[B-Greek] Akathist hymn
Steve Puluka
spuluka at hotmail.com
Mon Dec 8 06:47:55 EST 2003
----- Original Message -----
From: Walt Seevers <lws39 at juno.com>
> Does anyone know anything about the Akathist hymn? I did a quick search.
> It appears that it was written in the sixth century. I am curious as to
> the type of Greek it is. It looks very similar to Koine.
> Thanks for any info.
Walt,
The Akathist service is generally dated to the early sixth century. I'm
just a student of liturgy myself, but my professors here refer to this as
"liturgical Greek." Many of the services composed made a conscious effort
to imitate the classic Greek poetic style, this is one. For the most part
they are grammatically "current" Greek, but do have occasional archaic
constructions. The poems also follow the strict rules of Greek metric
poetry. The same is true of most of the hymnography found in Orthodox
worship.
I have even heard some classify the translations of these texts in Church
Slavonic, the liturgical language of most Slavic Churches, the same way.
This is one of the reasons given for Shakespearian English to translate
liturgical texts. The argument is that the Greek texts would sound just as
quaint in the original context.
Steve Puluka
Masters Student SS Cyril & Methodius Seminary, Pittsburgh
Cantor in the Carpatho-Rusyn tradition
http://www.geocities.com/spuluka
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