From dmeadows@idirect.com Sun Jan 7 04:38:12 2001 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW00.12) with ESMTP id EAA15672 for ; Sun, 7 Jan 2001 04:38:11 -0800 Received: from deimos.idirect.com (deimos.idirect.com [207.136.80.182]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id EAA15515 for ; Sun, 7 Jan 2001 04:38:11 -0800 Received: from hk9k801.idirect.com (on-ham-a53-03-152.look.ca [216.154.53.24]) by deimos.idirect.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id HAA61857 for ; Sun, 7 Jan 2001 07:37:58 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <5.0.2.1.0.20010107073529.00a2fa60@idirect.com> X-Sender: dmeadows@idirect.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0.2 Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2001 07:38:12 -0500 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: David Meadows Subject: Not in the latest Explorator Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Considering how often we seem to be looking for Greek fonts for internet purposes on this list, the following might be of interest: Academicians warn of threat to alphabet Forty members of the Athens Academy have issued a declaration warning of the threat posed to the Greek alphabet by the increasing use of Western characters, and calling on all Greeks to protect their millennia-old writing system. In a text published yesterday, the group of Academicians deplore what they see as a tendency to replace Greek with Western letters. "This tendency is particularly evident in texts produced by computers, texts shown on television and even in exhortations by foreign radio stations," the declaration said. "This effort will deliver a severe blow to Greek thought and all aspects of Hellenic culture expressed through texts." Signatories include writers Tasos Athanassiadis, Galateia Sarandi and Iakovos Kambanellis, archaeologists Spyridon Iakovidis and Vassilios Petrakos, former Deputy Foreign Minister Angeliki Laiou and painter Panayiotis Tetsis. "We cannot accept the disguising of our writing," the text continued, "with the replacement of many letters by others that are supposedly phonetically similar." (that one's from Kathinimerini) Here's another version: [18] Forty members of Athens Academy decry replacement of Greek with Latin letters Athens, 05/01/2001 (ANA) Forty members of the Athens Academy have publicized a proclamation severely criticizing what they call a heightened tendency of late in Greece to replace Greek letters with the Latin script in signs and information technology, among others. "This tendency becomes obvious particularly in texts produced on computers - often by users in state services and even universities - and shown on television as well as through urgings by foreign radio stations. "It's noteworthy that this effort, which will produce a deathblow to Greek thinking and all the concepts of Hellenic civilization as expressed through written texts along with most humanities, has reached the point of being taken up by the press and has led to deputies' questions directed at the minister of education and religious affairs," the proclamation reads. The 40 members of the Academy add: "The Greek language ... the language that enriched not only Latin but the primary European languages, and which is indissolubly tied to its alphabet, cannot endure abatement with the abolition by none other than ourselves," the announcement concludes. .