Modern Greek has so much continuity with ancient that, if you know ancient, you can read plenty of signs and pick your way through pamphlets at museums and archaeological sites. Every Greek I have known has valued that continuity and history. The proposed change -- rendering any text printed prior to the revision obsolete and eventually unreadable -- amounts to cultural suicide.
Actually, last time the greek alphabet changed, it was not a revision, but more like political statement, after a turbulant period by a military junta. The conflict goes back a couple of centuries, after the Greek revolution and the need for a "pure" and united, at least linguistically, nation. In a nutcell it was Purists vs common people. If anyone is interensted, this debate is called the "Greek language question".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language_question
This would sever the connection to the ancient language, which is central to Greek identity. We would have a better chance of an English spelling reform—arguably more essential given its lingua franca status and absurd spelling. But we know that’s not going to happen.
Regardless, a fun exercise. I’ve thought a lot about the sound drift, case merging, loss of the infinitive and such. Good to see someone else’s ideas on the topic.
Has nobody tried to create an alternative English spelling a bit like the Chinese have done with Pinyin. This would be more for the benefit of learners rather than trying to change Greek identity.
A fun excercise but lots of corner cases not covered. For example the words ακριβός (expensive) and ακριβώς (exactly) would have exactly the same spelling
Warning: This website has audio which is activated when you press the letters, despite not giving any fair warning indication of this. Not a nice surprise if you're at work!
Interesting take, but as a sibling commented: όχι.
> αι = ε
> αι already sounds identical to ε in Modern Greek, so the digraph is dropped.
sounds the same, but the distinction actually helps semantically (helps identify passive voice vs active notably).
> ει, οι, υι, η, υ = ι
> all these spellings produce the same /i/ sound. This does however remove spelling distinctions that currently encode grammatical information like gender, number, and verb conjugation.
why would you drop something that communicates information ?
the distinctions encode meaning (what you already mentioned + etymology)
> ου = Ȣ ȣ
> the common digraph gets its own single character. The historic ligature ou.
I read the sample text and automatically parsed this as θ because the surrounding text, otherwise it's an 8 in my eyes.
(although to be honest, you'll see a similar symbol in some byzantine iconography)
> ντ = D d
> the digraph that produces /d/ becomes a single letter.
ντ and D d do not produce the same sound. ντ is meant to be pronounced 'n' followed by 't'. Notice where your tongue goes when pronouncing n / t / d => these are not the same sound.
> μπ = Б b
> the digraph that produces /b/ becomes a single letter. The uppercase uses cyrillic Б to avoid confusion with Β (Vita).
same as above. 'μπ' is the 'm' sound followed closely by 'p'. This one is harder to hear in isolation, but for example when saying 'αμπέλι' (grape vine) you actually hear the 'm'.
> γκ = γγ = G g
> the digraphs that produce /ɡ/ become a single letter.
again, the sound is different, i.e: άγγελος. it is not pronounced agelos (hard g), but rather ang-gelos (notice how in english the word becomes 'angel' with an extra 'n' ?)
> σ, ς = ϲ
> all lowercase sigmas are unified into the lunate sigma ϲ, eliminating positional variants.
ς is used only when it's the last letter of the word. That's all the complexity there is.
if this is meant to help foreign speakers learn the language, then I weep for the moment they encounter the sea: Ȣάλαϲϲα. is it a soft c (as in 'copper') or a hard c (as in 'face') ? is it somehow changed by the fact there are two of them ?
> ω = ο
> lowercase omega merges with omicron. They already share the same /o/ sound in Modern Greek, so the distinction is dropped.
phonetically, ω is supposedly longer ο, though it's quite hard to hear (I have rarely heard people where you consistently hear the difference). OTOH, orthographic distinction remains for etymological reasons.
οστικός => related to bones
ωστικός => related to pushing
change the omega to an omicron, and you just created an homograph (+ homophone) out of nowhere. queue future learners wondering why those crazy Greeks decided it would be appropriate to use the same spelling and pronunciation for two entirely different meanings.
the changes look arbitrary in order to simplify the rules for _some_ learners, but end up making it more complicated. What you saved in spelling, you definitely lost in semantics.
I support the creation of new letter shapes for one reason only: historical linguists on TikTok constantly have Greek speakers incorrectly correcting their ancient Greek pronunciation to sound modern. New/reinvigorated letter shapes and ligatures could mitigate this.
IMHO lowercase phi should definitely be that symbol that sort of looks like an extravagant cursive p (), not the one that looks like an o with a slash through it.
Modern Greek has so much continuity with ancient that, if you know ancient, you can read plenty of signs and pick your way through pamphlets at museums and archaeological sites. Every Greek I have known has valued that continuity and history. The proposed change -- rendering any text printed prior to the revision obsolete and eventually unreadable -- amounts to cultural suicide.
Actually, last time the greek alphabet changed, it was not a revision, but more like political statement, after a turbulant period by a military junta. The conflict goes back a couple of centuries, after the Greek revolution and the need for a "pure" and united, at least linguistically, nation. In a nutcell it was Purists vs common people. If anyone is interensted, this debate is called the "Greek language question". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language_question
As a greek speaker, thanks but no thanks. We don't need a 9% compression revision in our language.
This would sever the connection to the ancient language, which is central to Greek identity. We would have a better chance of an English spelling reform—arguably more essential given its lingua franca status and absurd spelling. But we know that’s not going to happen.
Regardless, a fun exercise. I’ve thought a lot about the sound drift, case merging, loss of the infinitive and such. Good to see someone else’s ideas on the topic.
Has nobody tried to create an alternative English spelling a bit like the Chinese have done with Pinyin. This would be more for the benefit of learners rather than trying to change Greek identity.
This reminds me of the Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain.
https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.html
A fun excercise but lots of corner cases not covered. For example the words ακριβός (expensive) and ακριβώς (exactly) would have exactly the same spelling
Warning: This website has audio which is activated when you press the letters, despite not giving any fair warning indication of this. Not a nice surprise if you're at work!
Interesting take, but as a sibling commented: όχι.
> αι = ε > αι already sounds identical to ε in Modern Greek, so the digraph is dropped.
sounds the same, but the distinction actually helps semantically (helps identify passive voice vs active notably).
> ει, οι, υι, η, υ = ι > all these spellings produce the same /i/ sound. This does however remove spelling distinctions that currently encode grammatical information like gender, number, and verb conjugation.
why would you drop something that communicates information ? the distinctions encode meaning (what you already mentioned + etymology)
> ου = Ȣ ȣ > the common digraph gets its own single character. The historic ligature ou.
I read the sample text and automatically parsed this as θ because the surrounding text, otherwise it's an 8 in my eyes. (although to be honest, you'll see a similar symbol in some byzantine iconography)
> ντ = D d > the digraph that produces /d/ becomes a single letter.
ντ and D d do not produce the same sound. ντ is meant to be pronounced 'n' followed by 't'. Notice where your tongue goes when pronouncing n / t / d => these are not the same sound.
> μπ = Б b > the digraph that produces /b/ becomes a single letter. The uppercase uses cyrillic Б to avoid confusion with Β (Vita).
same as above. 'μπ' is the 'm' sound followed closely by 'p'. This one is harder to hear in isolation, but for example when saying 'αμπέλι' (grape vine) you actually hear the 'm'.
> γκ = γγ = G g > the digraphs that produce /ɡ/ become a single letter.
again, the sound is different, i.e: άγγελος. it is not pronounced agelos (hard g), but rather ang-gelos (notice how in english the word becomes 'angel' with an extra 'n' ?)
> σ, ς = ϲ > all lowercase sigmas are unified into the lunate sigma ϲ, eliminating positional variants.
ς is used only when it's the last letter of the word. That's all the complexity there is.
if this is meant to help foreign speakers learn the language, then I weep for the moment they encounter the sea: Ȣάλαϲϲα. is it a soft c (as in 'copper') or a hard c (as in 'face') ? is it somehow changed by the fact there are two of them ?
> ω = ο > lowercase omega merges with omicron. They already share the same /o/ sound in Modern Greek, so the distinction is dropped.
phonetically, ω is supposedly longer ο, though it's quite hard to hear (I have rarely heard people where you consistently hear the difference). OTOH, orthographic distinction remains for etymological reasons. οστικός => related to bones ωστικός => related to pushing
change the omega to an omicron, and you just created an homograph (+ homophone) out of nowhere. queue future learners wondering why those crazy Greeks decided it would be appropriate to use the same spelling and pronunciation for two entirely different meanings.
the changes look arbitrary in order to simplify the rules for _some_ learners, but end up making it more complicated. What you saved in spelling, you definitely lost in semantics.
I came to say this and this is a wonderful summary!
I support the creation of new letter shapes for one reason only: historical linguists on TikTok constantly have Greek speakers incorrectly correcting their ancient Greek pronunciation to sound modern. New/reinvigorated letter shapes and ligatures could mitigate this.
Όχι.
Όχι από μέρους μου, και επίσης δεν γνωρίζω τη νέα συμφωνία για την ορθογραφία της πορτογαλικής γλώσσας.
Όχι και από εμένα.
Όχι
Ναι δεν το ακούω.
Are you merging omega and omicron only in the lowercase?
IMHO lowercase phi should definitely be that symbol that sort of looks like an extravagant cursive p (), not the one that looks like an o with a slash through it.
Why ν -> n?
Because I'm using the latin v for the αυ, ευ = aV / aF. So I felt like keeping the greek ν alongside the "new" v would make them hard to distinguish.
But you're right, this adds confusion. Especially for a native Greek speaker, and I'm not very satisfied with this solution.
Any suggestions?
PS. Updated site with some more info about the conversions.
Why not αβ, εφ;
Merging all the iota sounds into ι, and ω into ο destroys too much grammatically. I don't understand what the point of this is?