> Date: Fri, 3 Jul 1998 22:05:43 -0400 (EDT)
> From: James Frusetta
> Subject: Greek Trolls
>
>
>
> Nils Weinander wrote:
> >A greek I spoke said that the grammar is simila
> >between classical and modern greek, and some words,
> >but that they are otherwise rather different. He
> >said learning classical greek was almost lik
> >learning a foreign language.
> If I recall correctly, modern Greek was only standardized about 150 years
> ago, after independence from the Ottomans. Previous to that, there were
> _lots_ of dialects, some of which were pretty far from others (plus the
> Anatolian Greeks who spoke Turkish). I suspect Classical Greek was used as
> a model for the literary language (the nasty Turkish and Slavic influences
> being purged at the same time).
>
If you ever look at Greek, you'll notice that there are a bunch of "O" s and a bunch of
"I" s. (Omega, Omicron, Ita, Iota, etc) Nowadays, they are pronounced exactly the same.
However, in ancient greek, they had distinct pronunciations. Imagine what learining
(current) english would be like in 1000 years, if the words "zamboni" and "mustach" both
sounded like "mumon". BUT, on the other hand, since modern Greek is a watereddown version
of Ancient Greek, it's VERY easy to learn modern Greek if you allready speak Ancient
Greek. Oh, and for the record, when I tried to learn modern Greek, I could ask for a room
with a bath and buy oranges at the market, but that was it. ;-)
BTW, are there any Gloranthan cultures similar to Greek Island cultures?
Rich