[B-Greek] Palmer's _The Greek Language_ [was Caragounis' book]

Steven Lo Vullo themelios at charter.net
Sun Nov 28 17:51:06 EST 2004


On Nov 27, 2004, at 8:37 AM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:

> Yes, and it takes a considerable effort for one who has started out
> learning Attic to start reading Homer. I think my own sequence of 
> studies,
> as I've noted before in this forum, was extraordinary and not the way 
> I'd
> choose to go: NT Koine in the Freshman year, Homer in the Sophomore 
> year,
> Sophocles and Aristotle in the Junior year; it required an intense and
> immense effort and I'd certainly prefer to go from Homer to Attic to
> Koine--OR, what we did at Washington U was give Freshman classical 
> Attic
> and then let them do Homer or NT Koine. But a relatively simple 
> experience
> for me early in my teaching career was discovering George Thomson's 
> little
> book, _The Greek Language_ published in 1960 by Heffer in Cambridge and
> long since out of print; it's a quick overview of the historical
> development of Greek from ancient to modern concluding with a short
> anthology of representative texts from antiquity to 20th century (the
> Nikandra inscription to Cavafy); the selections were well annotated,
> included several papyrus letters from the early Christian centuries, a
> couple Byzantine and later medieval documents, etc.--and they ranged 
> from
> an Egyptian child's almost illiterate letter to his father in 
> Alexandria
> and a colloquial account of a ship coming from Constantinople to 
> report its
> capture by the Turks, a selection illustrating differences between 
> Attic
> usage and colloquial Koine from Phrynicus in the 2nd c. AD, etc. The 
> marvel
> to me while working through these well-annotated selections, was that 
> there
> really is a discernible continuity in the speaking and writing of the 
> Greek
> language over the centuies.

Carl, et al:

Regrettably, I have not yet read a good full-length history of the 
Greek language. I only know what I have picked up from grammars and 
discussion on B-Greek. In going through my library, I found I have a 
book called _The Greek Language_ by Leonard R. Palmer. Is this a decent 
treatment, worth reading?
============

Steven Lo Vullo
Madison, WI




More information about the B-Greek mailing list