Re: Hellenish oddities

At 9:44 pm -0500 21/11/00, H. S. Teoh wrote:
>On Tue, Nov 21, 2000 at 09:04:36PM -0500, Oskar Gudlaugsson wrote:
>[snip]
>> So, Greek's weird; some points:
>>
>> * the stress pattern seems so horribly chaotic to me; 3-4 syllable words
>> could have the stress just about anywhere, first and ultimate syllables
>> included. Reading two long words in a row with their stresses on opposing
>> ends feels really spooky to me.
>
>Attic Greek is pitch-accented. At least, that's what most scholars agree
>on.
Most??? What _serious_ scholar doesn't?

We do not know what, if any, stress pattern existed in Attic Greek.  I
personally think any stress was phrasal, as in modern French - but I have
no proof.  Unless time travel ever became possible, there is no way that
we'll ever know about any ancient Greek stress patterns, so one doesn't
what Oskar is ranting on about here.  No wonder he finds the language
'spooky', if he invents the spooks!

>Reading it as a stress accent certainly makes it sound strange! :-)
...and incorrect.

>(although AFAIK modern Greek is stress-accented... but then, sounds have
>changed since ancient times, so it's hard to say.)
Modern Greek is a stress accent - and with the change to stress accent, the
old distinction between long and short vowels has gone.

>> * what's with the bulky diphthong endings?
>
>English tends to avoid long sequences of vowels; many languages do just
>fine with them.
But English has plenty of diphthongs - probably more than ancient Greek.

>> * what's with initial [ps] and [ts]?
The was _no_ [ts] initial in ancient Greek - tho there is in modern Greek.
But initial [ts] is not exactly uncommon! The Germans manage it with
apparently no difficulty, as do all the Slav nations and many, many others
including the Chinese, i.e. well in excess of half the world's population
manage [ts] - but this sound, which troubles Oskar, was _not_ part of
ancient Greek, that he's whinging about.

As for initial [ps] and [ks], altho we anglophones eschew such initials,
most continental European languages seem quite able to pronounce both
sounds when initial in their borrowings from Greek.  Yes, the modern Greeks
- like the French, Germans etc - certainly _do_ pronounce them as [ps] and
[ks].   And they caused me no problems when I learned ancient Greek nearly
50 years ago.

>Even worse, initial [zd]!
Oh dear - those poor Italians with words like sdebilitarsi, sdegno,
sdraiare, sdrucire etc - all beginning with the "even worse" [zd] (indeed
the latter two have [zdr] - how do they manage!!!).

Poor Oskar must be warned to stay clear of the Slav languages - he'll never
manage the initial consonant clusters there.

>To non-English speakers, initial "str" is just as strange (as in,
>"strange", pun intended). :-)
ABSOLUTELY!!

And, of course, [zd] is no more or less 'difficult' than [st].

But Oskar has hit on one of those things that - short of time travel -
we'll not know about.  The pronunciation of Attic zeta is one those things
that scholars argue about!  And we have argued before on this list.  It
might've been [zd], but others give [dz] and still others [z].

>> * Those initials are nothing compared to the [p^ht^h], or later [fT], in
>> words like 'phthong'.
Lets get things straight:
(a) Ancient Greek had initial [pt] and [p_ht_h].
(b) _Both_ sounds gave way to [ft] in modern, spoken Greek.
(c) In modern Greek, [pt] and [fT] have been introduced in the
pronunciation of learned borrowings from their ancient language.

Thos initial are nothing compared to what are actually found in many
languages spoken everyday across this planet by real people!

>>That word has in fact become a fashion word among me
>> and my linguistic friends, for being the most ridiculous syllable we know
[....]
>
>Bzzzt.
Tsk, you'll spook poor Oskar again with those 'horrid' consonant combos!

>Middle voice is *not* passive... in fact, AFAIK, pre-Attic Greek
>didn't even *have* a passive voice, just middle.
Quite!

>Also keep in mind that
>deponent forms are only middle in *appearance*, but always active in
>meaning.
Latin had quite an array of deponents - not exactly uncommon in earlier IE
languages!

[other silly rantings snipped because I don't have time to respond]

>
>> BTW, they don't want to be called 'Greeks', right? Perhaps we should be
>> politically correct and call them "Hellens", or even "Eleni", and call the
>> language "Hellenish" :) Just a thought.
>
>Uhhh... you're gonna hear a LOT from them about this one... prepare to don
>your flamesuit! :-)
I just treat such xenophobic prejudice with contempt.

Ray.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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