Talk:Romanization of Greek

• got rid of the English lower case letters for clarity.
• got rid of the macrons, cos English "long vowels" (really, for the most part, diphthongs) don't match the Greek sounds or letters at all.
• for that matter, the Greek vowel sounds don't even match their own letters any more than ours!
• added an "IPA" tag so we know what's supposed to be in that column.
• put all the English letters in the correct location so they'll show up in the chart. I think all the consonants match up correctly.
• wonder about some of the IPA values -- /ai/ for lambda, /r/ for eta? Greek must be a lot weirder than I thought, and it's already pretty weird!
• Elemtilas 23:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I copied the table from the Xrirampur Romanization. I was quite confused by the table, as you could guess.

And the language is only weird because, well uh, it's not! :D Misterxeight 01:57, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for filling it in for me, but if I may ask; the reason I did a page on Greek Romanization is because I don't particularly like the way it's done here. I noticed for instance for the letter "Χ" you said "CH" and indicated that the Greek to Scots (Scots Gaelig or the Germanic variant?). I usually tell people that it's the same sound as the Spanish jota (j) and the English "H" sometime with a sort of sound attached to it I don't know how to write into English. Another one was "Φ". I don't understand why people will Romanize it to "f" and "ph", that's simply overkill IMO. So I'd ommit the "ph" in IB English. I'd also like to see people stop saying "automobile" or "nautical". It should actually be written as "aftomobile" and "naftical" if we want to remain true. But I suppose all romanizations are wrong in some ways, and that would be a mammoth undertaking for me to tamper with IB English, something way out of my IB sphere of influence. Misterxeight 02:22, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Exactly why I noted chi with the best equivalent in Scots. In English, we don't have that sound, so the letter is called "KI", with the same sound as "KAPPA" or "cat". Spanish "j" varies too much for it to be reliable as a comparison. "PHI" is romanised to "F" or "PH" because English has (at least) two spellings for that sound. Generally speaking, Greek loans into English get PH. Greek loans into other languages, like Spanish, get F. In IB English, Greek loans are spelled with PH, so it's probably not so good an idea to get rid of it in the chart. We write and say "nautical" because that's a loan from Latin, nauticus. (Yes, Latin got it from Greek. But Greek got it from Indo-European, so nyah!) We don't write "aftomobile" because our loans come via writing, and often came in ancient times when Greek "AU" was pronounced /aw/ or something similar. Back when Greek pronunciation still made sense! And also, most Greek loans come via some kind of Latin, which treats auto- as /awto/. Changes in Greek pronunciation is a matter of Greek historical linguistics, not English phonology. Yeah, don't tamper with English. Now, if they borrow a mòdern Greek word, especially through non-literate channels, there is the strong possibility that it will have a funny spelling (and quite possibly alongside a "more correct" spelling). But most loan words will continue to be based on Greek spelling, rather than Greek sound. Hence, "gyro" will be /dZaIro/ in English, even though gastromandes all know it's really more like /hiro/. Or "autogiro" -- /aUtodZaIro/. Elemtilas 14:39, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, no I know the story of alpha and upsilon and "a" and "u", it seems us Greek historians are quite confident those Latins stole it from us!

Indeed, it's no joke. The Greeks stole those letters from whoever stole em from the Western Semites, and the Etruscans stole em from the Greeks and the Romans stole em from the Etruscans.

All jokes aside, I'm still sort of apprehensive about "Χ" being written as "ch" because I don't understand. If you'd be willing to explain, I'd like to come to a middle so at least the romanization of isn't the same as our world, or else there's no reason to have a page on it. If you accept, I'll be quite pleased, it's nice not to be the only one in the realm of all things Greece in IB. Misterxeight 03:25, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Quite simply, /x/ is the sound the Greek letter CHI makes and the sound the Scots / English / German digraph CH makes (like "iCH bin ein berliner"). Close enough for government work, anyway, and close enough to make oneself understood.

To be honest, there's probably not a whole lot of sense in having a page devoted to the romanisation of Greek, because the work is basically identical to *here* in that any scheme (another Greek word!) will almost certainly be based on Latin, long and still the major language of science and learning in IB. Specific to "x", you have two Xs in Greek, one that goes "ksss" (XI) and one that hisses like a cat, "khhh" (CHI, as in chi-rho). In English, we have only one, the one that goes "ksss".

These two Greek Xs get transliterated differently into English. For example, take the venerable name "Xenophon". This comes from Greek "Ksenofwn" (with a "ksss", a short "eh" and a long "ohhh", and a rising-falling accent over the o-mega): Ξενοφῶν. We, in English, pronounce it "Zehnofahn" (with a zed, a short "eh" and a short "ah"), even though we spell it a la Greca. Since the Greek name starts with a XI, ksi, we spell it with an EKS, even though we pronounce it with a ZED; compare with xenophobia, xylophone, etr. (Not to be confused with Greek words starting with a zeta, like "Zdeoos", which you now pronounce "Zefs" and we pronounce "Zoos", Ζεύς. (This is because Greek eu > Latin eu > English ew or oo. And in the other direction, Greek eu > Modern Greek ef.)) Of the other X, let's look at "Christ". This name comes from Greek "Khristos" (with a "khhh", a short "i" a short "o" and a rising accent on the o-micron: Χριστός. We, in English, pronounce it "Kristows" (with a KAY, a short i and a short o, and the stress accent on the "i"). It's been borrowed via Latin as "Christ", still with a KAY. Note that in OCS, it's spelled "Hristos", following after the hissy quality of the Greek CHI, whereas Latin and English took the stop quality of Greek CHI.

So, the reason why Greek XI and CHI are transliterated differently in English is primarily because they are two different sounds in Greek and because how they were treated in Latin. Later, how the Latin versions of the sound interacted with later French and English phonologies, lexicons and spelling conventions becomes important. By that time, the way Greeks have actually come to pronounce these sounds is irrelevant. How modern Greeks of the xxi century pronounce them is of even less actual bearing on how English spells Greek borrowed words. Any more than how Italians now pronounce their Latin. I mean, we don't write "Etchey womo!" where Pilate says "Ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος", just because people on the streets of Rome pronounce "cc" as "tch"!

As for Greek letters in IB, I remind myself that English *does* have a sound akin to the Scots "ch" *in some dialects*. Thus "nicht" is pronounced, well, "nikhht" by some English speakers (presumably with decompendated shortness of vowel, ih rather than ee or eye). Be that as it may, the Greek CHI has long been spelled "ch" in Latin, and then in English, so that shouldn't change. We could get rid of the "Scots" label, though, as presumably the sound would be more familiar to English speaking ears *there*.

Hope that explains. There's a lot of history between Ancient Greek and Modern English, a lot of sound changes and a lot of borrowing on all sides.

Elemtilas 13:19, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem I have with "X"'s romanization is, it doesn't make a "k" sound. It's just like our "h", as in "horse, how, hen, house". Some other problems I have with our world's romanization is omega and iota being romanized to "oi" which makes it sound like "oy vey" and not "Palaiologee". Another thing is when mi and pi are put together they make our letter "b", some people read this as "mp" so in instead of "banana" they'd say "mpana", which actually sounds quite weird. Maybe we're sort of not understanding each other because you know Ancient Greek, whereas I know only Modern. Maybe in Ancient Greek "X" sounds like a "k", but in modern Greek we use have kappa to fill the job. Misterxeight 02:33, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

OK. 2000 years ago, when Romans started borrowing Greek words, KSI had a "k" sound. Even though, at least in English, we no longer pronounce KSI initial words with a "ks" sound (we pronounce them with a "zee" sound), we continue to spell these words with an X. Romanisation doesn't imply a sound for sound equivalence. As I mentioned before, there is a vèry long history of borrowing Greek words and spelling them in Latin, French, English and Castilian (just to name a few!). While I don't know ancient Greek all that well, what I do know is that it is that ancient level of the language that all of our modern spelling of Greek words rests upon. It's not like we're meeting a (non-literate) language for the first time and we're trying to devise a spelling for it. We're talking about an ancient and highly regarded language with a long history of literature and influence on languages around it. I guess if you're trying to devise some kind of spelling system that would help the learner of Modern Greek make himself understood, a scheme that delineates all these weird combinations would certainly be in order. And you're certainly welcome to come up with something on your own. For example, I recognise the word "eucharist" in its more ancient form, something like "ewkhhareestos". But surprise! Upon meeting a Greek speaker, I find that thank you is "ehfhareesto"! This doesn't change how we spell "eucharist" in English, nor how we pronounce it (yookarist). The romanisation of these words is not based on how modern Greeks pronounce the word, but largely how it was spelled (and presumably pronounced) thousands of years ago. Elemtilas 02:12, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

You know, I was wondering if I could change this to the Romanisation of Modern Greek. OTL, this had a precedent in that the Italian and French Crusader Invaders had their subjects write their Greek in Latin letters. Now if I do recall correctly, I think the Crusader States or the Italians lasted longer in Greece than *here*. So, I'd need to look into Renaissance Venetian-orthography to get an idea as to what this system would look like. Or perhaps I could cheat and make this a much later invention. Just some food for thought. Misterxeight 19:30, 12 December 2012 (PST)