[B-Greek] Comprehensive 1c Bilingual Koine Greek Dictionary [*Webster's]

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Thu Aug 21 03:25:54 EDT 2008


Ok, now that terms are clearer, we can talk theory.
I've put Webster's in brackets in the subject line
with * [linguistic notation for 'not'] because the name Webster is now
irrelevant. It was a cipher for "monolingual".

First, to remove a redherring, then clarify:
On 'universal grammar', that is practically irrelevant to dictionary
making. That deals with structural relationships and probabilities of
structural cooccurrence within a language. It does mean that an
SOV language will likely have post-positions (as opposed to
prepositions), and it means that ancient Greek is not likely to have
a good lexeme for the neo-english metalanguage "postposition".
So what? For example, the mapping of kinship terms must be done
in Greek, ancient Greek. They won't map exactly like English and
universal grammar will not decide or define anything. There is some
potential in something like Wierzbieka's (sp?) universal component
analysis being applied, but the field is filled with mines.

back to theory-
Theoretically there is no problem with calling a bilingual dictionary an
expansion of a mono. But practically speaking it hides the actual
relationships and the status of Greek. A Greek mono doesn't exist.

What is truly a desideratum is a Greek-Greek tome.

On bilinguals--
I am only interested in a bilingual dictionary, in any case, if it were
restricted to 1-2 centuries CE. That would be of service to us, since
nothing currently exists.
"Ask the question: when Luke used
the word 'xyz' in Acts 21, what other options for that word
probably or certainly existed in the first century?"
The answer is not easy to extract from current resources. That would
be useful and could be started before a mon-lingual dictionary was
started or in place. I would not call that a *Webster's Greek-Eng-Eng-
Greek.
Better would be a "comprehensive first century bidirectional
Greek-English English-Greek dictionary".
That is needed.
ERRWSO
IWANHS

On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 2:16 AM, John Wilking <jcwilking at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Randall,
>
> I wasn't confusing but equating them. A bilingual dictionary is an expansion of a mono.  This is the part that Chomsky doesn't have problem with.
>
> To approach Greek/English lexicography from this perspective first concedes that Carl Conrad is absolutely correct in saying that translation  should hold a distant second place to language learning.  I'm inclined to think that it shouldn't even be considered by a professional for at least twenty years.  It takes anthropologists twenty years to sufficiently learn exotic living languages, how much more a dead language.
>
> Anyway, having a monolingual First Century Koine Dictionary in place, we could apply Universal Grammar concepts to lexicography.  The notion of converting a mono to a bi as briefly mentioned above would be my first notion.  I don't like to mention names but William Frawley, editor of the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, is inclined to think that I'm correct, though I know that that doesn't make it so.  My apologies to Noam and Bill for hauling them into this proposal.
>
> John
>
>
> --- On Wed, 8/20/08, Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> From: Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: Webster's Koine Greek Dictionary
>> To: jcwilking at yahoo.com
>> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
>> Date: Wednesday, August 20, 2008, 4:56 AM
>> wilking egrapse
>> > The main point is to see a bilingual dictionary as a
>> set of translations:
>>
>> to repeat: the main point of a "Webster" or
>> "OED" is a monolingual dictionary.
>> to talk about a bilingual Webster is to confuse the issue
>> that was raised.
>>
>> If you want to talk about bilingual dictionaries I suggest
>> that the
>> subject line
>> be changed.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Randall Buth, PhD
>> www.biblicalulpan.org
>> randallbuth at gmail.com
>> Biblical Language Center
>> Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
>
>
>
>



-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth at gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life



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