το εἰσαγωγή
Introduction

Aims & Objectives

ΤΑΚΕ is being constructed purely as an intellectual exercise: to produce an ancient Greek without inflexions. It has the following Aims and Objectives:

Aims

1. To retain the vocabulary of common Greek of the Classical and early Koine (e.g., -σσ- is used instead of the -ττ- peculiar to Attic, Boiotian & Cretan; λαός is used rather than Attic λεώς etc.), allowing the occasional use of Homeric (Epic) forms or constructions when necessary; Koine words of Latin origin will be adopted with the same rules as native Greek words.
2. To allow modern terms based, if possible, on ancient Greek norms; modern Latin borrowings will be assumed to have been hellenized, as Latin words were in the Koine, before being adopted in ΤΑΚΕ; words from other languages will be adopted according to principles discussed in the 'Personal Names' page.
3. To produce a language truly without inflexions, thus adopting an isolating syntax.
    

Objectives

1. To illustrate some of the problems one will face if trying to devise a modern form of an ancient language and suggest ways of solving them.
2. To illustrate some of the problems one will face if trying to devise an isolating form of an inflected language and suggest ways of solving them.
    

The origin of the language

Το Ἄνευ Κλίσι Ἑλληνική (Greek without inflexions), also now known by the acronym ΤΑΚΕ¹ (formerly known as ΕΑΚ or EAK, as explained below), owes its origin to a chance observation made in February 2006 in reply to an error I had made in an email on the Conlang list. The dog Latin name², "Graeca sine flexione" stuck, giving rise to a thread on what Greek might be like if stripped of its inflexions in the manner similar to Giuseppe Peano's Latino sine Flexione. During the thread, the language came to be known by the acronym GSF; but the thread eventually petered out. It floundered, I think, because we were conflating ancient and modern Greek and thus producing neither an ancient Greek nor a modern Greek without inflexions, but a sterile hybrid.

Early in May 2007 Philip Newton published Akļiteļiņika or Greek sans flexions (GSF) on the Internet. A look at his introduction page will show that Philip has developed the 'modern Greek without inflexions' model. But he also wrote on that page: "[I] came up with some [ideas] of my own as well to create this particular variety of Greek sans inflections. Others are welcome to do the same if they'd like."

This led to another thread on the Conlang list which began as 'GSF revisited' but soon turned into EAK (an acronym for the ungrammatically named Ελληνικό άνευ Κλίσι) . In this I outlined various ideas for a 'classical Greek without inflexions.' το ἄνευ κλίσι Ἑλληνική is the result or, more strictly, the partial result, as the work is still in progress.

¹A fellow Conlanger, Henrik Theiling, has pointed out that ΤΑΚΕ nicely complements GIVE (Greek Inflexions Vanished Easily).
²In 'Latino sine flexione' the name would be "Graeco sine flexione", and in Classical Latin, as prepositional phrases normally function only as adverbs, we would have something like "Graecum sine flexionibus transformatum."

 

2010/ 2011 Revision

I decided from the start that classical & Koine Greek should be used and not modern Greek (modern terms are adopted according to Aim ii above). On the Conlang list we tried to imagine a scenario in which someone might want to produce an 'ancient Greek without inflexions' in a way analogous to 'Latino sine flexione.' After some discussion, a scenario developed in which Alexander the Great did not die young in Persia, but lived on, turned westward bringing 'Magna Graeca' of southern Italy under his control and going on to conquer the rest of Italy as well as southern Gaul and the Iberian peninsular. The western part of the Hellenic alternative time-line (HATL) was dubbed WHATL, and later my own version of the HATL, both east and west, was dubbed RHATL.

I have found more and more that this alternate history is somewhat cramping and one constantly has to make assumptions. In September 2010, I decided to abandon it entirely and declared that:

• RHATL had passed out of all existence, virtual or otherwise.
• Ιωσήφ Πεάνου (Joseph Peanou), Giuseppe Peano's doppelgänger in RHATL had passed away, since the universe in which he existed had passed out of existence.

It may be that some Conlangers are 'discovering' the Hellenic languages of WHAT or, indeed, some other HATL; it may even be that Giuseppe Peano has a doppelgänger in one or more of these HATLs. But, if so, all I ask is that ΤΑΚΕ is not associated with any of them.

Finally, it should be pointed out that although Giuseppe Peano produced 'Latino sine flexione' as an international auxiliary language, I am NOT making a similar proposal for ΤΑΚΕ! This is, as I wrote above, purely an intellectual exercise which attempts to achieve the aims and objectives given above. Indeed, there are several features about ΤΑΚΕ that, in my opinion, make it unsuitable as an auxlang.