Conlangery #88: Ancient Greek (natlang)

Conlangery #88: Ancient Greek (natlang)

Published: Mon, 08 Apr 2013 06:07:39 +0000 \

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Transcript

utterance-id1 <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> [noise] <unk> language is for people who created the mom george carlin which me down the road way william atmosphere and over in maine we have mike when pete either [noise] so how you guys doing [noise] doing okay hanging in there you guys are happy about the weather uh but it was glorious over here it was like in the forties and fifties it was really nice it is not doing that here it is hard going again and laugh at this guy he was in the eighties neither teases me mm but i will stop whining about the way oh dear i'm trying to find something really quick because i thought i wanted to mention this i uh just found out about this recently was something that one of the linguistics professors uh sent out yeah i guess it went out on linguist list um they have you heard of these m. o. o. c.'s mhm they um the massively or massive online courses or whatever oh sure so uh virtual linguistics campus is has started one and uh it's free it's ah fanatics phonology and transcription it looks like it's sort of a beginner level thing but we may have some that would be really useful for a lot of beginning con leaders who people yea yea i p. a. and and describing sounds and stuff and they want to him for something different than a native language that sounds great it looks like it looks like your standard course um they cover you know basics uh uh i look at sort of the uh the materials they have uh like what the syllabus is and stuff and it's like they cover just sort of looks like basic so far to explore tori fanatics and then uh a little loves to basic phonology and then use english as an example to uh lead people through it so good useful for some beginners you know might want to register for that it's one of these things you work at your own pace and uh they have online discussions were students can help each other out and stuff so uh anyway uh with that little bit out of the way i'm just wanted to through ah shut up to that i caught um perhaps we have a featured language today it is a natural language and one that has been mentioned on the show many times before so uh you may some some of the material and maybe a little familiar but you know uh there's probably going to be some new stuff because this is something that william particularly knows quite a bit about we're talking about ancient greek my first [laughter] i can hear the violence playing [laughter] um okay so i guess the first thing i wanted to look at is why on earth would containers wants to look at ancient greek <unk> killer so i have a few points on that that [noise] seem worthwhile first of all it is one of the longest nearly continuously documented languages in the work about three thousand four hundred years so it is a really excellent source of interesting historical changes entire like telling the g. that follows from that sort of stuff it's an interesting laboratory of language contact if you go in for that sort of thing by comparison to the standard european language most of his no it is stranger than most people's suspect in my opinion yeah we've had you've mentioned before on various shows some of the just off the wall as far as european languages are concerned features that ancient greek cats right now um and it is really easy to find acceptable information online on the language some of it's [noise] excuse me a little bit old um in particular almost everything said up until a few decades ago about the greek discourse particles is complete crap in my opinion [laughter] or or nearly complete crap i'm going to get hate mail from people who still think dentist and it's a great book um but apart from that a lot of what you can find online is pretty good and there are some newer sources available online as well which can help you get a better picture of what the current state of our nose into the languages um so that that that's why i think this language should be interesting to call makers apart from you know learning how to read at home or in the original language [laughter] phones going itself in my opinion um i will be pronouncing the language somewhat differently than a lot of <unk> so if you took greek in high school or college you probably learned what's it called the arrest me in pronunciation so for example you pronounce a sado like an inch or dental forget it i will pronounce it <unk> i use a reconstruction nazi asian because um my big hang up in ancient greek is greek verse and greek neater makes no sense at all in who sees reconstructed pronunciation oh okay so you have to <unk> that's that's why you're using yeah yeah yeah um right so we just jump into some basics of phonology yeah sure um it has long versus short bottles that matter um some of those long bottles have qualities shift some don't so the standard uh long version so [laughter] um so uh is either long or short and has no quality difference there's this very very funky thing that happens in um classical greek that drives people bunkers and that is the short bowels of your mid bottles of your <unk> down the shore ones are ten in the long run or lax ooh oh okay which is kind of opposite of how most people expect that to be so i'm using tend to lax i apologize the short ones are higher than the loved ones which are lower so you <unk> it is short and eh he's the long one who is short oh in the long run now is this for for the reconstructed pronunciation or all across the board uh that's how they were pronounced in the ancient as as far as me understand it so that's how i'm gonna <unk> using the reconstructed um most people who followed the wrestling pronunciation do exactly the opposite which causes some <unk> uh yeah it it may be useful to for people to to sort of know that anything that we know about ancient greek [noise] is ah reconstruction and particularly the pronunciation we can't necessarily know for certain but right we have a pretty good idea to have a pretty good idea from lots of different sources and unfortunately this can be a point of political contention um especially if you went to school in greece under the generals so up until the seventies um there is a strongly held belief basically the aristotle pronounced <unk> identical <unk> huh what kind of ridiculous it's kind of insane but you'll get hate mail for saying that it's insane so um uh modern greeks obviously for the most part modern reaches pronounced ancient greek the modern language because there's a lot of similarities in terms of vocabulary that keeps getting sort of read grabbed in drug it modern language and the line but it sometimes irritates the you're the um reconstruct pronunciation and some go so far as to say that you know aristotle talk like them [noise] um so i know ah i don't want to even to duct tape a quick question are insane greek in modern greek <unk> similarly distance as <unk> as old english and and things or are they <unk> they are not usually and tell us a modern greek cannot read ancient greek without a good deal of schooling okay that's that's useful now yeah um those who've had schooling forget how hard it was you know and sometimes think that they're very simple but they're really not [laughter] a lot a lot happens in three thousand years no <unk> [laughter] yeah um i i would even um you know you would probably know better than this but i like even suspect it would be more different than uh <unk> uh anglo saxon to english because um that's possibly not as much time distance to back the anglos i write big greek it's always been very conservative in multiple ways there's always been an egg lost six situation where ancient greek is constantly surrounding them um i mean if you're going to church you are going to hear something quite like clint angry any educated behavior what's happening in asia greek and it wasn't until the eighties that actually spoken modern greek became a standard for use in newspapers and so forth really yeah so they were like up until the eighties they were still using some some bachelor dies complements or yes some highly classes sizing [laughter] wow <unk> that no one actually spoke [laughter] yeah but because that was so much bits of it do to filter into the the modern <unk> uh didn't and the monkey which is what you'd call them a modern language [noise] ah so there's constantly greek modern weakest constantly being renewed and revitalizing made strange by borrowing stuff from the old language at various points okay so that puts a hit on you'd think after three thousand four hundred years a whole lot would have changed um but it's a <unk> a little bit by first of all this animal logical spelling system um <unk> like a huge number of different songs and the bible sounds that are on now pronounced identical hitting monitored greek name lee um still retain that old spellings [laughter] oh [laughter] so [laughter] how how how craziest the smelling system is it worse than english i think [laughter] if you grow up speaking modern greek and then you have to learn to spell it it must be oddly maddening so i pronounced <unk> one of the words the greek has for so u._k. in modern <unk> [laughter] yeah [laughter] yeah [laughter] um is where'd you hear often <unk> hee hee hee anyway um right so that's another interesting thing about cricket it's very complicated and up until the eighties it was assume that if you want it to use modern greek you were uh uh dirty communist and if you wanted to use classical <unk> so [laughter] yes yeah so i mean it's a complicated situation language situation even in my degree to this day although i think it must be come now i i can already me in my mind drawing parallels to uh another language we mentioned the law yeah [laughter] um let's see here uh the continent system um it's sort of interesting in that it has voice <unk> voice was asked braided and voice for stops mhm and then it has a few you know residents and and uh one or two siblings or africa it's rather <unk> rather uh one [noise] africa and that's about it it's not a super complicated inventory um except for this voice was an aspirin aspirin voice a distinction which is a little bit different um i think it also <unk> armenian uh but that's it in terms of uh that through distinction in the european languages outside of india <unk> it has extremely conflicts <unk> as you expect them to do with your language but highly restricted set divert funnel confidence basically and and our <unk> <unk> a few propositions break that but that's because they're coming just part of the following work um so that's it for the phonology doesn't excite me as much so um when you're talking about other things mostly um in terms of the grammar [laughter] it has a mass of <unk> and he regularity it really is a remarkably irregular language um having studied for many years i sometimes forget how hard it was just weird [laughter] there's a lot of it going on um who was it georgia mike <unk> just before we sort of the show freaked out about the definite articles uh yeah so i i looked at a definite articles and looking at how many forms there are it's not it's <unk> i mean it's not a huge deal but it is a lot of forums because so you'd distinguish masculine feminine and neuter yep i have uh uh it's in the ancient greek grammar p._t. a page the tables let's it's in the links but so yeah masculine feminine neuter also corresponding with senor tool and plural number and you also have non <unk> <unk> <unk> accused of yes so other people can calculate how many forms of the <unk> the the uh uh the articles are are but uh there's quite a few thirty six [laughter] wow and i'm sorry but that just corresponds to the decline shunned ah now is it <unk> it was going to have um the same number of forums it's actually <unk> one additional calling for the bucket of oh not usually only present a distinction in the masculine singular yeah it looks like mountains also have a park you do mhm mm right uh have <unk> of course yes um and you can see that some of the forms are actually identical to which is obvious that's going to happen uh is it i don't know uh wrestling the only other case language that i've studied um but do certain positions also dance around with these different cases running around all sorts of oh goodness yes [laughter] down the hall promiscuous and done with whatever case they feel like it's suits them at the moment you have some that only occur with one case but others will occur with up to three cases [laughter] different you know shades of meeting um typically the accused of indicates motion data indicates location and each other too um motion from [noise] do do <unk> case does that's yeah that's yeah that that's one of those things that some languages personal named skipped case some some some dumb oh yes they do agree okay and some of the most common name several years <unk> oh [laughter] really [laughter] you have iraqi electric conscience for personal <unk> yeah [laughter] [noise] soccer she's is a nuisance in more ways than one [laughter] [laughter] that's kinda awesome and um some feminine names like south of the poet those they're nine and the end and omega a very unusual but we have a bunch of <unk> uh names that [noise] mhm oh right so we learned that up and down system and there are a bunch of <unk> um it's the verbal system where <unk> morphology really goes completely bunkers [laughter] it is very <unk> um talking a little bit of uh the stadiums so you have an imperfect gifts them which might be the the basic stem if it's not the basic stuff it's a drives them then you have multiple ways forming the improv pakistan okay suffix is in sixties <unk> are pretty much any combination of that um although i don't think you'd ever get any can fix plus <unk> <unk> and there's a small class the very common groups that are we duplicated in the perfect oh at a different kind of reduced location and we'll see in other parts of her just to keep it interesting okay so we're getting bored right the protective standards are the most primitive stan ford is created with either a suffix or a small number of ones that take <unk> mhm and the perfect them is really appreciated um if any of these birds start with bottles and you try to <unk> get them in all sorts of <unk> going to happen sometime the policy of longer sometimes other things happen um and the future's them it seems to be uh a newcomer to the system it's very easy to suffix so you're talking about status of all these do they have each different paradise for the complications or is it um like there's a limited kind of a different stems gate is not living if yeah i didn't think so i think it was very very much a <unk> it is right and yeah it's definitely affected um there are commonality easter patterns your second person singular is usually going to have a stigma and it somewhere in the <unk> um the only weirdness is that sometimes um if the <unk> following it the stigma disappears [laughter] um and then follow contraction happens [laughter] oh gosh right um so you can get entertainment's there in addition so you've got active and media passive yes you've got indicative subjective opted stephen imperative moods and and you can just throw these altogether neater l._a. there or something on the order of seven hundred forms of or <unk> [noise] i think my i just don't do enough i've ran into a black hole loss so so you do have to so so there are quite a few <unk> you have to be a way you do and there are patterns <unk> like i said to make it easy to learn these things if you're trying to learn um commonalities that will pop up from time to time now you mentioned <unk> passive this the this article has middle voice in passive what a survey right so that not theoretical argument some people believe there is a few passive in classical greek i do not okay <unk> right right so so are all those forms i mean that sounds like a lot of form a plethora forums mhm um but are they all pretty much used um commonly like english you have crazy forms like you know i <unk> you could come up with him so we don't even use like talking about what the past [noise] subjective and all that but all those actually used and no fully functional no i mean all of these forms do occur um different kinds of futures are kind of rare homer and the perfect means something different in home or that it means later so they're not particularly common and then they become much more common as the language evolves oh okay um i wouldn't expect them all to be equal no no no they're not equally common um mostly you expect to see forms of the improve active in forms the perfect mhm um eventually the prospective meaning started taking over more and more territorially until it became it sort of took over the jumped into perfect as well and then the perfect just disappear so modern <unk> as more lost can we go over very quickly the difference between perspective and perfect 'cause sometimes i kind of forget what perfect actually does and i'm sure some of our audience does 'cause i know what so act paid homer the perfect verb refers to state okay and state is often come to me and the perfect in a perfect refers to an action that happened in the past it has effect still existing in the present mhm yeah like i have eaten <unk> exactly where it can affect of simply present a snapshot picture of something that happened i ate right so that says oh it's it's a complete action in the past no okay ah dumped coming up completed it can mean completed but that is that it's course since the the main thing of of uh upper effective is that you are looking at the action as a single event right where it's an imperfect if you look at the progress of it right to um typically in greek narrative background information is given any protective and then the the events you care about er in the perfect of some of the <unk> uh type of preventive i have no idea because what people call rather different from language language it's almost um question yeah yeah i was uh uh uh spanish <unk> spanish <unk> spanish predator it is i like i pass <unk> <unk> <unk> is what i would characterize as but um it depends on what language yeah yeah what what what that actually label actually applies to sew but but the point i was getting to clarify that perfect is different from perfect given that perfect is an event in the past that has continuing consequences for the press okay [noise] i had another question also okay um i'm getting away from spanish and back into greek ancient greek um so those forums and they <unk> they all inflicted like um just on the one where there are a few oddball uh <unk> <unk> in different moods when you get out into where kinds of perfect i sleep perfect metal some junk given up to have right to have an f. word right so they have a form of the verb to be in the correct mood and and a quarter so that's pretty you know using the book to be is pretty common yeah um and <unk> them up to be follows the uh perfect or follow no it's it's just presented that way in the tables streak syntax is radically non configurations oh of course we didn't come anywhere [laughter] he could come <unk> totally different part of the sentence [laughter] right it has to be the same claws but yes <unk> [laughter] it's like an easter i find the <unk> right um so people who love morphology and tables should really spent some time looking at greek verbs [noise] ah <unk> they are they are quite a crazy we should mention that for the ah resources that uh we are uh giving it may be useful for you to sort of go over the greek alphabet if you're yeah [laughter] yeah isn't that that's <unk> yeah yeah it's not it's not going to be terribly difficult to learn but you know looking at these the fact that i am not totally familiar with the group that means that i'm a little bit lost looking at the church just glance [laughter] the only thing that loses means that there are a lot of like uh digress for especially the battles and some of the confidence sounds so that's just what throws me a little bit for a loop what do you mean well not like um you'll have like you were saying earlier there are a lot of <unk> ah <unk> <unk> e you might have if you don't spelling that's where it's like oh well not only in modern greek and ancient greek they all had district pronunciations oh yeah i think the greek at least that we're presenting the ancient greek representing probably uh comes very soon after the <unk> that was invented so you're probably going to have nearly footing like yeah you know be nearly <unk> whereas uh if you were if you do do modern greek then it's ah that's funny misty is going to go way yeah [laughter] yes it goes away in a big plus that go with [laughter] [laughter] um one thing i want to say is the the normal verb that you're given the full greek <unk> which means to lose like let something go um makes everything would tiny but it's not really tiny different verbs have different prison system so there isn't entirely separate um conjugation for a small <unk> a very constantly occurring presence there were duplicating presents have different endings um you have nots too but three separate kinds of perspective um one which just desperately confusing link looks like in perspective and other kinds of stems mhm so you get some verbs that looked like oh i learned that in less than five that is a pass in perspective no that's productive [laughter] and we're so you have to pay attention to stand and there are at least two kinds of perfect as well <unk> that's that's that's wonderful too i think that <unk> this is a wonderful thing uh have so much irregularity and have <unk> look at it because you know as <unk> we often tend to not have a really a realistic amount of her irregularity in languages we make so it's it's useful to actually look at something like this and say like oh you can have a language that totally does it make sense [laughter] not not really but not <unk> that's a little extreme to say but you get the point um and then there was so wait a minute so i'm just looking at so there there's lots there's sorry something caught my ah this is actually back in like mountains but it looks like zeus has altered nation between the the the the the the sound and uh a a delta yes yes but the question of juices very weird [laughter] it's quite different indifferent dining foul train just too many changes because yeah yeah yeah <unk> if you had a um glide like uh <unk> those evaporated by the time historical greeks appears um but they still existed and so all sorts of men this happens when they go away [laughter] you have at least two separate patterns of declared <unk> somewhat you keep busy does need a sandwich keep the delta <unk> um what do you watch soccer fans didn't find the link to that and i put down below i'll ask questions on that later [laughter] one less thing i want to say that was interesting about the verbs i mean i'm sure i mentioned before episodes is verb <unk> city interacts with aspect in interesting a nifty ways um particularly in the perfect imperfect of system distinction um <unk> is what you might call lexical aspect it's the intrinsic internal ah state you know intrinsic internal event structure of ever sneeze is not as events that can have much to ration [laughter] you sleep is so for example in ancient greek the bird for to be sick if using the prospective can also mean to get sick [noise] ooh so an eighty like we're we're the perfected meaning can have uh in in code of sense it has a sense of starting something to get sick oh two die versus to be dead that sort of stuff whereas <unk> eighty like for no let me say that again eighteen <unk> [noise] something with a bomb duration when used in the in perspective has can have the sense of to try to do something oh oh okay right he tried to hit the enemy he tried yeah right well that makes sense to me i think other languages too yeah i i don't think it has to great but it's an interesting little thing alright if anything else people wanted to ask about the verbs oh and things but er i think they would get caught been smorgasbord things there and we have the the resources yeah yeah um another sort of interesting notable feature eventually <unk> giant piles of discourse particles many of them [laughter] they like to dance together in not necessarily into did way so you get certain combinations of particles um have meetings that are not obviously the scrabble by just knowing the meetings with the two component parts or three component parts for that matter um if you do a google search on <unk> particles you'll find lots of pages of people trying desperately to help you understand what the hell's going on [laughter] they will use words like emphatic but to apply to multiple discourse particles which will help you much which tells you that they're working off of old information yes well [noise] i can't help you that i <unk> i i went looking for some a lot of the really good information sort of modern linguistic approaches to the greek particles were still hidden mind paying walls unfortunately in journal articles oh you know the show would benefit very much from some open access journals [noise] it would it would [laughter] lots of lots of things would would benefit from uh open access linguistics journal yeah um there are several literary dialects <unk> based on them 'cause i like so when people talk about ancient greek they don't actually mean one thing when things right the greek of humor is different from the greek of aristotle in plato is different from the greek uh the bible is different from the <unk> very different from the <unk> um mhm most even if you could spend years and years learning to read homer and you know plato and <unk> and then you would see south or you'd have no idea what was going on [laughter] geographical um <unk> more of a time based difference or <unk> but mostly geographic in this case so i'm looking at a flash photo the greek of your ex and if you looked around you know the the uh <unk> <unk> no the area that spoke greek greek of phones [noise] um how much is that the difference of talking about like from northern grease to southern grease don't there's like a vast difference um the split doesn't go neatly north south but yes you have a bunch of um a._o._l. dialects spoken in um the the coast of the <unk> um so because of the <unk> was living basically and then you're ease um so for that matter was homer um north of where <unk> is is a big eye on nick speaking area which is very close to the language spoken in athens the people in florida and in the palestinian spoke and other dialects called um lack of <unk> going to say that um will just say they spoke a different island um [laughter] i never <unk> sometimes i know these words really well but i didn't have to say them in english [laughter] that's wonderful i think um that is that uh like addicts <unk> <unk> right yeah sure because the simpler name for all of those sort of <unk> what street dialects with wow with and be cut early grease itself has coastline and rocks [laughter] very hard to do agriculture there you can there are places where there's good agricultural space but not many so the greeks we're sending up colonies alot very early which is why you get these weird pockets of other dialects popping up in different places so in sicily mostly dora dialects were spoken because that's where most of the settlers came from door speaking area ah same with the <unk> the roads um but then some other islands spoke language is very similar to what was spoken in athens um and that's just a normal thing in the smack in the middle of <unk> was a language very close to language spoken way up north and no one's quite sure how that happened [laughter] and now all in the ancient world by the time grease really enters the mate you sort of international stage and the opinions assert their dominance <unk> so a slightly simplified version of addict greek is used everywhere and eventually becomes what we called <unk> which is use throughout the middle east as a trade language um and eventually you know is a language hurt everywhere from france to almost india mhm [noise] and that pretty much the blood rated all of a local dialects their little traces like there's um [noise] something called <unk> which is a kind of a little <unk> um in western greece but that's about it um mostly those those are all flattened by the time alexander's great did his thing oh yea i just found a link for the map so yeah yeah yeah yeah well link that map in the <unk> so useful thing to have [noise] a [noise] she's high on your that car i can't <unk> i can [noise] uh [noise] well anyway [laughter] i'm uh i'm getting a meat myself sick for a second [noise] okay yeah i just tried to find them out the showed a lot of the area 'cause i don't know where some my geography is not to go to that area so noticed that smack in the middle of arcadia which is north of where um sport it yeah is that like [noise] <unk> yeah but it's also the dialect spoken way off in cyprus uh-huh um yeah so that's <unk> yes <unk> that's that's interesting yeah yeah um and <unk> then you see eye on it which is in that that <unk> around the coast and then you see um that it is both north and south of the arab speaking area okay what time period with this this um i would say <unk> well onto the beginning of the classical period okay before the um a senior and started pushing everywhere mm okay i just do good greek dialects and you can find the whole mess of those math yeah yeah um now i'm uh i'm sure you could find them for different periods and such to too but just for a <unk> matter of uh i'm sorry click click click question um in terms of scale that area is that as large and say you know a state of the u. s. or is that a matter of like um there's not really a scale on there isn't the tail and i'm not because there's large buddies of water in the middle i would say larger than a single state that's for sure yeah of these were all very closely intertwined these darned dialects if they were basically well well the uh useful thing to draw from this though might be <unk> realistically i think if you compare this to a physical map you could probably draw some of these um dialect borders from like um rivers and mountains and such right to uh big and uh certainly you know you have ireland do whatever or or their own kind of thing right in general the colonies when possible kept reasonably close ties with their mother city who do the metropolis em but especially if you were on the in the event um you are likely to be conquered by the peruvians [laughter] but that that cypress is really weird because they they arcadia dialect otherwise like landlocked right it is thought but it is one of the earliest versions of greek too intrusion degrees and that didn't might be the dialect at our home american heroes probably spoke something quite like those dialects <unk> possible [laughter] yeah who knows [laughter] all right so if you take the effort to learn some greek enough to be able to read a little bit of it and then start looking at the greek dialects you can get some really great ideas about things you can do um in terms of come they can die like <unk> i think <unk> i just um i just google one other thing that i was looking at in terms of square miles reese's between the size of louisiana mississippi in times square miles right [noise] so [noise] although there's there's plenty of like water and <unk> yeah there's plenty of water but just for the terms of how <unk> square mile <unk> <unk> oh mountains okay i thought you said muffins for a second i'm like yes lots of muffins muffins muffins i don't think they do like about looking <unk> which i love yeah yeah and um for my okay actually i don't know what those are sounds don't have no clue about it you know <unk> <unk> oh that's nice yeah [noise] [laughter] okay so another relevant feature of classical <unk> is that it is radically non configurations mhm the word order is unlike anything you have ever seen before i promise you now one thing i want to ask you about um the <unk> you mentioned this on way back episode eleven i think mhm but one thing i do want to ask is about um ours is it more visible in poetry than in pros uh now do you still see like okay you still see it quite strongly and pros okay you know yes the poets get their hands on it and they go completely bunkers i can put like dark [laughter] yeah i have one word agreeing with another word seven words away mhm but that that sort of stretch doesn't have happened so much approach but various kinds of just location pressuring by <unk> english standards are happening in pros regularly okay i was <unk> yeah i was just saying because word order tends to shift a little bit more in poetry sort of cross linguistic playoff time and that's true in greece that's doing greek but even <unk> quite alone mhm okay uh participle are used worthwhile abandon in literature registers what does that mean so participles are just adjective that are acting like verbs walking in the dark i tripped over my cat so walking in the dark allows me to add uh yeah i was into the sentence by taking an adjective that axe verb like walking in the dark that agrees with the <unk> yeah greek loves participles if you see a piece of greek that doesn't have a part of the simple it is not real great [laughter] i [laughter] um is they're used in st louis commonly in literate registers but they're very common even less exhausted pros even in like <unk> which is closely approximate how people spoke [noise] there's a lot some verbs regularly require them as complements um they exist and all of the aspects and most of the taxes when they do all sorts of syntax things in addition to just being ways to make your sentences longer without adding some clauses that's an interesting thing putting aspect intense on our part of simple huh i guess we can do that we could say having walked in the house right english sort of had sort of there um but only because we have these <unk> then you add the complexity the great verbs you have many kinds of part of civil yeah um oh so one interesting thing for example and i gave a quote from home or but i don't think that matters um a future participle could indicate purpose mhm so he went to the switch shifts of the greeks in order to free his daughter okay and the in order to free part is just a future part civil agreeing with the subject oh okay that's interesting that's uh that's an interesting sort of extension yeah yes um um grammar is born hungry saying yes exactly [noise] oh one thing i want him to mention it sort of a minor some tactic oddity is greek does have a radically drunk and figure racial syntax but it's still within the non phrases kind of uptight mhm um and it doesn't really <unk> posts i mean uh postal america greek uh doesn't really interesting thing with it's article so homer does not have a definite article it has a thing that looks like a definite article but really it's a demonstrative pro now and then by the time we get to classical music that has become the article yeah we should actually going coming right back to the the non configure rationality we should probably since it's been such a long time since we had an episode uh you can go back to <unk> eleven if you want to learn more but the basic thing is a non configure racial language has more freedom with were order and can often take phrases apart yes um and you know put the put them in into ah into different orders spread them throughout the sentence and radically non <unk> language is just like i don't know what would be really the difference configurations <unk> mainly just the the word or ships a bit <unk> riding radically non configurations oh you are taking a a <unk> yeah um did another point then that word order is used indicates something other than taste rolls right it can it can be used for discourse purposes that can be used for [noise] uh and it must be it can be used for a whole lot of i'd rather than right in the case like greek um it is used for discourse management yeah um when we watch old all of that sort of stuff yeah and again we did a whole episode on that but i just wanted to sort of define it for people who are news this show right so initiate you can fracture an entree since in different parts of the different in some sense of um but more commonly the non face will stick together unless it mhm huge and there's this really fun thing that it does and it has this notion that is drilled into all of our heads as an students have greek of attribute if position and predicated position <unk> attributed position is anything that follows the definite article okay so the dog the big dog but you don't say the dog in the stairway injury you say the in the stairway talk oh mm 'kay um and this extends to all sorts of funny things you do not say well you can't say the dog of the man but you are much more likely to say the um demand dog oh man dog is a professional <unk> no it is the gender judges okay pile up uh up to three definite articles [laughter] too much more common so you guys don't realize it but at the top where i put williams notes ancient greek the first two were definite articles [noise] oh the oh okay the object william no [laughter] [laughter] so you just get <unk> articles in the front of a complex known for yes basically what you're saying i <unk> i've <unk> crazy complicated with an attribute that phrase involves a part of civil is about the only time you're going to get three of them but two hours to someone's car so are the articles they er compulsory you must put them right you you know usually i mean they're not i mean they still have their normal discourse function so sometimes you might not have an article but pretty often you are it's only it's only a definite article right yeah oh by the way it is kind of a curiosity uh so the greek reflects of william starts with like cameras like go what is it a <unk> which is the <unk> i i took the ancient latin version of the name and then <unk> oh okay so i was thinking like like <unk> when they always have a match up but i guess sometimes you might you might have a non without the article rather have the article by itself all by itself older like i don't know if they have 'em no if they were standing as like uh no i don't know that sounds really strange but but <unk> what we think of as the article in leader greeks can be used as just an old pro now like icy yeah look man icy duh like spanish <unk> or either way i i i wanted to mentioned stuff 'cause i saw a charcoal pronouns yes there there is gender distinction in third person pronouns earlier not yes yes yes okay i <unk> it wasn't exactly clear from that <unk> it was an arcade third person pronoun that does not make that distinction and instead as usual and uh demonstrative got hijacked to serve that function [laughter] okay right so that's what happened <unk> sandwich thing that stinking that um imposition is really interesting yeah good for <unk> idea for <unk> you know lots of good ideas con language because it has to <unk> [noise] very different language yeah really anything else about that before i move on to just a few little random lexical tidbits that i thought were cute [noise] uh <unk> um so great had some really interesting words [laughter] okay um uh on let's start with the first well i don't actually go to the bottom to list <unk> <unk> <unk> and the word is that a phobia uh-huh that represents a really interesting thing because in english we have guests and we have right in greece you have a relationship and two people and they get social relationship are both <unk> who are protesting accent media i mentioned the in my in a short recently oh that's right that's right that's probably why i was on my brain yeah so it's like a relationship kind of like siblings are the brother and sister are siblings right so so <unk> explain to us a little bit about what <unk> is from from what i understand it's just it's it's hospitality but you know it's higher salaries cultural there are all sorts of the end it differs from time to time it means something different to homers here than it means to an aristocrat indian uh-huh i mean to hovers heroes represented along cycle of mutual obligation for over a stick like face to face i mean there's one scene in [noise] you know somehow american idol or two guys meet and they have a long conversation for the strip bashing each other over the head was just typical and over and they realize that several generations back their fathers <unk> and we're friendly to each other on the battlefield exchange armor and then proceed to slaughter each other [laughter] [laughter] well then right that's interesting but i mean there were obligations that needed to be met uh and they cross you know through generations and there's this thing throughout many cultures where you have to be nice to guests right yeah i mean that's that's but hospitality isn't really an alien thing to us <unk> but the the different cultures express it in different right i just i just you know this is one of the things that can speak to her head as huck finn was his his encompasses both participants in that relationship there's not <unk> necessarily strong condition between distinction between gifted that makes a lot of sense to have have have one term for both <unk> from what i understand like this that goes back to <unk> indoor european uh <unk> which is the <unk> the the root for both gas and post yeah uh-huh so it's probably just uh uh uh carry over uh even older tradition sure absolutely um and then two other interesting words the first one is <unk> tunnel which is really great it means that basically means to escape notice interesting use it with the participle and then it basically means something like sneak successfully to escape notice i like this like ice skates noticed pilfering cookies [laughter] okay and then if you start adding uh compounds with this verb and changed the voice that also um has to do with um to forget something [laughter] we happened <unk> as a whole lot about derivation in into crick i've i understand that it's very happy to compound oh very very happy to compound and drive and keep adding suffix it's yeah okay um i don't know what all of the all the old fashioned grandmothers we'll have sections devoted just to the derby national system interesting uh-huh so you know look it's mind [laughter] right so the standard <unk> if you speak english is still <unk> f. m. y. t. h. it is <unk> not smith <unk> from my mind uh america voted her harvard it's sort of standard unfortunately mm kind of old um and then the next verb that i like is because <unk> tunnel and it means to do something first [laughter] first 'cause you're like a chick greeks used to put on comment threat that's right on top of my throat [noise] first post would be <unk> you know you know [laughter] <unk> whatever the word for post is going to be [laughter] i miss is another one where you have to use a part of explaining what it is you're doing first [noise] what are the what's the initial thought of that where does it it looks like <unk> yeah that's where it's at a rope tunnel tunnel um all all the time all <unk> all <unk> all they're all right it's not like i'm <unk> yes if you learn arrest me and then it's follow <unk> boring or soccer now um it's just ah tom anyway and all sorts of hanky panky happens in aspect and you're part of simple choice and all that which i'm not going to go into here but i just like the idea that something that we would you know use an adverb and frankly very often greek would use an editor or even funny syntax using additive um still has available a verbal way to express this idea which i always found interesting [laughter] [noise] mhm right and i'm sure there's some other interesting words um that that i'm missing but those were just three that came to my quickly as being sort of interesting ways of thinking about things um i have a list of some things we have do we keep age unlocked morphology which is fun um <unk> is a great website for people who teach themselves we can latin there have a bunch of scan textbooks which are usually scandals high quality than google ever managed uh-huh so you can find the standard cameras in textbooks that he really feel like getting into it um and then i have a link to a very dense summary agree grammar which in addition to just the grammar stuff has some discussion of usage which you might get ideas from there's a big long discussion of the different uses a pre propositions which might give people ideas for their own language is if they're proposition heavy mhm that's all great stuff all right uh <unk> are we ready might be you have any burning questions or anything before we moved feedback well no burning questions um on my i put a little list of things i found um i already so most of them the only thing that seemed that i that is well actually okay one small number of the question [noise] those yes the greek critics <unk> maybe this will help the messed up by a little bit of it but i'm not with a pity i linked there's like all sorts die critics were those all use that time of ancient greek and what do they all mean no they were not they were inventions by alexandria librarians who are in the business of recording ancient literature okay um they were very worried about people doing things wrong um because of the language is changing pretty rapidly at that point so they invented the accent <unk> no if you look at any early inscription there are no accent marks there no die critics at all um the <unk> system and the various breeding marks all came later oh okay and we're added to help people who are forgetting what the languages or something like [laughter] okay so what's supposed marks were used like i see there are there stress marking no but uh no that wasn't even that no that was not use so so none of these none of these are actually none of them were use and says that's interesting then <unk> considering you know things like the dirt their systems invented for ancient greek but um that's the kind of starting the whole at helen us to period at that where's that in terms of what we were talking about <unk> is post i was under the great ah okay so then this is this is not something that was developed an ancient greek necessarily not not in the greek that we were talking about earlier no i mean and even even so it was it i mean even when it was invented it was not use heavily into much later mhm i was just asking 'cause um the in some of our notes and i saw on some of the ah some of the greek all over there is like looks like uh currently <unk> summer's some letters or like uh like a dance over the or something like if we look at future participle can and can't purpose for example uh-huh and there's two <unk> oh and then there's two of the end with along with looks like an <unk> without the hook wait we are going to die oh that one of their breathing mark one of those is the accent and renting mark actually used to be a separate letter but uh [laughter] god help us so now one day decided that they were going to start using a different outlook on it [laughter] but that alphabet missed some sounds they still use so they had to come up with a day to cope with that [laughter] um yeah uh the one thing i wanted to to say is um you the <unk> on the on ancient greek um phonology actually says the ancient greek had a <unk> system yes oh you didn't mention that is that oh that's so boring i guess it didn't occur to me dimension yeah it had to pay jackson system um you had a low tone hi tone it fall into okay and the fall into it could only happen <unk> alright i mean yeah you can get into the the longer discussion at i mean if there it's not especially wilder interesting okay i was i was just uh wanting to mention that uh just to clarify you know uh type policy rent so any wording greek that starts the vowel we'll have a breathing mark one which means that there's an eight seventy one which means there isn't [laughter] why uh 'cause in addicts greek the eight so i'm still existed but it didn't anywhere else but why wouldn't you mean huh one for him when he got who don't want you know why who knows [laughter] uh and that well well <unk> yeah that's so um over some valid let's see there's also looks like almost like be <unk> that hungarian has a tooth last marx um like over the i think um the last word has it over the second plot letter and the second the last word has an open the second the first letter what i don't know i <unk> i don't see where that <unk> that that <unk> that's a fallen tone and then the one that those are those are those i thought that was oh right so that had the breathing mark with the circumspect mark on top of it [laughter] okay <unk> so i can see that clear ah yeah [laughter] and the <unk> uh we're talking about actually looks like a <unk> weathering some funds that looks like until the end other funds that looks like uh <unk> complex [laughter] yeah but anyway why don't we actually move on to [laughter] yeah that's all that cat will go and do it and i listen to that question about diet critic and die i would encourage aggression that's the only burning costs than i had and thank you for for attending that burning called you know and i i <unk> no one not learning question but how did you come to love ancient greek and what experience hadn't had things from greek uh i don't [laughter] i do i just do it's awesome everyone <unk> should love it when did you first said eyes that was love at first sight why do two things from greek oh yeah i saw in high school and didn't get to study until i got to college and once i studied in college i basically kept up even when i left college for a while to sleep texas [laughter] to wisconsin and finished school here in a completely different subjects not related to language at all i kept reading it um and then i found this really great textbooks for reading america treats by quite far uh that uh takes you to the first because the iliad and that really kept me into it next thing that ever since all right and uh so at all from <unk> [laughter] all right i think um i think we're we're safe to move into our feedback on the show uh that was that i hope that people are inspired to look in further into integrate because as we've mentioned the <unk> the we mentioned right off the top it's very heavily document it so you will find lots of stuff yes so um so we got an email from what's the name uh u._t. and this this person uh i'm not going to read this entire email because it's rather long but uh uh the he says hi george and coats pity you can't keep up with a tight schedule for the pot cast because happens school's important uh for short part test subjects you might want to do refuse a very ability of certain grammatical structures in some language or alternatively goes through the variety of uses some simple grammatical formed such as chase or a part of simple but can you can have in a single language as you said over and over again nothing in grammar is simple simple in well defined functioning <unk> and be available constructions and to be used for all kinds of different tasks cheering some chase studies of this from different languages what's good examples would be nice <unk> <unk> that is a very good um that is a very good idea that might be something considering like particularly my my um shorts i tend to put like a hook at the beginning and and discuss things from there that might be a good a good thing too that would work nicely into my structure for them right yeah um but it's interesting because i mean taking an example or <unk> you know really it examples of <unk> do completely different things at the generated case uh-huh they're both <unk> well i mean they're called that because the latin you know the roman still greek the terminology but um they called the same thing but they do quite different things mhm [noise] i was thinking also of like doing within a single language like one like i could look at chinese and just do an episode on uh the <unk> oh my gosh that's that's it might actually that might actually be something for a long [laughter] you could go into <unk> [laughter] but i mean i could do like <unk> fifty two of our discussion of love yes but um you know you <unk> you could do something like that in a single language and pick on one particular grammatical former particle or something yeah no um it sounds like a good idea uh and it fits in with sort of my own ideas for how how <unk> yeah [noise] and he gives us an example from finished which we're not going to go over right now uh maybe we'll blow short lynch of short episodes just on ancient greek [laughter] <unk> [laughter] yeah just a whole bunch of like random discourse particles in snaps <unk> because they're off awfully interesting or different forums <unk> works different aspect forums and search yeah okay um that about perhaps it up for this show uh those emails come to con language email dot com [noise] uh i will say um i do look at all the emails but you know you're a little bit more likely to be get the whole thing read on the show if you're a little bit concise more concise 'cause uh we're <unk> we kind of read them at the end here and we don't want always wanted to spend a whole lot of time on them i do if i use one on the show i do always put it in the show notes in full so ah people <unk> be able to read this one uh we also need those readings for the top of that show in a <unk> and uh there's information on the site to do that for you to uh do that and uh [noise] that's about it [noise] uh i'm just point to go to william and ask him what are your final words the wisdom they're greek you will love it [laughter] all right and how about my alright i found this on on line and ah it it works for a while it's uh it's um it's gonna get harder up before it gets easier but it will get better you just gotta make it through the hard suffer so ah west how's applies to kind of minority and greed is when you look at things in my life like a whole bunch of strange markings and mine's noodles and things and there's language may style really tough but with it and get some hard stuff and it'll get easier as you get better at it and um it's just a good word some wisdom for life so that's my words them with [noise] all right then i'm going to say happy [noise] thank you for listening to con lying or you can find our our cars insurance <unk> dot com you can send questions comments or topic or featured language suggestions to con lying or e. s. g. mailbox off to submit icon langhorn outlying rooting for the top of the show see our contributes page for detail [noise] web space for common language provided by the language creation society and our team music is by no device [noise]

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Conlangery Podcast/Conlangery 88 Ancient Greek (natlang) (last edited 2017-09-09 03:11:44 by TranscriBot)