[B-Greek] Caragounis book-Wilkins

R Yochanan Bitan Buth ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Fri Nov 26 22:12:03 EST 2004


Wilkins EGRAPSEN
>Now this is getting interesting.>
 
KALWS
 
...
>the historical development of Greek from Attic to modern is a gradual
reduction in precision and complexity (if anyone disagrees, please say so)>
 
That sentence may sound like an attitude frequent in the 19th century. In
resonse: all languages change, of course, and usually by reducing
complexity, but the new structures are used by their speakers to precisely
say what they want to say. For example, dropping the ancient DATIVE case and
requiring the use of prepositions in modern Greek does simplify the
morphology of nouns, but modern Greek speakers can be every bit as precise
as they need be, even more so than the ancient, by those choices of
prepositions.
 
...
>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),>
 
OK: Yes, but... 
It might be clearer to say that NA is closer to "that" in English. 
QELW NA DW in modern Greek would be closer morphologically to "I want that I
see" in English. The -W ending in DW is a first person marker (not an
infinitive), so "he wants to see" becomes QELEI NA DH "he wants that he
sees" (as if an ancient: QELEI INA IDHi). 
This is not too different from 
Mk 10:51 "TI SOI QELEIS POIHSW?"
"RABBOUNEI [Heb=my master], INA ANABLEPSW !"
While the Modern Greek language should be considered a separate language
from the ancient in the sense of mutual intelligibility or in the sense of
needing to be learned by a speaker of one of the two, modern still maintains
an organic, direct connection that is fascinating if not illuminating.
[Caveat: while the modern structures mentioned are an accurate
representation, I do not vouch for my spelling or word details, not having
time to check on them.]
 
EUODOUSQAI SE EUXOMAI
Randall Buth

 

Randall Buth, PhD

Director, Biblical Language Center

www.biblicalulpan.org

and Director, Biblical Studies in Israel

Hebrew University, Rothberg International School

ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il

 




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