Modern Greek orthography

The orthography of modern Greek follows a "historical orthography " that has been used since 403 BC. Almost unchanged Greek alphabet is noted. It has preserved certain written formations of ancient Greek sounds and sound combinations over centuries and millennia, although the corresponding sound values have changed several times in the development towards modern Greek . This results in the phenomenon that the spelling does not follow the phonemes of the language very precisely , in contrast to, for example, Turkish , whose spelling is relatively close to phonematic orthography . In contrast to the latter, there have been no drastic orthographic reforms in Greek since antiquity that could have brought the spelling into line with the phonetic form of the language. The spelling reform in 1982 only abolished the polytonic system of accent and breath punctuation, but did not reform the sound-letter relationships.

Relationship between phonemes and graphemes

The best- known example of the historicity of modern Greek spelling is jotazism , i.e. the phonetic coincidence of the graphemes η, υ, ει, οι and υι with ι to [ i ]. If the pronunciation of the i is completely identical, all six different spellings still exist in Modern Greek; in addition two for [ ɔ ] ( ο and ω ) and two for [ ɛ ] ( αι and ε ); that is, there are many more graphemes than phonemes in the vowel realm . When reading, the sound of even unknown words can be determined with a high degree of accuracy; conversely, the correct spelling of the aforementioned vowels can only be learned or etymologically deduced from knowledge of ancient Greek.

In many cases, homonyms are differentiated through the different spelling . The word [ fiˈli ] can mean “kiss” ( φιλί ), “he kisses” ( φιλεί ) or “race” ( φυλή ); here the stems φιλ- (“love”) and φυλ- (“gender”), to which φυλλ- (“leaf”) is added as a third homophonic strain , can only be distinguished by the spelling. Since the German foreign words from the Greek were mostly taken directly from the ancient Greek or conveyed via the Latin , the ancient Greek sound level is mostly reflected here (see the terms philosophy , phylum and chlorophyll ).

Diacritical marks

The entirety of the Greek texts that are in circulation today has various systems of diacritical marks:

the traditional polytonic system (with the tone signs acute , grave accent , circumflex , the hint signs Spiritus asper and Spiritus lenis as well as iota subscriptum and trema ), which is used for ancient Greek or Katharevousa texts as well as for most of the Dimotiki literature that still appears polytonic today ( e.g. from publishers such as Άγρα ). Here, the iota subscriptum and the spiritus asper are often left out of the rho at the beginning of the word. Before the 1960s, it was the only modern Greek system in use.

the modernized polytonic system (like the one above, but without a grave accent ) was officially in use from the 1960s until 1982. Today it is hardly used by some books (for example by publishers such as Γράμματα or Εκδόσεις συλλογή ), but in newspapers and magazines. Jorgos Babiniotis also writes in his large lexicon of modern Greek, for example, that the “modern Greek-polytonic system” contains two accents, the acute and the circumflex, i.e. no grave accent. In other publications, however, he uses the traditional polytonic system (with grave accent) or a monotonic system that contains neither grave accent nor circumflex but the spiritus asper!

the monotonic system with the acute acute (´, οξεία ) as the accent , which has been the orthographic standard since the spelling reform in April 1982 and is mainly used. The accents and breath marks used until then, except for the acute accent, no longer play a role in the pronunciation of modern Greek. Only the trema still serves to mark the separate vowel pronunciation.

The acute in modern Greek

The acute acute is placed on the vowel of the stressed syllable of a polysyllabic word, in the case of the digraphs ( οι, αι, ει, ου, ευ, αυ ) on the second letter. In some pronunciation variants , the acute is only set in the 'two-syllable' form: μια (mja) vs. μία (mía) and δυο (dhjo) vs. δύο (dhío) .

Accenting because of the three-syllable rule

Since in modern Greek only the last, penultimate or third from last syllable of a word can be stressed, it can happen that words that are actually unstressed are given an accent or that a word is given two accents. For example, when combining the imperative δώσε (give) with the two enclitics του (him) and το (es), a further acute accent is placed on the του , since otherwise the accent would be on the fourth from the last syllable (the enclitic words are attached the preceding word (s) and are not considered to be independent words):

Δώσε τού το! Give it to him! , also: Άνοιξέ του το! Open it to him! , but

Πες του το! Tell him!

Avoidance of ambiguities

In order to avoid ambiguities in the orthography, the acute acute is used for graphic differentiation in three monosyllabic word pairs with the same name, namely in

η die (Article Fem. Sg.) vs. ή or

που (general relative pronoun) vs. πού where

πως that vs. πώς "like"

Furthermore, the acute is set on the monosyllabic, weak dative forms of the personal pronouns if they could be confused with the possessive pronouns of the same name:

Η γυναίκα μου είπε ... my wife said ...

Η γυναίκα μού είπε ... the woman told me ...

Η γυναίκα μου μου είπε ... my wife told me ...

In some modern Greek texts, further homographs are distinguished from one another by the acute, for example ως as vs. ώς bis , or κατα according to vs. κατά against and others. However, these variations are not common and are more part of idiosyncratic spelling than general consensus.

Exceptions

Exceptions to this are the homograph pairs με / με ( me / with ), σε / σε ( you / in, to, at, to ), δε / δε ( not / on the other hand ) and mostly also ως / ως ( as / to ), the cannot be graphically distinguished from one another by accentuation:

Με λένε Γιώργο. My name is Giorgos (literally they call me Giorgos).

Με τον Γιώργο πάμε σινεμά. We're going to the cinema with Giorgos.

Σ 'αγαπώ. I love you.

Σ 'αυτό το μαγαζί ψωνίζω συχνά. I shop in this shop a lot.

The weak personal pronouns με and σε cannot be given an accent, not even to distinguish them from homograph prepositions, since they are enclitic and therefore unstressed by definition: Πίστεψέ με! Believe me!

Εγώ δε διαβάζω. (slight emphasis on the δε when speaking ) I don't read.

Εγώ δε διαβάζω. (when speaking δε unstressed and enclitic) I, on the other hand, read.

The δε of the last example sentence comes from the learned tradition of Greek and is mostly only used in written texts, for example in newspaper essays. A comma is often also placed after this δε in order to identify it as a rhetorical figure and to distinguish it from the other δε . In almost all cases δε is the negation particle δε (ν) (= not ). Since the δε ( not ) in front of all words that begin with a vowel or π, μπ, τ, ντ, κ, γκ, ξ, ψ is δεν and thus differs from the other δε anyway , there is only a risk of confusion in reality Rare.

Ως Γερμανός κάτι ξέρω από μπίρα. As a German, I know a lot about beer.

Ως εδώ και μη παρέκει! So far and no further!

Other aspects of the acute

In some cases, the acute acute is set to the monosyllabic future tense particle θα (which arose from the expression θέλω να (I want that ...) via θέ᾿να → θα ), if the monosyllabic verbal forms μπω, βγω, βρω or 'ρθω follow , for example θά 'ρθω I'll come .

The acute acute is only set for words that contain minuscules , i.e. Ελλάς , but: ΕΛΛΑΣ . For words that are emphasized and capitalized on the first syllable, the acute accent is written to the left of the first letter, for example Έλληνας .

It is also worth mentioning that, despite the obligatory accentuation, many words do not have an acute accent in reality, for example on lettering on shops or delivery vans. Even books, i.e. official writings from a publisher, sometimes have titles in which the accents are missing. This is probably due to reasons of writing economy or a kind of typographic fashion, comparable to the preference of some German writers (especially in the computer sector) to basically only use lower case letters.

The Trema

The horizontal colon above the vowels ι or υ (the " Trema ", modern Greek διαλυτικά dialytika ) is not an accent , but a typographical indication that a letter combination of 2 vowels, which according to the pronunciation rules only like a vowel ( ε + ι = ει : "I") or how a vowel + consonant ( α + υ = αυ : "av / af") would be pronounced, should actually be pronounced as two separate vowels ( diariesis ). Without a trema the word προϊστάμενος / pro-is-´tamenos / ( the superior ) / pris´tamenos / would be spoken.

If the accent falls on the first of the two vowels, the trema is unnecessary and is not used ( κέικ / ke-ik / cake ).
The trema also does not have to be set if it is written in polytonic orthography and the spirit indicates that there is no diphthong. The word αϋπνία ( a-ypnía, insomnia ) in modern Greek must officially be written with a trema; a Spiritus lenis in the context of a polytonic spelling, however, would make this superfluous ( ἀυπνία ), since Spiritus would appear on the second vowel in the case of a diphthong.
For words that are only written with capital letters, the trema is usually set, even if the acute is missing due to the capitalization, for example γοργοϋπήκος> ΓΟΡΓΟΫΠΗΚΟΟΣ . The spelling ΓΟΡΓΟ · Υ · ΠΗΚΟΟΣ also occurs.

Phonetic Ambiguities

As mentioned above, in Modern Greek most of the time every grapheme (or every group of graphemes) is assigned a certain phoneme (or a group of phonemes), that is, one can almost certainly deduce the correct pronunciation from the spelling. However, there are also some cases where the pronunciation is not fully apparent from the written form. This is the case:

i-graphemes before unstressed vowel

for graphemes that correspond to the phoneme i, if this is unstressed before a vowel; In popular words, this i is pronounced consonantically or the preceding consonant is palatalized; in learned words, the i is pronounced vowelly. Here (apart from memorization, of course ), it is only through knowing whether the respective word comes from the popular or the learned tradition that the correct pronunciation is possible.

Examples (first always popular, then the learned word): άδεια - άδεια (adja - adia) ποιος - ποιότητα (pjos / pchos - piotita) έννοια - έννοια (ennja - Ennia) λιακάδα - Ιλιάδα (ljakada - Iliada) , μυαλό - μυαλγία (mjalo - mialjia)

Certain consonant combinations

with the consonant combinations μπ, ντ, γκ, γγ , provided they are not at the beginning of the word; under each of these digraphs two pronunciation variants are combined: b / mb, d / nd, g / ng, g / ng.

Examples: τούμπα - ταμπού (tu mb a - ta b u), άντρας - ξεντύνω (a nd ras - CFE d ino) αγκαλιάζω - ογκρατέν (a ng aliazo - o g rates) άγγελος - επαγγελματίας (a ng elos - epa g elmatias).

The example βεντέτα is cited again and again in the scientific literature , which, strictly speaking, unites two homographs, i.e. changes its meaning depending on the pronunciation: ve nd etta blood feud - ve d etta celebrity .

However, it must be emphasized that the accurate distinction between the respective phonetic alternatives is not always realized linguistically by many Greeks; For many, for example, there is no fundamental emotional difference between the sounds d and nd , which is why a word like αντίο , which should actually be pronounced as adio , is sometimes also encountered as andio ; accordingly, most Greeks do not distinguish between the two variants of βεντέτα in pronunciation , and even in lexicons there are contradicting pronunciation indications ( ksedino and ksendino for ξεντύνω ). The "truth" is mostly in the middle, because if you listen carefully you will find, for example, that λάμπα is often neither pronounced as a clear lamba nor as a clear laba , but as a nasal intermediate stage of the two extreme variants. For many words, however, one particular pronunciation tendency is significantly more common than the other.

This blurring phenomenon is particularly evident with non-Greek names and foreign words; If, for example, the phoneme d from the foreign language is reproduced in Greek with ντ , it can subsequently be incorrectly interpreted as "nd" by Greek readers. In this way, even exotic pronunciation variants such as Brand Pit (from Μπραντ Πιτ = Brad Pitt) or Srender (from Σρεντερ = Schröder) arise .

Unanswered questions and tolerated variants

In modern Greek there are a large number of words whose spelling is controversial and not clearly defined. Philologists who have studied themselves often have to look up the "correct" spelling of a word in the lexicon and even then - depending on the lexicon used - find different variants. There are three main reasons for this phenomenon:

the two great modern Greek language traditions Katharevousa and Dimotiki , whose coincidence with modern modern Greek is a process that is still taking place. This results - even more than is the case with any language - a special grammatical as well as orthographical dynamic of Greek, which in some cases still goes through a development phase, has various unexplained problems and is not yet cemented by "final" canonicalizations is.

A nice example is the genitive plural of the words ο πισινός (the bottom ) and η πισίνα (the swimming pool) , which is the same in both cases: των πισινών . In order to avoid the piquant ambiguity in cases like ο καθαρισμός των πισινών (cleaning the pool / buttocks) , some use the genitive plural of the swimming pool των πισ ί νων , which is grammatically incorrect, but could establish itself. Cases like this show that some time has to pass before a more comprehensive canonicalization and case clarification in Modern Greek.

the coexistence of two different orthographic "models of legitimation", partly resulting from the competition between Katharevousa and Dimotiki: ancient Greek or correct etymological ideal versus unscientific, natural language development with conventional orthography, that is, gradually established by general consensus.
the lack of a central state authority that could regulate and decide all orthographic cases.

It is not always possible to clearly draw the line between misspellings and "permitted" spelling variants. Some examples of words with controversial spelling:

αβγό - αυγό (egg)

εγχείρηση - εγχείριση (operation)

ξίδι - ξύδι - ξείδι (vinegar)

τέσσερεις - τέσσερις (four)

πίτα - πίττα - πήτα (pita)

βράδυ - βράδι (evening)

μαζί - μαζύ (together) / (together)

This is mostly about the above-mentioned coexistence of a postulated, etymologically "correct" form ( αβγό ) and a common spelling established in practical use ( αυγό ). But also the Graecization of foreign words creates problems, e.g. B. when transcribing the English y ( υ or ι ?) And double consonants:

πάρτυ - πάρτι (Party)

σαντιγύ - σαντιγί (whipped cream) (from French "Chantilly")

τρόλλεϋ - τρόλεϊ (trolleybus)

Nowadays, the second variant has prevailed here.

The “three-syllable rule” also leads to unresolved cases in orthography, for example with the foreign word ΚΑΜΕΡΑΜΑΝ (cameraman). Since this word is stressed on the first syllable when speaking, the following "forbidden" phenomenon would arise if the accent is applied accordingly: κάμεραμαν (the stress must not fall before the third from last syllable). The two large lexicons of Modern Greek offer different solutions: καμεραμάν (with the incongruent phonetic explanation "kámeramán") and κάμερα-μαν (which divides the word into two individual words and thus no longer contains an accent on the fourth from the last syllable).

The word αντιιικός (antiviral) , composed of the prefix αντι- (against) and the stem ιός (virus) , is often used in phrases such as το αντιιικό φάρμακο (the antiviral drug, the remedy for the virus) , is sometimes spelled with a hyphen: αντι -ιικός . The reason for this is probably the visual-aesthetic criterion that three iota in a row should be avoided in the font.

The sounds / ks / and / ps / are usually always represented in Greek with the letters ξ and ψ ; For some foreign words, however, this rule is deviated from and an analytical transcription is preferred, such as κόμι κς ( comic ), ταν κς ( tanks ) or τσι πς ( chips ).

Words with unchanged spelling

The Greek language is characterized by its particularly great continuity even over long periods of time. It contains, for example, many words that have existed in almost unchanged form for 3,000 years and are therefore neither ancient Greek nor modern Greek, but simply Greek. Pronunciation and meaning as well as aspects of the rather unstable system of diacritical marks may have changed over time, but in their basic spelling, the following - mostly very basic - words have been preserved over thousands of years: θεός, άνθρωπος, γη, θάλασσα, ήλιος, φίλος , δήμος, νόμος, γλώσσα, παιδεία, ελευθερία, αδελφός, αγαπώ, βλέπω, επιθυμώ, καλός, κακός, νέος, επειδή, όταν, εάν, συ, εγώ, και, ναι, ότι, αυτός, τότε, αύριο, ούτε, πως and many more.