[B-Greek] The value of reading the NT in Modern Greek
vasilis tsialas
tsialas78 at hotmail.com
Tue Aug 5 19:54:27 EDT 2008
> From: jerry at lsm.org> To: tsialas78 at hotmail.com; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org> Subject: RE: [B-Greek] The value of reading the NT in Modern Greek> Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 12:54:45 -0500> > If there is a Modern Greek NT translation (I say 'if' because I do not know> Modern Greek in any form) which is in modern Demotic Greek (colloquial,> contemporary, current in Greece right now) and if ('if' again) that Demotic> is the kind of Greek that is closest to first century Koine (as compared to> Kathareuousa or some other artificial literary creation that no one speaks> and maybe never did speak), then that is what I want. > > If (there it is again) I am not misunderstanding Caragounis, what he calls> Neohellinic is Modern Demotic and that Neohellenic is the closest to Koine.> I want to see in the Modern Greek text whatever is the closest equivalent to> first century Koine but is still real spoken Greek today. I am not asking> for a modern equivalent to NT Koine (because, if Caragounis is correct, you> do not go to the NT to discover the typical Koine configuration for the 600> year period of Koine but that the NT is nevertheless classified as Koine;> the NT is Koine but Koine is not the NT).> > In short, I want a Modern Greek NT which will best exhibit the developed,> spoken language (whatever that is called). Since some of the changes now> seen in Modern Greek are beginning to be present in the NT (EIS pushing EN> out of the language, for example) I want to see what finally happened to> these incipient changes as they now appear in Modern Greek so as to> understand some of these developments that are moving out of first century> Koine into Modern Greek. Of course, if there is no such Modern Greek NT then> that is the end of that. > > There are a lot of ifs in this entry because I am not certain that my> assumptions are correct or if I am correct in my understanding of> Caragounis.> > Please excuse such a circuitous entry based on ignorance of Modern Greek and> other things as well. Hopefully, you who are knowledgeable about these> things can instruct me.> > Jerry Reimer
I would like to clarify a couple of things:
The "demodic" (the language of the people) is the language that survived through
the Ottoman and European occupation (the latter in some islands).
It is a natural development of the Common Greek,
with some simplifications, mistakes and influences from the French, Italian and Turkish.
Then comes the "kathareuousa", an artificial language closer to the Common Greek in
structure and verbal forms and with words of Greek routs that substitute the foreign terms
and give new words for the needs of the cultural and scientific development that takes
place in the 19th and 20th century.
Finally, what is spoken today is the "Modern Common Greek", a productive natural
combination of the "demodic" and "kathareuousa". Because,
even though "kathareuousa" was never spoken among people, by means of its being
constantly used in the official papers, it did influence the vernacular. Hence, today a common Greek
speaks much better and purer Greek that the common Greek 200 years ago.
As regards the use of a NT translation, what I do many times is to compare a good formal
equivalence one with a good dynamic equivalence one. Thus I enjoy the assets of both.
Vasileios Tsialas
Athens, Greece
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