[B-Greek] How did the Greeks Read Greek?

Arie Dirkzwager dirkzwager at pandora.be
Mon Aug 23 13:21:31 EDT 2004


Clayton,

Without being a native Greek I manage to read the NT in Greek like a
newspaper in the Dutch (my native) language.
And that is also true for the majority of classical Greek texts.

So if I can - the Greeks could.

Besides:  *I* often wonder how the Greeks sitting in a theater could
understand the tragedies of Aeschylus. I find them fairly difficult. But
they could.

So I think that there are two sides of your question:
- the Greeks (without a tv, and living more slowly than we do) had a better
feeling for language than we have.
- it is nevertheless possible for us to read a flected language like Greek -
ask the Poles how they can read and speak Polish !

Arie


Dr. A. Dirkzwager
Hoeselt, Belgium
e-mail dirkzwager at pandora.be

----- Oorspronkelijk bericht -----
Van: "Clayton Javurek" <javurek at asu.edu>
Aan: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
CC: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Verzonden: maandag 23 augustus 2004 16:51
Onderwerp: [B-Greek] How did the Greeks Read Greek?




Clayton Javurek
E-Mail:javurek at asu.edu

Dear b-greek listers:

Currently I am reading through the book of Hebrews in the NT with the
help of the Greek-English Interlinear. The Greek word order in the book
of Hebrews is very difficult. How did the Greeks in the first century AD
read Greek? By this
I mean to ask "Did the Greeks look at each sentence like a scattered
puzzle
and they first had to identify the parts and then fit them together" or
"Did
the Greeks, somehow in moving from left to right, were still able to use
Greek word order
somehow to read Greek"? I just find that the Greek word order in the
book
of Hebrews appears so crazy that it would seem so difficult even for a
Greek native speaker to read the book of Hebrews!

Thanks for any insight you can offer.


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