouse [this man's] interest, but in vain. A little while after the meeting referred to above, I mentioned his degrading comment to Christodoulos Hourmouzios, a graduate of the University of Athens, and an acknowledged specialist on Homer, and he said: ‘ I think you are one of the greatest linguists I know’; he promised complete cooperation with me. Unfortunately, before we could begin our work, he passed away.
“There were others who admitted that they had been convinced; that something did really exist in my theory. However, they did think that my belief in the correspondence of Hebrew with Greek was rather exaggerated. They said I was too ambitious, and suggested, for my own good, that I expect less and adopt a ‘less controversial view.’ One of them, Sir Leon Simon (A British Lord of Jewish descent), a known classicist who knew Hebrew, attended my first lecture on the issue on the evening of Jan. 14th, 1959.He did this even though he was old and had to travel a long distance in bad weather and heavy fog. He introduced me, briefly and carefully, not wanting to commit himself to any decision until the end of my speech. Then, before the audience was asked to pose questions, he said the following, which I noted: ‘I don’t believe that everyone will agree with everything J. Yahuda has told us, as he may have thought that everyone understood what he was saying. Despite any doubts that may exist, I am sure of one thing. He has resolved a mystery that had created confusion for scholars for the past 2.000 years. For, if he is correct in stating that many Greek words that begin with sk were transformed in Hebrew as if sk was a digraph [a combination of two letters to make one simple sound. ed.], or one of the two letters lost, then Homer was not wrong when he left the vrachi [ abbreviated ] vowel at the beginning of the word Skamandros, as in his famous line: ‘On Cantho%n kaleousi theoi%, a%ndre*s de Ska%mandron’. [The Gods called Xanthos, mortal men Skamandros. ed.] I also had a fruitful interview with a scholar of international fame, which was then followed by a series of exchanges of correspondence. This correspondence ceased after he sent me a note, wherein he wrote: ‘It could also be possible that you would say that the English word ball comes from the Greek ba%llw, or that you discover a connection between chow and show since chows are exhibited at shows.
“The result was that I was obliged to fall back on my own sources, and to depend only on my own efforts, thus devoting my free time to this research for the past 30 years or more. Two things kept me going: the unfailing support of my wife, Cecile, and the unprecedented emotions we felt with every new discovery. When my wife was asked by a friend how she was sure of my work, since she knew neither Greek nor Hebrew, she answered: ‘But, I know my husband. He hates speculating, he always insists on finding proof. As a lawyer, he is able to evaluate this proof. He tells me that he has plenty of proof that is convincing, and I believe him.’ There is truly a plethora of ‘proof that is convincing’ which I have attempted to make available, not only to those technically specialized, but also to interested, non-specialist researchers.”
Yahuda realizes the significance of Greek Civilization
“I was somewhat familiar with the Bible, as stated above. My brother, Solomon, and I learned the New Testament in Hebrew translation from a copy that my father had, as part of his personal library. For years, the distant Biblical past was alive in my mind: I lived with the vision of the pyramids to such an extent, and my passion for the Bible was so great, that I developed hostile feelings for the Greeks and Romans. Strangely, this hostility did not involve the Egyptians, who were our enemies, had been the enemies of our forefathers and had so deeply influenced post-Biblical Hebrew. Neither had I been able to learn more than the necessary Latin needed for my law education and practice. However, my feelings for the Greeks and Romans have changed radically since then. Now I realize that our differences were similar to those of a civil war, as fratricidal as the taking of Troy had been, for I became convinced that the Jews are of Greek descent. This revolutionary transformation took place around the time I was thirty years old, following the publishing of my book Law and Life according to Hebrew Thought. That year (1932), I became interested in biology as a ‘hobby’. During my haphazard study of the issue, I came across various Greek words that were strikingly similar to the Hebrew words of the Bible, and I drew the conclusion that the Greeks had borrowed them from us. I began debating the idea of whether or not I should one day begin a systematic comparison of the two languages. At that time, I was still fascinated with the more traditional studies, and, like everyone else, I believed without a doubt that the Semitic languages were Semitic and the Aryan languages were Aryan. These two could not be mixed. At the same time, though, I was thinking that it would be interesting to collect anddeconstruct a complete list of groups of similar words so as to demonstrate the degree of influence of Hebrew on Greek at the time before Alexander the Great (considering that the reverse influence became stronger following his conquests). I knew very little of where this research would lead me and what the results would show.
“I had such little knowledge of Greek that all I knew were the first letters of the alphabet, knowledge that I had acquired by chance during my studies of mathematics and geometry. I remember asking my friend Gerald Emanuel, in a teashop in 1932, to write the whole Greek alphabet on the bottom of a half-written page. The years passed, but when I published my book Biology and New Medicine in 1951, I then had the opportunity to spend all of my free time on researching those possible links that I suspected existed between Biblical Hebrew and Greek. Following the acquisition of some rudimentary knowledge of Greek grammar, I submerged into the translation of the Septuagint, solely based on my memory of the meaning of the numerous pages that I had chosen to read. Then I read Homer, comparing him to the Bible. One page from the translation of the Iliad, one page from the Old Testament, line for line, page by page; I started with Genesis and the first book of the Iliad, along with the last book of the Odyssey and the 2nd book of ‘Chronicles.’ Day after day, the list of similar words grew longer, until it reached 600 words — including words related to different views and activities of life — which could not be attributed only to the borrowing factor. In any case, history has not witnessed circumstances where such elaborate borrowing would be possible on such a large scale. I was convinced that this phenomenon went past the limits of borrowing, reaching the limits of a genetic relationship. The door of genealogical descent stood before me and I could not attempt to pass through it or climb above it. It should open freely and widely and the key to this was the grammar. The only grammatical characteristics that I knew of that were common to both Greek and Hebrew, concerned the definite article and the dual number nouns [count nouns. ed.]. I stopped reading and began thinking and re-thinking the results of my non-processed research. I used the materials I had: analyzing, classifying, comparing these with the Biblical variations and the dialectic interchanges of the Greek letters, selecting specific words to be compared. Thus, my theory began to develop. Some of the Greek dialectic letters could be used interchangeably, such as the letters ‘k’ and ‘t’, ‘o’ and ‘a’, ‘s’ and ‘d.’ I also noted a curious transformation with Hebrew words: a suffix to a Greek word changed to a prefix in a Hebrew word. Early on during my research, I tested the exactness of the words and verified their meanings. As the number of tests increased, the more effective my research became, and the confidence in my theory rose.
“From the beginning, I based a lot of my work on Arabic. With my theory, it became possible for me to correct the translation of the Septuagint, using the Septuagint and the translation of the Bible, using the Bible. These discoveries cured me of my dyslexia in relationship to Greek and Hebrew and made me capable of reading a Hebrew word as if it had been a variation of the word. I formed a series of phonetic and morphology rules. I gradually gathered a number of valuable facts. Some examples are that the declension dotiki [dative] exists in Hebrew, that the masculine plural is the same in Hebrew and Greek, and that, in general, a compound Greek verb is equivalent to a Hebrew compound verb. I estimate that 9 out of each 10 words of the [Jewish] Bible can be proved to have a purely Greek equivalent. Many issues were resolved which prove that the Greeks and Jews hold some customs and religious convictions in common, whereas the Hebrew language is proven to be richer and more beautiful than believed until today because of the existence of these groups of words. This whole matter is, in practice, consistent with the following two proposals: Biblical Hebrew is Greek; and, the Jews are Asian Greeks. In reality, the conclusion of this massive, extended and complicated research can be summarized in the following brief sentence: Hebrew is ‘Greek wearing a mask.’”
An example for the rest of his co-religionists
As already stated, the research of J. Yahuda restores part of a universal truth that has fallen into oblivion for millennia. Not only is the Hebrew language “Greek wearing a mask” (in other words, a distorted version of Greek), but, as we have announced at international conventions, there is no other language on the face of the earth except Greek. A few years ago, we made this statement at a convention of the Literary Society Parnassos, titled: “The Ecumenical Character of the Greek Language,” where we used texts and images to prove this statement. All other languages are just descendants or distorted dialects of Greek, adopted by the peoples.
Finally, we present one of the tables compiled by the undaunted scholar, J. Yahuda, where Hebrew letters, along with their pronunciation in Hebrew appear on the left, the equivalent Greek letters and their pronunciation in the middle, and the Arabic letters and pronunciation on the right. In the preface, just above the table shown below, Yahuda’s first theorem is written, to wit: “The Greek and Hebrew alphabets demonstrate striking similarity insofar as the order of the letters is concerned, their names, their shapes and their pronunciation.”
We cannot omit to express our admiration for this great man, who, defying the forces of darkness and medieval ignorance, proved to be an unbiased scholar, unburdened by preconceived dogma and purposeful deception. A man who broke the bonds of mischievous misinformation so prevalent in [the past] century, and dared to defy traditional nationalistic and racist fanaticism while declaring a revolution against the international forces of power. He has achieved the level of a true Hellene. After discovering the truth, he struggled to make it known, he revealed it and he published it without fear. His acts were acts of patriotism, since he has raised his compatriots to a level approaching the Greeks. He called them “Asian Greeks.” His life and work truly pronounce him to be of equal value to a Greek, in contrast with those of his compatriots who have denounced him and his book. Is it because they are afraid or is it because they are unable to follow in his footsteps?
In Conclusion
Yahuda has scientifically proven that both Hebrew and Arabic are Greek in their origin, as is true with the other languages of the world. It is to be regretted that the speakers of this distorted Greek dialect do not take advantage of this, so as to elevate themselves to free and Christ-loving Greeks, as their compatriot Yahuda has done. Many of them prefer to live in the dark; It is a fact to be pitied that some are fanatics who hate everything Greek, especially her history and her language. In the past, many such men appeared in the Roman State as politicians, academics or administrators in the public sector, and fought against everything that was Greek. Nowadays, such men cooperate with the global powers that are propelling the world toward destruction. A destruction that can only be avoided by a rebirth of the only salvation for humanity: Greek Civilization.
Primary Source
This article was written by the linguist and researcher, Konstantinos G. Georganas, for Davlos. February 1999 issue, pp.12931-12937. Translation by staff. Emphasis not in original text was added.
Note: The great rhetorician, Isocrates (436-338 B.C.), gave the following definition of a Hellene in his Panagyricus:
Athens has so far outrun the rest of mankind in thought and speech that her disciples are the masters of the rest, and it is due to her that the word “Greek” is not so much a term of birth as it is of mentality, and is applied to a common culture rather than a common descent.
ΤΟ ΒΙΒΛΙΟ ΜΠΟΡΕΙΤΕ ΝΑ ΤΟ ΚΑΤΕΒΑΣΕΤΕ ΑΠΟ
ΕΔΩ
ΕΠΙΣΗΣ ΑΠΟ
ΕΔΩ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.186.160.177 (talk) 05:23, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
I have cancelled the sentence “second only to Vedic Sanskrit attested in the early portion of the Vedas composed between 2000 B.C and 1500 B.C.[9] “ because first attested history means the ancient written language that today is spoken. We have linear B tablets and at moment, don’t exist similar document for sanskrit. Michael Ventris and John Chadwick performed the linear B decipherment 1951 and 1953. We don’t know if oldest greek or sanskrit but at moment we know that exist linear B tablets. Sanskrit is written only in CE era in devanagari. The oldest written records in India are in prakrit languages written in brahmi, aramaic and greek, and dated only III century BCE. Indus tablets at moment aren’t decoded. The article says that greek is one of oldest..... not the oldest. At moment the oldest attested indo-european language is hittit language but is died. In this article is not necessary an “ideological” comparation with sanskrit. The “Indian nationalism” don’t understand that are indo-european languages as greek, hittit and mitanni that give us the evidence that sanskrit is old.
--84.223.59.57 (talk) 14:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
PS: the reference (9) to enc. Brit. say about the ancient of the language not about the existence of written record. Greek is attested before because is written before but it is obviosly existed before. Teogony is written in VIII century BCE not means that teogony was created in VIII century BCE. Rig Veda was written in CE era not means thet rig-veda was created in CE era. It is impossible affirm that the Rig-veda pantheon is older than Teogony pantheon. So is impossible give a evidence if sanskrit is older than greek. But surely the greek is written before in linear B, shortly after the creation of the first stage of an oral Rig Veda''.
--84.223.59.57 (talk) 14:46, 15 December 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.223.59.57 (talk) 14:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Other "ideological sentence" that i want indicate that at moment exist into the article :
(However, the earliest known literature in an Indo-European language are the early portion of the Vedas written in Vedic Sanskrit between 2000 BC and 1500 BC in India, though the Vedas were never written down and transmitted orally for religious reasons.)
Is necessary this sentence in the article on greek language ?
--84.223.59.57 (talk) 15:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Those who are interested are encouraged to voice their opinion on whether Mycenaean Greek language should be renamed Mycenaean Greek. — Eru·tuon 06:34, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
Why is the IPA pronunciation of "ελληνική γλώσσα" given as [eliniˈci ˈɣlosa] when ελληνική is spelled with a kappa (κ), not with a chi (χ)? — 194.74.1.82 (talk) 10:35, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Someone guess that the article is ready for a peer review? to prepare a nomination. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crazymadlover (talk • contribs) 00:20, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
The changes recently revert-warred over by an anonymous editor ([4], "[Some believe that the alphabet arose from the Phoenician script ,but the majority of historians support the most correct,that ancient Greek alphabet's characters may used some Phoenician letter sounds,but the Greek remains the first alphabet") are both heavily ungrammatical and not useful. Nobody in the literature doubts that the alphabet arose from Phoenician. This is universally accepted. The technical difference between the Greek and the Phoenician use of the alphabet, regarding the values of vowel letters, is only a slight change (albeit a structurally important one), and in no way contradicts the basic, undisputed fact that the one derived from the other. Hence, the "some believe" is wrong, the "but" is wrong, the "used some Phoenician letter[s]" is wrong (it in fact used all of them). Phoenician also isn't a "syllabary", as is in fact explicitly made clear in one of the sources cited by the anon (Diringer 1968: 166), and without doubt elsewhere too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:45, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
I thought the problem was solved 2500 years ago, indeed even Herodotus claimed that Greek alphabet was of Phoenician origin ...
Obviously it was and adaptation, because an indo-european language (with many diphthongs) needs to identify the vowels.
An alternative it was to use a complicated and less efficient abugida. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.74.212 (talk) 21:01, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
what if the info in the encyclopedia is wrong? phoenician background? BULL indo-european? more bull. lets look at the source,amazing how someones assumption makes it in the history books as fact,and then everyone copies the same falseties, you want to know about the greek language? ask a expert that actually speaks greek. ever wonder who exactly were the phoenicans we hear so much about and were are there works,cities,ect ect? if they were so influential — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigbobcoolman (talk • contribs) 07:06, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Among the modern Greek dialelects(Cappadokian,Cheimarriotika,Cretan,Pontic,Tsakonian,Maniot, Yevanic),you do not include the Cypriot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Αριστόδημος (talk • contribs) 23:03, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
In the table at the top right part of the webpage, under "official status", the article claims that Greek is a "recognized minority language" in the following countries: Albania, Australia, Italy, France, Russia, Germany, Armenia, Turkey, United States, Romania, Ukraine. However, the corresponding cited sources merely indicate the presence of Greek diaspora communities in these countries and do not prove official status as recognized minority language. I know for a fact that Greek does not have any official status in the United States, Australia, France, Turkey, or Germany. Russia, Albania, Italy, and Ukraine had Greek-speaking communities that existed until the 20th century, and perhaps even into present-day, but I'm not sure if Greek has official status as a minority language in these countries. I will do the research and edit this part of the article within the next few days. Let's please try to stay accurate. Skyduster (talk) 21:16, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
The United States does not have any official language. Look it up. --Nikoz78 (talk) 16:35, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
The article Accusative and infinitive needs a section on the construction in Greek. Would it be possible for someone working here to do the necessary? --Doric Loon (talk) 16:54, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
20:55, 24 June 2012 (talk | contribs) . . (42,217 bytes) (-58) . . (rv, low-quality commercial e-learning site) (undo) I saw this message in the history of the unit "Language learning" when i added the site easygreeklearning.com and to tell the truth i m surprised of the removing reason.Easygreeklearning uses multimedia in his frontpage, based on platform of social media and full exercises, lessons etc. I t s not made by a simple html editor. It probably could be a matter of defamatory
I just ask a question: Which are the criteria of low-quality sites? Because someone else could also claim that the same unit "Language Learning" contains lower lower "quality sites" and they all still remain.
I hope that this mistake could be corrected.
I think it would be interesting to mention somewhere that modern Greek does not use (?) to represent the question mark, but because of some resemblance to a letter of their alphabet, they use the semicolon (;) instead. How did that come about? 204.92.65.10 (talk) 13:43, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
SIL International Ethnologue is a better source for the number of speakers, as it specializes on the subject, and is moreover widely used throughout wikipedia. Moreover, the Ethnologue figure of 13 million speakers is more plausible than the figure of 12 million from the Swedish encyclopedia. A figure of 12 million implies only one million speakers in the diaspora, which is far too low. Athenean (talk) 18:38, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
What constitutes an extensive vocabulary? The English vocabulary, put together, probably contains a couple of million words. The Icelandic vocabulary, with which I'm familiar, consists of 700.000-800.000 words. The German vocabulary is probably larger. The Scandinavian languages surely have a comparable vocabulary and so on. So how many words does Modern Greek possess to justify the assertion, that an extensive vocabulary is a special attribute of Greek - modern or ancient, come to that? All the best 85.220.22.139 (talk) 19:50, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
I added the external link : Learn Greek Online under "Language learning" and it was later removed. I must have violated some rule, I was wondering which one. GeorgiaKar (talk) 00:02, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
←← — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.203.173.140 (talk) 13:40, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Greek is the English word for Hellenic (the word Greek in Greek language). We should include it as a synonim in teh beginning of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.133.66.112 (talk) 01:54, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
clearly some vandalism — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.110.1.115 (talk) 17:30, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
I disagree that if we include one classification in the table we have to include them all. They are very different proposals, with different levels of evidence, and they do not preclude one another: they could all be true, or all false. Macedonian is impossible to answer, as we don't have enough evidence to even attest to a Macedonian language. Armenian and Aryan are analogous to Italo-Celtic etc: the links are distant enough, and generic enough, that it's proven impossible to find any particulars that are convincing. Phrygian is an intermediate case: Enough data to establish a language, yet potentially close enough that a relationship could be demonstrated. And whether Phrygian was related to Greek has nothing to do with whether Macedonian or Armenian were. — kwami (talk) 19:58, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Loss of the dative is mentioned, a recent development (last half-century), the dative being replaced by the genitive (?) - I assume it was meant the accusative. It is the accusative that marks indirect objects in demotic Greek, is that not so? Since the article discusses the Greek language and not simply demotic, there has been a loss of locative and ablative previously, a loss of the dual in Hellenistic times, a later loss of the subjunctive and optative modes and a gradual loss of the infinitive. The phonological changes (e.g. iotacism) seen in the Hellenistic period have a few precedents in occasional classical or archaic inscriptions. Prior to the 403 BC Attic reform for example, the eta was often written as EI and occasionally even as I (presumably misspelled) in early Attic. Skamnelis (talk) 02:06, 28 March 2014 (UTC)