[B-Greek] Caragounis book

Dr. Don Wilkins drdwilkins at sbcglobal.net
Wed Nov 24 21:38:22 EST 2004


Now this is getting interesting. I would love to get my hands on 
Caragounis' book as much as anyone, but I am intrigued both by Dirk's 
caveat and by Carl's response, especially his statement,

On the other hand, one of the things that I find
attractive about Caragounis' approach is his focus on the diachronic
perspective on the language and particularly the view that a knowledge of
post-Koine Greek contributes to the understanding of Koine Greek as much 
as
does a knowledge of Homeric or Attic or dialectal Ionic and Aeolic and
Doric Greek of the earlier era.

I have only dabbled with modern Greek, but I think it's fair to say that 
the historical development of Greek from Attic to modern is a gradual 
reduction in precision and complexity (if anyone disagrees, please say 
so). Let me suggest hINA as an example. This preposition has a very 
clear definition and use in Attic for purpose; this use carries over 
into NT Greek, of course, but hINA seems to be used more loosely in some 
passages, almost as result or as a "marker" for an object clause. At the 
same time, though, one could probably make a die-hard case for hINA as a 
purpose marker everywhere in the NT (I would consider that a bit of a 
stretch). Now my understanding is that NA has come over into modern 
Greek from hINA, and NA seems to be diluted down to the equivalent of 
the English "to". *If* that is true (and I encourage any corrections for 
errors I may be making), then would it not be fair to say that someone 
coming from a classical perspective would be better equipped to 
understand hINA in the NT than someone coming from modern Greek? Indeed, 
I don't think someone who knows only NA from modern Greek will correctly 
understand hINA in the NT, and an attempt to interpret hINA in light of 
NA would only lead to error. Or am I just full of beans? In that case, 
like Gilda Radner, I'll just say, "Never mind."

BTW, this is NOT a criticism of the diachronic method, which has great 
value in and of itself, and my apologies if I have indicated to the 
contrary.

Don Wilkins

On Wednesday, November 24, 2004, at 08:36 AM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:

> At 2:42 PM +0000 11/24/04, D Jongkind wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Before everybody gets overexcited, some may find the book a little
>> disappointing.
>>
>> First of all, it has not been edited very well: the author tends to
>> repeat himself frequently.
>> Some may also find his heavy emphasis on the continuous development of
>> koine into modern Greek a little far-pressed. At times one gets the
>> impression that the author wants to imply that the only people who can
>> understand NT Greek properly are the modern-day Greek speakers; there 
>> is
>> a heavy dosis of - what might be called - Greek nationalism detectable
>> (including the whole edgy debate of what true modern Greek actually 
>> is).
>> Interestingly, Caragounis does not see the Greek speakers in
>> first-century Egypt as true native Greek speakers, they can only be
>> found in Greece proper.
>
> IF that's the case, it would seem to be an unfortunate bias, in view of 
> the
> fact that there was a Greek population in Egypt that continued to exist,
> especially in Alexandria, from antiquity until recent decades, and there
> are those who think that one of the greatest modern Greek poets was the
> Alexandrian C.P. Cavafy. On the other hand, one of the things that I 
> find
> attractive about Caragounis' approach is his focus on the diachronic
> perspective on the language and particularly the view that a knowledge 
> of
> post-Koine Greek contributes to the understanding of Koine Greek as 
> much as
> does a knowledge of Homeric or Attic or dialectal Ionic and Aeolic and
> Doric Greek of the earlier era. If there's a bias there, it may be a
> corrective to the intensely-restrictive bias of a synchronic 
> perspective,
> the worst manifestation of which is the erstwhile conception that NT 
> Greek
> is somehow a unique "sacred" language bearing little relationship to the
> Greek spoken and written by contemporaries of the composers of the GNT.
> Probably when one looks at Caragounis' book, one should also have in 
> hand
> or read simultaneously Geoffrey Horrocks, _Greek: A History of the 
> Language
> and its Speakers_, Longman, 1997.
> --
>
> 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/
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
>



More information about the B-Greek mailing list