Talk:Greek language/Archive 4

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Dawkins map

Original map by ru:User:Ivanchay/commons:User:İnfoCan

cropped map by Athenean

Dawkins' book does indeed have a map, but to say that the original map of the Anatolian Greek dialects used in the article is sourced to it is a bit of a stretch. Dawkins makes no mention of the Greek dialects on the other side of the Aegean, so that part of the wikipedia map is WP:OR. I also have no idea what the border is supposed to represent. The Byzantine Empire at its peak (c. 1000 AD)? Since he is considered a reliable source on the subject of the Greek dialects of Anatolia, I truncated the map to show the area discussed in his book. Athenean (talk) 05:23, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

I have to concur. The notion that Greek was spoken in Latakia but not Athens is simply laughable. •ΘΕΟΔΩΡΟΣ• 13:10, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Not so laughable – up to the 19th century, the town of Athens was a small Greek-speaking enclave in an otherwise solidly Arvanitic speech area; small and insignificant enough to be left out in a map of this kind. By the way, can people please make it a habit to actually include a graphic in talk threads so everybody knows what they're talking about? Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:26, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

But it wasn't left out, was it? I see a big purple square covering much of Attica. What about other glaring errors, such as the depiction of Phthiotis and northern Euboea as non-Greek-speaking and the traditionally Arvanitic Methana peninsula as Greek-speaking? Athenean is right; we need a better map. •ΘΕΟΔΩΡΟΣ• 14:15, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

If it wasn't left out, then why did you go on lamenting that it implied Athens wasn't Greek-speaking in the first place? I see no error there. About the other geographical details, I don't find those inaccuracies severe enough to negate the usefulness of the map as it is; the precise delineation of those areas is not its principal scope, and people just shouldn't read too much into it. Along general lines, the overall situation shown in the European part ought to be straightforward and uncontroversial enough. But if you want to make a better one, sure, go ahead. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:04, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

If Athens was "small and insignificant enough to be left out", why the big purple square which implies that it was the sole urban centre of an expansive non-Greek-speaking area? Along general lines, this would have to be one of the dodgiest maps I've seen on Wikipedia. There isn't even a legend to help us mere mortals decipher what on earth it is trying to show us. •ΘΕΟΔΩΡΟΣ• 16:33, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Definition of Koine

I posted a question relating to the definition of Koine Greek as against Ancient Greek. Head over to Talk:Ancient Greek § Does Ancient exclude Koine? if you're interested. Haven't gotten any comments on it yet. — Eru·tuon 04:12, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

First immigrants

Everybody knows that the French language has not been founded by an invasion of French speakers; similarly it appears implausible that "Greek" speakers immigrated into Greece, which I thus changed. HJJHolm (talk) 15:56, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Hellenic language

A user has added the name "Hellenic" to the lead of the article. But this term is rarely used in English (about 100x less often than Greek language: [1]). The URL given by the editor is to a site in Greece, where it is not surprising that the term is mistranslated. --Macrakis (talk) 18:22, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

I concur. I don't think it's that suitable for the lede especially as it's not often used. I think mostly academics refer to it as Hellenic when discussing the various Greek dialects, but that's about it. - LouisAragon (talk) 05:26, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

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Link to the Greek Wikipedia

Which and where is the link to the Greek Wikipedia? I googled it (Greek Wikipedia), but all I looked was pages about Greek language or to the Greek TV series. l ml — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:14A:503:9F6:D43A:24FA:4F07:A963 (talk) 01:32, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Greek language in Cyprus

I think that we should do a change on map of Greek-speaking world. The whole island of Cyprus has as official language Greek (and Turkish) and we don't speak de facto for Northern Cyprus. So it's good to colour the whole island in blue. 27 February 2016, 4:38 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.6.241.10 (talk)

Technically true, however, generally speaking the present map is very representative of the actual reality on Cyprus. 98.67.191.100 (talk) 22:27, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Yeah indeed. It's kinda double sided, but the map currently is probably the best thing we can give in order to show the actual situation on the island, and in this particular matter regarding the usage of Greek. - LouisAragon (talk) 20:18, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

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"Hellenic" as a synonym name?

Some people have been reverting about the inclusion of "Hellenic" as an alternative name in the lead and in the infobox. I'm for removal. The use of this synonym, in English, as a name for the language (as opposed to other aspects of culture, history or politics), is extremely marginal, so much so as to make it sound almost ludicrous. Nobody ever says "I went to a cafe in Athens and ordered a beer speaking Hellenic to the waiter". That's just not what we call this language in English. The use of the term "Hellenic" in English in any context is rare at the best of times, but as a name for the language it's next to non-existent. There are expressions like "Hellenic culture", "Hellenic history" and so on; there are some people who use "Hellenic" in rendering the names of modern Greek political institutions ("the Hellenic parliament", "the Hellenic army" etc.), there's the – highly technical – usage in linguistic scholarship of using "Hellenic" in the sense of our "Hellenic languages" article (i.e. not synonymously with "Greek" but with a distinct meaning of its own), but the last time people were routinely using "Hellenic" as a language name was sometime back in the early 19th century.

As for sources, obviously, "wiktionary" doesn't count at all, and as for Ethnologue it's really not as good a source by far as some people have been led to believe it is; the article on Greek in particular is woefully inadequate. And besides, it isn't really using "Hellenic" as a language name for Greek anyway; what it does list is "Neo-Hellenic" as a synonym of "Modern Greek" (but that's not what this article is about). Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:07, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Agreed completely. (See my comment from last year.) More precisely, the last time that Hellenic was more common than Greek in referring to the language was in about 1720. The last time that Hellenic was more than 1% as popular as Greek was about 1945, and since 1980 or so, it's been below 0.3%. (Comparing Greek/Hellenic language/tongue/speech; speak/spoke Hellenic are so rare that Google ngrams doesn't report them at all—book search finds 93 uses in total of "speak Hellenic", mostly in ancient contexts.) --Macrakis (talk) 20:54, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

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Official status?

Hi guys, Is there a reason for no official status to be listed in the infobox? Greek is most certainly the official language of Greece and is recognized nominally in Cyprus alongside Turkish. Where is this in the infobox, as it is in the infobox for all other official/recognized languages by all sovereign states (as well as nations, etc.)

Thanks and hope we can figure this out.

Neddy1234 (talk) 04:20, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

The infobox you are looking for is at Modern Greek, which is the specific variety of Greek which is the official language. This article is about the overarching concept of Greek language, which includes many other varieties. ResultingConstant (talk) 15:56, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Number of words

Hi,
sorry for phlogging a not so healthy looking horse, but isn't the sentence "Greek is a language distinguished by an extensive vocabulary" not so much wrong as not even wrong, i.e. meaningless? One might as well say that "Greek has a vocabulary". Here's an article on some researchers cataloguing German words: https://www.welt.de/kultur/article167820246/Es-gibt-viel-mehr-deutsche-Woerter-als-wir-wussten.html . At present, the count stands at ca. 23 million words actually used, and that is excluding i.e. the ca. 20 milllion terms for chemical compounds. One might, grumpy on monday, add that German has German words for many Greek loanwords ("Wirtschaft" for 'economy', etc. etc.), giving German a wider register ... But this is not to say that German has more words than Greek, or any other language, but that counting words is futile, like counting numbers to see which country has the highest number.
Wouldn't the paragraph be better if that curious sentence was simply deleted?
T 88.89.217.90 (talk) 20:28, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Additional Thoughts

article looks great. Spelling and grammar all looks good too. One thought would be for you to possibly add maybe a phonetic chart? I would say the oly other big thing would be to add a few more citations and references. Other than that it looks very nice. Zoe1117 (talk) 23:44, 29 July 2017 (UTC) zoe1117

Thanks to Catearmi (talk · contribs) for these [2] high-quality reference additions. I just have one question: The reference ""HarvardKey Login". academic.eb.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2017-08-01." is behind a members-only login at Harvard. Could you please provide the actual title details of the document you are referring to? Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:04, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

It would be nice to have dates when the various forms of Greek language were active. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cpa-db (talk • contribs) 23:53, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Recent disruption

An anon editor has been edit-warring an uncited fringe claim into the infobox that Greek is a "language isolate". Just to clarify that this will of course be reverted again. There's really nothing to discuss about it, per WP:V, as there is not the slightest doubt about the Indo-European ancestry of Greek anywhere in the relevant literature. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:13, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Anonymous user's replies

Hello, I am the anonymous user who "claims that Greek is a language isolate". I am Greek in origin and, since I naturally speak Greek, I can explain how I came to this conclusion since this is a discussion page. This can be historically and linguistically proven. The Sesklon culture was the first advanced civilization in Europe and the first Pre-Indo-European people in 7.150 B.C.E and the Cycladitic civilisation the third one. They both spoke languages closely related to Proto-Greek. So Greek peoples came in Greece at 3.000 B.C.E deriving from the upper Hellenic tribes. So the Hellenic languages can be classified as following:

Hellenic languages

Sesklon language, Cycladitic language, Greek language, Macedonian language(?).

Furthermore, there are many words not classified as Indo-European and cannot be classified as Tyrsenian or Kartvelian for all the exact historical reasons.

For example, the Greek verb "fthino" which means to end is classified as Hellenic. Plus, Greek is the only language that ends with not all the consonants except "n", "r" or "s", etc. 5.144.209.20, Talk:Greek language (edit) Revision as of 14:34, 26 May 2019.

Wikpedia isn't the venue for your speculation. Wikipedia is based on reliable sources, that is, experts in the field of historical linguistics and the place of the Hellenic languages within the history of European languages. The experts are unanimous that the Hellenic languages lie incontrovertibly within the Indo-European language family. Fringe "scientists" are ignored in the face of the overwhelming flood of scientifically demonstrated fact just as the crackpots who claim that the earth is flat are ignored. Your opinion "as a native speaker" is not a reliable source. Our personal opinions count for nothing in Wikipedia. --Taivo (talk) 15:44, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

My conclusion is based on Sesklon toponymic findings dating back to 7.000 B.C.E, study of the Greek language's structure, George Babiniotis', one of the best historical linguists who, also, has written a lot of Greek dictionaries, book "A brief history of the Greek language" and many other historical facts which can lead anyone to the conclusion that the Greek language is not Indo-European, such as the arrival of colonizers from Chalkida, Euboia, Greece to Italy and how the formed the now widely used Latin alphabet and the lend of more than a million Greek words, the conquest of Great Alexander who systematically lent a really large amount of words to the Armenians and Indo-Iranians, the foundations of a large number of colonies from Iberia to Phrygia and Anatolia which led to the lending of a few more hundred words to the Celts, Vasconics, Phrygians (this is a very special occasion, because Phrygians borrowed some of the grammar and syntax), Illyrians and Armenians and the fact that the Greek tribes had already established advanced civilizations even way before the Sumerian settlements in Sumer and Akkad. Greeks have an isolated tribe since time immemorial and all the rest are just conclusions or opinions that cannot be verified of misplaced. 5.144.209.20, Talk:Greek language (edit) Revision as of 14:34, 26 May 2019.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.177.124.195 (talk • contribs)

Sorry, but this is really too confused to respond to. But in any case, the main thing you still fail to understand is: it doesn't even matter whether your arguments are correct (which, incidentally, they are not.) What matters is that in order to get any of this into a Wikipedia article, you'd need to be able to cite reliable sources. Actual, published academic references by professional linguists that have proposed these ideas. Of course, you haven't got those references. Without them, you're really just wasting your own time as much as ours by arguing here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:13, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

I do not need any "academic sources" to prove my conclusion to is proven by history itself and I think that you, Future Perfect at Sunrise, should study more about my language or how Greek helped your language to develop. 5.144.209.20, Talk:Greek language (edit) Revision as of 14:34, 26 May 2019.

But if you want any academic sources Demoule, Jean-Paul; Perlès, Catherine (1993). "The Greek Neolithic: A New Review". Journal of World Prehistory, here you go. I can upload more if you want. 5.144.209.20, Talk:Greek language (edit) Revision as of 14:34, 26 May 2019.

"Future Perfect at Sunrise", do you speak Greek? ("Μέλλον Τέλειο στην Ανατολή του Ηλίου", ομιλείς την Ελληνική γλώσσα;)

The Demoule source you give says nothing about language. --Macrakis (talk) 16:35, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes it does, I own the book.

The Sesklon language, the Cycladitic language, the Greek language and Ancient Macedonian perhaps are classified as Hellenic and not Indo-European. So Greek as the only survivor of the family is a language isolate.

5.144.209.20, Talk:Greek language (edit) Revision as of 14:34, 26 May 2019.

One fringe source compared to, literally, thousands of reliable scholarly sources is baloney. You can find crackpots who write books that the earth is flat, too. We ignore them because they do not reflect the rock-solid, irrefutably proven, majority opinion of scholars. --Taivo (talk) 19:12, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Let's not forget he hasn't even got as much as a single fringe source. The only source he cited so far is quite reliable, but simply doesn't say anything even remotely related to what he claims. Macrakis was of course quite correct about that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:15, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

I just read the article myself and there is not a single, solitary word about language or linguistics. Not one word. Future and Macrakis are right, it's a reliable source for archeology, etc., but says nothing about language or linguistics. --Taivo (talk) 19:21, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Anon claims to "own the book". But it's a journal article, not a book. --Macrakis (talk) 20:06, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Eyynvika listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Eyynvika. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:31, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Official status, again

I think listing the countries in which Greek has official status in the infobox is warranted, on the following grounds:

• The information is useful to our readers.
• This is the main go-to article for the Greek language. It has significantly higher page views than Modern Greek. The latter is a more technical article, and many readers will not read that article.
• The argument that this information belongs in Modern Greek is not an argument against including it here. There is no reason this information cannot be included here if it is also included in Modern Greek. It's not an either-or situation.
• Most other language articles, including those of languages with a similarly long recorded history and distinction between "modern" and "ancient" forms (e.g. Persian language, Hebrew language) have similar information included in the infobox. The fact that a language has ancient and modern forms is not an argument against including this information. With this logic, we should also be removing the number of speakers, but obviously that would be nonsensical and unhelpful to our readers. It's the same with official status. Khirurg (talk) 14:36, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

I think the problem is that there is too much overlap between the two articles Greek language and Modern Greek. I am not familiar with the history behind the creation of two articles, but I will suggest that either the two articles should be merged, or the content of the two articles should be split in a way that reduces the overlap. It is a bit odd that there are "two languages" that both are official in Greece and Cyprus etc. and are identical. Not a big issue, though. --T*U (talk) 14:51, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

This article isn't about a modern language, it's about the history of a speech form. Modern language recognition doesn't recognize ancient forms, but only modern forms. Hungary does not recognize Attic or Byzantine Greek as official minority languages since the number of people who speak them as a native language is zero. Hungary recognizes only Modern Greek as official (whether overtly labelled that or not in the law). The "official minority status" is not relevant to this article because this article isn't about the modern language, but about the language trajectory over time. --Taivo (talk) 15:15, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

No, this article is very much about a language, not the history of a speech form, whatever that means. It's Greek language, not History of the Greek language. Hungary, and several other countries, recognise the Greek language as a minority language. The official status is very much relevant, and withholding this information on weird technicalities is unencyclopedic and unhelpful to our readers. Khirurg (talk) 16:46, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Could anyone please enlighten me about the scope of this article as compared to Modern Greek? --T*U (talk) 17:00, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

That's exactly the problem. "Greek language" means two different things: The entire range of the Greek language from Mycenean to Modern and just Modern. To say that Hungary recognizes "the Greek language" and then make that recognition extend to the entire history of the Greek language is utterly stupid. IF this article only covered the Modern Greek language, then that would be fine, just like English language only covers the modern language and there is a separate article for History of the English language. This article should be called History of the Greek language (the current History of Greek article should be folded into this article) and then Modern Greek could then be called Greek language and the nomenclature problem is solved. But User:Khirurg's argument is ridiculous that Hungary recognizes the language of Aristotle as a minority language. Khirurg should spend his time fixing this article mess instead of trying to push the ridiculous notion that modern recognition involves all historical varieties of Greek. --Taivo (talk) 17:21, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

But User:Khirurg's argument is ridiculous that Hungary recognizes the language of Aristotle as a minority language. Straw men, taunting, and trolling, as per the usual M.O. Anyway, I won't waste time arguing with Taivo, since everyone here knows how pointless that is. Instead, the only way to resolve this is with wider community input. Khirurg (talk) 17:28, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Proposal

Next to the information on number of speakers and official usage in the infobox, include "Modern Greek" in parentheses to emphasize that this information strictly applies to modern Greek only.

• Support as proposer. Khirurg (talk) 17:14, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
• No for all the reasons of irrelevance to the history of the language that this article is as has been stated above. Since the majority of commenters above have so far rejected your RfC, this proposal becomes moot. --Taivo (talk) 20:26, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Disappointing, but not surprising. And you and Future Perfect at Sunrise are hardly a "majority". Khirurg (talk) 20:29, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Lang template links

As the issue of the {{lang}} links for Greek was brought up above: As far as I remember, we once had a threefold division, where "el" produced "Greek" (linking here), "ell" "Modern Greek" and "grc" "Ancient Greek", i.e. separate possibilities to link to the specific or the generic article. This was changed in 2017 [3] when the template system was restructured to use Lua modules and official ISO 639 data sources, apparently on the understanding that there isn't any official ISO 639 code for the concept of an overarching, generic "Greek language". That's a pity, in my view. Technically, we could probably return to the older division, if we wanted to support a continuing article arrangement of the type I've been advocating here, although we might be up against some ISO 639 purism among the maintainers of those language templates. Thoughts? Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:33, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

The "lang-grc" still works for "Ancient Greek", as does "lang-gkm" for "Medieval Greek", but "lang-ell" just redirects to "lang-el" and "Greek language" (displaying "Greek:"), as does also "lang-gr". I am not sure it would help to recreate the "Modern Greek" link "lang-ell", since it seems to have been used very little. There seems to be a tendency to use "lang-gr" more for older term and "lang-el" more for modern terms, but my sampling may not be representative and the difference is far from significant. The problem is that we have no way to know what an editor using the template may have thought about target. My guess is that most of the ca. 19,000 times "lang-el" is used (plus 2,000 times "lang-gr"), it will have been added without any thought about which version of Greek is relevant. Also, I would guess that most of the times, it is used for names of persons, places, organisations etc. or for words or phrases in the simple form Xyz (Greek: Ξυζ). I do believe (but can of course not be sure) that most of these linkings would be best covered by the modern Greek language. (Just current place names in Greece will run in the thousands.) Imho, it is fine that this link goes to the article "Greek language", but only provided that article is about the modern language. That page would need to be headed by a text like: This is about the modern Greek language. For other versions of Greek, see... and then list any numbers of other articles. --T*U (talk) 11:03, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Hellenic substrate in native American languages

Pseudo-scientific trolling. Just move on. See also WP:NOTFORUM policy. WP is not a place to chit-chat about wacky "theories".  — AReaderOutThataway t/c 09:46, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/soa/soa04.htm. This site talks about a substrate in Mayan. https://dnaconsultants.com/cherokees-spoke-greek-came-east-mediterranean/. This one about a substrate in Cherokee. https://m.theepochtimes.com/geneticist-traces-mysterious-origins-of-native-americans-to-middle-east-ancient-greece_831180.html. Other substrates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.92.96.39 (talk) 20:23, 24 August 2019 (UTC) This is nonsense rejected by all American archeologists, anthropologists, and linguists. --Taivo (talk) 22:12, 24 August 2019 (UTC) Is there any source which staits that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.92.96.39 (talk) 06:34, 25 August 2019 (UTC) It's probably in the same academic publication that also explains that the Moon is not made of green cheese. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:05, 25 August 2019 (UTC) There is even a Wikipedia article about possible pre-Columbian visits to America. The "Greek" case should be added at least there (see "Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories"). And why is it non-sense? Ancient Greeks were the most sophisticated people ever. Even the Indo-European theory does not resemble the truth, it is just an attempt of the Germans to make themselves "equal" with the more sophisticated ancient tribes, for example Latins, Greeks and Sanskrits. There was no written record of a Proto-Indo-European language or just a mention of it in any mythology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.92.96.39 (talk) 07:13, 25 August 2019 (UTC) https://www.mixanitouxronou.gr/se-pio-archeo-ikodomima-anikoun-afti-gigantii-lithi/. Greek influence in ancient Inca art. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.92.96.39 (talk) 14:35, 25 August 2019 (UTC) After this last comment, the unscientific POV of the anon IP is quite clear. --Taivo (talk) 20:35, 25 August 2019 (UTC) Un-scientific? You say what you want. canada-greekreporter-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/canada.greekreporter.com/2012/04/21/researcher-claims-ancient-greeks-made-it-to-america-before-columbus/amp/?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQEKAFwAQ%3D%3D#aoh=15669356467788&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=%CE%91%CF%80%CF%8C%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fcanada.greekreporter.com%2F2012%2F04%2F21%2Fresearcher-claims-ancient-greeks-made-it-to-america-before-columbus%2F. Read this and then talk. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.177.114.205 (talk) 19:59, 27 August 2019 (UTC) Find an actual reliable source (not "canada-greekreporter.com") that isn't written by fringe, POV-pushing pseudo-scientists before you post next time. --Taivo (talk) 20:09, 27 August 2019 (UTC) http://www.strangehistory.net/2012/07/29/the-mysterious-island-of-chronos-stonehenge-new-hampshire-or-lundy/. Here is a sources about ancient Greek contact with Greenlandic Eskimos. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.210.35.12 (talk) 12:31, 4 September 2019 (UTC) "Strangehistory.net" is not a reliable source for anything other than an article on fringe theories that have no basis in fact. --Taivo (talk) 13:24, 4 September 2019 (UTC) Whenever it comes to Greeks having accomplished things before the ones who claim that they achieved them first, it is "rejected by every scientist". Your sayings are in-conclusive and non-sense. I just found academic source which staits that contact between Greeks and native Americans can be accepted as a possible hypothesis but not archaeologially proven. It also staits that the Hellenic substrate in Cherokee, proposed by Farley, has been widely accepted by Cherokee linguists and can be considered proven. https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/did-ancient-greeks-sail-to-canada/. You do not even read the sources. That is why Wikipedia is not considered reliable, especially in university assignments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.210.35.12 (talk) 17:47, 4 September 2019 (UTC) That is utter nonsense about a Greek substrate in Cherokee. There is not a single, solitary academic grammar or dictionary of Cherokee, written by a recognized linguist, that maintains such nonsense. And your "academic source" is not an academic source at all. It is written by a journalist, not a scientist and it quotes a single, solitary (Greek) source, not a scholar who specializes in Cherokee. And, if you read the article, it clearly states that such theories have been rejected by almost all scholars, specialists in North American archeology and linguistics. Your statement that the Hellenic substrate in Cherokee has been widely accepted by Cherokee linguists and can be considered proven is utterly false and without basis in fact. Gloria Farley was not a scholar, she was a kindergarten teacher. She had no formal training in archeology, linguistics, or the Cherokee language. --Taivo (talk) 20:46, 4 September 2019 (UTC) If you want to be treated as a serious editor with something worthwhile to contribute, then provide a reference to a scholarly journal or peer-reviewed academic book (see WP:RS to see what these terms mean) that supports this WP:FRINGE nonsense being pushed by a kindergarten teacher with no linguistic training. --Taivo (talk) 21:10, 4 September 2019 (UTC) She was not a kindergarden teacher. I just found that she was a linguist and had published a book in 1994 "In plain sight: Old World frcords in ancient America" and the article about the substrate is taken from that book. And everything you have claimed above is false. Plus, I am not an editor. I do not even care that much. I just do not want to see pseudo-historical information. I am Greek, I leave in Greece and I grow up there. I am taught those things at senior high school and my history teacher has used this article to teach us a unit about ancient Greek colonies and the mysterious islands of Cronus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.74.77.83 (talk) 10:01, 5 September 2019 (UTC) You obviously haven't done your homework: "she kept her job as a kindergarten teacher". She was not a linguist. She was not a scholar. I have been unable to find a single, solitary scholar who has cited her work (other than in rejection) in a scholarly book or paper in a professional journal. The Epigraphic Society is not a professional scholarly organization, but an organization founded by Barry Fell, who is the master of unproven hyperdiffusionist theories about Old World contact in the New World. His pseudoarcheology is taken seriously by exactly zero scholars in the field, especially linguists. You have zero reliable sources to base your substrate claims on because Ms. Farley's work is not a reliable source. You learned it in school in Greece? Your teachers in Greece then were of the worst kind, feeding you propaganda based on nothing more than fantasy. It reminds me of my 7th grade geography teacher who was a Mormon and told us in class that the Gulf of Mexico was round because that's where the city of Enoch was translated up to heaven. You know absolutely nothing about Cherokee or any Cherokee authorities? Then you have no business claiming anything whatsoever about what Cherokee scholars accept or do not accept because you have no sources to back up your nonsense. At this point, I will no longer engage with you under the principle of WP:DNFTT. --Taivo (talk) 12:07, 5 September 2019 (UTC) You just confirmed that you have no idea about history. You are just sitting in a computer all day, minding about if everyone is uploading everything according to your and other people's desire. I may be uploading rigbt now but, at least I only mind my own business. This is one ofnthe reasons Wikipedia is just another form of social networking which cannot contain or even be considered a reliable source. And what I said was right. Everytime someone achieves something after the ancient Greeks, they claim they achieved it first. Greeks invented football, we called it "Episkyros" and everyone says it is creation of the Chinese, the fact that Greeks settled colonies all over the world led to the lent of a lot of vocabulary and grammar to other languages, the genetical admixture with indigenous populations led to the thought that Greeks cluster genetically with other Europeans. There might be a relation between Germanics, Italics, Celtics and, perhaps, Balto-Slavics. All the rest are extinct language families and isolates which still have surviving members, for example, Greek (the sole survivor of the Hellenic languages), Armenian (language isolate, which shares a lot of similarities with Greek, Persian, Turkish, Hurro-Urartian, indigenous Caucasian languages and, maybe, Hattic and Anatolian due to language contact), Indo-Iranian (primary language family), Albanian (the sole survivor of the Illyrian languages). Where is the non-sense in the possibility that Greeks made it first to America in ancient times? The Cherokee are the perfect example of remnants of this contact. They even agree with this. I posted a site above about other substrates. The Cherokee have an oral myth about bearded people (Cherokee do not have beards) from a place called "Atia" (mishearing of Attica, the area which surrounds Athens). You just cannot understand that all those rejections are due to the fact that the Germans and French of the 16th century felt envious for the more sophisticated ancient tribes and tried to "prove" a connection. The Germans never made it alone despite the fact that they had great power; they always needed help. They lost both World Wars, they were given help by the U.S.A after 1945, they tried to "adopt" the title of the Roman emperors (Holy Roman Empire) and even their language contains grammatical elements from Latin and Greek only. Their vocabulary, though, consists of native words and terms. Linguists have messed it up. They think that loanwords are pure cognates trying to demonstrate a relation between languages whose peoples do not even look like each other. Wikipedia's sources are just books containg personal opinions. It is not proven that there was a Proto-Indo-European language ancestral to almost all languages of Europe and the Indian subcontinent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.74.77.83 (talk) 14:52, 5 September 2019 (UTC) https://books.google.gr/books?id=qpvJP7WAv1EC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=Cherokee+"Atia"&source=bl&ots=PRhxaEuPf9&sig=ACfU3U3pjOVawSGxJLbCpN7FFYM71C2jEw&hl=el&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwikkue8hrrkAhVFUlAKHZvQDicQ6AEwAXoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=Cherokee%20%22Atia%22&f=false. I found a book about the Old World roots of the Cherokee. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.74.77.83 (talk) 16:02, 5 September 2019 (UTC) Read WP:RS. This is no work of scholarship and is therefore not a reliable source. Donald Yates is no scholar of archeology or linguistics. He has a degree in English and is a "genealogist". He is also the founder of DNA Consultants, the publisher of the book, so this book is doubly-unreliable: it's not a peer-reviewed scholarly text and it's self-published. Fail. --Taivo (talk) 16:35, 5 September 2019 (UTC) Taivo, I'd say let's not waste more space rebutting this person; it's not worth the effort. They can rant on and on here on talk as much as they like. At some point, we'll just hat and archive it and be done with them. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:10, 5 September 2019 (UTC) Yes, it became clear with his penultimate post that he's the same "Greek is not Indo-European" troll that has been haunting this article for a couple of months. --Taivo (talk) 17:49, 5 September 2019 (UTC) At least there is academic research behind that. You have not posted any source which staits that Greeks did not live among the Cherokee. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.74.77.83 (talk) 16:54, 5 September 2019 (UTC) Troll? This is just common sense. Your "I want a reliable source" logic is really peculiar. Why do you not ever provide sources that support your claims? I know the answer. You have none. The Hellenic languages contain the Sesklo and Dimini languages, Cycladic, Greek and, perhaps, Minoan. They are not Indo-European. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:1388:2196:B002:4D70:79C0:D16C:77C1 (talk) 18:42, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

RfC

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should the infobox contain official usage information, as shown here [4]? Khirurg (talk) 17:30, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Support per my arguments above. Khirurg (talk) 17:37, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Additional clarifications

• First, WP:ENCYCLOPEDIA. This information is useful to readers and should not be hidden from view on technical grounds. Many readers seeking this information will naturally land here first. It would be a disservice to our readers to not include this information here.
• Other online encyclopedias and generalist sources, e.g. [5] list the number of number of speakers and official usage. It is, after all common sense.
• Not including this information here would give Greek language the bizarre distinction of being the only wikipedia article of the type "X language" to not include this information this information in the infobox.
• Articles of other languages with a similar distinction between ancient and modern forms, e.g. Hebrew language include such information in their infobox. For example, both Hebrew language and Modern Hebrew include this information. No one seems terribly upset by this.
• The main arguments against inclusion are that doing so would duplicate information, and that this article is meant to solely present a diachronic view of the Greek language. I find both of these very unpersuasive: A certain amount of duplication is inevitable, and also harmless per WP:PAPER. The disservice we would do to our readers by omitting this information here would far exceed any harm due to duplication. Regarding the diachronic perspective, please see my proposal below to include "modern Greek" in parentheses next to the information on number of speakers and countries where Greek is official in the infobox. Khirurg (talk) 20:54, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Khirurg: I wish you would not change your postings after the discussion has continued, like you earlier did here and now have done with your original !vote here. To a new reader it will look like this is your first comment, while in reality it is partly an answer to the discussion further down. See WP:REDACT. I will suggest that you reinsert your original comment and then somehow flags this new comment as a later addition. Those of us who have followed the discussion from the start, will not be confused, but new readers may. --T*U (talk) 20:14, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Done, and thanks. Khirurg (talk) 21:51, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

• No. This is a gross simplification of the real problem, which I have stated above, but that User:Khirurg chooses to ignore. Here is what needs to happen to make sense of this tangle of articles and the ridiculous claim that historical Greek is a recognized minority language of Hungary:

• Modern Greek is the real language that countries recognize, so it should be renamed "Greek language" and all population, recognition information should be there.
• History of Greek should be folded into this article since it's nothing more than an outline.
• This article should be renamed "History of Greek" without the contemporary infobox since it isn't about the contemporary language but about the history of the language.

Problem solved. The population figures and official recognition figures still point to "Greek language", an article on the contemporary language, but not to this article on history. This article on the history of the language is then properly named. --Taivo (talk) 17:35, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

• No. There is no need to have this information duplicated. The article on the language that is official in present-day Greece and Cyprus is at Modern Greek, and that's where the related infobox stuff should go. This here is a diachronic article about the development of Greek through the ages, and things like official status, which apply only to the last few decades, are off-topic here. This treatment is intentionally different from most other language articles, because Greek just has that exceptionally complex history and an ancient stage that is of equal or greater prominence even for present-day readers than its modern stage; that's what justifies the split into several articles. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:38, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

So suppose a reader who wants to find out where Greek has official usage. Which article will he come to first? This one. Btw, Greek is not unique in that respect, there is a similar situation in Hebrew language. While there is some duplication, that is unavoidable and harmless. Duplication is certainly preferable to withholding useful information to readers. Wikipedia is meant to be used by the general public, not linguists. Hiding information on technicalities is unencyclopedic. Khirurg (talk) 17:42, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

"Withholding information" is utter "malarkey". We do not, and should not, duplicate information at every possible destination for whatever our poor readers are looking for. We include hatnotes to redirect them to where they want to go. --Taivo (talk) 18:05, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Witholding information is exactly what's going on. By your "logic" (and I use the term loosely here), we should also be removing the number of speakers, geographic distribution, in fact most of the information that is useful to the average reader. Wikipedia is meant for a general audience, not people in academia. Khirurg (talk) 18:12, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

I said nothing whatsoever about "removing or withholding information" from Wikipedia. I (and Future) said it should be in the proper article. That article is Modern Greek, not this one. A hatnote on this article will direct readers to the correct article that covers the contemporary and official language. Nothing is being deleted despite your protestations. It is being listed once in the place where it belongs. And there is nothing whatsoever "academic" about the term "Modern Greek". In fact, if you go to a language school to learn "Greek", they specify "Modern Greek" versus "Classical Greek". --Taivo (talk) 18:15, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Nothing is being deleted he says, as he deletes information useful to readers [6]. This is gaslighting. This article is Greek language, not History of the Greek language. And as long as that's the case, information on where the Greek language is official absolutely belongs in this article. Also, do explain why you haven't removed the number of speakers from the infobox? Since by TaivoLogic this is also not the "proper article" for this information? Or is this more about ego and personal prejudices, rather than making an encyclopedia useful to the general public? Khirurg (talk) 18:28, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, yes, indeed, we should remove the numbers of speakers too, absolutely. They too belong in the Modern Greek article. The situation of these pieces of information is no different from other information about the structural properties of the language, such as phonology and grammar. Sure, some people looking for this info will mistakenly end up here. We should make it easy for them to follow the links to the correct target instead. But if we wanted to offer all this information for them right here in this article, we'd have to turn the whole article back to what it was at some time prior to 2006 or thereabouts: an article closely following the standard schema of language articles, with grammar, phonology, orthography, sociolinguistics etc sections – and all of them would have to be primarily or exclusively about Modern Greek, just like everything in the German language article is primarily or exclusively about Modern German. For German this works, for Greek it doesn't, because it would unduly marginalize the treatment of Ancient Greek, which is, for better or worse, still of equal or even higher interest to our readers than Modern Greek is. That's why we decided on the present structure, with a diachronic overview article (here), and separate linguistic detail articles at Modern Greek and Ancient Greek. Those contain all the actual structural information, and they should therefore contain the sociolinguistic, demographic and political information too, to the extent it's specific to one of the principal stages of the language rather than diachronic. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:43, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

If we were to follow this chain of reasoning to its logical conclusion, we would have to move almost everything to Modern Greek (including the History section - all language articles have a History section). Which would then have to be renamed Greek language, since common usage outside academic departments is "Greek", not "Modern Greek" (people ask me if I speak Greek, not if I speak "modern Greek"). And then we would then be right back where we started, so embarking on this is completely pointless. Right or wrong, this article gets 5x the page views of modern Greek, so it should contain as much useful information as possible, rather than forcing our users to click on a hatnote and go to a different article. In other words, this should be the primary article, not Modern Greek. We are getting lost in technical details and losing track of the big picture, which is to make an encyclopedia useful to the general public. I also don't buy the "works for X language, but not for Greek" argument. We can include phonology and grammar of both ancient and modern Greek, and even do a comparison. It would make for a longer article, but so what? They do this in Hebrew language (perhaps the language in the most similar situation), and I don't see anything wrong with it, quite the opposite in fact. Khirurg (talk) 19:24, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

No, of course the Modern Greek article doesn't need those other things just because other normal language articles have them. When you have a diachronic overview article, of course the "history" section stays there. As does "classification", "naming", and so on. The criterion isn't what other language articles do, but which bits of information are specific to one stage and which are of diachronic/generic relevance. As for your "primacy" argument: well, yes, in everyday life, people speak of your language as "Greek". But if somebody in the English-speaking world says: "I studied Greek at school", they are much more likely to be referring to Ancient Greek. Same for all those statements of the form "The English word X derives from the Greek Y" (which probably form the majority of incoming links to this article throughout Wikipedia). As for the suggestion of simply folding treatment of Ancient and Modern Greek together into the same article: no, that would make it far, far too long; we'd have to re-split it into subarticles in no time, and would again be back where we aren now. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:36, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

My point stands that information that is of high interest to general readers and can be summarized in the the infobox should be in this article. Right or wrong, this article gets 5 times the page views of Modern Greek, and by not including such information here we are doing our readers a disservice. The rest are technicalities. Khirurg (talk) 20:39, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

• Restructure I think you are talking at cross purposes. Instead of discussing what should be in this article and what should not, better to talk about the end result. There should be one (and only one) article about the modern language, and one article about the history of the language. The history article should (rather obviously) be named "History of the Greek language". The article about the modern language should be named "Greek language", not "Modern Greek". For several reasons, but my main reason is that all language links (from the "lang-el" template etc.) goes to "Greek language", not to "Modern Greek". Finally, "Modern Greek" should simply redirect to "Greek language".

This can be achieved in several ways. We could do as Taivo suggests, strip this article down to history and rename it to "History of...", then renaming "Modern Greek" to "Greek language". Or we could merge "Modern Greek" into this article, then forking off a new "History of..." article. Same result, but perhaps the second procedure is simpler. --T*U (talk) 20:20, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

• • Hmm, maybe I'm biased here because I was among the people who first set up the present arrangement of articles, but I still remain in favour of keeping it. To my mind, the issue of incoming links is actually one of the reasons for having this overarching article. In all those many cases of, for instance, etymologies of English terms, we often don't want to link specifically to "Ancient Greek" (because the terms in question are often modern coinages), but we certainly don't want to link to an article that deals primarily or exclusively with "Modern Greek" either. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:45, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
• Restructure, v2. Another option would be to turn Greek language into a disambiguation page, with clear links to Modern Greek, Ancient Greek, History of Greek (the logical place to move all the general diachronic information in this article), and all the other historical stages and dialects that have separate articles. That might actually be the most logical of all the steps since someone who says "I studied Greek" could mean Classical Greek, New Testament Greek, or Modern Greek (being the three most common forms of Greek that English-speaking students learn). And there's simply no way to tell what numbers of Wikipedia users are searching for Modern versus New Testament versus Classical versus something else. We cannot have every article (or even just this one) be all things to all people. --Taivo (talk) 20:30, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps the most logical solution, but probably the worst possible from a dab-solving point-of-view, since most editors would link to "Greek language" on autopilot (even the "lang-el" template...) --T*U (talk) 20:58, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

A non-starter for obvious reasons. Khirurg (talk) 21:16, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps, then you can make a positive contribution instead of just insulting other contributing editors. What is a non-starter, for obvious reasons, is that the infobox belongs on this page. --Taivo (talk) 23:19, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Calling an idea a "non starter" is not an insult, and it is a positive contribution since it prevents a bad idea from starting. On the other hand, calling someone's idea "utter malarkey" is neither a positive contribution, nor civil. Dr. K. 13:59, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Dr.K.: Just for the record, the expression "utter malarkey" was not introduced to this discussion by Taivo. It was Khirurg that introdused the expression in this edit, later removed. Taivo was just quoting Khirurg's words, hence the quote marks. Regards! --T*U (talk) 14:28, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Well T*U, if Khirurg removed it, then it should not have been quoted. It's not helpful to recycle comments that were withdrawn voluntarily. Dr. K. 14:37, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Khirurg removed it after Taivo had quoted it. --T*U (talk) 14:41, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Ok, struck that part. Dr. K. 14:51, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

TaivoLinguist Calling your proposal to turn this article into a dabpage a "non-starter" is not an insult, but a rather apt description. On the other hand, comments and straw men such as these But User:Khirurg's argument is ridiculous that Hungary recognizes the language of Aristotle as a minority language. Khirurg should spend his time fixing this article mess instead of trying to push the ridiculous notion that modern recognition involves all historical varieties of Greek. speak for themselves...Khirurg (talk) 14:39, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Right now, we are developing ideas on how to fix this obvious problem that Greek language is not the appropriate place for the contemporary language infobox because it's not about the contemporary language, but about the history of the language. Turning this page into a dab page would solve the problem that the majority of people looking for "Greek" are most likely looking for either classical or biblical Greek and not modern Greek. It doesn't solve the problem of link direction, however. It's not a perfect solution and that was pointed out immediately by User:TU-nor so I stopped pushing it as a good solution. But that still leaves the problem that this article cannot be the endpoint of all information on all varieties of Greek. Modern demographics are irrelevant to classical or biblical Greek so they don't belong in this article (the actual narrow subject of this RFC) and it seems that the majority of editors who have commented on the issue here are of that opinion. They belong at Modern Greek because that's the only place they are relevant. This page should still, based on Future's argument and his first-hand experience of the previous discussion, be the site (as it is now) for the history of Greek (and History of Greek is presently a pointless article and should redirect here). Details on the phonology, morphology, syntax, and sociolinguistics (including demographics) of the different periods of Greek (including the modern one) should be at separate articles. --Taivo (talk) 15:15, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Taivo: I am not sure if I understand you. You say that the contemporary language infobox cannot be here at Greek language, but has to be at Modern Greek (which in itself I agree with, since it really should not be in two places). But at the same time you have said that you want to rename the "Modern Greek" article to "Greek language" (which I also agree with). What is then wrong with my suggestion to just merge "Modern Greek" into this article as a first step? The overlap is already quite significant. Next step would be to export most of the history stuff to a new article "History of the Greek language". (I think that is better than trying to save the "History of Greek" article, which would become a redirect.) --T*U (talk) 15:55, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

I have completely confused you, User:TU-nor, and for that I am sorry. My current thinking is evolving with the discussion and I'm leaning toward Future's point, that Greek language should be a history of Greek overview (and History of Greek should be a redirect) since the majority of English-speaking readers will be getting here looking for classical Greek, biblical Greek, and modern Greek (probably in that order of magnitude. But this article should not be detailed and should be helpful for a very general overview and then have clear links to the other period and dialect articles, including Modern Greek where the infobox should be located. User:Khirurg and User:Future Perfect at Sunrise are correct that "Greek language" is not a term with a precise definition. But Future is correct that this is not the place for the infobox that properly (and only) belongs at Modern Greek. There should be no details of phonology, morphology, or syntax here in this article. Those details should be in the separate articles. This article can (and should), however, include a general discussion of the alphabet, since (aside from Myceneaen) it is a shared feature of all historical forms and dialects of Greek. I hope this clears up my current thinking. --Taivo (talk) 18:57, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

These are technical, wikipedia-insider type arguments. Bottom line is, readers wanting to know at-a-glance information on where Greek is spoken and by how many people will come to this article first. By omitting this information and forcing them to go to the much less-viewed Modern Greek, we are doing these readers a disservice. Infoboxes are meant to assist readers by showing important, easily summarizable information in a visually efficient way. Wikipedia is for a general audience, not an academic one. Outside of college campuses, "Greek" means "modern Greek". No one in their right mind will think that classical Greek has 13.4 million speakers and is an official language of the European Union. Khirurg (talk) 19:10, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Wrong, User:Khirurg. Unless you have actual fact-based data, you cannot make the ridiculous claim that "outside college campuses 'Greek' means 'modern Greek'". I will make the actual counter-claim that the majority of the users typing "Greek language" into Wikipedia are searching for information about the language of Homer, Aristotle, or Paul. Religious people, whether on college campuses or in the heart of Appalachia, know that the New Testament was originally written in "Greek". They know that the people who built the Parthenon spoke "Greek". If you asked the average American to identify something that was "Greek", they'd probably pick the Parthenon first. "Greek" is a meaningless temporal label. I just opened my English dictionary and saw that the word decade is from "Greek" dekas. But wait! That word came via Late Latin decas, decad-, so it cannot be from "Modern Greek". But that's the point. English speakers are confronted on a daily basis with the word "Greek" (not the spoken language, but the word "Greek") that has nothing whatsoever to do with the modern language. We are inundated with the use of the word in reference to the ancient and classical worlds, and only less so the modern world. So the infobox at Greek language implies to those people that they can travel to the land of Greece and hear the language of Homer, Aristotle, or Paul. You know as well as I do that just because Alfred the Great spoke "English" that doesn't mean that we are writing at this moment in his language. --Taivo (talk) 21:36, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

I just did a google search for "Greek language" and of the first page of entries, not a single one of them focuses on Modern Greek. They all focus on the history of Greek, on biblical Greek, or on English words derived from Greek (99.9% of which are from ancient Greek). For most languages, you would expect at least one that is "Learn X". But there's not one on my Google search. (Compare that with the results I got for "Norwegian language", where all but one of the links is to learn the contemporary language.) That kills your "Greek" = "Modern Greek" argument. --Taivo (talk) 21:49, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

You might want to improve your search skills, because the first thing that comes up when I search for "Greek language" are links to video tutorials on modern Greek. Anyway, read my previous comment again. This is not about what is more important, ancient or modern Greek, but common sense. It's common sense, and a service to our readers, to include information such as the number of speakers, and where Greek is official, in an article called Greek language (not "History of Greek", not "History of the Greek language"). You seem to think that our readers are so dumb that they might be confused upon seeing the countries where Greek is official in the infobox as to whether that refers to ancient or modern Greek. So for their own good, this information must be hidden from view to prevent confusion. Nonsense. Bottom line is, it's unencyclopedic to omit useful, relevant information from articles on narrow technical grounds. Khirurg (talk) 22:45, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

"Common sense" is not a Wikipedia policy, it's just an editor's excuse for pushing a POV. And, on the contrary, it is you who think that our readers are so dumb that they cannot locate a link for "Modern Greek" if they are seeking modern demographics. --Taivo (talk) 01:03, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

This is fast becoming a very petty discussion. It is completely counterintuitive to assume that people searching for "Greek language" do not seek information about the modern version of the language, or information about the modern language and its history. When demographics, politics, and linguistics merge as in this case, it is easy to attack people about their opinions. What is not easy is to take it easy and stop maligning people for advancing their good-faith opinions. Dr. K. 02:21, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

I will readily assume good faith on everyone's part, but since Khirurg's stance from the very beginning has been to malign the opinions of others, it's very difficult. Dr.K., it is natural for native speakers of Greek to assume that every English speaker is only wanting to learn about Modern Greek, but that simply isn't the case. It is much more common among English speakers (at least in the U.S.) to encounter "Greek" in relation to the classical or biblical languages. That's just the way it is. Perhaps European English speakers encounter Modern Greek as the reference more often (or at least as often) as references to the classical language. Future is quite right that making the automatic assumption that the majority of Wikipedia users who type "Greek language" are looking for the modern language isn't borne out by the facts or even logic in this case. It is, indeed, far more "logical" to assume that since the word "Greek" appears more often in English in the classical or biblical context that readers are searching for information about the classical or biblical language. --Taivo (talk) 03:32, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

To the specific question of the infobox, it should be located (once) at the proper site for the contemporary language--Modern Greek. It should not be salted throughout Wikipedia at any location that covers the history of the Greek language (as this article actually does). A contemporary demographics infobox at History of the English language is just as inappropriate as it is here--at an article that could just as properly be named History of Greek. --Taivo (talk) 03:40, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

And to Khirurg's insistence that the infobox should occur anywhere that a Wikipedia user first lands, why doesn't he insist on placing it at "Greek" since that's probably the actual term that a novice Wikipedia user will type when looking for the language (whether Homeric, classical, biblical, or modern)? --Taivo (talk) 03:44, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Actually common sense isn't policy, it's above policy, per WP:COMMONSENSE. As for maligning, you are the one using "ridiculous" in practically everyone of your posts. Respect is a two-way street. Anyway, it is quite clear I will not change your mind, so I'm not going to repeat myself. That's why I started this RfC in the first place. It's all straw men (And to Khirurg's insistence that the infobox should occur anywhere that a Wikipedia user first lands, why doesn't he insist on placing it at "Greek" since that's probably the actual term that a novice Wikipedia user will type when looking for the language) and condescension (it is natural for native speakers of Greek) at this point. I'll let you have the last word since you want it so badly. Khirurg (talk) 13:35, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: The more I try to follow this discussion, the more absurd it seems to me. It is not possible to discuss the infobox contents as a separate issue from the article structure. When the article structure with the two articles Greek language and Modern Greek was established, there probably was a clear idea about what content belonged where. But during the years, they have both been developed as the main article about the modern language, so that today there is a huge overlap.

The template structure adds to the mess: While the template {{lang-grc}} displays the text "Ancient Greek: ξξξ" and links to the article Ancient Greek, the template {{lang-el}} (used in 19,000 pages!) does not display the text "Modern Greek: ξξξ", but just "Greek: ξξξ" and it links not to the article Modern Greek, but to the article Greek language. So which article is then the main article about the current official language of Greece, Cyprus and the EU?

This discussion about the infobox details should be put on ice until the article structure has been solved, which is a far more important issue. --T*U (talk) 08:34, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

• I agree with T*U. I also note that condescension of the type: Dr.K., it is natural for native speakers of Greek to assume that every English speaker is only wanting to learn about Modern Greek, but that simply isn't the case. is simply unacceptable and a violation of WP:CIV. Please refrain from such heavy-handed attempts at typecasting editors to neutralise their arguments. We don't live in the 1950s and this is not some backwater town in the US south in the same era. Dr. K. 14:12, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Even worse are the straw men And to Khirurg's insistence that the infobox should occur anywhere that a Wikipedia user first lands, why doesn't he insist on placing it at "Greek" since that's probably the actual term that a novice Wikipedia user will type when looking for the language. How can I take this seriously? How can anyone? Khirurg (talk) 14:53, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

User:Dr.K., I certainly meant no disrespect in my comment about Greek speakers. My intent was that one's personal experience with a topic will often color their impressions of the relative importance of that topic in a broader context. If one speaks Modern Greek as their native tongue, it is only natural if they ascribe a greater level of interest in that topic than people who have no contact with it might ascribe to it. I do that same thing with the languages that I work on and speak--in my mind surely they are more important in the world than anyone else thinks they are. That was my only intent in the comment. Remember Leonard Bloomfield's famous remark about linguistic reconstruction (somewhat paraphrased): "Reconstructed languages tend to look like the languages that the linguist knows best." I certainly hold you in the highest regard. But I stand by my conclusion, whether the comment about Modern Greek speakers is valid or not--there is no "logical conclusion" that Modern Greek is the majority intent behind readers searching "Greek" or "Greek language" in Wikipedia. It is certainly not the majority contact which English speakers have in their environment with the term "Greek (language)". That is undoubtedly with references to classical and biblical Greek. But User:TU-nor also has a point about making sure that we sort out the content of these articles and clarify their role. User:Khirurg started this brouhaha trying to force minority language content into an infobox with information relevant only to the modern language into this article which is not about the modern language, but about the history of the language. While the initial problem was just with that minority language data, the broader picture became clear to most of us that the infobox belongs not here, but with the article that it is relevant to--Modern Greek. Khirurg's RFC evolved into the bigger question of how the diachronic and synchronic information about the language is distributed. The original intent, described by one of the editors involved in the original discussion, User:Future Perfect at Sunrise, was to have strictly diachronic information here and synchronic details of the modern language (including the infobox) at Modern Greek. Khirurg's position is in violation of that original intent. That's why most of us oppose the placement of the infobox with contemporary details here, but want it left at the Modern Greek article where it properly belongs. --Taivo (talk) 16:20, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

In looking in detail at the existing infobox, the only irrelevant piece of information still there is the population number for the contemporary language. The rest of the infobox relates to the language and all its historical periods and dialects, including all the ISO 639-3 codes for Ancient Greek, Modern Greek, Pontic Greek, etc. and a link to the overarching Glottolog code for the group of languages, again including all the historical and dialectal variants. So deleting the entire present infobox here isn't necessary to bring this article into conformity with the content of the article, just the contemporary population figure. --Taivo (talk) 15:45, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Are you replying to your own comments? To refer to the number of speakers as "irrelevant" is the height of absurdity. Your thinking is un-encyclopedic, in fact, anti-encyclopedic. You are making the encyclopedia less useful to its readers by removing useful information from the infobox. It is also highly unbecoming to proceed to modify an article while an RfC is ongoing. And to use misleading summaries such as this [7] (your edit summary makes it seem the RfC has reached a consensus that this information should be removed, when in fact it hasn't). Khirurg (talk) 16:45, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

You are correct that I should have waited the three more days until the RfC is finished. Since no one has shown up to comment in the last couple of days, I jumped the gun, but I still should have waited. My apologies for that. But, basically, that is the only piece of information that needs to be removed once this RfC is concluded if the majority holds. You continue to ignore User:Dr.K.'s pleas for increased civility by accusing me of "un-encyclopedic thinking". On the contrary, my thinking is perfectly encyclopedic: articles should be focused on the specific topic that they are designed for and not wander off into the weeds of providing "useful information" for every reader who arrives here, even when they are at the wrong article and that information is irrelevant to the topic of the article. Readers of encyclopedias should (and generally do) understand that they may need to follow a link. Modern speaker numbers belong at Modern Greek, not here--an article that is about the history of the language, not the contemporary language. --Taivo (talk) 20:32, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

The RfC won't close in 3 days. RfCs take time. If the RfC is inconclusive, status quo stays. I sincerely hope the above is not a threat to resume edit-warring, because that's what it sounds like. Khirurg (talk) 20:58, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

RfC can be adjudicated after seven days. They do not remain open forever. If the closing editor deems the outcome as "inconclusive", then the status quo stays. In this case the status quo is to keep the population figure in, but keep the language recognition info out. --Taivo (talk) 21:38, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Taivo, it is true that RfCs do not remain open forever, but the normal time is 30 days unless the consensus is completely clear before that. Hopefully, more people will join in. Also, I have to disagree with your evaluation of status quo. The language recognition part was removed as recently as 13 August and was immediately contested. Before that, it had been included in the infobox for years and years, so that is definitely the stable version, like it or not. I, for one, would not be happy with that result (unless the article structure is changed), but there it is. --T*U (talk) 12:57, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Perhaps it's a RFM that is as little as seven days. It would be helpful for uninvolved counters of "votes" if you'd place a bold "no" into the discussion since you seem to oppose contemporary information in the infobox. --Taivo (talk) 13:17, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I am afraid I cannot do that, since my position is conditional to changes in the article structure. I am thinking about possibly starting a merge request ("Modern Greek" merged to here, followed by at split of historical stuff to a new article), alternatively a move request (this article to "History of...", the "Modern Greek" article to here), both of which could be concluded after seven days and well before this RfC is finished. I am not at all sure if I want to (or have the time for it), but my !vote is still "Restructure". Your original proposal, you know! --T*U (talk) 14:00, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I'd certainly support that. I suspect that the main objection to a move of Modern Greek to here is that most searches for "Greek" or "Greek language" from the English-speaking world will be for the classical or biblical languages and not for the modern one. In that sense, I'm torn between the two options. But the only thing I find unacceptable is contemporary information in the infobox of an article about language history and not the contemporary language. --Taivo (talk) 14:28, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

• Withdraw or close (Summoned by bot) – This Rfc should be withdrawn by the proposer, or the community may also close it by agreement; either way, see WP:RFCEND. Once other issues about structure and organization are concluded, this question may be raised again, if not moot at that point. Mathglot (talk) 12:06, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Post-RfC discussion

The close noted that restructuring was proposed and had some support. I'm at least provisionally in favor of TaivoLinguist's specific proposal. I agree with the closer that a new RfC should be done, and "advertised" as appropriate, e.g. to other talk pages of articles relating to Greek language (Talk:Modern Greek, Talk:Koine Greek, etc.), and I would add WT:WikiProject Languages, WT:WikiProject Linguistics, WT:WikiProject Greece, WT:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome.  — AReaderOutThataway ^t/_c 09:52, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Language on road signs

I'm not sure this warrants a talk section, but just in case...

@Anypodetos: recently replaced "English" with "Latin alphabets" in this edit. While all the words on the sign in the image are proper nouns being romanized, and therefore do not make it clear what language is being written in white, anyone who has spent time driving around Greece can confirm that Greek road signs are written in either Greek alone or Greek and English. When English appears on a Greek road sign, either both texts are in black or (as in this case) Greek is in Yellow and English is in white. A quick google will bring up photos like this which can help to confirm this, and a visit to the Comparison of European road signs or Road signs in Greece will help drive this home. Here are some examples pulled from those pages:

• Information
• Airport
• Akropolis
• Customs sign
• Toll Post

I don't think it's important this fact be cited within the article, but if anyone disagrees let's discuss :) –Skoulikomirmigotripa (talk) 21:42, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@Skoulikomirmigotripa: I think you have a good point here, especially with all the translation of nouns, but: "Athina" on the depicted road sign is a latinized transliteration, and not the English name. –Austronesier (talk) 21:56, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

This is true, I believe by rule Greek signs "romanize" Greek proper nouns instead of translating them using the Government's official system shown here. –Skoulikomirmigotripa (talk) 22:43, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. I have no strong opinions on this matter. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 08:07, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Just to add the obvious, in File:A27 Motorway, Greece - Section Kozani-Ptolemaida - Kozani-North interchange (A2) - 02.jpg, the Romanization "Skopia" for Skopje is also unambiguously transliterated Greek and not English (or any other language for that matter). Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:22, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Indeed. I don't actually love the photo choice used or the language used in the caption and would, generally, support a change of both. I just didn't want the languages used on Greece's bilingual signs called into question since it's one of those mundane obvious things that can be difficult to find Wikipedia:Reliable sources for. –Skoulikomirmigotripa (talk) 21:36, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

I've removed the image. I don't see it had much of a function in the article anyway – the use of Latin script and/or English alongside Greek isn't actually the topic of discussion anywhere in the article, and the image seems to have initially been chosen as not much more than a completely random illustration of the use of the Greek script in the public sphere. There's really no reason we'd have to sweat over its caption this much. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:43, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Good call, thanks, Fut.Perf.. –Skoulikomirmigotripa (talk) 00:46, 13 April 2020 (UTC)