From ioniccentre@hol.gr Sun Oct 29 08:01:32 2000 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id IAA216104 for ; Sun, 29 Oct 2000 08:01:31 -0800 Received: from ermis.hol.gr (ermis.hol.gr [194.30.192.20]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with SMTP id IAA23314 for ; Sun, 29 Oct 2000 08:01:29 -0800 Received: (qmail 10752 invoked from network); 29 Oct 2000 15:59:57 -0000 Received: from isis.hol.gr (HELO mail.hol.gr) (194.30.192.21) by ermis.hol.gr with SMTP; 29 Oct 2000 15:59:57 -0000 Received: (qmail 15672 invoked from network); 29 Oct 2000 16:01:14 -0000 Received: from vdp082.ath08.cas.hol.gr (HELO ?195.97.119.138?) (195.97.123.83) by isis.hol.gr with SMTP; 29 Oct 2000 16:01:13 -0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: ioniccentre@mail.hol.gr Message-Id: Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 18:01:51 +0200 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: Isidoros Subject: Orthography, "modernization" and "1976": Protasis Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >On Sat, 28 Oct 2000, David Lupher wrote, after EJTheodoropoulos: > >> >> There are no accents. >> > >> >It was written after 1976. >> >> It wasn't, if it's the book I'm 95% certain it is: "Demeter > > and Persephone: Homeric Hymn #2" by Penelope Proddow [...] > >I assumed that the book was published in Greece and that the main text was >in (modern) Greek. There was no indication to the contrary in the original >query. Orthography was simplified there in 1976 or thereabouts. >EJTh The lack of accents could not have anything to do with the reforms of 1976. Then, the three accents -- which had been from their inception in a wide orthographic disuse actually in Greece -- were replaced by a single mark. The queried phrase had not any accents therefore it could not had been in accordance with or related to "1976," (save that it appeared in capitals). In fact, it could had been written (but for that "gia" and that syntax) at almost anytime before, or after, 1976. Greeks are not necessarily obliged to obey either (i) a set of "orthographic" rules essentially invented for barbarians, and applied by invaded Christianized rulers and Christian despots so that their widely scattered non-Greek speaking subjects might more efficiently learn how to read and pronounce Greek (the "Greek" Bible, for the glory of their Uranian, and Gaean, Gods,) or follow (ii) a newer set of rules instituted as official-- that is, government documents and public schools -- script, after a century realization of the nonsensical character and anti-economical nature of orthographic, morphological and syntactic, rules re-imposed upon the Greeks. Irony is that the Greeks were over time straight-jacketed and strangled by superfluous for them marks, which made access to officialdom-- but for a "mediating" army of grown grammarians and grammaticizing lawyers-- nearly impossible -- thus cutting them off from, both, the bureaucratic administration, and from participating democracy and a due process. Non-Greeks, too, who did (and for many centuries) aspire, and tried (!) to become, via scho(o)lia and co(l)legia, Hellenes found it, over time, practically impossible. The overly, unduly, complexed "orthographic" system made the paedagogically requisite rigor, efficiency and the sustained access to the language, past imponderable, now unthinkable, and -- but for the currently maintaining it relatively (very) few "classicists," and then some Hellenistic Greek borrowing, and using, Christian lay and priests -- practically inaccessible. So, over time, both the Hellenist Near East, the Hellenizing "Near West," and the Christianizing (Latin, Frankish) Europe abandoned the Greek exercise. The epitaphios is being yet now lamented, from the beginning of this (20th) century on to our days. Where business and modern technology are not to be singled out and be "readily" blamed for the re-marked lack of interest, the abandonment and the crossing of fields; that would decidedly be a cheap shot, easy excuse, lame way out. Things could had gone quite differently, and instead of Western Europe and the Americas to had only burrowed, reinvented, applied the Greek Ionic scientific learning, and arts and technology, they could had acquired, too, the language. Or a greater spread or form of it than it currently permeates the one world language. Here is the ancient technology to be blamed, to start with -- though one must hasten to add, the technology applied on the language not as ancient as that of the period that is said to be the classical. Grammatic orthodoxy was transferred later then, not unlike modern technology, and it were applied zealously, and so uncritically. "Orthographic" orthodoxy was applied without due consideration to peoples, time and changing context. To be blamed for this are ill-guided, dogmatic Christian "orthodox" anti-Hellenic schemers, along perhaps with the schisming anti-Orthodox, anti-Hellenic, papal "catholic" Christianized Latinists, that used the glwssa for the glory of the Book's word, and so abused it. There is not any need today to read Homer and Plato via the memorizing of a practically infinitely number of words accented and aspirated variously. Actual breathing pretty much takes care of itself over actual practice and usage. A baby needs not to be taught how to breath, or how to speak-cry. Ask any modern Greeks about this. They need not know that a word (say, one such as "[h]agios") is to be breathed "roughly" so as to so do in life (even if that doing is done there today ever so very imperceptibly, even to the ear of the specialist). Besides, Western Europeans' ekfora of it all is still so "barbaric" that the "roughness" would anyway be there, whether connoting such a word by "h" or not. To pretend of veritably maintaining Homer's speech through the extrapolation back in time of rules fossilized even then by ten, or by only two, or so, latter centuries, harbors, beyond pretense, a kind of an elitist madness. Simplify the markings system that is intended to aid, not hinder, the initiates. And if you think that students not applying the (three) memory marking devices (after all, they do not live-speak in Hellas, taking after the modern) might not sufficiently remember how to accent their speech after your own living paradigm start up the revolution yourselves, and return, semiotically, to a script by far closer to that of the classical period than that imposed by the Hellenist pretenders who over-extended the classical: (i) let go of the -- functionally, economically, aesthetically and semantically -- imposing dual breathing marks, (ii) replace the three accents with one mark, a simple "tonos," tonal accent. This would be a real, if a late, re-volution. A one to which your (not already obfuscated or intimidated) students will readily and positively respond, appreciate it, and take to it with renewed enthusiasm for and faith in the beloved tongue. They will be evgnwmonountes. And, as the "word" would spread, interested new initiates, youth and adult alike, will start to return to the classes of the classics. Won't say this will undo the carelessness, not to say the mindlessness, of centuries of misapplied linguistic technologies overnight, but it could be a decisive step in the right (back) direction. Let us do them, and us all, an owed favor. And just because it was a agonizing experience for you and me to memorize all those damned extraneous rules and the markings it does not follow that our students, too, should have to sympathetically suffer now for mastering the language. One can become elitist ("el" as in H-el(l)-en, I say) without having to pay so heavy initiation dues in process. There are no holly cows in the world of the word and mind, but maybe those of Appolo, of Europa and Cadmos, after which we might all advisedly take if we may ever hope to find again along our lost kin, and our selves. Please. If I may, I think we should seriously consider the significance of this protasis. We have naught to lose but to try it, and maybe fail. For an application of it not any new books need be printed, not now; a professor's simplifying instructions should suffice. Teaching manuals may in time be duly revised, and breathing and accent marks in the actual texts be accordingly made away and economically replaced over any reasonable republication period of time. Important I think now would be the reflection, the historical linguistic critical reevaluation, the vital realization of what is efficacious and true, and then the first step. Xairete, Isidoros The Ionic Centre, Athens With apologies, if this all arrives in the of late usual large, black font, I find rather unnecessary and side in antipathy of, yet I know not how to make away with it, yet, being no longer a fair conductor of my (newly versioned, newly arrived) Eudora (5) mailer that I ought know how to control. Thank you. .