Talk:The historical pronunciation of ancient Greek

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This article is a POV fork from Ancient Greek phonology. User:Thrax's POV has been dismissed as marginal by the other editors, Talk:Ancient Greek phonology and archives. Andreas 20:33, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. --Macrakis 20:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with the factual accuracy of this article. All of the claims have been fully referenced and sourced. This is not a POV fork. Its the evidence of the opposing views that you would not permit to be included in the article on "Ancient Greek phonology" which you have hijacked and turned into a POV rant on the reconstructed pronunciation to the exclusion of all other evidence. --Thrax 21:02, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

You say this page is "evidence of the opposing views...". That makes it a POV fork. Not a subtle issue. POV forks are against WP policy precisely because they evade the collective editorial judgement necessary to build a good encyclopedia. The decision to minimize this content on Ancient Greek phonology represents a broad consensus, arrived at after listening to your very lengthy and repetitive expositions of your position on Talk there. --Macrakis 21:11, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Ancient Greek phonology is the POV fork. There was never any consensus to exclude the opposing exclude views from Ancient Greek phonology. Since that article as it stands is nothing more than an article on the reconstructed pronunciation and that alone and I have made every effort possible to reach a compromise to which you have responded by making the article even more POV than ever and you have deliberately attempted to mislead people into thinking your pet theory is uncontested by inappropriately naming the article and organising the paragraphs so that the history of the reconstructed pronunciation comes last and by removing the NPOV notices and the opposing views on the discussion page in order to perpetuate an academic fraud I have every right to create a separate article on the Historical pronunciation of ancient Greek which is a legitimate scientific theory whose proponents can be named and is thus within Wikipedia rules. --Thrax 22:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Advocates of the traditional Modern Greek pronunciation

The Erasmian Pronunciation of Text Documents of the Greek Language

Preliminary Program of Conference Friday July 19, 2002, time 9:30 a.m.

Building of Alexander the Great Dion, Prefecture of Pieria

Chairman: Professor Panagiotis Christopoulos

REPORTS

Observations on the Erasmian Pronunciation (Professor Kariofilis Mitsakis).

The Educational Segment of Discarding the Erasmian Pronunciation (Professor Napoleon Mitsis).

Discussion About the Correct Pronunciation of Greek and Latin Speech (Professor Nicholas Petrohilos).

Erasmian Pronunciation. Truth or Lie (Anna Tziropoulou-Eustathiou).

Erasmian Pronunciation: One More Falsification of History (Professor Dionysios Karvelas).

The Erasmian Pronunciation of Ancient Greek: A New Prespective (Professor Matthew Dillon).

The Erasmian Concept: A Lengthy Philological Problem (Professor Panagiotis F. Christopoulos).

Discussion - Conclusions

The Problem of the Erasmian Pronunciation of the Ancient Greek Language

One of the activities that were organized by Paideia on July 19, 2002 in the magnificent International Building of Alexander the Great, was the conference to examine the problem of the so-called erasmian pronunciation of the ancient Greek language. The International Building of Alexander the Great is located by the foot of Mount Olympus.

Seven scientists gave their reports and their expertise raised strong interest to the audience and became the source of further discussions by everyone present. As it is known during the Renaissance (15th century AD) in Europe, a question was raised about the pronunciation of ancient Greek texts. The problem at that time was the established pronunciation used by the Greeks during the Renaissance epoch, in opposition to the ancient Greek pronunciation during the high point of the classical era in Greece. During the 15th century AD the pronunciation of Greek was very similar to today's modern pronunciation of the Greek language. The difference between the classical and modern Greek was in the prosody of classical Greek, in other words in the use of long and short vowels and the treatment of diphthongs. As time passed the historical spelling was preserved but the prosodic meter was progressively altered by the accented intonation of the voice.

The discussions that took place during Renaissance were of a theoretical nature and some works were publicized about the issue. The well-known Dutch classicist Desiderious Erasmus Roterdamus (1494-1553) researched the topic systematically in 1528. His research incorporated Latin as well. Erasmus believed that if one wishes to quench his thirst in the fountain of wisdom he has to learn Greek. In the writings of Roman authors we might find some constricted streams and muddy torrents, but in the writings of the Greeks there are clear fountains and golden rivers.And the most perfect Roman education is bent and imperfect without the Greek".

The observation however, of the history of the Greek language's changes and modifications was not only useful, but also necessary so a plethora of language phenomena could be explained. This on the other hand did not imply an intention of a specific realistic method of pronunciation based on a hypothetical character of elocution in the past. The evolution of any language cannot be defined in statistics; it is rather a matter of fruition and development. This is especially true about the Greek language, a language with a history of four thousand years of written documents; the concept of change therefore, is easy to be comprehended. We can easily refer to the works of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) which cannot be effortlessly read and understood by contemporary, common speakers of the English language after only four centuries since Shakespeare's era.

Erasmus did not write his thesis about the pronunciation in order that his hypothetical views of a system of pronunciation (which in reality never existed as a complete system) can be used so Greek can be taught viably. Erasmus himself never actively used the pronunciation that he wrote about and at the end he discarded it.

Contrary to all these, a movement was formed, which has created considerable problems amongst supporters and opponents of the so-called Erasmian pronunciation. The main purpose of accepting the Erasmian pronunciation in the first place, was the simplicity that it offers to the reader when classical Greek is read, since all the letters can be uttered, just the way they are written. The diphthongs are separated and the vowels are also affected. Simplicity however, is not science. What is worse, it isn't even simple. The Erasmian pronunciation was modified dissimilarly for each language and each country. Therefore the Erasmian pronunciation of the Germans differs from the Erasmian pronunciation of the British, French, Italians etc. Thus the classicists of various countries and their students cannot communicate and cooperate since their pronunciation differs from each other.

We can say that a similar phenomenon occurs between the scholars of the Hellenistic era, Byzantine and Modern Greek eras. Moreover there is no contact between the classicists and Modern Greek philologists. The solution to all these problems lies in the acceptance by all of today's traditional Modern Greek pronunciation. After all the Modern Greek pronunciation was the natural evolution of the language, the queen of languages, the Hellenic language.

The scholars who presented reports during the conference approached the issue diversely, such as:

1. Observations on the Erasmian Pronunciation (Professor Kariofilis Mitsakis).

2. The Educational Segment of Discarding the Erasmian Pronunciation (Professor Napoleon Mitsis).

3. Discussion About the Correct Pronunciation of Greek and Latin Speech (Professor Nicholas Petrohilos).

4. Erasmian Pronunciation. Truth or Lie (Anna Tziropoulou-Eustathiou).

5. Erasmian Pronunciation: One More Falsification of History (Professor Dionysios Karvelas).

6. The Erasmian Pronunciation of Ancient Greek: A New Prespective (Professor Matthew Dillon).

7. The Erasmian Concept: A Lengthy Philological Problem (Professor Panagiotis F. Christopoulos).

The forthcoming publication of the minutes of the conference will be a significant contribution to further analyze the problem. The following will be included in the minutes:

Simos Menardos (Professor of Oxford University and Athens University and member of the Academy of Athens, 1872-1933), Evolution and Pronunciation of the Greek Language. Four Oxford Lessons (ci. 1910).

Dr. Chrys C. Caragounis (University of Lund, Sweden), Does it Make a Difference?.How We Pronounce NT Greek.

Professor Caragounis was unable to personally attend the conference, he however sent us his written topic, accompanied by an excellent CD, titled: How to Pronounce New Testament Greek Pronunciation (2001).

[edit] Alternative ways of dealing with forks

Cross-posted to Talk:Ancient Greek phonology; I suggest discussion be conducted there rather than here.
I agree that this article is by definition, and by Thrax' description of its contents and purpose, a POV fork of Ancient Greek phonology. Thrax, please read the page POV fork which Andreas linked to above, where the problems inherent in article forks are explained very clearly. That said, The historical pronunciation of ancient Greek now exists in the article namespace, and is as such part of the wiki, in other words other people than the original author are allowed, even encouraged, to edit it. Those editors of Ancient Greek phonology who disapprove of its existence have the option (besides, obviously, listing it on WP:AFD) of turning it into a redirect to Ancient Greek phonology, either by being bold, or by first attempting to form a consensus. Thrax, btw, you seem to use the word "consensus" in the sense of "agreement by 100 % of the editors". This is not unreasonable, but it's not how the word is used on Wikipedia. An agreement between everybody else, with only one person holding out, is a good (unusually good!) wiki consensus. Therefore, if the new article you created should be redirected by consensus, please don't edit war about it. Also, please stop adding the Totally Disputed tag to Ancient Greek phonology, as it clearly does have a consensus version. Bishonen | talk 22:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)