Collabgreeklang

[Zythros Jubi]

This is thought experiment about what if Hellenic languages are still spoken in Sicily and Campania, to be specific, one in southern and eastern coast of Sicily, named Siceliot; another in Sorrento Peninsula, Amalfi Coast and Capri island, tentatively named Amalphite. Phonologically, the starting point is slightly earlier that OTL's 4th century Koine Greek, as it distinguishes ε/ɛ/ η/e/ and ο/ɔ/ ω/o/; lexically and morphologically, there are some Doric influence.

[qwed117]

This is thought experiment about what if Hellenic languages are still spoken in Sicily and Campania, to be specific, one in southern and eastern coast of Sicily, named Siceliot; another in Sorrento Peninsula, Amalfi Coast and Capri island, tentatively named Amalphite. Phonologically, the starting point is slightly earlier that OTL's 4th century Koine Greek, as it distinguishes ε/ɛ/ η/e/ and ο/ɔ/ ω/o/; lexically and morphologically, there are some Doric influence.

What's the vowel inventory right now? I know Greek goes through some pretty interesting vowel changes (Called making every front vowel i)

[Zythros Jubi]

Background: In Koine period, things happened largely the same as OTL's "mainstream" Koine, such as spirantization of voiced and aspirated plosives. More specifically:
a. /kt pt/>/xt ft/
b. /kʰtʰ pʰtʰ/>/kθ pθ/
c. /sCʰ/>/sC/
d. /au eu/>/af~av ɛf~ɛv/, but: /am ɛm/ before /m n/, /avu ɛvu/ before /l r/ (epenthetic vowel is always unstressed), /ap ɛp/ before /p f/;
e. Voiced plosives did not spirantize after /s/ or another plosive;
f. /ai eː oː~uː/>/ɛ i u/, /ɛː ɔː/>/e o/, /e o/>/ɛ ɔ/
Question: what happened to /oi/?
A. /y/ as in most Koine dialects
B. /ø/

In early Middle Greek of Sicily (400-850), /e o/ changed to /i u/; they remained unchanged in Amalphite.
1. The level of borrowing in the language (Latin/Romance loanwords)?
A. Conservative(Icelandic)
B. Moderate(Dutch)
C. Extensive(Modern English)
D. Drastic(Japanese/Korean)

2. What fields are Latin loanwords concentrated in? (Before Heraclius, Latin was the administrative language instead of Greek; D and E include Latin loanwords in Byzantine Greek terminology)
A. Fishery and sailing
B. Agriculture
C. Commerce and urban life
D. Military
E. Administration, politics and bureaucracy
F. Architecture

[qwed117]

1) B
2)B
3)E

[Cavaliers327]

1.)B
2.)B
3.)E

[zyma]

1: b
2: c d
3: c d e

[IEPH]

1) b
2) d
3) a b c d e f

[Ælfwine]

1. B
2. D
3. C D E F

[Clio]

1. A
2. B
3. C E F

Two questions: Is /oi/ > /ø/ attested at all in Greek, or just suggested here as a neat alternative to /oi/ > /y/? And what exactly inspired the sound change /ɛː ɔː/ > /e o/ > /ɛ ɔ/? I find it a bit odd, since you mentioned Doric influence in the OP, and some dialects of Doric were described as "severe" due to the prevalence of /ɛː ɔː/ where other dialects had /eː oː/.

[Zythros Jubi]

Well, the problem is just the close-mid long vowels were raised and then the length opposition became open-close distinction. /ɛː ɔː/ > /eː oː/ and then /e o/ > /ɛ ɔ/

[Zythros Jubi]

Actually, /ø/ is constructed as a transitive stage; even Tsakonian has /ju/ for both ancient /y/ and /oi/. I'd planned to have /ø/>/jo/.

The /yː/ value for οι is attested later, in the 3rd century BC. An intermediate value of /øː/ has been suggested by some, perhaps attested in spellings of ει for οι indicating a premature loss of lip-rounding leading to /eː/, rather than /iː/ (c.f. text below.)[4]

1. B /ø/

2. A draw between B and D. It may vary in different stages; so I'll specify it for each period:
a) ca. 100BC-300AD (Classical Latin)
b) 300-600AD (Vulgar Latin)
c) 600-850AD (Latin no longer official; local Romance vernacular)

3. CDE; Latin loans seem to be pervasive in Byzantine military jargon IIRC.

---

4. What happened to [nasal+plosive]? (voiced plosives did not spirantize after nasals in stage I; /mpt ŋkt/>/mp nt/)
This was to be intended as dialect features persisting to today, as in Sicilian; but the difference is Latin has no /nθ ŋx/ but only /nf/, while in Greek these groups can lead to a chain shift, e.g. mf>mp>mb>mm
a)
A. /mp nt ŋk/>/mb nd ŋg/ /mb nd ŋg/>/mm nn ŋŋ/
B. /mp nt ŋk/>/mb nd ŋg/; /mb nd ŋg/ remained intact
C. Both /mp nt ŋk/ and /mb nd ŋg/ remained intact; may differentiate later
D. /mp nt ŋk/ remained intact; /mb nd ŋg/>/mm nn ŋŋ/
b) Personally I consider these cluster too awkward to pronounce and prone to change:
A. /mf nθ ŋx/>/mp nt ŋk/
B. /mf nθ ŋx/>/nf nt ŋk/ (due to Latin influence)

5. About stress shift:
a) The three Greek pitch accents merged into one stress accent in later Koine; however there are no oxytone words in Latin AFAIK, so what will happen:
A. All oxytone words remained intact;
B. Oxytone disyllables became paroxytone, oxytone multisyllables (3 or more) became preparoxytone;
C. All oxytone words became paroxytone (preparoxytone words remains intact)
b) Whether to preserve mobile stress in declensions:
A. Preserve every instance of mobile stress;
B. Stress leveling, i.e. use the stress of NOM.SG or ACC.SG in all words;
C. Stress leveling in all except imparisyllabic words (e.g. -έας/pl.-είς);

6. Noun forms are derived from accusative, both SG and PL; final /n/ disappeared, and what happened to final /s/? (unstressed /ɛ ɔ/>/e o/)
A. /ɛs es is/>/i/, /as/>/e/, /us ys/>/y/, /ɔs os øs/>/ø/
B. the same as A plus unrounding of /y ø/

[qwed117]

2) A
4a) BC
4b) B
5a) A
5b) A
6) retain?
We don't need to make it Latinesque. Just let it slowly evolve into what it is made...

[Clio]

Okay, good to know about the ε η, resp. ο ω sound changes; I take it this development of a tense/lax, high/low system is inspired by Latin.

Actually, /ø/ is constructed as a transitive stage; even Tsakonian has /ju/ for both ancient /y/ and /oi/. I'd planned to have /ø/>/jo/.

The /yː/ value for οι is attested later, in the 3rd century BC. An intermediate value of /øː/ has been suggested by some, perhaps attested in spellings of ει for οι indicating a premature loss of lip-rounding leading to /eː/, rather than /iː/ (c.f. text below.)[4]

Huh, I didn't know about that reconstruction of /ø/, cool.
(Although: I must admit that I don't totally get the reasoning of ει representing /eː/ or /øː/. First of all, I thought the ει > /iː/ shift occurred pretty early, but I have to admit that my knowledge of Koine Greek sound shifts is lacking, and I'd have to really look to see an example of ει standing for /i/ before the fourth century BCE. My second point is really just a question: When you say "ancient /y/," do you mean /y/ represented by upsilon? I'll admit that I didn't know Doric shared in that Attic chain shift of /u/ > /y/ etc. Regardless, that's really interesting. What is your original source on all of this about post-Classical Greek, incidentally? I'd love to read it all through.)

Votes:

2. A
4. a)B
5(a) A
5(b) C
6) I'd like to echo qwed117 here and suggest that /s/ be word-finally retained.

[zyma]

2: a b c
4a: a
4b: a
5a: a
5b: b
6: a

[Zythros Jubi]

Calabrian Greek has -os>-o, though.

[Zythros Jubi]

Any ideas for evolution and merger of n. and adj. declension? I don't know what happened during early Middle Greek.

[Zythros Jubi]

2.
Borrow drastically during Classical period, and moderately between 300 and 850;
4.
a)A
b)B
5.
a)A; Remain unchanged for the time; the prosody in some phrases (noun+adj. for example) are fossilized even when dialects change their word stress patterns.
b)C, To take a conservative step, i.e. stressed on the same syllable as NOM&ACC.SG;
In AG and ModG, Words like ἄνθρωπος have initial accent in NOM.SG, NOM.PL, VOC.SG, VOC.PL and ACC.SG only; dual is neglected since it was lost early on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_(gra ... ber)#Greek
In Koine Greek and Modern Greek, the only remnant of the dual is the numeral for "two", δύο, dýo, which has lost its genitive and dative cases (both δυοῖν, dyoīn) and retains its nominative/accusative form. Thus it appears to be undeclined in all cases. Nevertheless, Aristophanes of Byzantium, the foremost authority of his time (early 2nd century BC) on grammar and style, and a staunch defender of "proper" High Attic tradition, admonishes those who write dysí (dative, plural number) rather than the "correct" dyoīn (dative, dual number).

Thus the declension should look like this by then:
SG PL
N άνθρωπος άνθρωποι /ˈantropɔs ˈantropø/
G ανθρώπου ανθρώπων /ˈantropu ˈantropon/
A άνθρωπον ανθρώπους /ˈantropɔn ˈantropus/
V άνθρωπε άνθρωποι /ˈantropɛ ˈantropø/
D άνθρωπω άνθρωποι /ˈantropo ˈantropø/

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Well, first of all, how about the declension of definite articles and personal pronouns? Considering the etymology of pronouns, how did OTL Greek deal with 1pl and 2pl after /y/ and /i/ merged?

6. Vocative merged with nominative during this perios
A. Yes
B. No

7. What happened to post-tonic and pretonic front rounded vowel?
A. Unrounded, /y ø/> /i e/
B. Unchanged

8. Final /n/'s are lost, like in Demotic but not Cypriot?
A. Yes
B. No

8. Post-tonic and pretonic /e o/>/ɛ ɔ/ in before two consonants?
A. Yes
B. No

9. Post-tonic and pretonic /e o ø/>/i u y/ in other circumstances (if there's no unrounding)?
A. Yes
B. No

[qwed117]

6. A
7. A
8. B
9. A
10. B

[zyma]

6: a
7: b
8: b
9: a
10: a

[Lambuzhao]

Well, first of all, how about the declension of definite articles and personal pronouns? Considering the etymology of pronouns, how did OTL Greek deal with 1pl and 2pl after /y/ and /i/ merged?

They dropped the vowels altogether.

Demotic 1PL μας clearly comes from (ἡ)μας.

I don't know the actual dichronics involved, but just shooting from the hip, it seems that the older 2PL
ὑμας was dropped utterly.

Perhaps based on an analogy of 1SG μου : 1PL μας, the 2SG σου spawned an innovated 2PL (?)ας σας.