[B-Greek] English Grammar as a Prerequisite to Learning Greek?
Maurice A. O'Sullivan
mauros at iol.ie
Thu Dec 11 13:46:25 EST 2003
At 15:23 11/12/2003, Hirokatsu Yoshihara wrote:
>Maurice
>
>
>Speaking from my experiences of 1) traning Japanese people who wanted to
>be teachers of the Japanese language as the second language, 2) working
>together with English teachers who were teaching in Japan with the only
>qualification that they were native speakers, and 3) myself, a native
>Japanese speaker, having been formally trained as a linguist specialized
>in my own mother tongue, it always seems quite difficult for a native
>speaker to be well trained in analyzing his/her own native language
>UNLESS one has had a good quality of education on it at any level from
>elementary to college.
Thank you for your courteous and well-reasoned response to what you (
flatteringly ) term my "thesis.
I would be the first to categorise it as an exasperated cry <g> from a
generation whose schooling included parsing of English prose as a standard
part of English classes and whose university insisted that my matriculation
subjects include Latin before I could enter the engineering school.
>To most native English speakers, learning a classical language such as
>Greek is simultaneously a process of finding English, their own mother
>tongue, afresh. In fact, John F. Collins, in my favorite textbook of
>ecclesiastical Latin, says:
>
>"Learning ecclesiastical Latin has two bonuses for the student. Recent
>studies have shown that the formal analysis of a highly structured
>language such as Latin gives the student an improved understanding of
>the purposes and possibilities of language and greatly advances his
>ability to write and speak effectively . . . Thus the study of
>ecclesiastical Latin, while an enjoyable and profitable study in itself,
>looks back to the improvement of English . . ." (p. v)
In recent years there has been a rising volume of calls to restore
classical Latin to its former position.
One of the best examples of such a call appeared a couple of months ago in
The Scotsman.
I will just quote the opening paragraphs here ( and send you the entire
article off-list )
>>>
ALEXANDER TULLOCH
Latin and Greek, dead languages? Let me say at the outset that I have no
axe to grind. I am not a retired or redundant classics master bemoaning the
disappearance of my subject from school curricula.
I have, on the other hand, made my living for the past 30-odd years as a
modern linguist with sufficient knowledge of Latin and Greek to appreciate
how vital they are for anyone who wants to acquire more than just a
superficial knowledge of a modern foreign language.
If we believe that the only reason for teaching French or Spanish in
schools is to give children the wherewithal to order a baguette in Boulogne
or a tortilla in Torremolinos then, yes, there is little point in wasting
time on the classics. But if we want to encourage students to think about
how language works and to regard the study of languages as the key to
understanding different cultures, then we should be exposing them to the
benefits of the classics.
>>>>
Maurice A. O'Sullivan
[Bray, Ireland]
mauros at iol.ie
"Mere description is impossible. Language forces you to an implicit
comment." C.S. Lewis
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