[B-Greek] Robert Funk's Grammar (Corrected Edition)

Paul D. Nitz paul.d.nitz at gmail.com
Tue Dec 14 10:20:19 EST 2010


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "cwconrad2" <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
To: "Leonard Jayawardena" <leonardj at live.com>
Cc: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 2:30 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Robert Funk's Grammar (Corrected Edition)


>
> On Dec 13, 2010, at 10:31 PM, Leonard Jayawardena <leonardj at live.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> Message: 14
>> Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2010 14:13:17 +0000 (GMT)
>> From: cwconrad2 <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
>> To: Shirley Rollinson <rollinsondr at yahoo.com>
>> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
>> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Textbook for Beginning Greek
>> Message-ID: <249d3178-101c-c6f3-b4b6-d8b04e8d3378 at me.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>>
>> This is a recurrent question and it is one upon which those B-Greekers
>> who have an
>> opinion have been repeatedly found to be at odds with each other. I
>> thought that I
>> had written a response to this covering a whole lot of possible choices,
>> but can't find
>> in the archives the particular one I'm looking for. Here's one of my
>> older replies:
>>
>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2006-May/038639.html
>>
>> but the URL for Funk's Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic
>> Greek has changed
>> since then. Now it's:
>> http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/project/funk-grammar/pre-alpha/?
>>
>> Carl W. Conrad
>>
>>
>> LJ: Please let me know whether Robert Funk's grammar is in the public
>> domain. "The corrected edition" is dated 24 May 1977.
>>
>> Leonard Jayawardena
>
>
> There the "Great Scott" (LSJG -- the unabridged Liddell & Scott, the
> "little Liddell" (the shorter abridgment) and the "middle Liddell" (the
> intermediate abridgment) -- that's on the lexicographical side. Now on the
> grammatical side there's the "Big HG" -- the Beginning-Intermediate
> Grammar of Hellenistic Greek of Robert Funk; I haven't seen or heard
> anyone else using that term, but it seems a useful term to refer to Funk's
> textbook by what is essentially its acronym.
>
> The date offered for the "corrected edition" -- 24 May 1977 -- is the date
> of the last revised printed edition of a work that Bob Funk had prepared
> originally for students in his own Beginning Greek classes. Those of us
> who own copies were concerned about its cheap binding and pages falling
> apart from even very little use but some of us -- and I in particular
> urged it -- thought the work really deserved to be preserved in digital
> form and possibly republished. The scanning and production of the HTML
> version was the work of several dedicated B-Greekers headed up by Ken
> Penner. For some time it was accessible at Ken's website, but was later
> moved to our own B-Greek site at ibiblio.org and set up by our list-owner,
> Jonathan Robie in what he chose to term a "pre-alpha" edition. The fact is
> that the HTML version accessible at the above site reproduces the exact
> format of that May 1977 paperback edition. It would be far, far better and
> more useful if it were reformatted for easy access and carefully indexed;
> that's one of those greatly desirable projects requiring considerable
> labor by volunteers.
>
> It is NOT in the public domain. Bob Funk, who held the copyright, died in
> 2005. The copyright belong to his estate which is controlled by his widow
> who knows all about the B-Greek edition and has told us that she has no
> desire to take down the web version or limit access to it. She has
> suggested a project of reformatting the book for better web access and
> even publishing it -- presumably through Polebridge Press -- as a
> textbook.
>
> That's about all that I know about the web version at
> http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/project/funk-grammar/pre-alpha/
> But I personally thought when I first paged through it in the 1970's and I
> still think that, whatever flaws one may find in it, it remains
> the single most valuable textbook for learning NT Koine Greek. Enough
> others have agreed with that judgment that we think it worth
> keeping it accessible at our b-greek site.
>
> So: it's not in the public domain but it is publicly accessible. I would
> guess that you could print the web text out for yourself, but I wouldn't
> attempt to reformat it or print copies for class use without getting
> express permission.
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (ret)
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
>

I do not know of a downloadable, inexpensive Greek grammar.  Funk could fill
the gap.  I'm very willing to help.

Do you just need the separate HTML pages put into one decent looking PDF
file?  Simple corrections and formatting is no problem.  Basic indexing is
easy with MS Word.  Correcting the Greek, is beyond my interest and ability.

Paul Nitz
Lutheran Bible Institute - Lilongwe, Malawi




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