Talk:Hellenic languages

Moved from User talk:Kwamikagami

There may very well be a case for a separate "Hellenic languages" article, but not because Tsakonian isn't "a historical phase of Greek". It is, but of Doric rather than Attic. Not being a direct descendant of Koine does not make it any less Greek. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 16:03, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's Greek, but a separate language, at least by some definitions, and that is sufficient reason for a Hellenic languages article. kwami (talk) 16:10, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

You may well be right; "Hellenic" and "Greek" are synonymous, after all. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 16:11, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

"Hellenic" and "Greek" are not synonymous. That's the point. (Taivo (talk) 19:17, 7 April 2009 (UTC))

That's not what our disambiguation page says. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 19:51, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

They are? I thought "Greek" and "Hellenic" were distinct pretty much the same way that "German" and "Germanic" were distinct. Akerbeltz (talk) 16:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Only in linguistics! kwami (talk) 16:26, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that we have a historical record that muddies the waters. If Tsakonian and Modern Greek were two previously undocumented languages of South America, we would, without debate, call them two closely-related languages in a small subgroup of a larger family (Yanesha' and Chamicuro form Western Maipuran within Arawakan, for example). But historically, we would know that these two languages descended from two dialects of a single language back in time--we just wouldn't have records of that single language. That doesn't make them one language--just related ones. With Tsakonian and Modern Greek, however, we have the historical records of "Proto-Tsakonian-Greek" and can clearly see when they were mutually intelligible and just dialects of one language. Today, however, they are two mutually unintelligible languages and should be treated equally as closely-related sisters of a small subgroup of a larger language family. Not everything within "Hellenic" is "Greek". (Taivo (talk) 17:24, 7 April 2009 (UTC))

If Tsakonian isn't Greek, then neither is the Doric Greek from which it descends. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 18:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Doric and Attic were mutually intelligible dialects of Ancient Greek. No one said they weren't, Kekrops. But Tsakonian and Modern Greek are not mutually intelligible, therefore they are not the same language and Tsakonian is not Modern Greek. You confuse Modern Greek with Ancient Greek. Tsakonian is descended from Ancient Greek, but it is not Modern Greek. (Taivo (talk) 19:15, 7 April 2009 (UTC))

Since when does "Greek" refer only to one historical phase of the language? Doric-derived Tsakonian is not only Greek, it is a variety of modern Greek, even if it isn't mutually intelligible with the Koine-derived standard. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 19:51, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

For starters, "Greek" (same as German, English, French, Irish etc) is an ambiguous term, which is why Taivo introduced various terms above. Colloquially they all refer to the modern forms of whichever language. But in linguistics (and establishing relationships and histories of languages if the domain of linguistics) those terms are not clear enough, hence terms like "Modern Irish" "Middle Irish" "Old Irish" "Proto Irish" to specify the time period.

Secondly, the question of intelligibility is precisely the point as this is the main tool used in modern linguistics to determine if two lingos are two languages or two dialects. Admittedly, it's not a perfect tool but it's the one that seems to be best suited to the task and most widely used. Why do you think the Ethnologue always states "(not) mutually intelligible with X"?

So irrespective of the family tree, if those two are today not mutually intelligible, they are 2 languages and thus have a common ancestor somewhere, whatever that was. That makes it a family of (closely related) languages, not a single language family/branch. Akerbeltz (talk) 20:04, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Is that the mainstream academic consensus, though? Our own article says that Greek "forms an independent branch within Indo-European". As does Armenian, for example. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 20:14, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is the mainstream academic consensus. Articles on Greek often make the claim that "Greek is its own branch", but that is an overstatement and not generally used by specialists, who carefully distinguish between Hellenic and Greek. The former statement is based on the fact that Indo-European cognate lists invariably list Ancient Greek cognates as the sole Hellenic forms since there is no dictionary or grammar of Tsakonian available to the English-speaking world. It is an artifact of the available evidence, not an accurate statement of linguistic fact. And, do we need to remind you, Kekrops, that Wikipedia is not the pinnacle of academic accomplishment or accuracy? The linguists in this discussion are all in agreement--"Hellenic" and "Greek" are not synonyms. (Taivo (talk) 20:27, 7 April 2009 (UTC))

Sure, if we take for granted that you are who you say you are. Still, instead of asking us to take your word for it, how about producing a few reliable sources? The article is woefully unsourced as it stands now. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 20:41, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Errr the reverse is also true, Kekrops. Having a username in Greek letters is no guarantee either that you know anything about the topic :) Akerbeltz (talk) 20:53, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

So, Kekrops, we are back to the groundless accusations that I am anything other than who I say I am. Perhaps you should examine User:Taivo and check out the Utah State University faculty pages as well. You are not nearly so forthcoming with who you are or your qualifications. (Taivo (talk) 20:57, 7 April 2009 (UTC))

I'm not accusing anyone of anything. All I did was ask you to support your claims with reliable sources. Is that an unreasonable request? Presumably, one can be a linguist without being an expert in the field of Hellenic dialectology; see our host's own modest admission above. As for my qualifications, I don't see how they are relevant. Wikipedia defines itself as "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 21:15, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Moving on... I know very well Ethnologue is not the be all and end all but it for one has Tsakonian as Doric Greek [1] Akerbeltz (talk) 22:11, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Also [2] p446. You actually get quite a few sources for Tsakonian as Doric if you punch Tsakonian and Doric into Google Scholar. Akerbeltz (talk) 22:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

So, aside from mutual intelligibility, standard written form reference and sociolinguistic criteria that distinguish between a dialect and a separate language (which i have no interest in discussing), what's the primary topic for "Hellenic languages" ? that's my main concern. That means we're not focusing on linguistic sources only. I never said that this material doesn't deserve an article by the way. --Δρακόλακκος (talk) 22:45, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

No one has denied that Tsakonian is descended from Doric Greek. It is on the Doric branch of the family. But it is a separate language. It is not "Greek", but Hellenic. Ethnologue uses "Greek" as a synonym for "Hellenic", but you will also notice that Ethnologue then ambiguously uses "Greek" to mean "Modern Greek" as well. Tsakonian is Hellenic, but it is not Modern Greek. When you label an article "Greek" then you are talking about the lineal descent of one branch of the Hellenic family that leads to Modern Greek, not all branches. Hellenic deals with the relationships between the Ancient Greek dialects and how they are differentiated from one another an how one branch became Modern Greek and another branch became Tsakonian. It will deal with the issues of where Ancient Macedonian might fit within the family as well as possible relationships to Illyrian and Thracian. Just because one branch of the family is exceptionally well documented doesn't mean that we just fold in the other member of the family (which is a separate language and not a "dialect") into it and lose its identity. Ethnologue (as well as Ruhlen's classification) makes a poor decision to call both the family and the modern language "Greek" even though they clearly list it as a separate, mutually unintelligible language from "Greek". Instead, the family should be disambiguated to be called Hellenic as in the family "fan" found inside the back cover of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the listing in Linguasphere (pg 449, volume two). Voegelin and Voegelin list "Greek=Hellenic" as the name of the family with "Ancient Greek", "Modern Greek", and "Tsakonian" as the three constituent languages in the family. In all, there is a clear distinction between using "Greek/Hellenic" as the name of the family as a distinct label from "Greek" (Ancient and Modern) the language. All sources list Tsakonian as a separate, but equal member of the family. Thus, Wikipedia needs an article on the family. We either call it "Greek" with disambiguation between the language and the family or we call it "Hellenic" with no further need for disambiguation. I support the current state of affairs where the article on the family is called "Hellenic" and the article on the branch of the family that leads through Ancient Greek to Modern Greek as "Greek". (Taivo (talk) 23:05, 7 April 2009 (UTC))

I just noticed your comment, Drakolakkos, about "not focusing on linguistic sources only". What? This is a linguistic article and linguistic sources are absolutely fundamental for any linguistic article. Any other information is only secondary to the linguistic basis of the article. This is an article about a language family. (Taivo (talk) 23:07, 7 April 2009 (UTC))

Philip Baldi's An Introduction to the Indo-European Languages also uses "Hellenic" for this group as well as Campbell and Mixco's A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. (Taivo (talk) 23:28, 7 April 2009 (UTC))

These references should be sufficient for substantiating a "Hellenic languages" article separate from the article on "Greek". While this article will never be as large as the Greek article, it is sufficiently distinct to be of note. Also, the paragraph on "Tsakonian" needs to be removed from the article on Greek dialects. Tsakonian is not a dialect of Greek. It is a separate language. (Taivo (talk) 23:38, 7 April 2009 (UTC))

Of course linguistic sources are fundamental when talking about linguistic material. I am focusing as to which is the most established meaning for "Hellenic languages", to examine what a reader will most likely expect to find by typing it, and i guess this means counting in references not having to do strictly with linguistics, a mention in a history book for example. In other words what i'm saying is whether we should leave this content here or move it say to Hellenic languages (linguistic branch) and make a dab page with the current title or redirect to Greek language as Hellenic language does. If it's the mainstream approach then it strikes me by surprise, as i've only heard of it linked with a theory about ancient Macedonian. Don't get me wrong and all, "Pontian language" or "Tsakonian language" are not phrases that i've never came across with, many philologists in Greece will tell you they can be categorized as such. The point is if there is a consensus on that, or even an interest for a discussion to reach a consensus, among scholars. So, if i made myself clear, i trust you guys to decide what to do, or bring in more experts for an opinion.--Δρακόλακκος (talk) 01:07, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

To defend Drakolakkos, mutual intelligibility is not the only definition of a language. If it were, we wouldn't bother with articles for several national "languages" in Europe (really: Swedish? Galician? Croatian?), and there would be no issue with the name "Cantonese language". Self identification of Tsakonian as a dialect of Greek (assuming that's the case) is relevant. However, Tsakonian is frequently addressed as the second contemporary language of the Hellenic family, as Taivo demonstrated, and that's where I was coming from with this article. kwami (talk) 00:25, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

In Wikipedia, the "X languages" articles are about linguistics. That's what the languages articles are all about--linguistic approaches to the languages. If an article is labelled "Hellenic languages", that is the "linguistics branch". There's no discussion about language without linguistics, including sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, grammar, etc. (Taivo (talk) 01:55, 8 April 2009 (UTC))

And what does that tell us ? If linguists cared to agree then we wouldn't have to weigh in non-linguistic sources cause they wouldn't tell us anything. And consequently my position about defining the primary topic would be invalid. [3] [4]--Δρακόλακκος (talk) 04:05, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the American Heritage Dictionary defines Hellenic as the "branch of the Indo-European language family that consists only of Greek", while Baldi treats the terms synonymously and identifies the language itself as a branch of its own: [5][6] ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 04:34, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Drakolakkos, I can see how that would be confusing to a non-linguist, but linguists don't really bat an eye about such differences in naming. After all, in Chinese linguistic tradition, the dozen or so mutually unintelligible Chinese languages are also called dialects. In addition, the various languages that constitute spoken Arabic are also called dialects within Arabic studies, but are generally mutually unintelligible languages to a great extent. Here in Wikipedia, the compromise that is working for Arab linguists and non-Arab linguists is to use the term "variety" (see Varieties of Arabic). That way the Arabic linguists who want to maintain the illusion of a unitary Arabic identity can do so and the non-Arabic linguists who want to emphasize the great diversity in the colloquial languages can do so. In the case of Tsakonian, all linguists (whether they label Tsakonian a language or a dialect) agree on two important points relative to this discussion--1) Tsakonian is descended from Doric Greek, 2) Tsakonian and Modern Greek are mutually unintelligible. Mutual intelligibility is usually the most important factor in determining whether two speech forms are dialects or languages. Other factors are less important to linguists, but often are more important to non-linguists. Political, social, and even historical factors weigh in for non-linguists. In the case of Tsakonian, non-Greek linguists (much like non-Arab and non-Chinese linguists) will talk about Tsakonian and Greek as separate languages. Greek linguists, on the other hand, are more likely to call Tsakonian a dialect. The reasoning behind using "dialect" tends to be historical in this case--since Tsakonian descends from a dialect of Ancient Greek, it should still be called a dialect in modern usage. Non-Greek linguists separate them into distinct languages, however. But linguists (whether Greek or non-Greek) understand this terminological variation and realize the fundamental nature of the relationship between Modern Greek, Ancient Greek, and Tsakonian. Thus, we have two mutually unintelligible speech forms. For the majority of all linguists, that makes them different languages. Therefore, the usage of "Hellenic languages" is very clearly defined--it is the subgroup of Indo-European that includes Modern Greek (including the various mostly mutually-intelligible forms of Attic), Tsakonian, Ancient Greek, Mycenean Greek, and (possibly) Ancient Macedonian. (Taivo (talk) 04:58, 8 April 2009 (UTC))

Kekrops, you will also notice that the American Heritage "fan" does not list all Indo-European languages either. Smaller languages are invariably omitted in its listing. So the fact that Tsakonian is omitted is not at all surprising. But the definition in the dictionary is not at all reliable linguistics. And you are mistaken about Linguasphere--look on page 450 of Volume Two and you will clearly see Tsakonia, 56-AAA-b listed separately from Helleniki, 56-AAA-a. The entire grouping is called Helleniki+Tsakonia, 56-A(AA). Yes, Baldi, like many linguists, ignores Tsakonian, but I listed it to show the common occurrence of "Hellenic" as the name of the subbranch of Indo-European that includes Greek and Tsakonian. If you read his other chapters you will see that he ignores a great many smaller, poorly documented Indo-European languages where there are better documented relatives. His chapters on Indo-Iranian are especially lacking in names of languages like Ishkashimi, Waigeli, and Indus Kohistani. He focuses this chapter almost entirely on Sanskrit and Avestan. So the absence of Tsakonian in Baldi is not at all surprising or troubling. There is quite sufficient evidence otherwise for Tsakonian being a separate, mutually unintelligible language. (Taivo (talk) 04:58, 8 April 2009 (UTC))

Baldi does not ignore Tsakonian at all; he explicitly defines it as a variety of modern Greek, albeit distinct from Standard Modern Greek. In fact, treating Tsakonian as an aberrant form of Greek next to the Koine-derived standard seems to be the norm: [7][8][9] ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 05:16, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree, that's my impression of the general consensus too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:20, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

@Akerbeltz: To be fair, from the (excellent) volume you cited, p. 499 by Cl. Brixhe: "According to the best hypothesis the Tsakonian dialect is without doubt the successor not of ancient Laconian, but of a Laconian variant of the Koine". I highly doubt Pontic is any more intelligible to speakers of SMG but someone with a knowledge of the literature on Tsakonian would be extremely useful here... 3rdAlcove (talk) 05:11, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Not so fast...

Wow, this discussion has grown too fast and large for me to review it right now, before I even became aware of this new article. I'll only say, I'm not convinced of the need for this article at first glance, nor am I convinced of the justifiability of those strong statements about separateness. With regard to the ancient situation, the only reason to posit a separate "Hellenic" group is the unclear status of Ancient Macedonian, of which virtually nothing is securely known. The "Hellenic = Greek + Macedonian" tree as shown in the LinguistList catalog is only a very tentative guess – somewhere anticipated by B. Joseph in a paper, but not, to my knowledge, anything widely established. As for the modern situation, this is the first time I'm seeing Tsakonian cited as a reason to split up Greek into a "Hellenic Group". For all I can see, this is not academic consensus. I would warn against relying too much on Ethnologue and friends in such a question (notorious splitters); the wider literature on Greek unanimously treats Tsakonian as a modern Greek dialect, to the best of my knowledge. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:08, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

This is not based on Ethnologue. I've seen Tsakonian listed as a separate language from Greek for as long as I've read about languages. E.g., Ruhlen 1991. And it was not original with him, as he simply summarized other studies. kwami (talk) 05:21, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. But then again, I certainly have seen Tsakonian listed as a dialect of Greek for as long as I've read about Greek. Fut.Perf. ☼

Well, that's the thing: it's both. Ethnically, the people are Greek, therefore their language is Greek. But by objective standards of intelligibility it isn't Greek. We have the same situation with Chinese and a lot of other languages. kwami (talk) 05:41, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I do not believe in "objective standards of intelligibility" as an automatic criterion of separate-language status, and general linguistics of Greek (and other European languages) apparently doesn't either. And no, I am in no way talking on the basis of ethnic identification here. Fut.Perf. ☼

Would that be the same Ruhlen I'm reading? ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 05:34, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's it. Not a reliable source, just meant to illustrate the idea is not from Ethnologue. kwami (talk) 05:41, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I suppose he could have worded it better, but my reading of that paragraph is that Tsakonian is the only surviving Greek dialect not derived from Attic. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 05:47, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

(EC)

(1) Tsakonian as "highly divergent dialect" (no comment on intelligibility): [10]

(2) Tsakonian as variant descended from Doric and not from Koine, and Tsakonian as not mutually intelligible with Standard Modern Greek: [11]: "The exceptions to the descent of Modern dialects from Middle Greek Koine are Tsakonian, and to a lesser extent Italiot. Tsakonian is closer to the ancient Doric dialect than to Hellenistic Koine in its phonology, morphology, and vocabulary; its syntax, however (especially in the latter part of xxÊAD) is much closer overall to the standard language"; "There are four variants of Greek not mutually intelligible with CSMG, and they are termed dialects rather than distinct languages for cultural rather than linguistic reasons. Tsakonian is very much sui generis. The other three were or are spoken outside the contiguous Greek-speaking sphere, and display extensive language contact alongside their archaisms: Calabrian and Apulian Italiot, in Southern Italy, and Pontic and Cappadocian in northern and central Turkey."

(3) Tsakonian as separate language: [12] "Standard Modern Greek and Tsakonian (a Greek “variety” spoken in the eastern Peloponnesos) — are customarily thought of as dialects rather than as separate languages, though conceivably they could be different languages since they show numerous and very evident differences in phonology, lexicon, morphology, and syntax" (note that this is the same author--Brian Joseph--as in (1), but a later paper)

(4) Tsakonian as mutually unintelligible: [13] "Presently, the speech in various areas of Greece somehow differs from each other and sometimes an untrained ear might have difficulty understanding the local speech. Pontic and Cypriot Greek are very good examples to the unacquainted ear. Tsakonian dialect, the descendant of the Spartan Doric, is almost impossible to understand if one is not familiar with it."

(5) Tsakonian not descended from Koine: [14] "Tsakonian is generally reckoned to be the only modern dialect that is not descended from the Ancient Greek Koiné and it is aberrant in very many respects."

The wider literature is not so uniform as you imply, Future, as Linguasphere and the Voegelins (both of whom are notorious lumpers, not splitters) separate Tsakonian from Greek on the basis of mutual unintelligibility. Based on the fact that there are reliable sources that treat Hellenic as a group of two modern languages with the ancient recorded forms, "Hellenic languages" deserves a spot in Wikipedia just as much as some other small subgroups. Tsakonian should not be just submerged in Greek since reliable sources do separate it. (Taivo (talk) 05:41, 8 April 2009 (UTC))

But even most of the sources you just quoted that describe it as unintelligible ("for the untrained ear") are still describing it solidly within a framework of treating it as one of the dialects, and do not draw a conclusion of separate language status from this fact. Also, the issue of its descent from Doric is quite orthogonal to that of its present-day separate language status, so let's not mix those two up. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:47, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

No offence but are you serious? You've been railing against "Greek nationalism" for the past few days and now you're using one of their websites because it happens to agree (or so you think until you read the whole article) with your ideas? Kekrops already cited Trudgill, did you bother to read it fully? Btw, does anyone know whether there is actual, general disagreement about the lineage of Tsakonian (per Brixhe above; I see Fut. cited Horrocks' History which was my next source ;)))? 05:52, 8 April 2009 (UTC) 3rdAlcove (talk)

LOL@history-of-macedonia.com. Taivo, you incorrigible Greek nationalist you... Seriously though, the sources above don't exactly confirm your separate language thesis. Nicholas's diagram of the "filiation of historical variants of Greek" (Figure 28), which I think illustrates the situation rather nicely, is straightforward in its classification of Tsakonian as a modern Greek variety alongside Pontic and Cappadocian, i.e. not a mainstream dialect, but modern Greek nonetheless. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 06:03, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

You're not reading the chart properly, Kekrops. The chart very, very clearly has Tsakonian descending from Doric, not from Modern Greek. That thin line indicates that there has been some influence from Attic Greek on Tsakonian, it does not mark descent. You must read the text to understand the chart. And the texts clearly indicate, one after another, that Tsakonian is not mutually intelligible with Modern Greek. Whether you want to still call it a dialect for other, non-linguistic reasons is your own business, but from a strictly linguistic aspect, it is a separate language due to its mutual unintelligibility with Modern Greek. There are two of my references above that also say that Cappadocian and Pontic Greek are also mutually unintelligible with Modern Greek, but they differ from Tsakonian because they are Attic and not Doric. I'm not including them in my comments concerning Tsakonian. Right now we are focusing strictly on two issues: 1) Is Tsakonian a separate language or a highly divergent dialect that is mutually unintelligible? and 2) Should "Hellenic" have its own Wikipedia page or be submerged in the article on Greek? (Taivo (talk) 06:15, 8 April 2009 (UTC))

Taivo, I agree with Kekrops. The chart clearly shows Tsakonian as part of "Greek". The fact that within this "Greek" unit it is descended from Doric and not from Attic is, as I said, orthogonal to the question of whether it is inside or outside the single "Greek" language. This chart shows it inside, as do all the others I've personally seen so far. The chart says nothing about whether it is "descended from Modern Greek" – there is no node of that name at all. As for intelligibility, a separate issue, you have brought some sources that say it is barely or partly intelligible, but none among the specialist treatments of Greek linguistics that draws from that the conclusion that it is a separate language. Only one source that suggests that it might be classified like that, while at the same time hastening to confirm that conventionally it isn't. As you certainly know, such a criterion is not self-evident and automatic. By the way, the separateness of Tsakonic is also an orthogonal issue to the question of a "Hellenic" branch. Even those sources that posit a "Hellenic" subgroup, do so purely in order to say "Hellenic = Greek + Anc.Mac.". But within that tree structure, Tsakonian is still within the "Greek" node. You can't use the "Hellenic" label to treat both the difference between Greek proper versus Macedonian, and the difference between modern Greek proper and Tsakonian. That's a bit like mixing up Italic and Romance. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:38, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

"Hellenic" is also used for Koine + Tsakonian by those who do not address Macedonian. kwami (talk) 08:50, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

By who exactly? Sorry, but this has not become quite clear to me yet, with all the references flying around without very clear citations. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:21, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

In the end, it doesn't really matter whether the descriptive tradition calls it a "dialect" or a "language". The linguistic factor that makes them separate languages is mutual unintelligibility which the majority of sources agree on (agree on the mutual intelligibility part). But there are non-linguistic factors which call it a dialect. And I never said that Tsakonian wasn't part of "Greek", but Kekrops had claimed that it was part of "modern Greek", which it is not. It is a part of Greek, but "big" inclusive Ancient Greek (a higher node in the tree), not "small" restrictive Modern Greek (a lower node in the tree). That's the fundamental problem with using the terminology "Greek" for both Ancient and Modern forms of the language and the very reason that many sources do not call the higher pre-Ancient Greek node "Greek", but "Hellenic". Wikipedia must acknowledge both the "dialect" and "language" traditions in the literature, but we also must acknowledge the "Hellenic" part of the literature since, no matter how small, it has a place at the table. We don't judge Wikipedia worthiness by how large the article is or should be, but by its appropriateness and by having a specific niche to fill. Hellenic fills the niche that allows for discussion of Greek-Macedonian, Koine-Tsakonian (and Pontic/Cappadocian/Italian-Modern as well?) without subsuming (and losing) them in a larger article that traces the development of Modern Greek from Ancient Greek. Indeed, removing these side branches from the discussion of the Ancient Greek to Modern Greek trajectory can make the Greek article much better as well. (Taivo (talk) 13:15, 8 April 2009 (UTC))

Actually, your exact words were: "It is not "Greek", but Hellenic."[15] But even the proponents of Hellenic classify Tsakonian under Greek and Doric. And plenty of sources classify it as a modern Greek variety as well. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 13:34, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Kekrops, you need to stop jumping from one part of the discussion to another and taking things out of context. My comments have always been that Tsakonian is not "Modern Greek", but I never said it wasn't part of the complex descended from "Ancient Greek". Read the entire sentence that you took the previous quote from and you will clearly see that I distinguish between (ancient) "Greek" and (modern) "Greek". Don't misrepresent my comments by taking things out of context. (Taivo (talk) 14:00, 8 April 2009 (UTC))

Kekrops, the sources are fairly uniform in stating that Tsakonian is not part of the central complex of "Modern Greek" dialects, but is something very different--using words like "highly divergent", "mutually unintelligible", etc. It all depends on which node in the tree that you want to label as "Modern Greek". Most sources place that label at the top of the Attic Koine cluster that does not include Doric or Tsakonian. They might call Tsakonian a "dialect" in the text, but when it comes to actually describing the details of the dialect relationships and drawing a tree, Tsakonian connects much higher up the tree than the other Modern Greek dialects--usually higher than the node labelled "Modern Greek". (Taivo (talk) 14:05, 8 April 2009 (UTC))

Nope. It's not part of "Standard Modern Greek" or the "mainstream Modern Greek" dialects, but it most certainly is part of "Modern Greek", because that term simply doesn't refer to a cladistic unit, but quite straightforwardly to a time period and only that. It's "Modern Greek" because it's Greek spoken in the modern era, simple as that. I've never seen "Modern Greek" defined in any other way. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:42, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

That's not really a good argument for an encyclopedia. By its very nature, it will contain lots of information and distinctions not commonly known to the mainstream. Japanese used to be thought of as a one-language family until linguists woke up to the fact that Ryukyuan are so different they form separate branch, spawning the Japonic languages term. Yet, people still think of Japanese proper when they colloquially use the term "Japanese" - but that doesn't affect its new scientific classification into a larger grouping. It's exactly the same case as with Greek and Hellenic. Akerbeltz (talk) 15:21, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not getting your point. What argument is not a good argument? Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:43, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict with Akerbeltz)

I agree that "Modern Greek", like "Modern English", "Modern German", etc. is a designation for a time period. But the question vis a vis Tsakonian is when did the dialect/language become separated from the continuous stream that constitutes "Greek" from ancient times until the present. Most of the sources I've seen place that separation before the time period which constitutes what is known as "Modern Greek". If Tsakonian has only been distinct for the last 100 years, then it is clearly a part of Modern Greek, but if that distinction is older--and one of my sources cites a 16th century document attesting that Tsakonian was already not intelligible to Greek speakers--then it isn't really proper to call it "Modern Greek". It has been distinct for longer than the time period which we label as "Modern Greek" in that case. Especially if we consider it to be a descendant of the ancient Doric dialect, then its distinctiveness dates to long before that section of history allocated to "Modern Greek". But, once again, we've a disambiguation problem with the terms we're using (and that is why "Hellenic" is such a usefully labelled node). "Modern Greek" is often synonymous with "Modern Standard Greek", it is also often synonymous with Ethnologue's "Greek" or "Modern Standard Greek plus the mutually intelligible core dialects", it is also often synonymous with Ethnologue's "Attic (minus Ancient Greek)" (Voegelin & Voegelin's "Modern Greek") or "Modern Standard Greek plus the core dialects plus the peripheral non-mutually intelligible dialects (minus Tsakonian)". So the term "Modern Greek" is awfully fuzzy (just as "Greek" is) and you can make it mean virtually anything you want it to mean for the situation. In the context in which you and Kekrops seem to be working, it seems to mean "all languages within the Hellenic branch that are still spoken". My POV is that the definition of "Modern Greek" should be disambiguated to include just the forms uniformly labelled "Modern Greek" by reliable universalist sources--"Modern Standard Greek plus the mutually intelligible core dialects". Cappadocian, Italian, and Pontic should be labelled (as they are in the article on Greek dialects) as non-mutually intelligible peripheral forms of "Attic Greek" or even "Modern Attic Greek", but not of "Modern Greek". Obviously, the position of Tsakonian is different from Cappadocian et al. because of its Doric ancestry. But it isn't part of "Modern Greek" in reliable sources, including Joseph's cladistic diagram. (Taivo (talk) 15:30, 8 April 2009 (UTC))

Sorry, but that simply isn't what the literature on Greek language history does. You apparently have a single source that seems to be using the terminology you are think of, Voegelin, and that's a universalist compendium that's evidently severely over-simplifying. In fact, any classificatory scheme that mixes up synchronic varieties with diachronic stages, as in this list: "Ancient Greek, Modern Greek, Tsakonian", is by necessity over-simplifying; if you were to read such a list as a real classificatory tree, it would become a contradiction in terms. I am working with specialised academic literature on the history of this particular language, and they don't do what you want them to do. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:43, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

No, I'm not relying exclusively on either Ethnologue or Voegelin & Voegelin (or both). I've read all the on-line sources cited above as well. Granted, that isn't a full library on Tsakonian, but it's well beyond just citing Voegelin & Voegelin as a family tree. (I'm not quite that naive :p ). I can understand the non-linguistic need to lessen the differences between Tsakonian and Modern Standard Greek, but the differences are quite real, involve mutual unintelligibility, and were just as real in the 16th century. This isn't some recent appraisal of the linguistic situation done by outsiders. I don't really care whether or not you want to call Tsakonian a dialect or a language for non-linguistic reasons, but just lumping it in as another unnotable "Greek dialect" is not honest to the linguistic facts. Is there any specialist who claims that Tsakonian is mutually intelligible? (Of course, I know that's a simplistic appraisal since mutual intelligibility is a continuum, but say over 80% comprehension between speakers--that's a very typical number for measuring mutual intelligibility.) I know that you've said some specialists claim that Tsakonian is not Doric, but Attic. But both points of view need to be mentioned in an encyclopedia.

And to explain Akerbeltz's point--Japanese is nearly always called "a language isolate" in older literature and even in many modern works--much like Greek is called a single-language branch of Indo-European. But the not-well-documented Ryukyuan "dialects" have been shown to be languages in their own right and Japanese is no longer a single language, but a small language family. The problem is that "Japanese" is used indiscriminately to refer to both the language and the language family, much like "Greek" is used indiscriminately to refer to both the language and the language family. That's why Wikipedia is using "Japonic" to refer to the language family consisting of Japanese and Ryukyuan.

That's why I prefer "Hellenic" in this case--it makes it very clear that we are talking about more than just Modern Greek and its trajectory from Mycenean. Tsakonian is not well-studied or well-described yet in the English literature. Opinions are many, but until a good, solid descriptive grammar is available and a solid study of Tsakonian exclusively, I doubt that this issue of dialect or language will be resolved. From what I've seen, Tsakonian is almost always described as part of a bundle. That's not the optimum way to study a language. I've seen a single Tsakonian grammar referred to in a bibliography, but it was in Greek, making it fairly unaccessible to the wider linguistic world. Please correct me if I'm wrong and have missed something. (Taivo (talk) 18:58, 8 April 2009 (UTC))

(undent) Hmm, I'm really not sure why we are still discussing this. I'm just insisting we follow our reliable sources. The best sources we have do acknowledge the unintelligibility – but they all in the same breath call it a dialect all the same, in full knowledge of the facts. If you believe mutual unintelligibility is a sufficient and compelling objective criterion forcing separate-language status, that is just your opinion; our sources do not adhere to this criterion, and thus neither should we. – As for calling Voegelin your "only source", that was specifically for the claim that there are authors who exclude Ts. from the scope of the term "Modern Greek". For this usage, the Voegelin list seems in fact to be the only example (and I strongly suspect it is only because of the quite severely oversimplifying nature of that list, as documented by the fact that it also lists a parent language and its daughter language as sister nodes (!) in its tree. All other sources, including the ones you cited, are either unspecific about this terminological decision or explicitly against your position. And I still haven't seen even a single source that explicitly has a family tree where "Hellenic = Greek + Tsakonian", with an explicit choice of "Hellenic" as a technical term not synonymous with Greek, and Tsakonian a sister to Greek. Linguists may be doing such things for "Japonic = Japanese + X", but they aren't doing it here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:44, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

We're still discussing this cause your wrong. It's not just "someone's opinion" that MI is a very strong criterium for language status. It's "linguistic best practice". That doesn't mean that everyone adheres to it but that does not deny the inherent qualities of the principle. Think of it that way. Best practice in nursing says you should treat elderly patients as sentient humans, not idiots or 6 year olds. But that doesn't mean that in practice everyone adheres to it. But what people do not deduce from this lack of best practice is, that therefore we should change best practice nursing models to reflect that some nurses do treat the elderly like idiots. Akerbeltz (talk) 22:36, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The point is that our best reliable sources dealing with this topic domain systematically don't do it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:43, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Mosely, Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages, p 232[16] has Hellenic = Greek + Tsakonian (+ a few others). Numerous pubs speak of the "Greek or Hellenic" branch of IE, and many discuss how on objective criteria Greek is not a single language. kwami (talk) 22:58, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, that's one pertinent example, finally. Will add that to the article. Sources using "Greek or Hellenic branch" are not really pertinent though – "Greek or Hellenic" is also just a pair of synonyms for the single language, so what we need are sources that explicitly make a distinction between the two. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:59, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Hunh? There are several sources that list this as a family, but use "Greek" or "Hellenic" interchangeably for the family name--Voegelin & Voegelin, for example. They clearly list this as a family, but have the alternates as the family name. Or else I don't understand what your objection is. If the source just mentions Greek as a single-language branch, then you're right, but some sources that list the family (Greek + Tsakonian as a minimum) use "Hellenic" (Linguasphere-"Helleniki" for the single language), "Greek" (Ethnologue-"Greek" also for the single language), and "Greek = Hellenic" (Voegelin & Voegelin-"Modern Greek" for the single language). (Taivo (talk) 00:07, 9 April 2009 (UTC))

Well, we are in an article claiming a branch called "Hellenic" (and currently claiming it as if it was an uncontroversial factual consensus position, no less), so I think it's only fair to demand sourcing not only for the idea of the family as such but also clear and unambiguous sourcing for predominant terminology. Also, please don't forget that we now have the term documented in two very different uses. The "Hellenic" node that is "Greek+Ancient Macedonian" is not the same genetic entity as the "Hellenic" node that is "Greek + Tsakonic". That's not one established family, it's two different claimed families. I still prefer the wording that begins "Hellenic is sometimes used as a term for..." over the wording that simply has "Hellenic is...", because the usage is by no means universally established and uniform. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:36, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Sourcing for a) the family (Voegelin & Voegelin, Linguasphere, Ethnologue); b) the name (Linguasphere, plus the branch has often been called "Hellenic" even when Greek was the only language mentioned). There's nothing controversial about calling the branch that includes Greek "Hellenic". That is an extremely common label in Indo-European studies. And I think you're picking at straws over whether we use "Hellenic" specifically for Greek-Macedonian or just Greek-Tsakonian. The inclusion of Ancient Macedonian is not even a certain factor so the notion of a name for Greek-Macedonian is a bit out of range right now. But using "Hellenic" for Greek-Tsakonian is quite reasonable and is found within the linguistic literature (Linguasphere and one of the alternates in Voegelin & Voegelin). The primary advantage for using Hellenic (which is not at all unknown in the literature as one of the branches of Indo-European) is that it disambiguates the usage of "Greek". "Greek" works better as a more specific term and not as a catch-all. Wikipedia isn't always about "counting noses" for X usage and Y usage (as you well know from the discussion on another Talk page we won't mention). It's about using good terms for disambiguation that can be justified with good sources and good reasoning. And you can always add a sentence that "Hellenic is also known as Greek in some sources although in a wider sense than that found in Greek language", for example. (Taivo (talk) 06:09, 9 April 2009 (UTC))

Also, Hellenic is not a "hypothesis" or "proposal". It is simply a disambiguating term for the branch of IE which includes Greek. If Greek is considered a single language, then Hellenic consists of a single language. kwami (talk) 07:45, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

"mixed language"

Can somebody please remind me what authors treat Cappadocian as a "mixed language" on a par with Mednyj Aleut, Media Lengua or Michif? I can only remember seeing it discussed as a case of heavy contact-induced change (of course), but "mixture"? Not in the sense of the two or three paradigm cases of that class. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:28, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it's Thomason & Kaufman, Language Contact. kwami (talk) 08:49, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough. Hadn't got that one here to look up. I've now seen that Croft (Explaining Language Change) also has a chapter that can be understood this way. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:24, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

"Weasle words"??

What the heck is "weasely" about the following?

• "While in non-technical usage, "Hellenic" and "Greek" are synonyms, and traditional classification mostly refers to Greek as the sole member of its branch, linguists also sometimes use the term "Hellenic" to refer to a postulated unit which comprises Greek in a narrow sense and other varieties considered distinct enough to be separate languages. " – this is a very simply, accurate description of what the term is, and extremely important for any reader to understand why this is a separate article at all. If Greek is the only member of its branch, why would there be an article about "Hellenic languages" (pl.!)?
• About Greek+XMK: "A "Hellenic" branch has been suggested ..." (rather than: "The term Hellenic is sometimes used to describe"): the more tentative wording is the more accurate, because that grouping is indeed not much more than an extremely tentative suggestion.
• "a barely attested extinct variety whose exact degree of relatedness to Greek is not well known." (rather than: "a barely attested language whose degree of relatedness to Greek is debated.") – I consider my version to be a more accurate reflection of the state of the art: "not known" is more accurate than "debated" (because apart from nationalist pseudo-disputes there is indeed little ongoing debate, except for authors restating the simple fact that we don't, and won't, know); also: "variety" is preferable to the prejudicial "language", because what little debate there has been during the past years has indeed been giving a strengthened focus on the dialect rather than separate-language perspective. Good lord, I've spent years defending the XMK article against nationalists who promoted The Truth that XMK was Greek; do I now have to start defending this article against those who promote The Truth that it was not?
• "Additionally, a family with several branches is also sometimes postulated in order to distinguish mainstream modern Greek from certain other, divergent varieties among the descendants of ancient Greek." – I consider it highly important to stress that this is "sometimes" done, because as we have seen, quite often it is not. The extra sentence is important here, again, as a summary to direct the reader to understand why the following discussion of individual varieties is needed.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:18, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I answered most of this above: Hellenic is not a "hypothesis" or "proposal". It is simply a disambiguating term for the branch of IE which includes Greek. If Greek is considered a single language, then Hellenic consists of a single language.

Macedonian: I have no argument with you there.

The family has several branches, regardless of whether those are called languages or dialects. Doric, Ionic, and Attic are all branches of Greek, not just sometimes.

kwami (talk) 08:52, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

But they aren't branches that you would expect to be treated in an article called "Hellenic languages", which does entail separate status. The plural in the title does entail separate language status for at least something, and since that is not straightforward, we need to hedge. And we also need the first sentence to distinguish between the technical use and the everyday synonym use. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:57, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, things to think about tomorrow. "Hellenic languages" merely follows the naming format for language families; that wording isn't used in the text itself. kwami (talk) 09:05, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

"Proto-Greek"

I just discovered the Proto-Greek article. The content of Proto-Greek should be folded into here and a redirect built. Historical linguists are much more likely to use the term "Proto-Hellenic" or "Hellenic" than "Proto-Greek" (I've never seen "Proto-Greek" in the Indo-European literature, for example). Alternatively, the material we've written here can be folded into the Proto-Greek article and that article renamed to be Hellenic languages. Either way, the two article describe the same thing and "Hellenic" is far, far, far more common a term than "Proto-Greek". (Taivo (talk) 14:03, 14 April 2009 (UTC))

Hmm, I had forgotten that article too. Yes, they could be merged, although their current focus is rather different. (Well, in fact, I still don't really see why this article here couldn't much more easily be merged back into Greek language first of all, but be that as it may.) By the way, I find "Proto-Greek" reasonably common, possibly more common in the specialised literature than "Hellenic". Just as a random fruit from Google books, take the Greek chapter in P. Ramat's The Indo-European languages.

Actually, on second thought: I'm not so sure about the merging. They are rather different in focus. What the Proto-Greek article describes is more recent than the "Hellenic" of "Hellenic = Greek + Macedonian" (Macedonian doesn't have devoicing of aspirates, or at least that's pretty much the only thing we seem to know about it), but also a lot further back than anything a reader would want to know in order to understand the relation between the modern outlying varieties (whose most recent ancestor was for the most part Koine anyway.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:45, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

That suggestion is complete nonsense. Proto-Greek is the reconstructed predecessor of the Ancient Greek dialects and a perfectly valid topic of historical linguistics. It is this article that has a rather dubious status. "Hellenic languages" is just a fancy term for Greek language, emphasizing that all ancient dialects are included. The creation of this article is an outgrowth of the endless "Macedonian" dispute, and as such reflects wikidrama, and not the actual need for a separate article.

This is all as simple as stating that XMK isn't Greek by any commonly accepted definition, period, but that it may be closely related, and hence the term "Hellenic" has sometimes been taken to extend to it by some authors. There. That's all there is to it. It's one line of text, not an entire article's worth.

There are three separate points here:

• "XMK is Greek !!!11!1" (we have discussed this to death. Just place a footnote in Greek language)
• Phrygian is close to Greek -- nice, but this isn't called "Hellenic". Go to Graeco-Armenian.
• Tzakonian ins't a "dialect" it's a separate language, hence "Greek languages", not "Greek language" -- wth does that have to do with anything? Any linguist knows that "counting languages" is futile. Just cite somebody saying "Greek languages" or "Hellenic languages" at Greek language and be done.

--dab (𒁳) 15:01, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, while I share much of your opinion here, let me rectify that this article was, for a change, not the product of the endless Macedonian dispute. It was created by kwamikagami, apparently mostly out of a sense of systematicity in dealing with one-language "branches". I find that a bit misguided too, but let's be fair, it's not XMK drama. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:16, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Dab, you are mistaken. This article has nothing to do with modern Macedonian or the [[Macedonia naming dispute]. It is strictly about the Ancient Macedonian language. A couple more of your points are wrong, as well. Ancient Macedonian was not "Greek". While all Greek varieties have voiceless aspirates or (modern) voiceless fricatives as the reflexes of Proto-Indo-Eurpoean voiced aspirates, Ancient Macedonian has voiced stops. That alone precludes it from being "Greek". It is probably (possibly) Hellenic, but not Greek. But I still think that the name Hellenic or Proto-Hellenic is preferable to Proto-Greek. I'll do some looking in my library tonight but don't go deleting this article on a tear to make it "Greek" again. Hellenic is not just Greek and we need to recognize that. Even though the group might be very small (just Macedonian, Tsakonian, and Greek), it is still a separate grouping (even without Tsakonian). (Taivo (talk) 17:44, 14 April 2009 (UTC))

But, actually, why do we have not one, but two articles on the history of the Greek language. History of Greek and Proto-Greek should be one article, not two. That's overkill and totally unnecessarily multiplying entities--anti-Occam's Razor. (Taivo (talk) 17:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC))

Taivo, I hate to say this, but why do I get the feeling when I discuss with you it's like discussing with one of those people who are here to promote The Truth, just that yours is The Anti-Truth of theirs? You see, it is not The Truth that Tsakonian is a separate language. It is also not The Truth that Ancient Macedonian was one. It is not even The Truth that the treatment of voiced aspirates makes it automatically Not Greek; there are serious linguistic treatments arguing why that is perfectly compatible with dialect status (even though those tend to be written by people with their own national Truth in mind). Can we please get back on track about just following what the literature does? As for History of Greek, I haven't recently looked at it, but I can't imagine how (if it is in any way decently written) it should become a merge candidate with Proto-Greek. It should, obviously, be a diachronic summary article, with Proto-Greek and all the other stages as properly integrated detail (sub-)articles. Of course a language with such a large amount of coverage as Greek should have a history article like that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:19, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

It's not "the Truth". It's linguistic accuracy from a worldwide perspective. Sometimes these "classical language" articles look too much like they are something "special" rather than another of the world's languages, equal to all the other world's languages. (Taivo (talk) 18:52, 14 April 2009 (UTC))

Sorry, but I will keep insisting that these classical language articles will be written based on reliable sources written by people who actually specialise in these classical languages, and I will not accept them to be monopolised by a view that some outside perspective represents some kind of higher form of "accuracy". Which, like it or not, really is just another way of saying: The Truth. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:56, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

No need to get exorcised about it. And, you don't advocate "The Truth"? When dealing with languages that have a long tradition of scholarship, there are two things that have to be taken into account. First, there are traditional terms that get used in modern senses that did not have that sense when first written. We're dealing with language change within the English language and within English scholarship in that regard. Modern linguists are increasingly recognizing Tsakonian as a separate language, for example. But the traditional terminology, "dialect" (from dialektos), gets in the way of recognizing the distinctiveness of Tsakonian, much as traditional Chinese scholarship uses a term that is directly (and traditionally) translated as "dialect" for the various separate languages that comprise the Sinitic branch of Sino-Tibetan. Second, the traditional views are sometimes based on outmoded linguistic methodology, but get perpetuated in the non-linguistic literature and become entrenched. Going back to Chinese, the view that the languages are dialects is based on the fact that they use a common writing system that has a certain degree of mutual intelligibility. Modern linguists, however, downplay the importance of writing systems when determining what is and is not a language, yet the notion of a "Chinese" language with dialects persists. Just as Wikipedia's articles on physics rely on quantum mechanics as the foundation, and the biology articles rely on evolution as the foundation, so, too, Wikipedia's language articles need not be tied to traditional scholarship and labelling, but should reflect the most recent usage in the field. There's a reason why Tsakonian was virtually unknown as a sister to Modern Greek 100 years ago, but is increasingly being recognized as something distinct and different. It's because the field is changing and coming to recognize the value of "ignored" languages. I'm not "insisting" on anything except to make sure that Wikipedia's language articles reflect best linguistic practices while describing the scholarship. And you should read the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Ancient Languages article on Macedonian. It's a very good analysis of the what the ancients had to say about whether Macedonian was a dialect of Ancient Greek or not. (Taivo (talk) 19:35, 14 April 2009 (UTC))

I know that article. If I remember correctly it was me who first brought it up as a source to be used at the XMK article. Against people who were promoting The Truth. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:24, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the Sinitic languages article is a fair comparison. That's another "single-language" branch that really isn't. And Japonic languages, Ainu languages, etc. I evidently made a mistake with Albanic languages, as I was under the impression that Gheg and Tosk were mutually unintelligible. But for here we have adequate sources that not just Tsakonian but Pontic and a few other Greek/Hellenic varieties are mutually unintelligible. BTW, Dab, the identity of Macedonian is largely irrelevant here. kwami (talk) 21:28, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah, Sinitic languages is a near perfect comparison--a group of modern mutually unintelligible languages that are united by descending from a single attested ancient ancestor language (with a questionable outlying member). And the fact that Chinese linguists call these languages consistently "dialects" makes the comparison even more accurate. (Taivo (talk) 05:03, 15 April 2009 (UTC))

The difference is that the single-language convention is not just used by Greek authors in this case, or by authors writing in Greek. It is used consistently by just about every author who has ever published about Greek. There are a few who mention in passing that Ts. "might" be viewed as separate, but I have seen none so far who actually treats it as such in their own terminological practice. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:35, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

No, there a quite a few linguists who say that they are separate languages, defining 'language' as what's mutually intelligible. (People make the same proviso w Chinese and Arabic.) We're not saying that the Greek article needs to be rewritten to accommodate, just that a family shouldn't be erased just because some people don't like it. kwami (talk) 07:18, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I have still not seen a single example of an author doing so in a specialised academic publication in actual Greek linguistics. Hinting that it might be done, yes. Actually doing it, no. Only those global survey and classification works. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:46, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

But those global survey and classification works are themselves reliable sources since they generally use consistent measurements to determine what are and are not separate languages. For example, in Voegelin and Voegelin, which is based on a decade-long work which appeared in fascicles of Anthropological Linguistics, we find Dutch and German combined into a single language--Netherlandic-German--because there is no definite line of mutual unintelligibility between them, Continental Scandinavian (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian), Insular Scandinavian (Icelandic, Faroese), Rumanian (including the three "other" Romanians often separated out as separate languages), etc., but Tsakonian separated from Modern Greek. Thus, there was a clearly-followed measurement of mutual intelligibility that the Voegelins followed very rigorously based on what was known at the time (the 1960s and 1970s). They specifically cite Bourguet (1927) Le Dialect Laconien as noting that Tsakonian and Modern Greek were not mutually intelligible as early as the sixteenth century. Five centuries of no mutual intelligibility is a pretty serious argument for separate language status despite the traditional naming of Tsakonian as a "dialect". Linguasphere (Andrew Dalby) also is not afraid to combine "languages" that are often treated separately for sociolinguistic or other non-linguistic reasons such as Czech-Slovak ("translating" its idiosyncratic labels), Russian-Ukrainian (including Belarusan and Rusyn), Bihari (Bhojpuri, Maithili, Magahi, etc.), but also clearly separates Tsakonian. These should not be ignored. Granted that Greek linguistic tradition calls Tsakonian a "dialect", but for non-linguistic reasons since even Greek linguists (writing in Greek) and Greek specialists (writing in English) admit that there is no mutual intelligibility between the two. Brian Joseph is a specialist in Greek and he clearly states in the most recent of his on-line articles that the qualifications for granting Tsakonian separate language status are clearly there. So what do we do here? 1) It's clear that there is a tradition in Greek studies to count all these mutually unintelligible varieties as "Greek", calling them "dialects". 2) It is equally clear in language surveys and global studies that Tsakonian is treated separately. 3) Everyone agrees that Tsakonian has not been mutually intelligible with Modern Greek for at least five centuries. Those are the things which can be stated based on reliable sources. Based on the Macedonian section in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, written by Roger Woodard, it is unclear whether Ancient Macedonian was a separate language or a dialect of Ancient Greek. So what do we do here? Given the conflicting nature of the labels "language" and "dialect" in the case of Tsakonian, but the universal agreement that it is mutually unintelligible with Modern Greek, and given the conflicting evidence of Ancient Macedonian's mutual intelligibility with Ancient Greek, this article should be justified. We face the same problems with the Varieties of Arabic, Japonic languages, Sinitic languages, etc. Traditional terminology in the field does not always match the linguistic reality on the ground. On the various pages dealing with the different varieties of Arabic, the word "variety" has been used fairly consistently to describe what one group of linguists calls separate languages and what another group of linguists calls separate dialects. The treatment of Greek as a single-language entity in Indo-European studies is not surprising since the distinction between Tsakonian and Modern Greek is not an ancient distinction, but happened after the oldest written records of Ancient Greek. Thus, if Wikipedia were written from the perspective of the 5th century BCE, there would not be a small language family (excluding for the moment the issue of Ancient Macedonian), but a single language. But the facts on the ground today are different--there are at least two (if not four or five) mutually unintelligible languages. (Taivo (talk) 10:32, 15 April 2009 (UTC))

We are both repeating ourselves over and over. I stand by my previous statements. Also, this is not about whether this or that "warrants" or "deserves" an article. The current articles on Greek language and its sub-articles are already adequately handling all this. In fact, the whole thing about Tsakonian can fit in a single sentence fragment and a single footnote at Varieties of Modern Greek (and of course the Tsakonian article itself). What function does this article here fulfill that isn't fulfilled by those already? Apart from satisfying a few linguists' sense of systematicity, in having their favorite tree schemas mirrored exactly by an article hierarchy? Think actual information value here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:39, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) There's nothing wrong with systematicity here. The description of the world's languages and language families are a system. There are many articles on individual languages that have less information that his article does, but they are not considered "useless". In Wikipedia we are not tight for space as we would be in a published encyclopedia so we can do things that are systematic without concern. Systematicity can be very helpful for people who are looking at Wikipedia systematically--as kwami and I do. We are irritated when the system is "broken" and we cannot find information systematically. And, encyclopedic content should be systematic by its very nature. (Taivo (talk) 17:01, 15 April 2009 (UTC))

Koine?

Can we have some more reference to Koine in the article? I'd especially like to see it in the tree.

-- TimNelson (talk) 11:38, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Classification and Thraco-Phrygian

On the classification section it says "Phrygian is sometimes linked instead with Thracian". The same story again and again. That is obsolete as a view for at least 20 years now! Greek, Phrygian and Armenian are most likely to form a subgroup of IE, that would most probably not include Thracian. I will quote Claude Brixhe (on Phrygian) in the book Ancient Languages of Asia Minor "We will dismiss, at least temporarily, the idea of a Thraco-Phrygian unity. Thraco-Dacian (or Thracian and Daco-Mysian) seems to belong to the eastern (satem) group of Indo-European languages and its (their) phonetic system is far less conservative than that of Phrygian (see Brixhe and Panayotou 1994, §§3ff.)". Unless Thracian went through some heavy "satemization" in a very short time (which there's no evidence about), it is really far fetched to try to group Phrygian with Thracian or Greek with Thracian. The source that was used for the statement is from 1983 and we're now in 2011.

Fkitselis (talk) 20:20, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Satem was apparently an areal feature, not a branch of IE, and in any case you're grouping a centum language, Greek, with a satem language, Armenian, so I don't understand why you'd object to Thracian based on whether it's satem or centum. — kwami (talk) 03:51, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Splitting, Phrygian etc

About Dbachmann's recent edits [17]: I disagree that a split of this article is necessary on the grounds that "Hellenic" can mean separate things, but we do one article per topic, not one per word. The different aspects treated here are not in fact so radically different "meanings" as this would seem to imply. The basic definition that formed the lead sentence before Dab's recent edits was still valid for all: "the branch of the Indo-European language family that includes Greek". I feel this basic definition ensures enough encyclopedic unity of the topic to keep the issues together. The three (or, better, just two) distinct sub-topics treated together in the article only concern different perspectives under which it (marginally) makes practical sense to distinguish Hellenic from Greek proper; the basic meaning or "Hellenic" remains the same throughout.

I'm also not quite convinced about the treatment of what is currently presented as the "second" meaning. Why does Phrygian (and, by extension, Armenian) keep coming in here? I have actually not yet seen a single source that actually applies the term "Hellenic" to a grouping as wide as "Graeco-Phrygian", let alone anything containing "possibly other extinct Paleo-Balkans languages". Of course, Graeco-Phrygian groupings are discussed in the literature, but are they ever discussed under this term? If not, they really do constitute a separate, distinct concept, which needs to be kept out of this page. Dab, could you please clarify what exactly the sources you cited are saying in this respect? I haven't got access to the full Cambridge Encyclopedia of Ancient Languages right now, but I do have access to the spin-off volumes on Europe and Asia Minor, and cannot find the term "Hellenic" used in this way in any of the material by Woodard or Brixhe in either of them. For Friedrich's Extinct Languages I only have Google snippets right now, but I can't find anything on "Hellenic" there either. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:24, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

"Hellenic" is a synonym of "Greek", period. "Hellenic" as a taylor-made concept designed to incorporate Macedonian is a very specialized item and can easily be discussed under ancient Macedonian language. Anything else said by the article is simply that "Hellenic" means "Greek" and can take any range of meaning the term "Greek" itself can take. This simply doesn't make for a standalone article topic, sorry. The "branch of Indo-European that includes Greek" is known as "Greek". "Hellenic" is also used as a synonym of "Greek". The end. If you don't like the redirect to Proto-Greek, redirect it to Greek language, or to Greek dialects, or else make it a disambiguation page, just as long as we are clear that there is no separate topic here.

We both know the "Macedonian" debate is poisoned by nationalism. This means we need to run a tight ship, as it is certain that any chance to seep in nationalist nonsense will be capitalized upon. "Hellenic" as a term designed to include Macedonian is simply a semantic trick to make Macedonian "Greek" by definition. You say you have never seen anyone include Phrygian as "Hellenic". Big surprise there. The reason is that nobody has a burning desire to prove that "Phrygian is Hellenic". What you have seen, though, are shrugging experts saying there is no evidence either way, and that Macedonian may well be related to Greek, but that there is no evidence that it is any closer to Greek than, say, Phrygian. Based on that, the "Macedonian is Hellenic by definition" terminological stunt ends up defining a "family" so fuzzy that pretty much any Paleo-Balkans language may or may not be a member. What I am saying is, this isn't a linguistic discussion, it's just messing around with terminology- This can be covered, but since it is entirely about the "Macedonian is Greek" meme, it belongs on the Macedonian language article. --dab (𒁳) 08:18, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Uhm, I'm afraid I don't think you covered my concern. If you remember our discussions from two years ago, I was actually just as skeptical about the overall necessity of this article as you are. But since we are apparently stuck with having it, I'd just like to keep it neat and simple. And please relax; nobody has edited this article under a XMK-motivated nationalist perspective in years. All the disagreements we've had were between Kwami, Taivo, yourself and me, all of us pretty much above such concerns, I dare say, so let's please keep the anti-plague kneejerk reactions out of it. – Now, back to the matter, I'm still not satisfied with the Phrygian bit. Those linguists who have proposed "Hellenic" = Greek + XMK have not done so in the sense of a family "so fuzzy that pretty much any Paleo-Balkans language may or may not be a member"; where I've seen such proposals they were very specifically worded so as to cover just these exact two branches, Greek and XMK, and not Phrygian. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:56, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

---

Oh, and a proposed "split into a new article titled Proto-Greek language" doesn't really make much sense either, because that article already exists anyway. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:30, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

that's rather beside the point, don't you think? It's just the text of the {{split}} template. If you like you can go and add intelligent syntax to the template so it will take this into account. --dab (𒁳) 08:18, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

But are you really saying you want to split it? From what you wrote just above, it seems you are actually still thinking of a full merge/redirect, rather than a split, correct? I'd personally agree with that (though I guess we'd probably still have Kwami and Taivo against us), but I'd prefer Greek language as a redirect target. "Proto-Greek" is about a specific early stage of the language, while both this article and Greek language are about the whole spectrum of resulting branches right until the present. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:56, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree with Dbachmann: using "Hellenic" to mean "Greek+Macedonian" is terrible. From an objective, linguistic point of view, it's nuts. It just makes zero sense and is intentionally designed to mislead and create confusion, which a work that strives to be scientific should never do. The literally only reason I can see for it is politics: appeasing nationalists who fight tooth and nail against any acknowledgement of the possibility that Ancient Macedonian might have been something else than Greek. It's not only an ugly kluge: it's a cheap parlour trick. Do we really need to engage in semantic games, misdirection and sophistry (heh, an ancient Greek specialty) like this? When we have a tree like this:

• ?
  • Macedonian
  • ?
    • Tsakonian
    • ?
      • Italiot (Griko)
      • Cappadocian
      • Pontic
      • etc.
      • Standard Modern Greek

the obvious solution is to call the topmost node Greco-Macedonian. There: a nice, descriptive term. Greek (or, if you must, Hellenic) can then go to the node which includes Tsakonian. The remainder might be called Mainstream Modern Greek (or, if you must, Greek). For those who maintain that Macedonian might have been no more divergent than Doric, even if it wasn't itself a form of Doric, simply put a (?) after Macedonian, because in that case, the Greco-Macedonian node is identical with the Greek node. That's the rational approach to terminology: first come the facts, then the terms; don't try to squeeze the facts to fit the terms instead. That's putting the cart before the horse. The terms only serve to describe the facts (in this case, name the nodes in the tree structure).

By the way, the structure could equally be like this:

• ?
  • Phrygian
  • Macedonian
  • Greek

or even:

• ?
  • ?
    • Phrygian
    • Macedonian
  • Greek

in which case Greco-Macedonian would be synonymous with Greco-Phrygian. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:23, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

That all sounds reasonable to me, but if the article's an accurate representation of published lit, what changes can we afford to make? — Lfdder (talk)

I just notice that we don't even have an article for Greco-Phrygian, although we have plenty on far more controversial combinations. So I submit that Phrygian be added to the infobox and tree, as it is near-universally considered the most closely related language to Greek apart from Macedonian. This would at least make the article less pointless. Alternatively, I propose renaming it to Greco-Macedonian, as this seems to be what the article is really about currently: a proposed branch of Indo-European. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:52, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

I would also like to point out, as a methodical point, that an agnostic view would automatically treat Macedonian as its own branch, splitting off directly from Proto-Indo-European. Treating it as Greek, or closely related to Greek, can never be the default position, according to classificatory principles. The null hypothesis is no relationship, or no special relationship if a general relationship is accepted by the consensus. Adding "Hellenic?" to infoboxes is acceptable, but the choice of term is unfortunate or at least extremely awkward. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:03, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

in the Black Sea

“ Geographic distribution: Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Anatolia and the Black Sea ”

Is Hellenic spoken in Black Sea countries other than Turkey? On boats, perhaps? —Tamfang (talk) 05:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

You don't need to get sea-sick to hear it in the Black Sea region, if that's what's really bothering you [18]--Giorgos Tzimas (talk) 18:28, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Then how about "... and the Black Sea region"? —Tamfang (talk) 06:51, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Hellenic vs Greek as a technical term

I am under the impression that in Wikipedia, we do not "create" new knowledge but simply post sourced information. This entire "Hellenic" business as something other than "Greek", even as a superset containing "Greek", sounds bogus. I have searched everywhere online and could find nothing of the kind. Can someone provide a source where the "term" is used as such? Also, for instance, we could say that the "technical" term "Hellenic" can be translated in proper Greek as Ελληνικά. So how would one then translate the "technical" term "Greek"? Και θα ήθελα παρακαλώ, όσοι θέλουν να εκφέρουν γνώμη σχετικά με την Ελληνική γλώσσα, να μου απαντήσουν και στα Ελληνικά. Ευχαριστώ. -Γιάννης 88.193.103.47 (talk) 23:55, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Hellenic is the branch. Greek is the language. They are synonymous when Greek is considered an IE isolate, otherwise not. That's pretty straightforward. No different really than Japonic vs. Japanese, or Sinitic vs Chinese, or Anglic vs English. A quick search of GBooks reveals hundreds of sources. 480 in the Dewey Decimal System is even defined as "Hellenic languages", with 489 "Other Hellenic languages".

ELL2 lists "Hellenic" as one of the branches of IE, consisting of Ancient Greek and Modern Greek, in the article on the classification of languages. The article on Modern Greek says, "Both Tsakonian and Pontic diverge significantly enough from the rest of Greek to merit consideration now as separate languages (though they are still clearly Hellenic)." — kwami (talk) 00:08, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

To User:Kwamikagami - As I have said above, I am referring specifically to the term "Hellenic" as used inside the article. If it is a legitimate term, please provide a source to this information. Until you do, the citation needed is required. Also, why do you delete other parts of the article that I have added and that are clearly sourced? Did you even bother to read the sources? What is your specific objections to each source? Why do you disregard the negative scoring your edits receive in the "View history" page? Are you available for Skype? My user name is aplaenas.ellinas -Thank you 88.193.103.47 (talk) 00:29, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

You reverted the articles 6 times. You are in violation of 3RR. Contested changes to an article need to be resolved on the talk page; please revert yourself or I will request that you be blocked for edit warring.

I just provided several sources.

Pls provide page numbers for your refs. AFAICT, your claim "such claims have been refuted by most modern scholars" is false; the ELL citation above is evidence of that, as are ISO-code assignments, and even the Dewey decimal system, which doesn't often concern itself with the minutiae of language classification.

If you can't be bothered to do a GBook search, how about Renfrew 1990 Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, Lyons 1995 Definiteness, Green 2003 The Greek & Latin Roots of English, Moseley 2007 Encyclopedia of the World's Endangered Languages, Papavizas 2006 Claiming Macedonia ("Macedonian [...] similarities and differences from other Hellenic languages")? — kwami (talk) 01:29, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

For my claim "such claims have been refuted by most modern scholars", I encourage you to read this peer-reviewed book: http://books.google.fi/books?id=s1deoQGPLWAC&pg=PA3&hl=fi&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false 88.193.103.47 (talk) 01:37, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not going to read the whole book. Give a page number. And meanwhile revert yourself. If the sources support you, your edit will win out. — kwami (talk) 01:50, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Page 11, give me a minute for the quote... 88.193.103.47 (talk) 01:55, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

There's nothing relevant on p 11. — kwami (talk) 02:04, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Page 11, paragraph 2 - "[...] The Greeks say they have five dialects, Attic, Ionic, Doric, Aeolic, and fifth the koine, [...] regarded as [...] the new [...] standard and norm". This proves that the Hellenic language was (at least about 2000 years ago) one specific relative Language isolate and not an umbrella of distinct languages. Here is another source:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Liv.+31+29&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0148

Almost at the bottom of the text "[15] Trifling causes occasionally unite and disunite the Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Macedonians, men speaking the same language." 88.193.103.47 (talk) 02:16, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

So you don't have a source to back up your claims. All you have is an opinion that Ancient Greek was a single language, which is consistent with the article as it was before you edited. — kwami (talk) 03:06, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Again, do you have Skype? My user name is aplaenas.ellinas Let's talk it over. 88.193.103.47 (talk) 02:19, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't. — kwami (talk) 03:06, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Sounds more like "No, I don't want to engage in dialog"... 88.193.103.47 (talk) 03:22, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

No, it means I don't have Skype. I suppose your assumption of bad faith is an attempt to weasel out of the fact that you have no sourcing for your claim. You have been warned already about edit warring, here and on your talk page. I will restore the stable version of the article. If you continue to edit war (restore your edit without consensus), I will ask to have you blocked for disruption. — kwami (talk) 03:28, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

"So you don't have a source to back up your claims. All you have is an opinion that Ancient Greek was a single language, which is consistent with the article as it was before you edited." User:Kwamikagami

This is what you get from TWO peer-reviewed books by different University professors AND a direct quote of an Ancient Roman historian??!! Wow, maybe we should ask that skeleton on your page then for verification... How about then all the scholars that signed the open letter to President Obama, which clearly speaks of a Greek Macedonian dialect?? Disregard them also?? 88.193.103.47 (talk) 03:31, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

You have not provided a source that "most modern scholars" have refuted the idea that Greek is more than a single language. I have provided several examples of Greek being considered more than a single language. As for the rest, I have no idea what you just said. — kwami (talk) 03:35, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Check source [6]. Very easy. 88.193.103.47 (talk) 03:38, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see. This is a political issue for you. This is not the appropriate forum for it. See WP:Soapbox. — kwami (talk) 03:45, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Someone with this "much" respect to Greek civilization should probably not accuse others of political motivations... http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg715/scaled.php?server=715&filename=kwmkgm.png&res=landing 88.193.103.47 (talk) 03:56, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

This is about historical truth, first and foremost.

Excerpt: "Alexander carried with him throughout his conquests Aristotle’s edition of Homer’s Iliad. Alexander also spread Greek language and culture throughout his empire, founding cities and establishing centers of learning. Hence inscriptions concerning such typical Greek institutions as the gymnasium are found as far away as Afghanistan. They are all written in Greek. The questions follow: Why was Greek the lingua franca all over Alexander’s empire if he was a “Macedonian”? Why was the New Testament, for example, written in Greek?"

Well, maybe because the Ancient Macedonians spoke Greek? The Greek Macedonian dialect? 88.193.103.47 (talk) 03:48, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Or because Macedonian had no literate tradition. Were all of Alexander's soldiers, who went as far as Afghanistan, Macedonian? —Tamfang (talk) 05:26, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

No. Most were Greek. And when Alexander spoke Macedonian, his Greek soldiers could not understand him. That doesn't mean it wasn't a Greek 'dialect', of course: Pontic and Tsakonian are not very intelligible to Standard Greek today, so it could be that Macedonian Greek was a mutually unintelligible variety. But the comments above show that this is about politics, and 'proving' who has the right to use the name 'Macedonian', not about language. — kwami (talk) 05:36, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Kwami is absolutely correct in his linguistic statements. Hellenic is a small language family consisting of (a minimum of) Greek (Attic through its various historical forms), Tsakonian (Doric), and probably Ancient Macedonian. Cappadocian and Pontic are also sometimes considered separate languages. This makes a language family that we call Hellenic. Linguasphere, Ethnologue, and many other published linguistic sources concur in this. If it's a political issue for you, anon IP, which it certainly seems to be, this is not the place for it. Start your own blog and express to your heart's content. Wikipedia is not the place for it. You have violated WP:3RR and may be subject to bans and/or blocks on your editing priveleges. If kwami hasn't already reported you, I will if you continue with your non-linguistic and unsupported editing. --Taivo (talk) 06:14, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

By the way, there is no "Anglic" as a technical term in the Dewey Decimal System. You really should get your facts straight... 88.193.103.47 (talk) 05:02, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Devastating rebuttal of a claim not made! Wow! —Tamfang (talk) 06:51, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Rewrote the lead to remove the "Hellenic is a technical term" opening, which violated the MOS, since the article is about the Hellenic branch of IE, not about the word "Hellenic". — kwami (talk) 19:23, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

My campaign gains strength! —Tamfang (talk) 00:15, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

This whole discussion is close to meaningless. The term dialect (διάλεκτος) in ancient Greek translates to language by modern standards, as dialect was more and more used to describe the meaning of the several mutually unintelligible Greek dialects/languages. The Greek term for language (γλώσσα) refers to totally foreign languages, as does the English term. But the term dialect, at least in the ancient scripts, translates to languages, by today's standards that is. The ancient Greek split the dialects (languages) of the ancient world into two categories: the Hellenic (Greek) dialects, and the barbaric (foreign) dialects. The entire -ic suffix is the English translation of the Greek -ικός suffix, which is used to describe who something belongs to, or whose characteristic (a word that even has -ic itself in it) is. The only problem is that, since the word for Greek in Greek is Ελληνικός (notice the -ικός suffix?) and the term Hellenic is only a transcription of the Greek endonym (the word Ελληνικός), there is no different word or term to describe the Greek and Hellenic as meaning different things in the Greek language. To put it simply, Greek is the exonym, and Hellenic is the endonym. Since the terms are first used in a different sense in this article, the only question that remains is how to translate the two words in Greek? LightningLighting (talk) 14:57, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Ancient Macedonian as Hellenic language

There is not enough evidence to claim that Ancient Macedonian was a Doric language. There isn't even enough evidence to definitively claim that Ancient Macedonian was Hellenic, although what evidence there is tends to point in that direction. Statements by ancient Romans about their enemies and about comments made by Greeks 300-400 years earlier are not reliable linguistic evidence. --Taivo (talk) 14:02, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

The "Greek and ancient Macedonian" section could, IMO, benefit from improved sourcing of the discussion of what the ancient Macedonian language may have been. The last sentence of the paragraph ("Other approaches include Macedonian as a dialect of Greek proper, or as an unclassified Paleo-Balkan language."), in particular, should have some sources; I would mark it with a "citation needed" tag myself, except that I don't want to further inflame the ongoing edit war at this time.

Some useful references might be available from the existing Ancient Macedonian language and Paleo-Balkan languages articles. Everyone please note that I am not advocating the fallacy of citing Wikipedia as a source for itself; rather, I'm suggesting examining the sources in those other two articles and seeing if any might be worth copying over to this article (after rechecking for accuracy and suitability, of course).

The "Linguist List" source (which tries to run a Java applet, and which didn't show me any results at all) should, I think, be replaced by something more readily accessible.

There are, obviously, people who (in relationship to the modern Macedonia naming dispute) go ballistic at any hint of suggestion that ancient Macedonian might have been anything other than a Greek dialect — apparently even going so far as to object to the Paleo-Balkan hypothesis (which, even if true, would not make ancient Macedonian a Slavic language). For what it may or may not be worth, I don't see anything in the current article text which could possibly support a classification of ancient Macedonian as a Slavic language; however, by saying this I'm not trying to take sides in the modern controversy, and I don't see any pressing reason to tie up this article with the current dispute. — Richwales 05:56, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Let's not over-dramatize the "ongoing edit-war". This is an overall stable and uncontentious article on an obscure topic of a technical linguistic nature. It's been disrupted by one agenda editor exporting a dispute to this page from somewhere else, nothing more. There is no reason to fill this article with "coatrack" material regarding the Macedonian dispute. The only reason to mention Macedonian here is to make the simple point that for those authors who consider it a closely related language, "Hellenic" has served as a handy cover term. No need to rehash the debate over what other competing opinions have been raised about that relationship, beyond mentioning the fact that the debate exists.

As for the LinguistList source, well, yes, it's an online database, and it happens to run with Java applets, but I don't see why that would make it less citeable. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:27, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Someone above asked an interesting question that went unanswered. If there is a separate linguistic concept of the "Greek" language and "Hellenic" languages, how would a Greek linguist make this distinction in Greek? I can't think of a way. There is no "Greek" in the Greek language (at least not unless we're talking about the ancient Graikoi). Anyway, it seems like an unfortunate convention for international linguists to have adopted, because it is guaranteed to create confusion. That's why this article must be very clear about the difference between linguistic convention and other usage of terms. Nojamus (talk) 21:18, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Simple: use the plural. No more difficult than 'Sinitic languages' in Chinese or 'English languages' in English. Just check the Greek iw. — kwami (talk) 21:51, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, to be fair, I guess it would be possible in Greek to express this distinction in this way, but I don't remember ever seeing a Greek author actually doing that. The Greek wikipedia article is obviously just taken over from us, and not based on any native sources. In reality, this whole conceptual distinction is simply not made in the Greek literature. (Nor, indeed, is it made in the majority of the English-language literature, but that's a point we belaboured sufficiently a few years ago.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:27, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Cypriot

Article reads: "Separate status is sometimes also argued for Cypriot, though this is not as easily justified." This tells us nothing. Is it meant wrt to mutual intelligibility? Page cited is a list of references and it doesn't look like there's anything on previous pages. — Lfdder (talk) 19:53, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I think it means it's not as justified on intelligibility grounds, as that's the factor that's being considered.

Why did you move Pontic in? — kwami (talk) 06:47, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Arvaniti here says they're not mutually intelligible (but asymmetric) citing 2 others, says they're in diglossic relationship, but calls it a variety. Looks like other people have argued the same but avoid calling it a language. We can probably incorporate that somehow into the article.

Misinterpreted the tree slightly. Where's it from tho? — Lfdder (talk) 09:34, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Greek and Hellenic

Greek is just the English word for Hellenic and used to refer mainly to Hellenic people living in South Italy (Magna Graecia) until its use was expanded to cover all hellens. Same goes to teh word Yunan by to the I dont undertand this languaguistic tree of Greek (Hellenic in English) being a subset of Hellenic (Greek in Greek) a synonym. It makes no sense and there is no scientific evidence. Modern Greek and ancient Greek being subsets of Hellenic languages yes, but Greek (Hellenic in English) as a whole being a subset of its synonym. Also Hellenic was a term that became popular to represent Alexander's new world so in terms of timimg is even more recent that Ancient (Classic) Greek — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.133.66.112 (talk) 01:58, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

"Hellenic" is an English word, not a Greek one (no matter its origin), so translating it into English does not make sense. Here, "Hellenic" is used to refer to the whole branch of Indo-European that includes the main language of Greece. "Greek" is used to refer to the major Hellenic language belonging to this branch, which, in its modern form, is the main language of Greece: (Modern) Greek and its ancestor Ancient Greek. --JorisvS (talk) 11:24, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

There is no country called Greece and nor people called greeks. The constitutional name of Greece is Hellenic Republic and Hellens have the right of self determination. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.92.150.22 (talk) 15:25, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Nonsense. In English the most common words for the country and the people are "Greece" and "Greeks", no matter any sensitivities you may have. --JorisvS (talk) 15:52, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece -> says "Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic" so please JorisvS, stop trolling or talking about things you vaguely know. The English word "Greece" translated into Greek is "Ελλάδα" (Ellada or Ellas) so Hellas. The people living in Hellas are Hellenic speaking the Hellenic language. Einserschüler (talk) 09:24, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Graeco-Phrygian in infobox tree

Is there good reason to give Graeco-Phrygian > Hellenic more weight over other classifications? — lfdder 05:06, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

It's used in one of our sources. — kwami (talk) 07:46, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

A single source does not a consensus make (especially if it's not cited by other sources, which could indicate establishedness). We should stick to mainstream approaches and agnostic, NPOV classifications (i. e., avoid treating affinities as certain when they cannot be described as mainstream opinion or even overwhelming consensus). By the way, the website seems to be down, so it cannot even be verified.

There's also the inconsistency of the infobox of Greek language including Hellenic, but making no mention of Graeco-Phrygian. Much as I personally consider Graeco-Phrygian the best classification of Greek (while being agnostic on the subdivision, preferring to treat Greek, Macedonian and Phrygian as co-ordinate branches), I don't see any overwhelming majority of scholars treating it as established fact, as opposed to merely as plausible. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:02, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

That's because Glottolog is the one doing the citing. It's a 2ary and 3ary source, fine for us to cite but not the kind of thing other 2ary sources would use.

Inconsistency with the Greek article is not a problem. We often omit intermediate nodes from our classifications. Anyway, that's as much an argument that the Greek article should be changed to match this one as anything.

Woodard says, "Among Indo-European languages, Phrygian is most closely related to Greek, and, in concord with this linguistic similarity, the Phrygians appear to have entered Anatolia from the Balkans." This is the view of Claude Brixhe, one of the world's principal scholars of Phrygian and Paleo-Phrygian.

If it's really dubious, we could always add a question mark to the box. — kwami (talk) 21:01, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

A question mark is a good idea. I'm not saying it's dubious, I just thought it is not (yet) as widely accepted as (say) Balto-Slavic is now (and that is a recent development too). When a new edition of (say) Fortson treats Graeco-Phrygian as fact, fine. For the time being, it's only a proposal, however favourably you, I, and dozens of scholars view it. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:42, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

See Talk:Greek language#Classification as well. — lfdder 15:46, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

89.210.203.76 (talk) 14:20, 20 June 2014 (UTC) include Thracian.

protogermanic might also be a worth adding somehwere, as it is very closely linked.

Question marks in trees

To User:SilentResident: please understand that the question mark in the tree and in the infobox is there not just to indicate that there is some uncertainty over whether Ancient Mac. is somehow part of "Hellenic", but to mark as uncertain the actual position at which Anc.Mac. is being shown in the tree. If you remove the question mark, you are left with a statement saying "Hellenic = Greek + Macedonian", which is tantamount to saying that Macedonian is not part of Greek proper. Which is probably quite far from what you actually want to say. (If it were the case that it was just a Greek dialect like all the others, there would be no reason to list it at all.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:57, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Ah, noted. Thanks for your reference too. This improves the page. Thanks for your time, Future Perfect! --SilentResident (talk) 23:00, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Inclusion of Ancient Greek and North Picene in the infobox

Just like Aquitanian, the direct ancestor of Basque, and the latter are shown as different branches of the putative Vasconic language family, Ancient Greek and modern Greek should be presented as different branches of the Hellenic languages. About North Picene• "https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321875660_North_Picene_is_mostly_creolized_Greek", this source talks about the language being a relative of Greek, so it should be added to the infobox with a question mark next to it. Thank you. 89.210.44.152 (talk) 19:43, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

No to both suggestions. Ancient Greek is indeed the direct ancestor of Modern Greek; therefore they are, by definition, not separate branches. This is exactly what distinguishes their situation from that of Aquitanian and Basque, because Aquitanian is not known to be the direct ancestor of Basque in the strict sense (it might be just a close relative to Proto-Basque proper). As for North Picene, the paper you linked to is most certainly not a reliable source. We have nothing citable for such a connection. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:56, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Alright, thank you. 5.54.180.18 (talk) 04:44, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Access to the "edit" section

The page has been locked for a very long time, do you not agree? 89.210.59.5 (talk) 12:40, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Subdivisions

I think that is not correct to connect directly the Proto-Greek language with the Greek. Between theese they have to be the dialects that was spoken at the area at the Bronze Age and the dialects of the next ages: Cycladic Greek, Minoan, Mycenean Greek, Trojan(?), Doric, Ionic, Aeolian, Arcadian, Macedonian, Thracian(?). Those are the subdivisions of Proto-Greek and then we reach at the Greek language.

Is there a reason Cretan Greek is not included in the tree?

I believe that Cretan Greek should be included for the following reasons:

1. Dialects with a lower number of speakers such as Tsakonian were included.
2. The existence of Cretan literature, most notably Erotokritos
3. Along with the other Greek varieties included in the tree, Cretan Greek is also included in the list of dialects in the Modern Greek article.

Hb2007 (talk) 17:30, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

The tree only contains variants that are significantly divergent from the bulk of Demotic Greek dialects, where Cretan Greek is deeply nested. The uppermost variant "Standard Modern Greek" is a misnomer, because it does not only include standard Demotic, but all common Demotic Greek variants, see Modern Greek#Demotic. If we want to add Cretan Greek here, we would have to split this node further to include all Demotic Greek dialects. –Austronesier (talk) 20:25, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

What is considered "significantly divergent"? To be more accurate, most of these dialects, including Cretan, actually exist as dialect continua. Very basilectal Cretan Greek as spoken in villages is very divergent. Also, what other Demotic Greek dialects would we have to include if we were to add Cretan Greek? Crete is Greece's largest island. I can't think of other dialects with a similar magnitude that aren't already in the tree. Hb2007 (talk) 20:29, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Geographic distribution

Greek is also widely spoken in southern Albania in the villages and cities in which the Greek National Minority is living 2A02:587:1813:D800:E8F3:2A0C:B94E:979A (talk) 16:27, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Recent addition

I still object to the recent addition of text copied over from other articles to the section on Ancient Macedonian (in the current version, "So far, the surviving public and private inscriptions found in the area of ancient Macedonia indicate that the only written language was Greek.") That sentence, in this or similar forms, has been added to a number of other articles before, and while technically correct, it is still misleading and ultimately off-topic. No doubt, its appeal to some editors lies in the fact that it (deliberately or accidentally) invites an oversimplified misreading and misunderstanding: "the only language was Greek", in other words: it insinuates to the naive reader that Ancient Macedonian was Greek. But of course the sentence doesn't actually say that at all. What it says is that "the only written language was Greek" – but whatever that Greek was, that written form of Greek is not what "Ancient Macedonian" refers to. Ancient Macedonian is the language that was not written, and precisely because it was not written, we don't know what it was. So, a sentence along those lines – framed somewhat differently – might have a legitimate place in explaining why we don't know what Ancient Macedonian was, but it tells us nothing about what Ancient Macedonian actually was. In fact, it doesn't speak about Ancient Macedonian at all. As such, it's off-topic here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:45, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Agree. If the section was about "Greek in Ancient Macedonia", the sentence would be perfect. But here, under "Greek and Ancient Macedonian", I read it and think: "So?" Either tell the whole story how this might eventually be related to the topic of this article (in its current shape, it isn't), or remove it. –Austronesier (talk) 21:22, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Personally i don't object to its removal; i tried to fix the contribution of User:Piccco, but i also understand the raised concerns. As a sidenote, Ellis (2000) continued with something that relates, but wasn't included. Here it is:

The increasing volume of surviving public and private inscriptions makes it quite clear that there was no written language but Greek. There may be room for argument over spoken forms, or at least over local survivals of earlier occupancy, but it is hard to imagine what kind of authority might sustain that. There is no evidence for a different 'Macedonian' language that cannot be as easily explained in terms of dialect or accent.

I believe this is relevant to what is being discussed in the section, but it might also be argued that its inclusion is problematic per WP:WEIGHT. However, from what i have read, nowadays Macedonian is viewed either as a dialect of Ancient Greek or a sister language of Greek. Demetrios1993 (talk) 16:59, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

I forgot about this discussion. Again, personally i have no problem with the removal of the recent addition. If it was to remain, it would certainly have to be contextualized per the aforementioned quote, and include an in-text attribution. For example:

So far, the surviving public and private inscriptions found in the area of ancient Macedonia indicate that the only written language was Greek; according to John R. Ellis, this indicates that "[t]here is no evidence for a different 'Macedonian' language that cannot be as easily explained in terms of dialect or accent."

But personally i don't like that we single out the view of one scholar, especially when this is meant to be a small and general summary of a much-debated topic. Ideally, it should be removed altogether, and instead be replaced with a summary, similar to the second paragraph of the lede in Ancient Macedonian language; rephrased recently by Austronesier and myself. Demetrios1993 (talk) 17:33, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Tsakonian seperate language

Tsakonian is a seperate language to greek but this page implies there's only one Hellenic language left 79.77.67.121 (talk) 13:26, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Tsakonian is a variety of Modern Greek; please, don't confuse Greek with Standard Modern Greek. Same goes to the user who made this good faith edit. Demetrios1993 (talk) 16:02, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

It is not the same, it is like saying spanish is a modern variant of romanian, yet they evolved from different dialects of latin.

To treat greek as the sole successor to greek with no other language is proposterously absurd,

i'd say the situation is like scots and english, Swedish and Danish, or Czech and Slovak of the same origin, but not the same language. they haven't had the same ancestor since 800 BC roughly, when is the cut off point? Aonadh nan Gaidheal (talk) 14:27, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

There are two issues here. First, the term "Greek", for better or worse, unavoidably refers to both Ancient Greek including all its dialects, and to Modern Greek including all its dialects. That makes the situation necessarily different – in terminology if not in substance – from that of the Latin/Romance or Germanic analogies you mustered. In the first sense, "Greek" obviously encompasses ancient Doric just as much as it encompasses ancient Attic and other dialects; hence, in terms of linguistic cladistics, there's no conceivable way how it could not encompass the modern descendant of Doric also. Second, in the sense of "Greek" as referring to Modern Greek, the issue of whether Tsakonian is synchronically a distinct language is not a cut-and-dry one. If you read the literature, you'll see that the vast majority of it still refers to Tsakonian as a dialect of Greek. Some authors, such as leading expert Brian D. Joseph, will make the point that one could, on criteria of mutual intelligibility, decide to treat Tsakonian as distinct, but then go on to state explicitly that this is conventionally not done [19], and continue to use this customary terminology themselves throughout their work. The terminological decision to actually treat Tsakonian as a sister to "Greek" proper is still a minority practice in the literature, if for no other reason than that there's no easy and commonly accepted way of defining what that "Greek proper" actually is in terms of cladistics.

Now please stop edit-warring – you have now tried to push your changes through 4 times, knowing perfectly well that they were being opposed by others. That's not how we operate on this project. Please respect Wikipedia policy and establish consensus before you enforce such changes. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:35, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

languages with no concept of partially intelligable languages e.g english speakers or greek or armenian speakers have no concept of partially intelligable languages, so are quick to assume languages are dialects, what constitutes a language is blurred buy mutual intelligability should be a huge thing, for example, it would be ridiculous to call french a dialect of latin nowadays due to its lack of mutual intelligability. Aonadh nan Gaidheal (talk) 16:43, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, but what you just wrote is unintelligible gibberish. Please try again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:47, 18 June 2023 (UTC)