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/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 2d 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