Disputatio:Lingua Neograeca

This should be under Lingua Graeca Moderna, Lingua Graeca Hodierna, or if you want to go with Neograeca then at least Lingua Neograeca, but I wouldn't recommend that. Definitely not "Neograecum" though! See my comments at Translator's Guide: Syntax of Language Names. --Iustinus 05:44 feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Lingua Graeca Demotica

I’d prefer to reserve the term Lingua Demotica for the Egytian language preceding Coptic and to call Lingua Graeca Demotica Lingua Graeca vulgaris (cf. Conradus Gesnerus, Mithridates: de differentiis linguarum (1555) textus), meaning the sermo popularis, which evolved from the ancient koine and was to become the basis for Modern Greek, but is neither identical to the Greek of medieval literature nor to Standard Modern Greek.--Utilo 21:52, 19 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

Probably be good to have our resident egyptologist weigh in. Iustinus said he'll be back on sunday night. --Ioscius ^∞ 23:01, 19 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

If you mean "back" as in "no longer out of town," then that won't be until Tuesday. If you mean "back" as in "devoting significant energies to Vicipaedia", well that will be a gradual process :) --Iustinus 20:55, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

Since "Demotica" is (in its ancient Greek origin) a general term (= vulgaris/popularis), and since it has been used for at least two languages, I would think it better not to reserve it for either one of them, but to allow it to be used with both names, "Graeca" and "Aegyptia", either as a page heading or as a redirect. I think Lingua Demotica should be a discretiva page.

As to the best name for the Demotic form of Greek, maybe that should be discussed at the relevant page. However, I would say that it's not obvious we should adopt the Mithridates term. At the time that book was written, Greek wasn't even an official language, and the dispute between Demotic and Katharevousa didn't yet exist. So Mithridates is really talking about "modern, spoken Greek" and his term might have covered both standards.

I'm uncertain, therefore. But I don't feel strongly about it ... Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 08:38, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

I should point out just in case it's not clear that en draws a distinction between "Modern Greek" and "Demotic Greek": the former meaning any modern language that is a direct descendant of Ancient Greek (including, say, Tsakonian, Katoitalika, Yavanic and so on), and the latter meaning more-or-less the form of Modern Greek spoken in Greece. More at en:Modern_Greek#Varieties --Iustinus 20:55, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

For the record: Andrew's reasoning makes sense to me; but I don't have a dog in this fight, so I'll stay out of it. Certainly, however, the prime definition of demotic in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary is 'of, relating to, or written in, a simplified form of the ancient Egyptian hieratic writing' [N.B.: not 'language'], and the tertiary definition is 'of or relating to the form of Modern Greek that is based on colloquial use'. That pair of definitions, and their order, might give you Scriptura Demotica for the ancient Egyptian writing and Lingua Graeca Demotica for the modern Greek language. IacobusAmor 09:49, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

The MW may not mention Demotic Egyptian as a language, but Egyptologists definitely use it as such. In fact, that definition tends to be more salient in my mind: I walk around talking about how much I love Demotic, but I mean the language. The writing system I *&^%ing hate! :) --Iustinus 20:55, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't object to the conclusion in this case -- I know of no other "scriptura demotica" except the Egyptian one -- although I do object to drawing any such conclusions from Merriam-Webster! I don't see any reason why the order of definitions in a modern English dictionary (incidentally, you haven't said how they determine the order) should be relevant to decisions about headings in a Latin encyclopaedia. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:39, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

The order reflects the history of the word: the Egyptian sense has historical priority, so if you wanted lingua to be in both lemmata, the privileged lemma might be Lingua Demotica for the Egyptian one, and the less-privileged lemma might then be Lingua Demotica Graeca or Lingua Demotica (Graeca) for the Greek one. You can avoid that situation by calling one a scriptura and the other a lingua. IacobusAmor 11:55, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

Well, sorry to be picky, but even if the order in Merriam-Webster reflects historical usage, that's English historical usage, so it's irrelevant to us here. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:07, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

The first Egyptian & Greek references appear to be almost simultaneous. The date of the first known usage of the word in English is 1822, and the context contrasts demotic (Egyptian) script with hieratic (Egyptian) script: the time and the context suggest a connection with the Rosetta Stone, or at least with decipherment of ancient Egyptian writing-systems. The progress of science being what it was, one might therefore expect to see a cognate of demotic in reference to Egyptian script first appearing in French & German (&c.) at about the same time. A specifically Greek reference of demotic isn't in the first edition of the OED; nor is it in the second (supplement). Wikipedia says a reference to demotic Greek first appears in Greek in 1818. So you could flip a coin; or you could privilege the better-known reference—which (everyone, except perhaps Hellenophiles, would agree) is to the Egyptian script. IacobusAmor 12:28, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

For the record, the first use of "demotikos" in the sense of the everyday Egyptian script, contrasted with hieroglyphs, is in Herodotus's Histories, about 440 BC. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:45, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

But now I think about it this was probably a loan-translation from Egyptian, so the true history of the term should go back even earlier. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:54, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

The usual Egyptian name for Demotic writing is sẖ-šʿ.t "Letter- (or Document-) script." To my knowledge it's never called "popular" or "local script" in Egyptian, but I could be wrong. --Iustinus 20:55, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

Of course, thanks, I should have remembered "Document script" from Tabula Rosettana. So quite possibly the name "Demotic" for this script was Herodotus's original idea! He was certainly an innovator ... Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:34, 21 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

The first use of "demotikos" in the sense of Greek popular as opposed to upper-class culture is in ancient Greek comedy, a few years later. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:45, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

I'll change the order, it might be easier to stand the resentment of some Hellenophiles than of so many Egyptians ... - but I prefer to stay with two distinct lemmata for lingua and scriptura Aegyptia Demotica, for, as far as I know, Demotic is quite different from the Egyptian of the New Kingdom.--Utilo 12:38, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

Iustinus, who knows about Egyptian, has views on this question too; but I like your current arrangement of that discretiva page. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:50, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

I agree, Utilo did a good job there. --Iustinus 22:26, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem with "Lingua Graeca Demotica" and "Lingua Aegyptia Demotica" - if these terms are accepted. There is a discretiva page Demotica - I've just changed it - as a proposal - according to this discussion. As to Mithridates: He is talking about "modern, spoken Greek", as you said. His term neither covers literature of Byzantine time nor Katharevousa, which was initiated by Adamantios Korais (1748–1833) to create a new standard. Two more questions: Should a page about Καθαρεύουσα be called "Lingua Graeca Pura" aut "Katharevousa" aut "Catharevusa"? And: What to you think about changing Dialectus Graeca Communis to "Lingua Graeca antiqua communis" (cf. Lingua Graeca?--Utilo 09:44, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

It's a fact that "dialectus" was only once used in classical Latin, and then specifically of one of the variants of ancient Greek; that's why it seemed to me OK when I started that page. But, in general, we have no Latin warrant, so far as I know, to define a distinction between "lingua" and "dialectus". This may well be a Good Thing, since the only useful definition that I know is Joshua Fishman's, and it embodies a strong hint that all such distinctions are POV! So, if you're going to work on these pages, I would certainly not object to your moving that one to "Lingua Graeca antiqua communis".

Catharevusa does not mean "pura", more like "purgata" or "purificata". That's a Good Thing, too, because "pura" would certainly be POV. I would be happy with Catharevusa or Purgata. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:39, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

And don't forget the Neohellenic lingua Graeca known as Romaica. IacobusAmor 12:30, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

Seems an irrelevance.

...irrelevant but interesting :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:45, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

OK, On what to call the various forms of Greek, my mind is fairly open. As to the other issue, namely what to do about the polysemy of the word "Demotic", obviously I want to make sure Greek and Egyptian are distinguished. But beyond that I'm a bit stuck. I argued elsewhere for Scriptura Demotica and Lingua Aegyptia Demotica... but it seems like it would make much more sense to treat both of those topics under one lemma, and indeed en:Demotic (Egyptian) (admittedly a somewhat meagre article) does just that. But if we do that here, I don't know what the Latin article should be called. --Iustinus 20:55, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, the German Wikipedia has two lemmata, cf. the discretiva de:Demotisch!--Utilo 21:49, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

Cool! Well, all the best Egyptologists are Germans. --Iustinus 22:26, 20 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

To make it clear: I am no Egyptologist and I will only be too pleased to accept in this matter what viri docti propose!--Utilo 06:43, 21 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

Translitteratio

Habemus commentationem Translitteratio Linguae Graecae, quae translitterationem facilem reddit. Pronuntiationem hodiernam autem litteris Latinis recte describere mihi difficile esse videtur (et forsitan superfluum, cum sit Abecedarium Phoneticum Internationale). --Utilo (disputatio) 18:07, 3 Martii 2013 (UTC)

Gratias tibi Utilo. Nesciebam istam commentationem erat. Lingua Graeaca a nova sicut antiqua difficiliter esse possunt, sed subinde fungit. Loquor paulum paulum Neograecae. Habeo paulum Neograecae in pagina usoris mea, ut nomina adiectiva Graeca. Libenter vide.

Donatello (disputatio) 02:41, 4 Martii 2013 (UTC).

Recte sane Utilo dicis. Ardenter translitterationi antiquae favere faveo, at non sane ad Linguam Graecam Modernam describendam. Pertinet tantum ad voces nominaque in Latinum mutuanda/vertenda. Vale. --Iustinus (disputatio) 05:00, 4 Martii 2013 (UTC)