[B-Greek] Why Monotonic Greek. Was: Free Polytonic Uncial GreekUnicode Font?

Curtis Hinson curtis at curtishinson.com
Thu Aug 10 10:57:43 EDT 2006


Hello again,

I wanted to note a couple of things quickly before I have to leave in a 
moment.  First, the reason I brought up modern English was to point out 
what the effect would be on us if we spelled English in a way that was 
more considerate (in theory anyway) of foreigners.  Although in practice 
if we really did spell in IPA notation, it would probably cripple new 
speakers rather than helping them obtain a normal ability eventually by 
learning the normal alphabet.  In that light it's understandable why 
Greeks rejected polytonic.

The other thing is that I do indeed speak Modern Greek, although I'm not 
a native speaker.  I used to speak pretty well years ago.  Now, I"m a 
bit out of practice, but it's in there.  :-)

Bless the Name
Curtis Hinson
http://curtishinson.com

Dave Smith (REL110, 211,212) wrote the following on 8/10/2006 8:51 AM:
> Curtis,
>
> My Divry's is a 1969 edition, so it too may preceded the debate. In it I see
> rough breathing, smooth breathing, circumflex, and  acute, though there is
> no rough breathing on rho (R).
>
> The link, as you noted, has tonos, but also has diaeresis. I believe that
> Modern Greek was compared with Modern English in a post, but in English we
> use no diacritical marks, unless possibly when it is a loan word that has
> not been Anglicized. Though we have stress or accents in English
> dictionaries, we do not find these markings any other place in print. From
> the example, it looks like Modern Greek uses at least two diacritical
> markings, except when uncials/capitals are used. I must defer to someone on
> this list that speaks and reads Modern Greek. I am only offering my
> observations, comparing the use of diacritical markings in English and
> MGreek.
>
> The GNT I referenced, printed in Athens 1978, is a traditional eccleastical
> text, not a translation into Demotic.
>
> Dave Smith
> Hudson, NC
> ---
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>   

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