Very handy. My math education would have gone much better if my notes weren't full of "lambda is the half stickman; sigma is upside down Q or broken E" and other really silly things
Very handy. My math education would have gone much better if my notes weren't full of "lambda is the half stickman; sigma is upside down Q or broken E" and other really silly things
As native speakers of a language that uses Cyrillic, it was a little easier for my peers and me to learn Greek letters for the math classes, since most of them come for free to people who know both Latin and Cyrillic.
But when the probability theory class started, everyone found themselves in one of two groups: those who could reliably draw "ξ", or those who instead drew some random snaky thing which probably does not even have a proper Unicode representation. I spent half an hour finally memorizing how the damn thing is actually written to move myself from the latter group to the former.
Yeah, they should mark the Greek alphabet as a mandatory prerequisite for college math. It had an unreasonable effect on how quickly I was processing notation-heavy math after learning some Greek for going on a trip over there.
As I say above, the issue is that modern Greek pronounces some letters very differently. We use the classical pronunciation in maths etc.
What you call "classical pronunciation" is really at best an approximation of the ancient Greek pronunciation, but mixed heavily with English (after some frolicking around in Latin). As far as I know, this is limited to English speakers only.
For example, π is pronounced "πι", or probably closed to "pee" in modern and in ancient Greek. It's never pronounced like "pie". Same with all letters that end with "i", for example "φ,χ,ψ" (pronounced as phee, chee, psee, never rhyming with pie). T (τ) was never pronounced as "ta-oo", either, not in ancient nor modern Greek.
There are differences between modern and ancient Greek of course. For example "β" (beta), originally pronounced more like it's now in English, only with a longer "e", while in modern Greek it's more like "vita")
The modern academic consensus is that "η" was likely pronounced like the "e" in "met" but longer. In IPA, it'd be /e:/. And thus "β" as /be:ta/. What you are saying is how it is done in modern Greek though.
I had a native Italian professor who said "β" more like "vita". One day he tried to write "ξ" on the whiteboard and said "whatever the hell this is?". I was the only person who spoke up.
> For example, π is pronounced "πι", or probably closed to "pee" in modern and in ancient Greek.
No. In ancient Greek, π contrasts with φ. Φ is the one that indicates the sound an English speaker would hear as "p"; it's the one you would pronounce "pee". You'd hear the name of π as "bee".
> T (τ) was never pronounced as "ta-oo", either, not in ancient nor modern Greek.
That's exactly how it was pronounced in ancient Greek, unless you meant to indicate a disyllabic pronunciation.
I'm well aware it is an approximation, but there is a traditional classical pronunciation in use as there is with Latin (or Sanskrit, Pali and classical Hebrew), which is still in use whether or not it is authentic.
You're confusing different terminology. There is a traditional pronunciation. And there's a classical pronunciation. But the traditional pronunciation is not classical.
For Latin, there's a handy wikipedia page telling you all about the difference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_English_pronunciat... .
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Modern Greek is, frankly, irrelevant.
Ancient Greek is needed to get a full Western education, for reading some of our foundational literature properly.
Everything written in ancient Greek that is foundational to western literature, has already been translated, likely to a higher standard than most of the people trying to learn it.
Unless you wish to be part of an effort to further improve the quality of these translations, including to adjust them for the fact modern languages themselves are a moving target, just read those translations.
Modern Greek, on the other hand, is a living language with new art and culture coming from it. I may not be able to write "a cup of tea please" without misspelling tea, nor pronouncing it so badly they reply in English (as per my user profile), but this is infinitely more valuable than knowing if the ancient Greek character inviting people over for a meal is saying the people will eat the meal or be the meal.
Wow, what a way to write off something "foundational to western literature".
I studied koine Greek with my dad. Today, I study Aristotle alongside half-a-dozen English translations (the latest, Adam Beresford's Ethics, is hilarious, "like Han Solo and Chewbacca, Achilles and Patrocles" in the notes; his Aristotle uses "Perhaps...but that's a bit off-topic").
None of the English translations is as convincing as knowing the original vocabulary. Many phrases and idioms are still obscure or debated. Why should the student not want to look behind the curtain?
Finally, there is something bracing about knowing the ancient grammar. Greek has features long-vanished from English.
You would separate students into those who never need to bother looking a bit into "foundational to western literature" and those handful who are on a PhD track. Eventually, nobody would grow up to be recruited into the latter.
To be fair, there are nuances in the ancient Greek which are best brought out by some study of the language. The most frequently translated ancient Greek text(s) would be the New Testament, and even there you can see a lot of modern churches base their ideas on dubious translations.
I find ancient Greek not so helpful when it comes to etymologies. Some are helpful, but many are obscure or misleading. Climax comes from the word for a ladder apparently, and electron comes from the word for amber. There are stories behind both but they won't get you far. Any word beginning with psych- tends to relate to the mind, but the Greek means "soul".
Why would modern Greek be "irrelevant"? Millions of Greeks and Cypriots speak the language, along with minorities in other countries and a very large and well dispersed diaspora. Greece and Cyprus are major holiday destinations for northern Europeans. There are major writers such as Nikos Kazantzakis who have used modern Greek so there are cultural reasons to. Heck, I even like some modern Greek music, and am grateful for it, since it was one of the few things which kept me happy during lockdown.
You're right in saying Classical (inc. Koine) Greek is far more influential, but modern Greek is not "frankly irrelevant".
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