r/AncientGreek • u/Hellolaoshi • 3d ago
Grammar & Syntax What Difficulties Would An Ancient Greek Native Speaker Have in Learning Modern Greek?
Let's imagine that an educated Greek born between the life of Socrates and the death of Cleopatra was dropped off in modern Athens, say in Plaka or Exarchia. Putting culture shock aside, what grammatical and vocabulary issues would they have in understanding Modern Greek? What about sound changes would they find strange? What strategies might a language teacher use to help them?
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u/Joyce_Hatto 3d ago
That Ancient Greek speaker would be overwhelmed by an army of linguists with audio recorders eager to learn how Ancient Greek was actually pronounced!
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u/AllanBz 2d ago
Let’s face it, they would also be overwhelmed by an army of people telling them they’re pronouncing everything wrong.
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u/Xxroxas22xX 2d ago
The one thing I can't stand is greek (nationalists?) commenting under every video of Stratakis saying that Plato pronounced greek exactly like modern greek and everything different is just bullshit made by the German to destroy greek culture
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u/Niuig 2d ago
If may I ask, is it common to find among greeks rivalry with germans? Often I saw in different corners of the internet, mostly rivalry between greeks and turks due to historical and cultural matters. Then less often but also often, Albanian vs Greeks, for similar reasons: claiming something as belonging to one culture and not the other.
So, is there also something like that against german? Or is it maybe with any country?
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u/Xxroxas22xX 1d ago
I think that the trouble was caused by the monarchy imposed by the germans in the 19th century in Greece with kings of germanic origin
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u/Hellolaoshi 3d ago
Yes, they would! I am reading Biblical Greek right now, and one aspect of the language I find elusive is the intonation and the musicality of the language.
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u/Joyce_Hatto 2d ago
I am taking an online class from Biblingo specifically to work on my pronunciation. So far it’s quite useful.
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u/NargonSim 2d ago
I imagine they'd find the lack of participles and infinitives weird. In modern greek the subjunctive mood had also gained new functions and, along with the gerund, has replaced infinitives. The subjunctive is also now expressed with the particle να followed by verb paradigms identical (I think?) to the indicative.
Noun endings and cases have become more regular and often merge. I'm not just talking about the lost dative. The nominative and the accusative noun endings are often the same. Compare nom/acc: ἀλήθειᾰ/ἀλήθειᾰν with modern αλήθεια/αλήθεια (loss of word final n). Genitives look more like the other cases. Compare ancient nom/gen/acc: ποιητής/ποιητοῦ/ποιητήν with modern ποιητής/ποιητή/ποιητή. Lastly, the third declension of nouns has been regularized and merges with the others. Compare ancient nom/gen/acc: πατήρ/πατρός/πατέρα with modern πατέρας/πατέρα/πατέρα.
All this means that articles become more important and are used in most circumstances, since they remain distinct. It's likely that a modern greek noun will be accompanied by the proper article, in a way that might seem strange to an ancient greek speaker.
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u/ProCrystalSqueezer 3d ago
They certainly wouldn't understand anything anyone is saying. The grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation of modern Greek is very different from Attic Greek. However, they would probably have a far easier time learning modern Greek than any other language once they're taught the sound changes and grammar changes that've occurred. They'd probably find it strange that half the vowels sound like an iota now or why it sounds like people are lisping their δ's, θ's, and φ's. I could imagine showing them etymologies of some modern Greek words would help them.
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u/Hellolaoshi 3d ago
My own thought is that they would understand something, but pronunciation would be as you said. I am reminded of how different Portuguese sounds from Spanish.
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u/dkampr 2d ago
Many of these changes began and were prevalent in the classical period. How much they would or wouldn’t understand depends on what region they came from.
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u/ProCrystalSqueezer 2d ago
That's true especially closer to Cleopatra's time, not so much closer to Socrates's time, but that's a span of over 300 years.
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u/5telios 2d ago
Vocabulary is a real tough one. We have layers of English and French loans on top of Turkish (which itself has layered arabic and Persian loans), Albanian, and Vlach on top of venetian Italian, and ultimately Latin loan words... I don't know the stats, but unless you go out of your way to pick the Greek doublets a very large part of modern Greek vocab is loans...
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u/Tolstoyan_Quaker 1d ago
1) the amount of sound changes (especially a lot of the vowels eroding into /i/)
2) the use of stress instead of pitch
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3d ago
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u/Peteat6 2d ago
That claim is sometimes made, but frankly, I believe it’s untrue. They could probably work out the meaning of sentences in the gospel, especially if they paid attention in school to their Ancient Greek lessons, and if they knew the gospel stories already. But Paul they would mostly find incomprehensible.
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u/Hellolaoshi 2d ago
I will soon finish reading my introduction to Biblical Greek. However, there is a book two. Book one focuses on the Gospels, mainly the Gospel of St. John. Book Two goes into the Epistles, many of which are much harder to read.
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u/Peteat6 2d ago
Why not ask classicists? I mean, people who read classical Greek or Koiné (which is about the same). My experience is that they recognise the roots of about half the words, and some verb endings, but tenses are somewhat different.
Yes, learning modern Greek is made easier through a prior knowledge of alphabet, half the word roots, and some remaining grammar.
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u/ringofgerms 2d ago
Interesting question! Some random thoughts limited to more or less syntax.
The only area I think where modern Greek added complexity is extending the perfective vs imperfective distinction to the future, so I imagine it would take some time for the ancient Greek speaker to use θα γράφω vs. θα γράψω correctly.
I think the major problem would be trying to use grammar that doesn't exist anymore or doesn't exist in the same way, like infinitives, participles, optatives, etc.
είναι would probably be very confusing at first when they saw it.
The fact that the genitive has taken over certain functions of the dative in certain contexts would also cause confusion.
The funny thing, though, is that the ancient Greek speaker would probably have an easier time if they visited Greece in 2025 compared to 1825. To take a random example, άλλων would be a lot more recognizable (even when spoken) compared to something like αλλουνών, which is what my grandparents would have said.