Modern Greek

[davisma1984]

I've noticed that in written Greek one accent is used, the acute accent. A book I use to learn the language uses tildes, grave accents, and two others along with the acute accent. This is the only place I've seen this. What are they for?

[proycon]

oh oh... Are you sure that`s modern greek you are learning and not ancient greek? Ancient greek has all kinds of diacritics, modern greek just one to mark stress...

[ekalin]

The book you use must be quite old. A long time ago (somewhere in the '80s), the "one accent system" was implemented, where there is only one accent, the acute, to indicate stress.

If it is really Modern Greek, just ignore the breathing marks (if they are present), ignore grave accents (`), and treat the circunflex (^ or sometimes ~) and acute (´) as the strees indicator.

[davisma1984]

The book I'm using was published in 1983. Should I get a more updated book or is the grammar and vocabulary basically the same? On the back cover, it says that the concentrates on simple purist Greek. What does that mean?

[ekalin]

The book I'm using was published in 1983. Should I get a more updated book or is the grammar and vocabulary basically the same? On the back cover, it says that the concentrates on simple purist Greek. What does that mean?

I don't know exactly what he means it that. (Perhaps he teaches Katharevousa? See Modern Greek thread in VSL for more info.) I wouldn't say the language changed a lot in the last 20 years, but if it concentrates on "purist" Greek, it is not exactly what you would hear in the streets, or even in the television or newspapers...

[MikeL]

I know very little modern Greek. However the language interests me greatly because I have some knowledge of ancient Greek, and I find it fascinating to see how it has evolved in the course of 2500 years.
I have some modern Greek books published before the 1980s and they all use 3 accents (acute, grave and circumflex), as well as breathings, just like ancient Greek. It seems a pity that this link with the past has been abolished (presumably in the name of efficiency). Although the ancient Greek accents indicated pitch and not stress, and therefore required several different types, I don't see why there was any pressing need to reduce them to a single accent. I have to say that any time I looked at modern Greek with its accents and breathings, I was reminded of a unique unbroken linguistic tradition going back to Byzantine times or earlier. I can (just) understand the rationale behind modernization but I can't help regretting it.

[Kyr]

I know very little modern Greek. However the language interests me greatly because I have some knowledge of ancient Greek, and I find it fascinating to see how it has evolved in the course of 2500 years.
I have some modern Greek books published before the 1980s and they all use 3 accents (acute, grave and circumflex), as well as breathings, just like ancient Greek. It seems a pity that this link with the past has been abolished (presumably in the name of efficiency). Although the ancient Greek accents indicated pitch and not stress, and therefore required several different types, I don't see why there was any pressing need to reduce them to a single accent. I have to say that any time I looked at modern Greek with its accents and breathings, I was reminded of a unique unbroken linguistic tradition going back to Byzantine times or earlier. I can (just) understand the rationale behind modernization but I can't help regretting it.

I share the same opinion
And frankly, things became more difficult for greeks after this "reform", because we have to deal now with two writing systems ("monotonic" for the colloquial language and "polytonic" for the ancient one). I don't see any rationale in this thing...

[Babelfish]

things became more difficult for greeks after this "reform", because we have to deal now with two writing systems ("monotonic" for the colloquial language and "polytonic" for the ancient one).

May I ask how often you write in Ancient Greek in Greece?
I've started studying some Modern Greek from a nice course on the Internet, but I didn't find a place to continue, nor a good dictionary (I'd desparately need one which includes the past forms of verbs!!!). I'm currently into Arabic, Russian and Latin, and it'll take a while till I get back to Greek as well...
Actually I just wanted to say that for a learner, it is certainly simpler with the monotonic writing system! Otherwise I'd need to remember tone marks which de-facto aren't pronounced, or mean the same (if both the acute and the circumflex are just stress marks). Even so, there are enough vowels and diphthongs which sound the same... Then again, one could ask in this case "so what's a little additional complexity?"

[ego]

I totally agree with MikeL and Kyr about tones. Even if they had not much practical use they were a linguistic tradition that went back to the Hellenistic era. They were just an invention but the monotonic also is. Besides they protected the language from many stupid and illogical spelling changes that happen nowadays. A former PM said that he agreed in the abolishment of the polytonic under pressure by the newspapers editors, for whom typing the tones costed lots of money.
Still there are some publications which deny to use the monotonic but they are few and usually papers of the right ultraconservative parties. I always thought I should write in polytonic but then I would seem a weirdo to anyone receiving my letters

Babelfish right now I am studying Hebrew and it is a headache for me to find an English-Hebrew-English dictionary. I only found a Hebrew-English one and after I bought it and went home I found out it is of Biblical Hebrew!
So.. I was wondering.. Wanna make an exchange?

[MikeL]

What do people in Greece use for word-processing polytonic (ancient) Greek?
I have had a lot of trouble finding an easy keyboard system. I now use the Keyman program, which works well, although the range of useable fonts seems to be limited.
I can understand how newspaper editors were keen on the change to monotonic Greek, as putting in the accents and breathings slows you down a lot! (But I still don't like the idea)

[ego]

I still can't type the tones.. I am not very fond of pc tecnology and I think I will need some more years before I manage to type in ancient Greek. As you can see my signature is in ancient Greek but without tones

[ego]

Psi-Lord gave me this and I finally typed in polytonic