[B-Greek] the Knowledge of Ancient Greek

CWestf5155 at aol.com CWestf5155 at aol.com
Mon Feb 20 20:22:41 EST 2006


In a message dated 2/20/2006 5:21:17 PM Mountain Standard Time,  
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il writes:

>Hi  friends,
I have a rather simple question on the history of ancient greek.  How do 
modern scholars "know" today that the grammar rules that we hold to  for 
koine greek are the correct ones? This might sound like a foolish  question, 
but did they discover ancient greek grammar papyrii for  children?? Or.. 
what? Did they simply decipher the greek rules from  looking at thousands of 
manuscripts?
Hehe.. thanks for answering my  silly question. Just curious I suppose.. God 
bless  you!
Seth>

Answer: Both. We have ancient Greek writings by greeks  about their own
language and we have millions of words of the language in  context. Not to
mention translation into other languages.

However,  [*!*] not knowing what rules you or anyone might hold to, and
knowing that  there are differences in the way people would describe any
language, then  my comment above may not apply at all.

Blessings

Randall  Buth
Seth,
 
I'll tag on to Randall's reply.  There are ancient Greek grammars  and 
traditional grammars on ancient Greek, which may be what you  mean.  Among other 
things, translation issues have raised questions that  ancient Greek grammars 
would never have dreamed of addressing, and perhaps it  has driven our grammars 
and our discussion of grammar.
 
There are first year Greek grammars which tend to be written  along 
traditional lines, but which must be nuanced considerably in any  intermediate and 
advanced Greek.  
 
There are more recent studies based on linguistics which challenge  
traditional grammars and categories based on a combination of theory,  examination of 
texts in context, and computerized study of the ancient  Greek corpus.  In 
addition, it is held that native speakers' intuitive  grasp of their own grammar 
does not often "add up" with the linguistic patterns  that occur in the actual 
use of the language.    
 
Cindy Westfall
McMaster University

 



More information about the B-Greek mailing list