Talk:Greek

Disambiguation

I'm trying to disambiguate all the pages that point to here.

Generally, it's not to hard, as many entries are for Greek language (someone learnt it at school, or a word comes from it).

However, sometimes it is a bit difficult to decide between Greece, Ethnic Greek and History of Greece. For example, what about a Greek colony (outside Greece)? And, in some cases, a reference to 'Greek' is effectively a reference to Greek culture in general, which doesn't have a separate entry. tag''''''I can work on my own. 07:32, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Pruning down

Wikipedia:Disambiguation#What_not_to_include states: "Lists of articles of which the disambiguated term forms only a part of the article title don't belong here. Disambiguation pages are not search indices. Do not add links that merely contain part of the page title (where there is no significant risk of confusion)."

If people don't mind, I'll remove the long list of things related to the adjective "Greek". People who look for "Greek theatre" or "Greek fire" will type "Greek theatre" or "Greek fire" in the search box; they are unlikely to come here. Besides, many links were obsolete and/or doublets. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:46, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Nice work. I've been fixing links to this page recently, and you have trimmed it down to just what is necessary. Appreciated. —Nate Scheffey 11:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Fraternities

Hi there,

since I'm German/Greek, maybe I don't understand this part of contemporary American culture, but how does "The word Greek refer to" - "Student Fraternities and sororities in North America"? Because they use some Greek letters in their names? Can someone give me an example how someone says a phrase with the word "Greek" in it and really means the fraternities/sororities? This sounds pretty far-fetched! If there is no such strong connection, this relation should stay out of the Greek disambiguation page, because otherwise, in this fashion, we also had to include mathematics in general (for using Greek letters extensively) and scientific languages herein. The latter would make even more sense, since these termini technici really are a special, reduced form of the Greek language, in a way ...

I'm taking out the Fraternities - if someone comes up with a good explanation why they should be back in, he or she should give us a hint here. Regards, -- marilyn.hanson 11:55, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Google Greek at many college sites, or Google Greek life, and you'll realize that the word "Greek," in American English, refers a great deal of the time to student fraternities etc. I am a teacher of ancient Greek language and culture; like you, I privilege the meaning referring to Hellenic civilization. I'm constantly disoriented on my own campus seeing references to "Greek" this-and-that, and sometimes it takes a second to remind myself that a sudden explosion of interest in Pindar and Aeschylus has not taken place. Still, there is no denying that this is what the word means to a great many speakers of English, and I'm quite mystified why the disambiguation entry would be deleted, when a simple Google search, or look-up in a good dictionary, would have sufficed to confirm the correctness of that entry. Wareh 20:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Then it is of course okay to put the fraternities back in; I wouldn't have profited from such general Google search in English on a single-worded English term so widely used as "Greek", since I didn't even know that "Greek" is often combined with the term "life". Even dictionary.com has the fraternity meaning as number nine out of ten. although I must say I'm quite confused as to why you had to do it by reverting; out of laziness, maybe? Although I assume good faith, others might have seen this as rude. As you can see in the version history, this was not the only change I made, and so I'm going to restore those other changes. Greetings, -- marilyn.hanson 12:26, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, I'm quite sorry about reverting the other changes, which inexplicably I did not notice when I called up the edit differences. I guess my mistake came from taking the edit summary at face value. My apologies for making you come back to redo some of your valuable work here. Wareh 15:13, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

No offence taken. Thanks for the reply from -- marilyn.hanson 17:20, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Pruning down again

Guys, this is a disambiguation page. Keep it simple. This should not grow into another article, nor into a directory page of topics related to Greek stuff in some way or other.

The entry on the Greek language should be absolutely minimal:

• Greek language, or more specifically:
  • Ancient Greek
  • Modern Greek

Nothing else. Reason: Only "Ancient" and "Modern", but not the other minor stages and subvarieties, are confusable concepts that need disambiguated. If somebody says "Greek has properties XYZ", there are contexts where a speaker may take it for granted that they are only talking about Ancient Greek, or other contexts where they are only talking about Modern Greek. But if somebody wants to refer specifically to Mycenean or Homeric or Medieval Greek as opposed to all other forms, they will use the specifying adjective from the start. Nobody says just "Greek" and expects the hearer to understand specifically "Mycenean". Nobody will enter just "Greek" in the search box or click on a link labeled "Greek" and expect to be taken straight to an article about Medieval varieties, rather than an article on Greek as a whole. Only concepts where a reader might have that expectation should be listed here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:14, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Further: Generally, I strongly object against the "template" Thetranshumanist used for aligning all these nation dab pages, which apparently goes somehow like this:

• Something of, from, or related to X, a country in [... many wiki links ...]
• ..., persons from X, or of X'ian descent. For information about the Greek people, see Demographics of X and Culture of X. For specific persons, see List of X'ians.
• X'ian language. See also Languages of X.
• X'ian cuisine

Objections:

• Too many non-disambiguating wiki links
• "Demographics of X" and "Culture of X" are subtopics of X, not disambiguation entries of X.
• "Languages of X" are not a topic ever called by the term "X", therefore likewise not a dab entry. Nobody ever says "French" when he means Basque, Occitan, Arabic and West Flemish.
• "X'ian cuisine" is also a subtopic of X. Simple adjective-noun combinations where the dab term is the adjective should not go on a dab page, as per WP:MOSDAB. "Greek alphabet" is an exception in this case, because "Greek", alone, can actually be used as a label for the script rather than the language too.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:47, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

true. i only got involved like that because i thought all those were necessary. thanx for da cleanup mateCuteHappyBrute (talk) 11:04, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree, apart from one; The history Greek language is generally divided in three periods: Ancient, Medieval (Byzantine) and Modern. Medieval Greek should stay in the page. --Hectorian (talk) 11:17, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, not that it matters a lot, but of course once we have medieval back in, then Homeric, Mycenean, Linear A, early modern and all the rest won't be far behind, because there'll always be some editor fixated enough on notions of completeness rather than usability. My argument (see above) was that "medieval Greek", like the other minor ones, is not well-known enough in common usage as a standalone entity to warrant status as a dab term; people just don't talk about it these terms. A person might say: "I've started learning Greek. I'm taking a Greek language course this term". That person will only ever mean either ancient or modern Greek. Never medieval, never Mycenean, and usually not all of them together either. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:30, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I still think that medieval should stay, since it covers a millenium of Greek linguistic history. As a native Greek speaker, I am not aware of what non-Greeks think when they hear "Greek language". For us Homeric and Koine Greek are parts of ancient, and I wouldn't understand why someone would add them here. Anyway, if you remove medieval I will not object. --Hectorian (talk) 11:50, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I object that only Ancient and Moder Greek shall be relevant. Koine Greek and Byzantine Greek has a great literature and shall be named. We say that the Gospels are written in Greek, but it means the Koine Greek. A dis page has the only use to give the different choices. If the Koine Greek is part of the Ancient Greek or not is a POV that shall be debated in the relevant Articles, not in the dis page.A ntv (talk) 07:52, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

"Greek language" is the main article for all stages of Greek, but I see no harm in linking the individual historical stages, as this page isn't exactly ovreburdened. Otoh, Greece is the article on the post-1975 (or post-1821?) Republic exclusively, while "Greek" can of course also refer to the country at earlier times. --dab (𒁳) 14:08, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with the statement that Greece is only for the modern republic. It has a history section going all the way back to prehistory. As such, it serves as the canonical summary article for all detail articles dealing with earlier periods. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Anal sex

Please read http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/greek and Anal_sex#Ancient_and_non-Western_cultures.

Thank you. --86.5.88.230 (talk) 15:44, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you should change it to something more along the lines of " Greek love, a slang term for anal sex. ", but even that is questionable.  Fyyer  16:03, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

This will be most appropriate: " Greek love, a reference to male bonding and intimate relations between males as practised in ancient Greece. " since there is a main article on it.  Fyyer  16:06, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

The term no longer refers only to male-male sex, but to any anal sex. See, for example:

* http://www.talksexwithsue.com/analsex.html

* http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=greek+sex

The Greek love article is going to need some reworking to incorporate that, and some proper references will be needed to verify it, but it should definitely be referenced here, possibly as just "Greek love" without any further qualification until that has been done.

--86.5.88.230 (talk) 16:27, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Having thought more about it overnight, I've gone with this:

Greek love, a term referring variously to male bonding, homosexuality, pederasty and anal sex.

--86.5.88.230 (talk) 09:16, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Greek typewriter

Where should I go to find information on the layout of keys on Greek typewriters of the late 19th century? 216.99.201.129 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:51, 28 August 2009 (UTC).

Pruning down, for the 3rd time

I strongly object against the recent edits that have – again – made the dab list grow into something that approaches more a directory of related topics than a disambiguation list, with entries like:

• • Modern Greece: War of Independence, Kingdom of Greece, Second Hellenic Republic, 4th of August Regime, Axis occupation, Civil War, Military Junta, Third Hellenic Republic

A disambiguation page is purely for what the term "disambiguation" is about: topics that share the same name. Nobody who looks up the term "Greek" would expect to land on a page dedicated to the "4th of August Regime" or the "Greek War of Independence". Those things aren't called "Greek". "Greek" may be an attribute of them in some sense, but "Greek", all by itself, isn't their name. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:29, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I can see (and even approve) the theoretical and ideal reasoning behind this, but would suggest that the recent edit wars have shown this to be an insufficient and inadequate argument per se. Secondly, a not insignificant proportion of people coming through here might expect the term "Greek" to equate to Ancient Greece > Classical Greece, so it seems useful to allow them to get to their target article without having to pass through intermediary pages. Scarabocchio (talk) 21:44, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

The edit wars are only caused by people forgetting what a disambiguation page is about and filling it up with unrelated stuff; once somebody starts doing so, somebody else will want their favourite unrelated stuff in too. The solution is not to saturate it with a maximum of unrelated stuff. The solution is to bring it back to what it ought to have been from the start. The fewer entries the better. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:03, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Future, I suggest you take the page and make whatever edits you want. If this means stripping the history section to the bare History of Greece article, then so be it. I merely got involved because it seemed to me that some people don't like seeing "Ottoman" next to "Greek"... Constantine ✍ 22:10, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I've done a maximum pruning back, in several steps. If you disagree, you can revert me in parts – but please don't revert all the way back to the ridiculously overburdened page we had previously. Also, though I know it's been discussed before and there were objections, I'll renew my suggestion to reduce the "Greek language" sub-entries to just two: Ancient Greek and Modern Greek. The rationale is further up on this page, see #Pruning down again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:29, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Mr jurk. put whatever Ottoman want their history is so l e s s Greek articles that must be add its the point of Greece from centuries and ago... With the same sceptic we must out the references of the same page turkish orrr spain ... what are these redicoulous things you doing this year in the page of wipedia? We dont see any serious arguments and explanations on this (talk-page)or are we talking to 5 years old mind children? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.49.171.196 (talk) 18:21, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I would like to point out that WP:DABSTYLE states that "Each bulleted entry should, in almost every case, have exactly one navigable (blue) link; including more than one link can confuse the reader." For those who use the disambiguation popup tool, having extraneous wikilinks will make it more difficult to find the correct one. A disambiguation page should not look like a navigation template. We already have one of those at Template:Greece topics ... discospinster _talk 19:33, 25 May 2011 (UTC)