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Modern Greek dialects (was: GSF revisited)

From:R A Brown <ray@...>
Date:Saturday, May 12, 2007, 9:06
Philip Newton wrote:
> On 5/11/07, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
[snip]
>> > Side question: does anyone know if the Cypriot dialect sounds >> > different, prosodically etc., from the standard Athenian? >> >> I suspect it may well do - but I do not have enough information to say >> so definitely. > > > It certainly has a different phonology -- e.g. it has (what sounds to > me like) /S/ < /sj/ in words such as "sheftalia" (a local food), > spelled with sigma-iota. The presence of this sound is, I'm sure, also > responsible for their slightly different word for "chocalate": > standard Greek has σοκολάτα while on Cyprus, I've seen it written > σιοκολάτα instead, with /S/ at the beginning instead of /s/.
I believe there may be other differences. Cretan Greek has more advanced palatalization than the standard language & this even affects borrowings such as _kilo_ which is pronounce /tSilo/.
> It also has a different morphology, retaining some older elements > (e.g. I remember hearing επεβάλλετο for standard επιβαλλόταν, and πονά > for πονάει [also possible in standard MG, but I think not as common]).
I believe there are some other differences. I don't know whether this applies to Cyprus, but in some areas, e.g. Crete, the old 3rd person plural present tense ending -ουσι survived - but I suspect the standard -ουν must be spreading to these areas. I discovered this web site yesterday: http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=JGL%204 It has links to downloadable PDF documents. There is one modern Greek dialects and another specifically on Cypriot geminates. -- Ray ================================== ray@carolandray.plus.com http://www.carolandray.plus.com ================================== Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu. There's none too old to learn. [WELSH PROVERB}

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Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>