Talk:Hellenic languages

Subdivisions

I think that is not correct to connect directly the Proto-Greek language with the Greek. Between theese they have to be the dialects that was spoken at the area at the Bronze Age and the dialects of the next ages: Cycladic Greek, Minoan, Mycenean Greek, Trojan(?), Doric, Ionic, Aeolian, Arcadian, Macedonian, Thracian(?). Those are the subdivisions of Proto-Greek and then we reach at the Greek language.

Tsakonian seperate language

Tsakonian is a seperate language to greek but this page implies there's only one Hellenic language left 79.77.67.121 (talk) 13:26, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Tsakonian is a variety of Modern Greek; please, don't confuse Greek with Standard Modern Greek. Same goes to the user who made this good faith edit. Demetrios1993 (talk) 16:02, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

It is not the same, it is like saying spanish is a modern variant of romanian, yet they evolved from different dialects of latin.

To treat greek as the sole successor to greek with no other language is proposterously absurd,

i'd say the situation is like scots and english, Swedish and Danish, or Czech and Slovak of the same origin, but not the same language. they haven't had the same ancestor since 800 BC roughly, when is the cut off point? Aonadh nan Gaidheal (talk) 14:27, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

There are two issues here. First, the term "Greek", for better or worse, unavoidably refers to both Ancient Greek including all its dialects, and to Modern Greek including all its dialects. That makes the situation necessarily different – in terminology if not in substance – from that of the Latin/Romance or Germanic analogies you mustered. In the first sense, "Greek" obviously encompasses ancient Doric just as much as it encompasses ancient Attic and other dialects; hence, in terms of linguistic cladistics, there's no conceivable way how it could not encompass the modern descendant of Doric also. Second, in the sense of "Greek" as referring to Modern Greek, the issue of whether Tsakonian is synchronically a distinct language is not a cut-and-dry one. If you read the literature, you'll see that the vast majority of it still refers to Tsakonian as a dialect of Greek. Some authors, such as leading expert Brian D. Joseph, will make the point that one could, on criteria of mutual intelligibility, decide to treat Tsakonian as distinct, but then go on to state explicitly that this is conventionally not done , and continue to use this customary terminology themselves throughout their work. The terminological decision to actually treat Tsakonian as a sister to "Greek" proper is still a minority practice in the literature, if for no other reason than that there's no easy and commonly accepted way of defining what that "Greek proper" actually is in terms of cladistics.

Now please stop edit-warring – you have now tried to push your changes through 4 times, knowing perfectly well that they were being opposed by others. That's not how we operate on this project. Please respect Wikipedia policy and establish consensus before you enforce such changes. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:35, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

languages with no concept of partially intelligable languages e.g english speakers or greek or armenian speakers have no concept of partially intelligable languages, so are quick to assume languages are dialects, what constitutes a language is blurred buy mutual intelligability should be a huge thing, for example, it would be ridiculous to call french a dialect of latin nowadays due to its lack of mutual intelligability. Aonadh nan Gaidheal (talk) 16:43, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, but what you just wrote is unintelligible gibberish. Please try again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:47, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Wiki project

This article appears to be part of 'Wiki Project Romania', but I am somewhat confused as to whether this Wiki project is indeed relevant for this article. Maybe I'm missing something? Piccco (talk) 19:15, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

I do not have much experience with WikiProjects, but the aforementioned project should probably be removed, since the page is not relevant to its scope (defined here); see Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide § General principles. Demetrios1993 (talk) 22:18, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the responce. Yeah, other than Cyprus, I don't see how the WikiProject of any other country could be relevant here. Piccco (talk) 20:46, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 August 2025

Language tree

Please add the following image to the "Language tree" section of the article

Greek Languages from the Indo-European "Hellenic" branch

Oortedemid (talk) 20:32, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

The image is uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and is Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 Oortedemid (talk) 20:48, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't think that diagram is very suitable. The exact relationships between the ancient dialects are a matter of debates (see Ancient Greek dialects), but a view like that implied here, that Achaean and Attic/Ionic together are descendants of "Myecenan" ((but not Aeolic and Dorian), doesn't strike me as reflective of scholarly consensus. Also, the labeling of the bottommost node, the descendant of Koine, as just "Greek" pure and simple, doesn't really make sense at all – unless somebody is using "Greek" as meaning exclusively "standard Modern Greek", which is not really useful in the context of this article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:10, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. PianoDan (talk) 22:44, 27 August 2025 (UTC)