If the modern person was proficient in Katharevousa then they might have a chance of communicating quite a lot of information. Modern Demotic would be too far off, as I understand.dodaive dixit:What about if they used writing about what percent could each person understand?
That would be the worst of both worlds. You’d be incomprehensible if you tried to talk to Greeks, and you’d be mangling the ancient language. Just learn one or both languages, and use correct pronunciation.dodaive dixit:Thank you for the responses
In the future I actually I do plan to learn Greek. Going from the information above, I would use Attic Greek's grammar, and Modern Greek's pronunciation. The best of both worlds. I would actually learn the Attic pronunciation, if I thought I was ever going to use it.
I think it's common practise in Greece to pronounce Ancient Greek in modern pronunciation.Cursor Nictans dixit:That would be the worst of both worlds. You’d be incomprehensible if you tried to talk to Greeks, and you’d be mangling the ancient language. Just learn one or both languages, and use correct pronunciation.
Indeed, and completely daft it is too. The modern Greeks ridicule, and/or resent, the basic principles of the 'Erasmian' pronunciation system, which are that different letters represent different sounds, and that the ancients attempted to spell their language as it was spoken. The modern Greek pronunciation makes many of the old vowel sounds identical (so, notoriously, letter i, long e, u, ei, are all pronounced the same way) resulting in data loss.Bitmap dixit:I think it's common practise in Greece to pronounce Ancient Greek in modern pronunciation.
I don't really think so to be honest. It may sound kind of funny in onomatopoeias, when for instance sheep don't go [ble:] anymore, but [vli] (< βληχάομαι = to bleat), and it may be troublesome if you're an acoustic learner and remember the words based on their pronunciation rather than their spelling. But if you're fine with that, I don't think it's any worse than, say, ecclesiastical pronunciation of Latin or mixing in habits and peculiarities of your mother tongue into the pronunciation of Greek (like Germans in the pronunciation of rho, chi or theta).socratidion dixit:Indeed, and completely daft it is too. The modern Greeks ridicule, and/or resent, the basic principles of the 'Erasmian' pronunciation system, which are that different letters represent different sounds, and that the ancients attempted to spell their language as it was spoken. The modern Greek pronunciation makes many of the old vowel sounds identical (so, notoriously, letter i, long e, u, ei, are all pronounced the same way) resulting in data loss.
That's not a good comparison. The King James Bible is written in Modern English and is easily intelligible. Granted, it's Early Modern English with a slightly different idiom, but as far as pronunciation and grammar are concerned there are hardly any differences compared to the English that is spoken today. Ancient Greek and Modern Greek are essentially different languages, though. A better comparison would be a Bible translation from the 8th century in Old English, which you will hardly understand at all (unless, of course, you know OE).dodaive dixit:What I was thinking was that it would be similar to speaking King James Bible English, with clear modern pronunciation. The majority of English speakers understand the King James Bible.
Not if you present your peers with a print out of the Greek text beforehand.socratidion dixit:To dodaive: the principle reason to learn the pronunciation system is to be able to communicate with your peers. If your teacher or fellow students are Greek, or indeed you yourself, then your proposal makes sense. But the rest of the world uses a different system, and you will meet with nothing but incomprehension the minute you open your mouth.
This sounds remarkably like me when my knowledge of Spanish makes written Portuguese virtually transparent, even though I know the pronunciation would be quite different.socratidion dixit:I don't do percentages, but speaking as someone who learned Modern Greek after learning ancient Greek, I'd say that the written language is still extraordinarily similar -- much more so than (e.g.) Italian is to Latin.
Even having studied only Attic, I can more or less understand e.g. the new testament. Koine is, after all, its popular descendant. Also, for me, at least, reading modern Greek isn't too difficult, either, having an approximate understanding of its (d?)evolution.dodaive dixit:When I get a chance to study Greek it is going to be 100% Attic everything. I am even going to stay away from biblical Greek. Studying Greek is a ways off for me though, Latin is presenting enough challenges for me at the moment.