What do you think of the following proposition? As conlangers?

[Creyeditor]

The other is visibility. Thousands of languages are just barely documented. Many historical languages only exist as wordlists, which means even basic features like argument order are unknown. If you want to know (say) how the middle voice works, Ancient Greek is particularly important because of the depth of the evidence.

This is really a thing. Here is an example I like. According to Peter Ladefoged, phoneticians judged velar laterals to be non-existant in the phonology of natural languages until a few decades ago. He then met a student who was a native speaker of Mid-Wahgi when giving a lecture in PNG (IIRC) who corrected him.

[Travis B.]

The other is visibility. Thousands of languages are just barely documented. Many historical languages only exist as wordlists, which means even basic features like argument order are unknown. If you want to know (say) how the middle voice works, Ancient Greek is particularly important because of the depth of the evidence.

This is really a thing. Here is an example I like. According to Peter Ladefoged, phoneticians judged velar laterals to be non-existant in the phonology of natural languages until a few decades ago. He then met a student who was a native speaker of Mid-Wahgi when giving a lecture in PNG (IIRC) who corrected him.

Obviously this is something that could have been disproven simply by an adequate study of English dialects.

[Creyeditor]

I'm still not dure that I ever heard a real velar lateral in any English dialect (in contrast to velarized coronal laterals). They are acoustically so drastically different from the velar lateral that I heard in Mee (aka Ekagi/Ekari).

[Travis B.]

I'm still not dure that I ever heard a real velar lateral in any English dialect (in contrast to velarized coronal laterals). They are acoustically so drastically different from the velar lateral that I heard in Mee (aka Ekagi/Ekari).

The velar lateral in the dialect here to my ears sounds like [ɣ] or [ɰ] except, well, lateral. For me it is not a proper lateral being that the tongue does not actually touch the roof of the mouth (but the point where it is closest to the roof of the mouth is in the velar region ─ the tip of the tongue is nowhere near the roof of the mouth, in contrast). As I've mentioned here before, it is unstable, alternating with [ɰ] (and apparently, contrary to what I had previously thought, also [w]), but it is still common at the start of stressed words and when geminate.

[Creyeditor]

Sorry to derail the thread further but do you have a recording?

[Travis B.]

Sorry to derail the thread further but do you have a recording?

length https://voca.ro/1gbNgjVA3LRd

[keenir]

let's be more pragmatic: who among the conlangers has voluntarily studied ancient Greek...
(not me...)

as a language, I have not; as a source of words (to better understand parts of taxonomy and cladistics), I have delved into it.

[hwhatting]

If we go for famous conlangers, Tolkien had studied Classical Greek, too.
As for much less famous me, I also studied it, first out of a general interest in languages and then later because I needed to know it (in its Koine variant) for my Master's Thesis about the Periphrastic Future in the Old Church Slavic Gospel texts.

[Ryusenshi]

I often heard it the claim that the Greek of the Gospels is, in fact, pretty bad Greek and obviously non-native. I'd love to know enough Greek to be able to see that for myself!

I don't know Greek either, but from what I've heard, it depends on which one: Mark is the most obviously non-native, while Matthew and Luke are less so. In fact, it's one of the reasons scholars think Mark was first: it would make sense if Mark wrote in bad Greek and the others corrected his errors, while it would be weird if Mark copied another one but added his own mistakes.

[Richard W]

I often heard it the claim that the Greek of the Gospels is, in fact, pretty bad Greek and obviously non-native. I'd love to know enough Greek to be able to see that for myself!

I don't know Greek either, but from what I've heard, it depends on which one: Mark is the most obviously non-native, while Matthew and Luke are less so. In fact, it's one of the reasons scholars think Mark was first: it would make sense if Mark wrote in bad Greek and the others corrected his errors, while it would be weird if Mark copied another one but added his own mistakes.

I've heard that that opinion about New Testament Greek formed before non-Christian Koine Greek was well known. Thus, regardless of author, it is bad as Classical Greek, which is different to what Ryusenshi is talking about.

[kosen444]

I often heard it the claim that the Greek of the Gospels is, in fact, pretty bad Greek and obviously non-native. I'd love to know enough Greek to be able to see that for myself!

I don't know Greek either, but from what I've heard, it depends on which one: Mark is the most obviously non-native, while Matthew and Luke are less so. In fact, it's one of the reasons scholars think Mark was first: it would make sense if Mark wrote in bad Greek and the others corrected his errors, while it would be weird if Mark copied another one but added his own mistakes.

I've heard that that opinion about New Testament Greek formed before non-Christian Koine Greek was well known. Thus, regardless of author, it is bad as Classical Greek, which is different to what Ryusenshi is talking about.

Once more non-Christian Koine texts (like papyri, letters, and inscriptions) were studied, it became clear that the NT writers were actually using normal, contemporary Greek, not some butchered version of Classical. So it’s not “bad Greek,” it’s just not Classical and that’s a key distinction from what Ryusenshi is talking about if they’re focused on grammar or authorial skill.

[Torco]

if old english was so good, however, why is there regular english?

[keenir]

if old english was so good, however, why is there regular english?

hippies

[Herra Ratatoskr]

if old english was so good, however, why is there regular english?

Mē ne līcaþ þis nīewe gefanglode Ænglisċ! Ġief mē gōd eald Ænglisċ

[Travis B.]

if old english was so good, however, why is there regular english?

Mē ne līcaþ þis nīewe gefanglode Ænglisċ! Ġief mē gōd eald Ænglisċ

Lol.

[Travis B.]

if old english was so good, however, why is there regular english?

Vikings pretending to be Frenchmen. Oh, and non-Frenchified Vikings who decided to stop plundering and stay and intermarry with the native English despite not really knowing English.

[Lērisama]

if old english was so good, however, why is there regular english?

Mē ne līcaþ þis nīewe gefanglode Ænglisċ! Ġief mē gōd eald Ænglisċ

Wouldn't it be ġefanglode, or am I misremembering?

[Raphael]

if old english was so good, however, why is there regular english?

Vikings pretending to be Frenchmen. Oh, and non-Frenchified Vikings who decided to stop plundering and stay and intermarry with the native English despite not really knowing English.

To quote the main chapter titles from Arika Okrent's "Highly Irregular":

Blame the Barbarians
Blame the French
Blame the Printing Press
Blame the Snobs
Blame Ourselves

[Torco]

norwegians and danes going french made english unlike german. germans going roman made french unlike gaelic. and don't get me started on what berbers going arab did to spanish!

[Travis B.]

if old english was so good, however, why is there regular english?

Mē ne līcaþ þis nīewe gefanglode Ænglisċ! Ġief mē gōd eald Ænglisċ

Wouldn't it be ġefanglode, or am I misremembering?

You're not misremembering -- the past participle prefix in later Old English started with /j/, even though it may have been a voiced palatal fricative in earlier Old English.