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Why is greek such a funny language?
I think this topic is quite interesting. It is very common for non-greeks to realize that greek language is kind of funny.
First of all, it is very hard to learn. It has no variations of tone. It is spoken from the front of the mouth. It has a "different" kind of alphabet that most of the world is used to.
And most of all, you would have no chance in the world to use it anywhere else but in Greece. So, that makes it even funnier...and it "sounds" funny too!
The question that comes to mind is: Why?
Is it because during centuries, people in Greece have transformed it in a way to be more absorbable and easier to learn for the 1/2 greek- 1/2 turkish population that today are called greeks?
Is it because of the combination of ancient ethiopian and ancient greek, plus ottoman and arabic into one language has in reality created a very hard to absorbe and funny to listen to language for any non-greek?
Or is it because during centuries of co-existence, inter-marriages of greeks and turks, the hybrid population that followed, tried to separate themselves from Turkey, Europe, and other parts of the World by making their language as hard and unrelated as possible as a sign of fear of contacts, invasion, or even as an organic part of creating their own identity?
Is it true that these answers can be tracked as far as Afganistan, as someone here stated?
Any sugestion would be more than welcomed in this fascinating topic.
Some people in here mentioned many times the connection of greeks' dark complexion with the northern Africans and actually it seems that there have been some studies that actually prove their same genetic origin, by listing greeks as the only population in Europe that doesn't have European genes but African ones. Here the link of the scientific study results.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11260506&dopt=Abstract
There is nothing to be fearful about. It is too late to change anything or be mad at anyone. Let it be.
Petar,
You have gene and racial obsessions, I finally understood. Feel free and DEFULATE here!
But don't forget, we do live in the 21 century! Wake up! The fact that you don't notice a tone variation in Greek language is your problem, only; you just don't have the capability to remark that. I'm still wondering where do you have the courage from to make such statements, although if I'm looking deeper at your postings quality, I could have the answer.
Anyway, no matter what you replica would be, I won't come back to discuss it with you!
I will take advantage with this occasion to wish all Greeks on the forum and to their whole nation, as well: XRONIA POLLA! Thank you that you exist!
And
Happy Holidays, to everybody else, inlcuding Petar and his genes theory suporters!
Well, I suppose Petar finds ancient Greek not funny, not spoken from the front part of the mount and with a non-unique alphabet, not to mention similar to other languages in Europe or wherever; and seeing that Petar can obviously understand ancient Greek just fine, but has difficulties with modern Greek, he deduces that modern Greek's "funniness" is due to arabic or african or turkish influence. So I suppose if I start typing in ancient Greek, Petar will be able to understand what I say better than I do, or at least he will be able to point out the links and similarities with the rest of the European languages. Right, Petar..?
As for the race thing, you realise other scientific studies show the exact opposite of what you say - racial continuity: http://dienekes.angeltowns.net/articles/hellenes/
Not that it matters either way, but since you insist on bringing it up, let's not give the false impression that you have all the facts and know exactly what you are talking about.
PS: Oh I just noticed two funny points in your study: a) Turks belong to the old mediterannean substratum, and b) Cretans are not Greeks.
All I can say to that, is thanks for the laughs.
@Ion
Xronia polla kai kala Xristougenna kai se sena.
Χρόνια πολλά και καλά Χριστούγεννα και σε σένα. :-)
efharisto para poli,episis Calliope!
Dear greek posters,
You still talk from the bunker position. No one had anything against you or greeks in general in this forum, me included.
When I mentioned reasons why greek language was kind of funny, I only repeated reasons given here by another greek, in this case Calliope, in her previous postings. You can check for yourself.
I have noticed that you greek guys quote all the times sources written either by greeks or people affiliated closely to Greece and never any independent source, making them nothing else but nationalistic propaganda, so common in the Balkans.
The scientific gene study about greeks' ethiopian origin I quoted was done in Spain (if I'm not wrong) and by highly respected scientists and God forbid, not in the Balkans where everything must have a name, race, religion, and flag in order to be taken into consideration and be used against other names, races, religions, and flags and so on.
This was the link:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11260506&dopt=Abstract
People from all over the World came here, they posted their thoughts and ideas and left. You had a chance to make your case, but missed it by offending and jeopardizing their own existence. Please go back, check your postings and see what you said to other people in this forum.
I can understand your frustration at the facts and the confusion and depression that follows. It should be hard for you at this moment to understand what just happened, and we all know that all this rejection of the truth might be nothing else but a clear representation of your racial tendencies and rejection of other races and cultures of the World.
It would have been nice to have you participating in a more acceptable way, by representing your ideas and thoughts in real discussion and not just rejecting, ignoring and bypassing every single idea, thought and fact posted here by the rest of us. I still respect every single word you guys wrote, even those offending ones because they complete the picture we are all seeing.
I must thank the moderators for their mature and objective organizing of this forum, by giving all of us a chance to express our thoughts and facts in hand.
@Heil Petar Proud White Race :)
The names of the scientists who took part in the paper can be seen below. Surely its a coincidence that, of study which killed two birds with one stone by sensationally discovering the Sub-saharan genetic origin of the Greeks and that the population of FYROM is the descendents of the ancient Macedonians, 3 of the esteemed scientists are in fact natives of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
A. Arnaiz-Villena
K. Dimitroski
J. Moscoso
E. Gómez-Casado
C. Silvera-Redondo
P. Varela
M. Blagoevska
V. Zdravkovska
----------------------------------------------------------------
Its disgraceful that we even have to defend ourselves against such racist fraud. And as Ive just demonstrated it is exactly that; blatant fraud.
Dropped genetics paper lacked scientific merit
Nature 415, 115 (10 January 2002); doi:10.1038/415115b
Sir – Even though the controversial withdrawal of a paper on the genetic relatedness of Palestinians and Jews by the journal Human Immunology (see Nature 414, 382; 2001 (http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaCitation.taf?id=N1&jtl=NATURE&cd_year=2001&vid=414&ppf=382)) is a minor episode compared with the tragedies caused by ethnic/religious conflicts over past decades, the issues involved are worth revisiting.
The stated purpose of the paper by Antonio Arnaiz-Villena et al. was to "examine the genetic relationships between the Palestinians and their neighbours (particularly the Jews) in order to: (1) discover the Palestinian origins, and (2) explain the historic basis of the present ... conflict between Palestinians and other Muslim countries with Israelite Jews".
They conclude: "Jews and Palestinians share a very similar HLA genetic pool that supports a common ancient Canaanite origin. Therefore, the origin of the long-lasting Jewish–Palestinian hostility is the fight for land in ancient times."
It is difficult to believe that knowledge of genes may help to explain the present conflict. Although population genetics can address issues of relatedness of populations, mating patterns, migrations and so on, obviously it cannot provide evidence about reasons for conflicts between people.
Our primary concern, however, is that the authors might be perceived to have been discriminated against for political, as opposed to legitimate scientific, reasons.
Even a cursory look at the paper's diagrams and trees immediately indicates that the authors make some extraordinary claims. They used a single genetic marker, HLA DRB1, for their analysis to construct a genealogical tree and map of 28 populations from Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Japan. Using results from the analysis of a single marker, particularly one likely to have undergone selection, for the purpose of reconstructing genealogies is unreliable and unacceptable practice in population genetics.
The limitations are made evident by the authors' extraordinary observations that Greeks are very similar to Ethiopians and east Africans but very distant from other south Europeans; and that the Japanese are nearly identical to west and south Africans. It is surprising that the authors were not puzzled by these anomalous results, which contradict history, geography, anthropology and all prior population-genetic studies of these groups. Surely the ordinary process of refereeing would have saved the field from this dispute.
We believe that the paper should have been refused for publication on the simple grounds that it lacked scientific merit.
Neil Risch
Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA
Alberto Piazza
Department of Genetics, Biology and Biochemistry, University of Torino, Via Santena 19, 10126 Torino, Italy
L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza
Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v415/n6868/full/415115b_r.html
Do you consider the greek alphabet weird? :-)
LATIN AND CYRILLIC ALPHABET DERIVES FROM G R E E K.
A Western (also Chalcidean) variant of the early Greek alphabet was in use in ca. the 8th to 5th centuries BC. It was used in Euboea (in Cuma, excavated in 1992) and anywhere west of Athens, especially in the Greek colonies of southern Italy (the Cumae alphabet of Cumae). The Eastern variant was in use in Anatolia and was adopted in Athens, and with Hellenism spread to the entire Greek speaking world, rendering the Western variant obsolete in the 4th century BC.
It was this variant that gave rise to the Old Italic alphabets, including the Latin alphabet.
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Cumae_alphabet
The Cyrillic Alphabet was named for St. Cyril, although there is some dispute as to whether this is the alphabet he invented or not. Cyril was a Greek monk who, with Methodius, brought written language to Christian converts in the mid-9th century (c.860) in what is now Russia. The Cyrillic alphabet is closely based on the Greek alphabet, with about a dozen additional letters invented to represent Slavic sounds not found in Greek.
http://www.pbs.org/weta/faceofrussia/reference/cyrillic.html
Some guy in here named Panagiotis (must be greek by the name), wrote:
"Greeks who live in Greece now are a mix of old greeks with albanians (Chameria - northern Greece), mix with bulgarians - northeastern Greece, and mix with turks - south/southeastern Greece. If you really want to meet a few real greeks and listen to how greek language sounds, you should look somewhere around the greek islands in the southwestern part of Greece. There you can even find the few left ancient greek words still in use since ancient times. There is where historians and other scientists go to study the greek language and anthropology. The rest of the territory is the same as going to Albania, Bulgaria, or Turkey. "
It seems that all the facts and conclusion of each and one of us lead to this paragraph. Whoever has been in Greece know that this short paragraph represent todays Greece and its people. I must congratulate Panagiotis for the courage he showed by saying the naked truth without the "Balkanic nationalistic filters" that some other greeks in here used in their posts.
I must mention one fact:
Albanians in Chameria (northern Greece) mixed with greeks and some of them kept speaking albanian arvanitas dialect and greek at the same time, and some of them started talking only greek as it was easier in daily lives (shop keepers usually were greek, etc), and finally, after last greek dictatorship, since Chams were expelled from their houses in hundred of thousands, the ones that left were too afraid to use albanian everyday for fear of death. Most of Chams in todays Greece have their family trees extend as far as Kosova, Western Macedonia and Southern Montenegro, but their albanian dialect spoken in Greece was the one that made the biggest impact on todays spoken greek. These "greeks" are the only ones with the light skin or half blondes (that the humble Pelasgius showed us in pictures as they were being chosen from Adolf's little brother with a greek name...lol...joking). These "greeks" know who they are and where they "come from' and sometimes they communicate between each other and other recent Albanians in Greece in Arvanitas albanian dialect secretly (yes, even today they fear for their lives...sad huh...?).
I must apologise that it took me a bit long to get to what I wanted to say, and that was that : It would have been really great to know more about Arvanitas albanian dialect and its interelations with old greek and modern greek and its place in between, because it could give us a better understanding of the evolution of greek language itself. There is actually a theory that exists after which Alexander The Great spoke exactly this kind of mix Arvanitas-Old Greek to his troops. It is a great theme to "dig in" as it's still full of mistery.
I personally don't belive in any important African influx into greek lands but have no prove against it neither, so...
To all of you "purists" of all colors out there I say: Stay away from this forum because we will not fall prey of your provocations.
I'm sorry, Guest is me, Dardan, forgot to put name in "da boxie".
Oh, yes, again forgot the full-requested ID:
Name: Dardan
Nationality - Albanian
Statehood - Albanian/Greek
Religion - Christian Orthodox
Flag: Albanian Flag - Red with a Black Eagle in center-since 3000 years.
Thank you!
See you around!
...and here we go again...
It got old, folks. But by all means - keep going.
Dardan said Panagiotis (must be greek by the name)
There have been Greek nicknames,chosen by Albanians,Skopians etc I can put a nick and telling you that I am Albanian or Japanese,The Arguement is the same by all of them(dark skin,arab turk influence,bla,bla)
Chams were expelled not during the greek dictatorhip(1967-1974)
but during the Nazi-occupation of Greece by the greek resistance with the help also of English Allies(1944-45).Τhose Albanian muslims were collaborators to Nazis against the Greeks.Many populations in all Europe(friendly to Nazis) were also expelled.
As for the Arvanites(Orthodox Tosks),they have become Greeks as many Illyrians,Pelasgians,Thracians,Slavs,Aromanians integrated into the greek nation. Is there a nation,which has not assimilated people?
Go and read the history of Italians,Turks,French,Russians,etc
"Red with a Black Eagle in center-since 3000 years."
The red-black is the war flag of byzantine empire.
The first Bicephal Eagle was found in Asia Minor(Hittites)
The two-headed eagle slowly disappears during the last Hittite period, from the 9th century BC to the 7th century BC and totally disappears after the end of the empire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-headed_eagle
We use an albanian word "Besa" Faith to friendship,oath
besoj I believe.So let's have besa,and not sockpuppetting
under greek nicknames.
Lol...greeks are so paranoid...it's unbelievable...but hey...nevermind.
Pelasgus,
It looks that you have some information here and there about some of the issues discussed here, but I must suggest you in the friendliest way possible that the real answers of some issues you mentioned in the last posting cannot be found in wikipedia or any site of that genre, but in the old, sacred and most of all, secret books of ... (if you know, you know...)
I cannot tell you much as no one can, and you have to go through the process alone, but I can freely say that the Albanian flag is older than stated from Dardan or any empire you mentioned, it always belonged to Albanians since the times they were called with a different name and lived somewhere else, not too far from todays Albania...in a very sacred place... :-)
Good luck with your research, and don't get shocked from your findings... :-)
I am the only,who gives multiple links not only from wikipedia.
The first bicephal eagle has been found in Minor Asia,Hittites,Indoeuropean people(Archeological evidence).Many states use this emblem(Serbs,Albanians
Greeks,Romans,Russian,Austrians,Germans...
Let's have our turn.Why all the Albanians are not white,blond?...................
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