[B-Greek] RE: English to Greek, Reverse Dictionary

Alexander Hopkins alexali at surf.net.au
Fri May 2 10:03:53 EDT 2003


Jeffrey Gibson asked,

>Is there a reverse NT Greek Lexicon or an online resource (excluding
Perseus) that moves from English words to their NT greek "equivalents"? 

Iver Larsen indicated the relevance of Louw and Nida,

>Are you aware of volume 2 of the Louw and Nida Greek-English Lexicon?
Volume 2 has both a Greek and English index and it is restricted to the
NT. One of the advantages for students is that for each English word in
the index they get one or more semantic domain numbers and when they
look up those numbers in volume 1, they can easily compare several words
in the same semantic range. Some of the English words have separate
entries, e.g. "see (visit)" , "see/ing (sensory), "see to (take care
of)".

Jeffrey's question brought to mind the book, English-Greek Dictionary,
subtitled, A Vocabulary of the Attic Language, by S.C.Woodhouse, first
published in 1910, but the subtitle is enough to indicate that it
doesn't meet directly the students' need to find 'equivalents' in the
Greek of the NT.

Louw and Nida is not a resource I have on my shelves, or even on my
computer, so I write the following open to correction.  As Iver
indicates, it is relevant to the needs of Jeffrey's students;  but
perhaps they ought to be advised to use it with one qualification.  As
it restricts itself to NT vocabulary and NT usage, it shouldn't be
forgotten in using it that it doesn't reflect wider possibilities, as
reflected in the papyri, for example, or literary texts.  In other
words, I think it's just worth bearing in mind that it deals with a
closed vocabulary set, and that LN shouldn't be taken as affording a
full understanding of a particular word.

Jeffrey's speaking of a reverse dictionary brings one other thought to
mind (on a separate tangent from Jeffrey's intent), as I sometimes think
of 'reverse dictionaries' as ones which are ordered according to the
endings of words.  I've sometimes thought it would be a worthwhile
resource to have - a book that indicates the possibilities of various
endings, e.g. -W^ (my attempt to represent final omega with circumflex)
1) 1st sg, present indicative active of contract verbs, 2) 1st sg,
future indicative active of verbs where contraction has taken place in
the future stem, e.g. yod suffix verbs such as YALW at Romans 15:9, 3)
2nd sg, present imperative middle/passive of AW contracts, e.g. NIKW at
Romans 12:21, 4) gen. sg. of certain nouns, etc, etc.  Does such a
resource exist?

Regards,

Alex Hopkins
Melbourne, Australia



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