[B-Greek] Knowledge of Ancient Greek

Terry and Gail Cook cookie99 at fuse.net
Wed Feb 22 10:48:26 EST 2006


During my 1st qtr of Greek I frequently asked the professor, "how do we know 
this?" There are lots of "rules" which really aren't rules and I wanted to 
know (and still do) if we were just making this up (mildly joking). I think 
it was and still is a fair question.
As English/readers/speakers living in the 21st century we have memories of 
how we learned our own language- we had teachers! Our parents, uncles, 
aunts, playground friends and when we became of age, teachers with formal 
education. These teachers ALWAYS taught from books. Our teachers too learned 
the way we learned and their teachers and so on.
One need only go to Amazon and type in English grammar to find dozens of 
textbooks.
It's not unreasonable to wonder how today we know that an aorist was thought 
by Paul to be____(fill in the blank) or that an indicative was considered 
to____. If the ancients wrote about grammar then where can we find their 
writings? There are those of us who would like to know if Paul and Peter 
thought about the language of their day the same way as we do 2,000 years 
later. If there is guesswork involved in our current scholarship then we 
want to know that.
We translate our GNT based on the methods and understandings taught us by AT 
Robertson, and Carl Conrad and our local guy. These teachers learned from 
someone who learned from someone and so on. How far in the past can the 
chain be traced? Did Augustine and Jerome think about the use of the article 
the same as Paul? Did he understand participles as does Daniel Wallace?
Terry Cook
sDg


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
To: "Ernest Blum" <eblum at adelphia.net>
Cc: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 9:55 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Knowledge of Ancient Greek


>
> On Feb 22, 2006, at 9:33 AM, Ernest Blum wrote:
>
>> In answer to the question of whether the ancient greeks thought up
>> "grammar," I'm disappointed that not too much light has been thrown
>> on this
>> question.
>>
>> Just how the ancient Greeks, Romans and speakers and writers of Koine
>> learned Greek is a matter of great interest to those of us who are
>> eager to
>> learn Greek today.
>>
>> Is there any book that addresses these matters and explains how
>> Greek was
>> taught and learned over the milleninia?  Sincerely, Ernest Blum
>
> I don't really understand why one should imagine that ancient (or
> modern) Greeks learned Greek in some way other than human beings in
> general learn their native languages. How they TAUGHT it in the
> schools is another matter altogether. Inasmuch as Plato's Republic
> focuses on the "reform" of traditional education in order to produce
> a better society, one might learn something from it about traditional
> "music and gymnastics" and what all was involved in that, and one
> might check them encyclopedias (and Wikipedia) under "gymnasium," the
> primary educational institution of the Hellenistic Greek-speaking
> world..
>
> There are books on the history of Greek, including the recently-
> appearing book by Chrys Caragounis, (The Development of Greek and the
> New Testament: Morphology, Syntax, Phonology, and Textual
> Transmission.  Mohr Siebeck, 2004. XX, 732 pages  (Wissenschaftliche
> Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament / 167) ISBN 3-16-148290-5.  cloth
> 129.00 Euro); there's Geoffrey Horrocks' book (Greek: a history of
> the language and its speakers, 1997), which is, unfortunately, now
> out of print. Neither of these focuses upon pedagogical concerns as
> such.
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
> 1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
> cwconrad2 at mac.com
> WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
>
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
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> 




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