Talk:Greek orthography

ό,τι

Can anyone tell me what's up with the comma in that? I saw it in a text and thought it was a typo, but Wiktionary lists it. 212.137.63.86 (talk) 13:18, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

the comma is there to differentiate ό,τι from ότι. 2 different meanings. and also the comma signifies it comes from a larger word.
-ό,τι has the same meaning and comes from the word οτιδήποτε which means anything. [1]
while
-ότι means "that", as in "they announced that they will support them". --CuteHappyBrute (talk) 09:41, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Table of orthography and phonology

I've proposed on Help talk:IPA for Greek that we create a table of orthography and phonological changes. The table below is an attempt to illustrate Greek sounds, using words common to Ancient Greek, Modern Greek, and English. It's a crazy idea, but so far it seems to be working out well. — Eru·tuon 00:39, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Greek alphabet	example	IPA
		Classical Attic	Learned Koine	Medieval	Modern
β	βιβλία	b		v
γ	γάμος	g		ɣ
	γῆ			ʝ
	βρόγχος	ŋ		ŋ (ɲ)
δ	δέκα	d		ð
ζ	ζωή	zd	z
θ	θεός	tʰ		θ
κ	κύκλος	k		k
	κύκλος			c
λ	λόγος	l
μ	μετά	m
ν	νέος	n
ξ	ξένος	ks
π	πολύς	p
ρ	ῥητορικός	r̥		r
	ῥητορικός	r
σ, ς	σοφός	s
	κόσμος	z
τ	τόνος	t
φ	φίλος	pʰ		f
χ	χάος	kʰ		x
	χύμα			ç
ψ	ψῡχή	ps
῾	ἥλιος	h		∅
᾿	ἠχώ	∅

Modern Greek has velars and palatals as allophones of the same phoneme. The palatals [c ɟ ʝ ç] occur before the front vowels /e i/, and the velars [k g ɣ x] in all other cases.

In Modern Greek, clusters of a nasal and a voiceless stop are realized as a prenasalized stop or a voiced stop. ⟨μπ ντ⟩ pronounced as [mb nd] or [b d], and ⟨γκ γγ⟩ are pronounced as velar [g] or [ŋg], or palatal [ɲɟ] or [ɟ].

• πομπή [poˈ(m)bi]
• αντί [aˈ(n)di]
• εγκέφαλος [eˈ(ɲ)ɟefalos]
• άγγελος ˈa(ɲ)ɟelos]

Greek alphabet	example	IPA
		Classical Attic	Learned Koine	Medieval	Modern
α	ἀγαθός	a
ᾱ	ἀέρινος	aː		a
αι	αἰτίᾱ	ai̯		e
αυ	αὐτός	au̯		af
	[] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help)			av
ε	ἐπί	e
ευ	Εὐρώπη	eu̯		ev
	[] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help)			ef
ει	εἰρωνεία	eː	iː	i
	εἰρωνεία	ei̯	eː
η	ἠχώ	ɛː
ι	ἰδέα	i
ῑ	Ἶρις	iː		i
ο	ὄνομα	o
οι	οἶκος	oi̯		y	i
ου	οὐρανός	uː		u
υ	ὑπέρ	y			i
ῡ	ψῡχή	yː		y	i
υι	υἱός	yi̯		y	i
ω	Ὠκεανός	ɔː	oː	o

Syllabification and Hyphenation in Modern Greek

Is someone able to write something about these topics or to create new articles? I am not sure, maybe these two topics or one of these belong to the article Modern Greek grammar. Informationskampagne (talk) 22:04, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

βασιλῆϊ

Does someone know something on the ῆϊ/ηϊ? Was there also a form of ηι like ει, οι, υι, which has nothing to do with the eta with subscript (ῃ)? So there would be the variants: ηι and ηϊ or ηι (eta with iota adscript) and ῃ. How was the first variant spelled? It would be great to include it in the chapter of the article "Digraphs and diphthongs". Informationskampagne (talk) 16:08, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Missing Information

This article includes the phonemic values of digraphs, but does not indicate the values of individual letters. This article is a disgrace.

The article Greek alphabet (mentioned in the first line of the article) indicates the values of the individual letters. One may debate whether it is a good idea to redundantly mention them in this article, and whether the article should be clearer about this, but it is hardly a "disgrace" as is. PS, please sign your comments with ~~~~ --Macrakis (talk) 22:52, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Question mark

See the Madaba Map's treatment of the tribe of Dan for use at least as far as Byzantine Palestine of the Coptic question mark that looks closer to /. in unicode and a bit flatter and wider in practice. — LlywelynII 23:24, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Wouldn't two different articles be necessary?

I don't knot that I like how this article is structured. Describing all orthographic practices of all stages of the history of the Greek language(s), as the title implies, means laying out the rules of systems that have changed through millenia and that are too different from each other to ever be covered correctly or in a way that is not confusing.

I really think the article needs to be split into at least two different articles: Ancient Greek orthography and Modern Greek orthography. The fact that the practises that were picked up a posteriori during the Middle Ages to write previous Greek varieties were not the same as when those varieties were written should also be taken into consideration, not only while writing the articles but also when creating and then naming them. This article doesn't touch the surface for either, and I believe that it can't ever do if its scope is this dispersive. IlmarisenVasara 16:58, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

@Macrakis, LlywelynII, Informationskampagne, Erutuon, Demetrios1993, Cote d'Azur, and Error: Sorry for the ping, I thought that maybe this could be a useful discussion. I hope I haven't misused pings and that you may find this relevant to your interests on Wikipedia. IlmarisenVasara 21:15, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

The Ancient Greek phonology article seems to cover most of the relevant issues for Ancient Greek. I don't think we need a separate article on Ancient Greek orthography. On the other hand, the introduction to this article is a bit muddled and could stand rewriting to clarity what it's about. --Macrakis (talk) 21:36, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

@Macrakis There is indeed a lot of information in the lead that could be part of sections or subsections in the body. The scope of the article is also not very clear from the beginning of the lead alone. I'm not an experienced editor, but the lead doesn't seem to conform to the Wikipedia style guide on the lead, e.g. it being a summary (MOS:INTRO) of the article or defining its scope . IlmarisenVasara 00:38, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Phonology and orthography are separate topics and of course should have separate articles, at least in overview. — LlywelynII 02:39, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Fwiw, oppose. If you want to shunt off a more detailed Modern Greek orthography article, that's great. This article should remain as an overview of the entire development of the language, however, and the creation of separate more specific articles should not affect the completeness of the overview discussion here. In other words, feel free to go in depth elsewhere but don't fork or cannibalize the content here.

Further, in my own opinion, if you really have the energy and interest to do that much, neither "Ancient Greek" (i.e. classical Attic Greek) or modern Greek are the problem. The problems are thorough discussion of the many other varieties of ancient Greek and the varieties and development of medieval/Byzantine Greek presented in reasonably clear and complete overviews. — LlywelynII 02:37, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Of course, I had no intention to "cannibalise" the article without consulting other people first, as per Wikipedia:Splitting, especially those who have helped build and edit the article when I didn't contribute at all. It was just a suggestion, and I understand your reasoning. I was thinking about inexperienced readers, who might be learning Ancient Greek or Modern Greek and have to parse through the information about one while reading about the other. For clarity, a better lead section would be necessary, although I see there is useful information about the history of the orthography in the lead that might be useful to move to a History section, while reserving a summary and the scope of the article for the lead.

I don't have the energy or time right now, but I do think a separate Modern Greek orthography article would be extremely useful. IlmarisenVasara 11:58, 31 December 2023 (UTC)