[B-Greek] Knowledge of ancient Greek
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Fri Feb 24 14:44:44 EST 2006
Wish I had some more time to interact with this subject. But I am
again being "forced" to say 'KALA' instead of 'KALWS' and have shifted
into 6-vowel mode ('forced' is a tongue-in-cheek riddle, if you can
follow). We were just discussing ancient Romans learning Greek over
some restina. So internet time is quite limited til next week.
>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. >
For clarity, I sure hope that your parents didn't teach you to say
"dinner's on in three minutes" from a book. Language learning is
complex but the foundation of a first language is oral and without
books. For most, vocabulary expansion into adulthood is done primarily
with reading, which may be a primary influence for stylistic writing
maturation. Alongside of all of this a fledging 'grammar-monitor' is
built up inintermediate/high schools so that students can talk about
their language, but that is NOT how they learned it, nor how writers
develop their skill. Quintillian discussed many related aspects and
stages in the first century.
Anyway, a healthy understanding of first and second language learning
is a necessary background for meaningful discussion of ancient Greek
learning. (Of course, the parallel for us would be the Romans, not the
Greeks themselves. The Greeks, (and most Romans) learned to correctly
use the AITIATIKH PTWSIS long before they knew [if they ever
learned!] the phrase AITIATIKH PTWSIS [lit: "causal falling", a.k.a.,
Accuse-ing-like-'case']). I would recommend JJ Asher "Learning
Another Language Through Actions, 6th ed." as an enjoyable starting
point.
ERRWSQE --
Randall Buth
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
randallbuth at gmail.com
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