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I work with a Greek lady, and tried to impress her with my Greek from Assassins Creed: Odyssey by saying "Chaire!" to her. Turns out it's archaic if not actuall
by gadders 5y ago
I work with a Greek lady, and tried to impress her with my Greek from Assassins Creed: Odyssey by saying "Chaire!" to her. Turns out it's archaic if not actually ancient Greek.
- AntigoneJournal 5y agoGood on you: it is perfectly fine Ancient Greek!
- thaumasiotes 5y agoWhat kinds of sources do we use to determine how classical people said hello? Surviving plays? Correspondence? Speeches recorded in historical works?
- kylebgorman 5y agoGet W. Sidney Allen's slim text _Vox Graeca_. It goes over not only how Ancient Greek was pronounced but also how we know. The evidence includes explicit notes from grammarians and other writers, graffiti, borrowings, puns, and later forms of Greek. Allen also has another book _Vox Latina_ which does the same thing for Latin.
- thaumasiotes 5y agoBut I didn't ask about how we know the pronunciation. I asked about how we know how to say hello. There are any number of good reasons the word for olive oil might be attested in Greek. It's not so obvious why "hello" would be attested -- it's usually something you say, not something you write down.
- MonkeyClub 5y agoHello, A good source would be epistolography, another would be narration of encounters.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> A good source would be epistolography This one seems tricky. English letters do not normally begin with "hello", or even with any synonymous phrase. Instead, they use forms that are specific to written letters.
- AntigoneJournal 5y agoA good question. The best, i.e. least likely to be unreliable, sources are: epistles as preserved by papyri; conversations as preserved in ancient drama (especially comedy); phrase-books that survive from ancient school curricula; funerary inscriptions that use everyday language; graffiti.
- ifFxhF938 5y agoIt's actually still used, but AFAIK mostly in the plural form (χαίρετε).
- thaumasiotes 5y agoSometimes I ask Chinese people about referring to midnight as 子时. (First (子) of the twelve double-hours (时) that traditionally make up a day.) They find this hilarious.
- Cybotron5000 5y agoMy greek relatives would say eg. ‘heh-re-tiz-moose/chairetizmoos apo teen yaya soo’ (…trying to spell it there as it sounds, sort of…), meaning roughly: ‘(sending my) respects/greetings to your grandmother’, I’m wondering if it’s the same root? …If it is, I guess it could be interpreted as an extremely respectful way to say ‘hello’, or an archaic one I guess! :) …unless they were worried that your sleeve-dagger thing was about to make an appearance heheh… (‘hark! …hail to your grace, prithee salutations and felicitations to thou!/‘mistress, what cheer?’ or even ‘wes hail?’ :) In my experience, Greek people are usually quite chuffed if you go to the trouble of learning a bit of the language, even if you muck it up a bit, as not many people do… (…also there is the custom of ‘philoxenia’, which dates from ancient times, but still echoes today…)
- cgio 5y agoSame root, indeed. And yes it would be extremely respectful. No one would have an issue understanding what you mean though. As you mention words with the same root are very common ( the root is for joy) and also it is used in expressions from ecclesiastical texts that are adopted as part of the vernacular.
- Cybotron5000 5y agoThanks cgio! The history of languages is fascinating: how they evolve, adapt and borrow from/influence each other… You’ve sent me down a rabbit-hole now reading about Byzantine/Koine Greek: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greek https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greek
- cgio 5y agoMost Greek in Assassins Creed Odyssey was archaic. I really enjoyed being able to appreciate the attention they showed on this aspect of the game.