[B-Greek] English to Greek and beyond
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Wed Dec 26 06:24:22 EST 2007
shalom Yonatan, XAIREIN
Your email has several nice questions and answers are spliced into the email
below **.
>Subject: [B-Greek] English to Greek
>What are you guys doing for English to Greek resources? Right now, pretty
much all my memorization is concentrated on recognition of the Greek text as
written and is therefore Greek to English (I look at the Greek of a
flashcard and try to recall the English, for example). But as I advance, I
am noticing my active skills are very, very far behind my passive ones. This
is even becoming a pain in theological conversations where Greek comes up,
as I will discuss the Greek of a passage, but not be able to recall the
actual Greek words, much to my embarrassment at times.>
**You can download an English to Greek PDF thru Google Books: Fraedersdorf
Copius Lexion ... 1856.
http://books.google.com/books?id=hJQCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=copius&as_brr=1#PPP14,M1
It does not distinguish time periods, though, so it might propose a word
used by PLOYTARXOS Plutarch (1st c CE) next to one by OMHROS Homer (8c BCE).
It is PDF and the download is about 49 Megabyte! (I'm not too big on
flashcards for second language acquisition, a chacun son gout to each his
own.)**
>I have the idea that I want to try writing Koine Greek. While there are
grammars out there that use this method, they usually require a translation
into Greek, and the reference to use is a limited vocabulary list provided
by the grammar. What I think I really need is a full-fledged English to
Greek Koine dictionary. Like BDAG but flipped. Is there such a thing? Online
or in print would be cool.>
**NAI, MALISTA. Yes, it would be cool. A proper/reliable project is also a
lot of work, as several of us are finding out who are attempting this. It
will be a few years before we have a product to offer. You will need much
more than BDAG flipped, as there are a couple thousand fairly basic items
that are accidently not covered in the NT and AposFath. Louw-Nida have an
Eng-Greek index, I recommend it, but suffer this problem. Imagine English if
limited to one NT translation. There would be a lot of holes to fill for
fluent comprehensible communication, there are times when a person has to
stretch, yawn, cough, and fart. This even helps reading the NT, because you
sometimes feel the scope of words by their relationship to words that were
not chosen. In addition, English glosses to Greek words do not, and cannot,
provide this.**
>I would prefer to be writing to the board asking for pen-pals. I realize,
however, that I would quickly stumble and not be able to look for words I
need. I realize, however, that I would quickly stumble and not be able to
look for words I need. While I was in Germany I had heard of clubs of
individuals that not only write, but have fun SPEAKING ancient Greek to each
other, predominantly in the Attic form.>
**Is your father Nicholas? If so, pass on greetings. :-)**
> I have also seen an English to Attic dictionary. I don't know the first
thing about Attic syntax, however, and am really doing all this to advance
my understanding of the Greek Bible. So I was wondering if any of you
wizards have attempted to tackle this problem. Do any of you PhDs and
50-year Greek learners ever write to each other in Greek? If so, how did you
learn to do it? What did you use? Where can I get that stuff?>
**Let me answer, including a response to a couple of other replies on this
thread:
On learning, there are hearing, speaking, reading, and writing modes. While
it is true that there are no mother-tongue speakers (as someone mentioned),
it is also true that there are second-language speakers and there are some
materials that provide reasonable conversational speeds of listening
practice.
On writing, yes, I occasionally write in ancient Greek to others, but
writing is a different skill than speaking and takes place at different
speeds. Writing is slow and one double thinks everything, while speaking
must be done in the moment and without second thought. One way to prepare
for writing is to work on internalization, which means speaking/oral
interaction, and doing lots of reading. Most on the list will underline this
last point, reading, but one must not forget the oral interaction part if
you really desire internalization. (If you don't do any speaking and
listening, you will reach a stage in ten to twenty years and feel the
tremendous gap between Greek and any other language that you can speak.) If
you have the time and money, you might look into our summer SXOLE (
www.bibilcalulpan.org Unfortunately, room and board for six weeks in Israel
costs quite a bit, but you can certainly find more expensive options for
Israel for 6 weeks.)
PS on English to Attic. I wouldn't be so worried about KOINE and Attic
differences. It actually takes a very well-trained person to look at a
paragraph of text and determine whether it is Attic or Koine, especially if
some of the 'obvious' Attic forms are not needed, or are being used in a
Koine writer, like QALATTA and KREITTWN. A lot of Koine writers wrote in a
dialect that can be virtually indistinguishable from Attic, from Josephus to
Plutarch, even Epiktetos and Paulos quite often (the latter is a give-away
by subject matter, of course). Greek is one language and I think that 1st
century writers surely thought of themselves as writing in the same
language. They would even quote OMHROS, which can be about as jarring as
quoting Chaucer in modern English. Paulos and Loukas quoted lines of Attic
poetry without excuse or translation. Ac 17:28, 26:14, 1Cor 15:33 and Tit
1:12. They may have been aware of pronunication differences between
themselves and the 5th century if very highly and academically trained. Most
likely they did what language users around the world do: they read the older
literature in their own dialect, e.g. like most moderns read Shakespeare or
Chaucer.
Another problem on writing is the level. Beginning language students can
learn a lot through writing practice but they are not able to express very
complicated thoughts and communication is quite limited. Students need to
work their way up. Teachers have to read this stuff but it has trouble
maintaining the interest of adult language users on its own. In the Hebrew
ulpan systems here in Israel, it is usually the at the advanced levels where
students are expected to fully communicate in writing on topics of mutual
interest.**
ERRWSO 'be well' ἔρρωσο
IWANHS Ἰωάνης (Koine spelling, nice first century ossauary at the
Rockefeller musuem if you're interested.)
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη
שלום לכם וברכות
randallbuth at gmail.com
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