Hallo conlangers!

On Monday 13 June 2011 20:43:01, R A Brown wrote:

> Oh dear - after a period of only one private feedback, I now
> get two with opposing views.  Oh well, I did ask for
> feedback    :)
> 
> On 13/06/2011 15:41, BPJ wrote:
> > 2011-06-13 09:09, R A Brown skrev:
> >> On the other hand, no philhellenists protested against
> >> the notion :(
> > 
> > I was going, not to protest, but to comment, but I
> > wasn't really sure how to phrase it, since I was not
> > unconditionally opposed, but have qualms about throwing
> > out the ε/η & ο/ω distinction, and especially the
> 
> > accents:
> The ε/η & ο/ω distinction will be staying. I learnt Greek
> at school without the accents - but with the breathings.

Abandoning η and ω and replacing them with ε and ο is vicious
tampering with the Greek alphabet which IMHO goes against the
Peanoan spirit of the project.  Peano did not mess about with
C, K and Q (or any other letter of the Latin alphabet) that
way.
 
> > accents:
> > 
> > Maybe the Ancients didn't need the accents, but us poor
> > modern-day non-native speakers do!
> 
> Why? People rarely try to pronounce them and the few
> recordings I've heard of people doing so have not been
> exactly convincing. In any case, we have only an approximate
> idea how they were pronounced; there lacunae
> in our knowledge.

When I read ancient Greek aloud (which I don't do often),
I try to accentuate the words on the indicated syllables,
but don't ask me to get the difference between acute,
circumflex and grave right!  (I am not even sure whether
the accent I use in my L1, and also in my personal
pronunciation of Ancient Greek, is stress of pitch; it
seems to be a bit of both!)
 
> [...]
> > .................................. That the use
> > of accents didn't become general until the Middle Ages
> > is not really an argument: they are as you yourself said
> > an ancient invention, and their very purpose was to aid
> > non-native speakers sorting things out, for which they
> > still are very much needed!
> 
> They were to aid non-native speakers get the correct
> _pitch_ accent. The are *very rarely* used that way
> now.
> 
> They are often ignored in reading as you yourself have
> observed.
> 
> [snip]
> 
> > ε/η & ο/ω:
> > 
> > Nothing says you *must* use ASCII if you use a
> > Latinization,
> 
> I am aware of that, nor have I suggested doing so.  That
> would be going back to the days when Conlang began in the
> 1990s!
> 
> > and nothing says you must use a macron if
> > you use a diacritic to distinguish η & ω from ε & ο.
> 
> Especially as I've ditched length distinction. I could use
> e ~ ɛ and o ~ ɔ, for example.

Yes.
 
> But then, of course, the consonants are not all plain
> sailing     ;)
> 
> > If
> > you're concerned about diacritic stacking -- which IMHO
> > would be the only reason to have doubts about marking
> > both ε/η & ο/ω and accent(s) you can always use ę/Ę
> > (U+0119/U+0118) & ǫ/Ǫ (U+01EB/U+01EA) for η & ω, and
> > thus also strike home all the more that this is Ancient
> > Greek without flexion.
> 
> I'm not sure really how it does that.

Don't go there; they wriggle.
 
> [...]
> > The fact is that AG is an
> > Ancient language which happens to have a modern
> > orthography, wherein it's not alone at all. In short you
> > should stick to the way AG has been written throughout
> > modern times, possibly with the exception of the
> > non-lexical grave accent. All else would put off those
> > who might appreciate TAKE in the first place.
> 
> But if I'm dispensing with all the flexional endings,
> doesn't it make sense also to dispense with a feature that
> had marginal phonemic status and about whose pronunciation
> we are hazy.  Consider the rules I give in Section 4 of:
> http://127.0.0.1/MyWeb/TAKE/OrthoAndPhono.html

That link doesn't work - it *can't* work!  "127.0.0.1" always
refers to the machine from which the attempt to access it is
made.

> The more I read them, the more I feel I am saddling TAKE
> with unnecessary complications.
>  
> [snip]
> 
> > As you yourself said it's only 24 letters to learn, and
> > I'd like to add: and a handful of diacritics. Horror
> > diacriticorum and unfounded conflation of Greek and
> > Latin has done AG enough harm already!
> 
> Ii is *not* a case of 'horror diacriticorum' -
> I don't mind the critters when they're doing useful
> work; indeed, they can then often make life easier.

Yes.

> But when they're hanging around doing nothing except
> tease us about a pitch accent we'll never recover
> without time travel and laugh at the complicated
> rules they create, I don't see a great deal of point
> humoring them.

Amen.

> ------------------------------------------
> 
> > Hallo conlangers!
> 
> > On Monday 13 June 2011 09:09:10, R A Brown wrote:
> [...]
> >> If the aim of revising TAKE is to make it more obviously
> >> _ancient_ Greek without inflexions, then why am I
> >> saddling it with a Byzantine complication, e.g. rules
> >> when to use a circumflex or an acute accent.
> 
> Which BTW is rarely phonemic. It's to do with counting
> morae.

Counting morae - what room does *that* have in a Peanoan
simplification of Ancient Greek, especially if the
abandoning of vowel length makes a mess of it anyway?

> [...]
> > Ouch! As much as I like the Latin stress system (I use it
> > in Old Albic, though there it is a pitch rather than stress
> > accent) - Greek just ain't Latin! It is of course legitimate
> > to use such an accentuation in a Greek-derived conlang, but
> > stressing Ancient Greek that way is simply WRONG.
> 
> Quite so. Even stressing AG with the modern stress accent is
> strictly wrong also - but at least it is a _Greek_ method.
> We really know nothing about AG word stress - though some
> people harbor _theories_ about it.

Well, historical linguistics is such a kind of business
- an attempt to breathe life into languages that are
preserved only in dead letters, or not at all.
 
> >> I shall definitely not saddle TAKE with that one!
> > 
> > Especially as it depends on vowel length, which you are
> > apparently going to do away with. A consistent initial,
> > penultimate or final syllable accent is also easier than the
> > Latin system.
> 
> It is.
>  
> [snip]
> 
> >> Therefore I am proposing: - to keep the Greek letters as
> >> there is obviously no demand to do otherwise;
> > 
> > A good choice.
> 
> Thanks  :)
> 
> >> - to drop the Byzantine-based polytonic accentuation as
> >> this adds an unnecessary complication and *was unknown
> >> in classical Greek*;
> > 
> > Also a good idea.
> 
> As I wrote above, I am rapidly inclining that way.
> 
> >> - to retain the rough breathing to show initial /h/
> >> (unless I am persuaded to make TAKE psilotic    :)
> > 
> > I would do so, too.
> 
> What make TAKE psilotic or keep the rough breathing? I'm
> not clear which you're advocating.

Keep rough breathing.  (Though if you want to be consistent
on not using diacritics, psilosis is an option, perhaps even
the better one.)
 
> >> - to pronounce words with even stress à la française
> >> with _slight_ emphasis on the last.
> > 
> > That works well, I think.
> 
> Yes, I don't see why not.

So we agree on

- keeping the 24 classical Greek letters intact
- abandoning vowel length
- abandoning AG pitch accent & accent marks
- perhaps keeping rough breathing

I think that comes closest to the Peanoan spirit of preserving
the "backbone" of the old language but stripping it of what
makes it "unnecessarily" difficult.

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