Hellenic Quest

Hellenic Quest refers to an urban legend that circulated around Greek websites [http://www.tanea.gr//Article.aspx?d=20080201&nid=7353312&sn=&spid=221] and was widely reproduced without prior verification by any source. According to the "Hellenic Quest" story, CNN has reported that Apple Computer is supposedly developing a software product for teaching the Ancient Greek language to foreigners and scientists, in the light of the upcoming development of supercomputers that will use Ancient Greek as their programming interface, due to this language's superior logical structure. (This prediction often attributed by the hoax writer to Bill Gates.) A prototype computer that is allegedly under development as part of this project is called "Ibycus".

The text contains a number of factual errors, unproved assertions and exaggerations. The origin of this hoax is not clear. The author probably uses CNN and Apple Computer as a means to give more credibility to the story. The story is sometimes enhanced with linguistic-sounding arguments. It also has several obscure references to what seems to be the [http://www.tlg.uci.edu/ Thesaurus Linguae Graecae] project, a project undertaken by University of California, Irvine, which aims to digitize all ancient and medieval Greek texts, with some of the story's context seems to be based on a misquotation of the [http://www.tlg.uci.edu/TLG_Info.html Introduction to the TLG Project] . Furthermore, the supposed computer prototype "Ibycus", is just an old HP 1000, that was used in the 80's to search and browse TLG texts, represented in beta code.

The Ancient Greek language (or any other language) has nothing to do with the binary logic that forms the basis of computers' function. Even advanced concepts in computation, such as fuzzy logic, knowledge-based systems and quantum computation have absolutely no use whatsoever for the extreme expressiveness of any of the world's languages anyway, "rich and powerful" as they may be characterized ; the notions understood by computers are very basic.

Urban legend spread

On January 27, 2008, the Minister for National Education and Religious Affairs of Greece, Evripidis Stylianidis, reproduced the hoax in his opening speech for the finals of the annual student debate competition, in an attempt to praise the Greek language superiority. The event took place at the old Greek parliament and it was subject of criticism by the press. [http://www.tanea.gr//Article.aspx?d=20080201&nid=7353312&sn=&spid=221] [ [http://www.sarantakos.com/language/stylianidis.html Ευριπίδης Στυλιανίδης, Υπουργός Σκοταδισμού και Θρησκευμάτων ] ] [ [http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=823353 ((i)) Indymedia :: Athens :: Newswire :: Ο υπουργός παιδείας παπαγαλάκι του ΛΑΟΣ ] ] [ [http://news.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_columns_1_15/02/2008_259283 Το εθνικιστικό «σκονάκι» του υπουργού Παιδείας ] ]

External links

* [http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/168/ Museum of Hoaxes]
* [http://www.tlg.uci.edu/ TLG]
* [http://www.tlg.uci.edu/ibycus.html Ibycus (HP 1000 photo)]
* [http://www.tlg.uci.edu/help/Doc002.html Technical note on beta code]
* [http://www.sarantakos.com/language/lernaio.html Κείμενο για το Hellenic Quest] (in Greek)

Notes