[B-Greek] Lining Out a Greek Text

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat May 26 05:46:42 EDT 2007


On May 25, 2007, at 5:33 PM, Randall Buth wrote:

>>
>> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Lining Out a Greek Text
>>
>> Oops, I fogot that our list software strips attachments.
>>
>> I posted the attachment here:
>>
>> http://ibiblio.org/koine/greek/liningout/liningout.html
>>
>> Jonathan
>>
>
> shalom Yonatan,
>
> Your project is sound and I appreciate what you are doing. You  
> might be
> encouraged to know that I do something similar whenever I record  
> material.
> (As soon as I send this off I need to record some  Epiktetou  
> paragraphs
> about visiting bathhouses, BALANEIA in Greek. We have a nicely  
> preserved
> BALANEION in BetShean [SKUQOPOLIS]. The first thing I did was 'clause'
> these out into short sense units on different lines.)
>
> In addition, we do this in both Hebrew and Greek when presenting  
> material to
> students in our ulpan. We happen to call it "clausing" but the  
> results and
> motivations are similar and overlapping to what you describe. It is  
> very
> simple and it definitely helps a student follow a text in the original
> langauge. (See Buth, Selected Readings with 500 Friends, BLC)
>
> As your notes and discussion show, the line length is arbitrary and  
> reflects
> a function of 'sense' with natural breathing. Length also changes as
> students reach different levels. At the base is what might consider  
> a breath
> sequence, I find that 3 to 6 seconds is a typical upper end, and  
> these can
> be broken down into pieces as short as under 1 second. Greek  
> 'clausings'
> tend to be a tad longer than Hebrew ones, probably because of the long
> syllable structures caused by the grammatical concord systems EN TH
> ELLHNIKHi.
>
> Bottom line is that I recommend short 'sense lines' for student  
> readings.
>
> ερρωσο ERRWSO
>
> Randall Buth

I like this scheme because it involves fundamentally a process of  
reading
the Greek text NATURALLY -- in the sequence in which the words and
phrases are penned and heard. It is the very opposite of what -- in my
decades of experience of students tackling the reading of lengthy  
passages
of Greek or Latin -- is the all-too-common standard practice: hunting  
the
subjects and verbs and then trying to fit the other items in clauses  
together
after that. This is a method which, if pursued consistently and  
conscientiously,
should lead to proficiency and to the obviation of the need even for  
"lining
out."

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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