Talk:Wp/grc/Νέον Ἐβόρακον

Why on Earth is it aspirated (Ὑόρκη Hüorkee, WTH?!) Just because someone in the 19th century came up with the completely illogical translitteration Υόρκη doesn't mean that the Ancient Greeks would have done the same, or that it should be done here. And contrary to the latest edit summary, Modern Greek is not "literary Koine", it's just Modern Greek, whether καθαρεύουσα or δημοτική. If one wants to write in Modern Greek, then one should go to the existing Wikipedia for that purpose. Or is this project actually intended as a place for the last remaining καθαρεύουσα enthusiasts to develop their alternative form of modern Greek? --91.148.159.4 16:20, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, [hyórkɛː], if you choose to pronounce it classically; and there is a logic to it, since it *is* Literary Koine in the following sense: In Byzantium there was developed within the Church a "static Greek Literary language" which was a mimesis of the Attic style. Its literary tradition carried on in Ottoman Greece. After the Ottoman rule had ended, this language (which has no official name: it is variantly called Literary Koine (λογοτεχνικὴ κοινή; koine here just means "in the tradition of Ancient Koine", not literally "330 BC–330 AD Greek"), Erudite (λογία), Atticist Greek (ἀττικίζουσα), or Ecclesiastical Greek (ἐκκλησιαστικὴ γλῶσσα)) bifurcated into two different strands. In Greece, it was evolved into Katharevousa Modern Greek (Modern Greek with archaic vocabulary and morphology). Outside the borders of Modern Greece (most notably in the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, and the Jerusalem Patriarchate in Israel), the original tradition of Literary Koine has never been altered or petered out. The language of the formal documents of the Ecumenical Patriarchate has virtually remained the same for one and a half millennia; the only thing that changed throughout the years was the language's phonology and the conventions for foreign name transcriptions. For example, when today they want to use a name for a foreign city, country, or person, the users of Ecclesiastical Greek adopt the conventions of 19th c. Katharevousa (for Katharevousa transliteration equals transcription, hence y > υ, no matter what); New York is Νέα Ὑόρκη in Ecclesiastical Greek. The same applies to modern concepts; they use the terms of Katharevousa. For further examples of Ecclesiastical Greek check out the first three external links from here.

Of course your point of view is legitimate. According to the rules I laid out in August 2008, the history and conventions of Ecclesiastical/Traditional Greek are irrelevant, and therefore the transcription should remain Ἰόρκη (true to classical standards). If you had this objection a few months before, I would agree with you; I would point out that adopting Ὑόρκη would be as if we imposed Ecclesiastical Latin standards in a purportedly Classical Latin encyclopedia. But the thing is that a clash emerged in the Agora and the talk-pages among the following views: nonGreeks who wanted a total revival of Attic Greek (Neoclassical Greek/Revived Attic Greek, that is), nonGreeks who wanted the revival of other Ancient Greek dialects as well (most notably User:Crazymdalover), Greeks and nonGreeks who wanted the use of Koine proper, and Greeks who wanted the use of Traditional Greek (namely, Atticist Greek/Ecclesiastical Greek/Literary Koine, a language which includes some Katharevousian conventions, not Katharevousa per se); note that all the above forms of Greek fall under the ISO code grc. In principle, I am quite impartial on the linguistic dispute; I can speak, write, and accept all kinds of Ancient/Classical/Traditional Greek, so I just follow the will and defend the positions of what the majority says each time (I hope this explains a bit the apparent inconsistency of the rationales I give in talk-pages), and currently the majority favors Ecclesiastical Greek, though *all* the other views had their turn before, as well (it's a test-wiki: experimentation abounds). I suggest that the discussion about the general scope of the project be continued in the Agora. --Omnipaedista 05:56, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

A solution could be to be using a version of the language depending on the topic it describes. E.g. articles on subjects related to classical Greece use Attic Greek; articles on subjects related to Hellenistic to early Byzantine use Hellenistic Koine, newer articles, i.e. 8th century to current times as well as anything else Ecclesiastical Greek. Everybody's happy working on their favourite subject and after all a similar approach is being followed in en wiki with US English and UK English, or Spanish with ES and Latin American Spanish, and so on and so forth. Gts-tg (talk) 22:18, 14 March 2016 (UTC)