Smyth's grammar

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Aug 21 14:18:55 EDT 2002


At 2:03 PM -0400 8/21/02, Trevor Peterson wrote:
>
>What's the point? Simply this: If the goal is to learn a living language,
>studying that living language itself is a good deal more helpful than studying
>any earlier form of the language. But when the goal is to learn (or learn
>about) a dead language, now the question is one of managing restricted data.
>I'm not going to try to argue that it's better to go from Attic to Koine.
>(What do I know--I don't know much about Attic myself.) My point is simply to
>say that I think it's a different issue when the goal is to learn a dead
>language.

Just a qualification here: I would agree that if what you're interested in
mastering is spoken Modern English, that's the thing to focus full
attention upon. If, on the other hand, you're seriously concerned about
modern English LITERATURE, you'd better expend some effort on reading
Shakespeare and the King James Bible.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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