[B-Greek] Koine math books
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Feb 18 10:19:23 EST 2004
At 8:59 AM -0500 2/18/04, Katb4now at aol.com wrote:
>I was given this AWESOME link last night!
>
>http://www.du.edu/~etuttle/classics/nugreek/contents.htm
>
>This site says Euclid's elements was written in Koine? Is that true? Where
>all the other greek math texts written in Koine too?
I guess if one wants to assert that Plato and Aristotle wrote in Koine,
then one might argue that Euclid did.
The real problem with such an assertion is that Koine is not homogeneous;
even a reader of the New Testament who finds John easy going must realize
that 1 Peter and Hebrews and Luke are something quite different. Koine
begins when Athens seizes hegemony ("empire" that is) over the Aegean
maritime states and increasingly makes Attic the language of commerce and
political interaction--it's the same as what's happened to English in the
wake of successive British and American eras of dominance: Koine English
has come into use in most areas of the world. In the Aegean this meant,
more than anything else, that Ionic spellings and Attic grammar became the
basis of a common commercial and political language. Language is always
changing, and it was changing between the 5th century and the 4th--but one
usually speaks of 5th and 4th century Greek as essentially Classical Attic.
Thereafter there was always something of a difference between the Greek
taught in the schools and written by scribes for governmental purposes and
the Greek used on the street in commerce and ordinary discourse.
>Does anyone know anything about the Loeb Greek/English volumes of math texts?
>Are they in Koine or Attic or a mix of both?
>
>Now I'm wondering if the Latin math and science texts are in a more modern,
>vulgar version of Latin. Does anyone know anything about reading Latin and
>Greek math and science in the original languages?
>
>I am VERY interested in this topic and would like to know more.
It's not really a matter of either/or; it's a matter of position on a
continuous spectrum. Even in the first century A.D. there's an immense
difference between the Greek of Philo of Alexandria or Josephus and the
Greek of Mark's gospel.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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