"Τα ελληνικά ομιλούνται."
Translation:Greek is spoken.
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871
Isn't ομιλοὐμαι a Katharevousa form? (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BF%CE%BC%CE%B9%CE%BB%CE%BF%CF%8D%CE%BC%CE%B1%CE%B9#Greek)
Should this instead be 'Τα ελληνικά μιλιούνται'?
871
But does Modern Greek use Katharevousa forms in everyday writing and conversation? I've only heard of it being used in Orthodox liturgy and a few other exceptional contexts. If it does, why aren't we learning probably more useful words like, for example, Katharevousa pronouns (συ,υμείς/ημών/ημάς, υμείς/υμών/υμάς)?
The fact that modern Greek use "katharevousa" forms and vocabulary does not mean that it uses every katharevousa form. It is illogical to say that when demotic became the official language, katharevousa died in an instance. Part of it was integrated into what we call today Modern Greek. Those forms are sophisticated and definitely used when you want your speech to be refined. Personal pronouns are basic things, so they did not make it into modern Greek. But many verbs also have sophisticated forms and every complete dictionary includes them (and define them with the word λόγιο). For example, the verb ομιλώ in the Greek wiktionary: https://el.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/ομιλώ. Τα ελληνικά μιλιούνται (especially this sentence) sounds very colloquial.
I couldn't agree more.
Ironically I had a hard time learning to speak and write in katharevousa when I attended University in Athens in the 60's after speaking Greek my entire life until then taught to me by my grandparents from the village with no education.
Now I have to unlearn much of what I learned.
We are definitely in a transition as far as the language is concerned(then again the world is in transition).
I have another question about this sentence. I was marked wrong for translating the Greek into " Greek is BEING spoken". Shouldn't that be an acceptable translation alternative?
Thanks in advance. Keep up the great work.
ομιλιούνται is the passive form of the sophisticated verb (see troll1994) ομιλώ. Sophisticated verbs have only the ending -ώ in first person sing. Present time whereas the unsophisticated verbs usually have both -ώ and -άω, μιλώ/ μιλάω I speak.The difference between μιλάω and ομιλώ? well, maybe ομιλώ is more solemn. A speaker is ομιλητής and his speech is ομιλία whereas μιλιά is speech/ words that drop out from the mouth (μιλητής does not exist, only ομιλητής)
That's just the link to this entire discussion page.
The link to the individual thread is https://www.duolingo.com/comment/18063154$comment_id=19530547 .
1296
Why do we have the plural form (Τα Ελληνικά) here? Is it the same for any other language? E.g. Will it be correct to say 'Τα αγγλικά ομιλούνται'?
What is Τα?
The definite article for neuter plural.
τα ελληνικά = Greek / the Greek language
You might consider it as "the Greek [things]".
My guess is that it comes from the fact that the modern Greek way to derive adverbs from adjectives is to use the neuter plural form -- thus ελληνικά "Greek(ly)" from ελληνικός "Greek".
And then from sentences such as μιλάω ελληνικά "I speek 'Greekly', in a Greek way, in Greek" the adverb got reinterpreted as a neuter plural noun, so one can speak about τα ελληνικά to mean "Greek, the Greek language".