Wiktionary talk:About Greek/Draft new About Greek

New guidelines

 * "About Greek" was started 10 years ago and is no doubt out of date. If any of you would like to collaborate on a new one (see: "Draft new About Greek") please reply. I have started and think that it should be a short as possible - what is there can be undone!
 * Is there anything about any of the "Greek model pages" that you would like to change.
 * Please contact any editor that I may have left out.
 * Please remember TLDR and keep answers as short as you can. — Salt marsh . 18:06, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I like it! I especially appreciate that your draft page is shorter than the current page; as a result, the key messages are easier to find. Good job, Saltmarsh. :-)
 * One thing to note is that we've got different terminology used for the same thing "Unless they are invariable...", "...unless the term is undeclinable", and "(indeclinable)" in the example entry κουάρκ. Seems best to use one word throughout for clarity, and to go with "indeclinable" to be in line with actual entries.
 * -Stelio (talk) 10:01, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for noticing - I'm sorry, in the interim I had removed that section - but I hope that the increased shortness gets your approval. — Salt marsh . 06:25, 1 November 2017 (UTC)


 * About the model pages, I think we should remove from the entries; it's rather unsightly, and it doesn't belong in the main space. --Barytonesis (talk) 15:47, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I know where you are coming from - but it is not quite as bad as the Phrasebook banner (qv), and I think that it is comparable with the "Word of the day" one (qv). It's minimal and informative. — Salt marsh . 06:14, 1 November 2017 (UTC)


 * from sarri to 2017.11.03. Salt! I've read both the old and the new version of your 'About Greek', you have done a lot of work!
 * -- I love the model pages. I copy paste from them. A tutorial with dummy-pages would be great (e.g. I do not know how to do the nice hide-show function)
 * -- The New Draft, I find more concise and better than the Old. Some elements of the wikitextwriting from the old version are ok too. I would like a distict section on 'introducing greek language' and on the technical 'how-to'. Also, the introduction in greek, can be even shorter, because we could presume that the editors reading it are already hellenophones, and know all about e.g. what accent-stress is in modern greek.
 * -- You know how I like tables, that show things, instead of paragraphs containing the same info. Also, I would like to see at left-hand-menu under Languages, all the 'About Greek' in all wiktionaries. Thaaaanks. sarri.greek (talk) 09:59, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Forms of Greek
Some time ago Xoristzatziki drew my attention the presence of polytonic forms in Modern Greek. I have no formal education in the history of the Greek language, but have read around the subject. I have pared this section to a minimum, but I hope that there are no inaccuracies. — Salt marsh. 06:40, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
 * sarri to My surname is Σαρρή.  My grandmother who was not an ancient greek signed Σαῤῥῆ, I signed until 1982 Σαρρῆ, and now I sign Σαρρή.
 * By the way, I was thinking of your hard work on templates. I uploaded this for you. And for ancient there is this pdf from @pyli But you probably already have both. Γειά! sarri.greek (talk) 10:17, 3 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks — We have, or should have, polytonic words under Greek (modern). Although I knew about the changes after "the Colonels", I still mentally equated Modern and monotonic. So contributed towards their absence, although we have words labelled as "Katharevousa" they are mostly I think "Modern derived from Katharevousa". I have suitably annotated that section. — Salt marsh . 06:15, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Latin-alphabet loanwords
A suggestion for a paragraph to include in the new article:
 * Latin-script loanwords (like "computer" and "marketing") are not in scope for the Greek entries on Wiktionary (instead use the Greek-script terms like "" and ""). The exceptions to this are any Italiot Greek words, as these are written in a Latin script.

-Stelio (talk) 15:23, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * actually, Italiot Greek has been made into a language in its own right. So everything in CAT:Italiot Greek (currently a subcat of CAT:Greek language) should be moved to CAT:Italiot Greek language, and then we won't have any Latin script entries in CAT:Greek language at all. --Barytonesis (talk) 15:27, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Super! Even better. (And thanks for that pointer.) That reduces my suggestion to a single sentence with no exceptions, and makes review of Greek entries by script an easy task. :-) -Stelio (talk) 15:32, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * To be fair though, I wish the issue of Italiot Greek (which I know nothing about) had been discussed a bit more before reaching that decision. There are both Latin script and Greek script entries in CAT:Italiot Greek; how should it be handled? Should there always be a Greek script entry corresponding to a Latin script one (and conversely), as is done for Serbo-Croatian? --Barytonesis (talk) 15:46, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * And there may be the further complication of potentially needing to add additional Italiot Greek definitions to many existing Greek pages, duplicating content (in much the same way that we currently have duplicated English definitions for most of the Scots terms derived from English). That's a guess on my part, as I don't know how close Italiot Greek is to other forms of Modern Greek (I too have no experience in Italiot Greek). -Stelio (talk) 16:26, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Ἀριθμοί
Following the discussions above I have made further changes to the Forms of Greek section. I hope that these follow the trend of that discussion. — Salt marsh. 16:27, 9 November 2017 (UTC)


 * sarri to Salt, your effort to synchronize polytonic-monotonic occurances reminds me of the efforts to combine the lunar and solar calendars. I appreciate, because you know how i feel about splitting languages.  Few observations:
 * the Ancient - Classic dates?. They are diff phases both ending in 300 BCE? Homer is one phase, Socr/Aristo belong to another
 * A.D. 325 until 1453. cannot remember 325. what happened?
 * Demotic Greek — the polytonic vernacular language = the vernacular language no need for polytonic, we said that before 1982 everything was polytonic
 * Katharevousa .... Finally becoming integrated in monotonic form into Standard Modern Greek.
 * i prefer OLD version: Katharevousa — the classically based "cleansed" Greek language [created at the start of Greece's independence from the Ottomans], used for formal and official purposes until 1976. Kath has died before 1982, she never integrated.
 * Standard Modern Greek .... it consists of an integration of Demotic Greek with Katharevousa which is still developing
 * i prefer OLD version: Standard Modern Greek — Demotic Greek with Katharevousa influences as taught in Greek schools since 1982. I accept verb 'influenced'
 * OR: the contemporary official language, integrating elements from previous phases. (and still developing=all languages do)
 * Do not torture yourself with Kath-polytonic, old printed ModGre-polytonic. No big deal. Everyone understands the 1982 rule. sarri.greek (talk) 15:05, 10 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks -some changes made. — Salt marsh . 18:38, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Demotic terms
and illustrate possible entry structures for Demotic terms. Please comment!! — Salt marsh. 16:27, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * There is a "kind of" movement in Greece to use polytonic system, and several books are published (up to day) using polytonic system, but since there is no such official support I think is not "fair" to include a "Greek Demotic polytonic" section. I am not against it, although I will never use the complicated polytonic even if it will be official language (I hated it as a pupil...). I do not think there will be numerous users able to support that section. And demotic is somehow «by definition» monotonic. If you think a polytonic section is needed then you are welcome. But you must be prepared to support also polytonic declension, even in monotonic lemmas. Which might be a problem and a confusion to readers. --Xoristzatziki (talk) 16:53, 9 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree with you about all the problems (inflections etc) — but in our terms "Greek" is not just SMG but Greek since 1453. — <font color="#1e90ff">Salt <font color="#ff1493">marsh . 18:31, 9 November 2017 (UTC)


 * from sarri I agree with Xoristzatziki. The only occasion we use polytonic is when writing an ancient expression or text. Books printed in polytonic nowadays, are making a point of going back to a conservative past. Any inclusion of poly-in-StandardGr, would send a very controversial message to greek users, and mislead the non-hellenophones. In my texts i put a very liitle box at the bottom of the page, with an explanatory phrase. Or perhaps, you can present sections GreMod and GreKatharev. E.g. like Chinese 'Traditional' and 'Simplified'.   sarri.greek (talk) 22:33, 9 November 2017 (UTC)


 * How do we record words used by Greece's young fogies? I don't think we have the alternative of creating a new language heading, so we're stuck with using the labels "obsolete/dated/etc". I am not imaginative enough to come up with any other suggestions using the available tools - please point me to some entries which illustrate how we might do things. — <font color="#1e90ff">Salt <font color="#ff1493">marsh . 07:11, 10 November 2017 (UTC)


 * from sarri You don't :) I use ancient expressions too. So? ++ If someone published a book in runic, de.wikt would have to included it?++ If the Kath type is diff from both anc and mod, it will/could be mentioned at Etymology section.  άεροπλανοφόρον occurs in Kath only. For wiktionary, it is an entry/page of its own because of the diacritics. Or, maybe a ===Also attested?xxx section == at αεροπλανοφόρο (if wiktionary demands all script types for search-box necessities (άεροπλανοφόρον AND αεροπλανοφόρον) well, ok. And all would be solved with a small after 1982 explanation at etymology, or Usage Notes. The egg of Columbus. As for idiomatic words, i understand there are standard criteria (i saw a page somewhere) for including them (timespan of use, printed texts etc).  sarri.greek (talk) 14:47, 10 November 2017 (UTC)