[B-Greek] Ancient Greek-Grammar war?

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Sat Feb 25 15:35:11 EST 2006


> I found another very interesting article by a UWM professor David
> Mulroy in
> the Classics
> and how the war on grammar is effecting his field to the point of
> extinction.
> This can be read at http://www.ateg.org/monographs/mulroy.php
>
> Regards,
> Linda Harris

Another perspective. (davar aHer)
I profoundly agree and strongly disagree with the perspecitve of that
article. It is very sad that students will not be learning Greek. But
the culprit is not English. The culprit is Greek teaching itself.
Notice the oxymoron here. Mulroy complains that students cannot learn
Greek without knowing English grammar metalanguage (last term mine).
since when did Plato or Luke need to know English grammar terms in
order to learn Greek? Did Isaiah or Hillel need English in order to
learn Hebrew?
What students need to learn any language is a good, efficient course
in that language.

How does one tell a good course from a bad one? If 90% of class time
is spent in the language being learned, then the course is probably a
good one, and students will probably make efficient progress. If only
10% of the language in class is the language being learned, but 90% is
English talking about the languag, then those students will probably
never internalize and learn that language. At least, not in the way
that human languages are to be learned and used.
I sympathize with Professor Mulroy, but I think he is complaining
about a deadend alley instead of walking down tree-lined street. Well,
that's how I see it. Sadly, I had to write this in English. I see that
as a much bigger trajedy than students who don't know what an "English
gerund" is. (Let the English teachers complain about English gerunds!
DEI HMAS DEIKNUNAI TOIS MAQHTAIS THN GLWSSAN EN XRHSEI KAI EN
PRAGMASI. XAIRETE, OUPW TO TELOS.)
Anyway, the "war" can be won by using Greek.
ERRWSQE
Randall Buth

--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
randallbuth at gmail.com


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