[B-Greek] Interlinear ≠ Perilanguage (was "Is a Phrasal Interlinear a useful idea?")

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon Jun 21 07:52:33 EDT 2010


Responding to such a message from FWSFOROS -- especially when it has been composed in
"chiaroscuro" -- is a distinct pleasure and a challenging responsibility and I don't know what
else. Humorist extraordinaire, dilettante in the better sense (not the disdainful sense in which
the word is used by some bloviators), agent provocateur to be reckoned with. I am reminded
of a long-time and much-missed list-member, Clay Bartholomew,  who described his posts
as like the work of one who drives into an intersection, hurls a Molotov cocktail and speeds away.
I see my role in that "scenario" as that of one who comes in and tries to straighten up the mess
and clear up any confusion left after the irruption. Perhaps the analogy is less helpful than
it might seem.

On Jun 20, 2010, at 8:45 PM, Mark Lightman wrote:

> As to the general value of interlinears, I will say nothing on this topic because
> 
> 1.  This was not your question.
> 2.  This topic has already been discussed once or twice on the list.  Wait, did I
> say "once or twice?"  What I meant to say was UP TO AND BEYOND THE POINT OF NAUSEA.

I like this very much. But as a phrase destined for abiding utility and elegance it needs to be
Latinized; I propose the simple form: ULTRA NAUSEAM, meaning exactly what I take to
be the meaning of the above-referenced incandescent "Phosphoric" phrase.

> 3. Okay, I lied.  An interlinear is essentially what Carl Conrad would call a "peri-language."

NO NO NO NO NO. I did coin the word "perilanguage." I had forgotten that I had done so,
but a brief search in last month's archives uncovered the snippet in a message of May 2
(http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2010-May/053412.html), to wit:

> From: Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
> Date: May 2, 2010 11:10:19 AM EDT
> To: Mark Lightman <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>
> Cc: B-Greek B-Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Perilanguage, not Metalanguage (was "Fear of fear - 1Pe 3:6")
> 
> On May 2, 2010, at 10:07 AM, Mark Lightman wrote:
>> Today's Modern Greek leaves the noun out and picks up
>> on the MNDEMIAN: φοβουνταν τιποτε (FOBOUNTAN TIPOTE.)
>> "They feared nothing, they were afraid of nothing at all." 
>> τιποτε in Modern Greek can mean "nothing" or "anything," but that
>> is implicit already in the classical meaning.  "They fear...what, pray
>> tell me?"  "What in the world did they ever fear...nothing at all."
>> 
>> We have a similar idiom in English where "He don't know jack"
>> means the same as "He knows jack."
>> 
>> They feared bupkes.   They were afraid to the extent of beans.
>> They feared not a whit. These chicas feared nada. 
> 
> Thanks, Mark. You have neatly illustrated what you meant with your assertion

> that TMG (probably better than other Neo-Hellenic versions such as Vamvas,

> which has και μη φοβουμεναι μηδεμιαν πτοησιν KAI MH FOBOUMENAI
> MHDEMIAN PTOHSIN, unchanged from the GNT) is, after the LXX, the best
> "metalanguage" for NT Koine Greek. Your accounting certainly does help one to
> understand the sense of the original text in 1 Peter 3:6, characterizing the usage
> in terms of comparable expressions in other langauges.
> 
> Of course, that's really not the same thing that we ordinarily mean by a
> "metalanguage" that offers a grammatical accounting for how and why the
> locution communicates its meaning. But I'd be willing to coin a new term for it:
> "perilanguage" -- which I would define as "a roundabout way of explaining
> what a locution communicates in meaning."
> 
> Carl W. Conrad

I believe that the coiner of a word ought to be privileged to define it (alas, I'm well 
aware that it doesn't work out that way), and I would like to maintain, sustain and
 retain for my coinage "perilanguage" the distinct sense: "a roundabout way of 
explaining what a locution communicates in meaning." A PERIPHRASIS -- that's
a real English word of Greek provenance is a perilinguistic phrase. Or we could
use the comparable English word of Latin provenance meaning the same thing:
CIRCUMLOCUTION.

Charles Dickens, in "Little Dorrit," coined the term "Circumlocution Office" for the
branch of government that sees to it that fresh ideas about whatever needs to be done 
are circumvented and effectively relegated to oblivion. In a more positive sense,
"periphrasis" or "circumlocution" is a work-around idiomatic equivalent expression.
Homeric Greek had a perfect middle-passive third-plural form in -NTAI or -ATAI
(e.g. BEBLHNTAI (βέβληνται) or BEBLAFATAI (βεβλάφαται). This was
commonly felt to be so awkward that the periphrastic third-person forms came to
be used more regularly: BEBLHMENOI EISIN or BEBLAMMENOI EISIN.

I would never agree that a  INTERLINEAR employing equivalents for individual
words of Greek could be a pedagogical tool of any great value for one wishing to gain
an intimate understanding of or capacity to read ancient Greek.

The same cannot be said about a 	PHRASE BOOK that displays in parallel columns
standard idiomatic phrases in ancient Greek and in English or another modern language.
One can find idiom lists of this sort in instructional works on Greek composition, and
Louis Sorenson has called attention to several of these from centuries past that are
accessible online in PDF format. These are, in my opinion, splendid instruments, far
more useful in the long run than any interlinear that attempts to tell you exactly what
each Greek word means.

> In my humble opinion, any peri-language is much more helpful to those learning Greek than
> any "meta-language."  If nothing else, a peri-language is shorter and more directly linked to
> the Greek in question.  An interlinear or any peri-language will, in my humble opinion, more
> directly lead to fluency than any book ABOUT Greek, for example.  Put another way, an
> interlinear or any other peri-language has to do with MEANING, whereas meta-languages have to
> do with FORM, and, in my humble opinion, the sooner a student starts to forget about FORM and
> focus on MEANING, the better.    Your tool, for example, if it were done with Homer, would in
> my humble opinion, be more helpful than any Greek commentary on Homer. 
> 
> 
> Another thought that occurs to me is this:  As helpful as USING an interlinear can be, I bet it is even
> more helpful to WRITE one, so, if for no other reason, I would encourage you to continue with your
> efforts.

Here I think that Mark and I are pretty much on the same page. A "perilanguage" will be more useful
to one wanting to grasp what the ancient Greek text spoken or written is intended to communicate.
A "metalanguage" has a different function altogether: it is to explain HOW and WHY a sentence or 
a phrase communicates its meaning. Traditional Greek grammar as transmitted to us by generations
of "dead grammarians" is a metalanguage, and I think we are all aware of how inadequate it is to
assist us in clarifying some of our analytical questions even if it is very helpful for others. Academic
Linguistics is another metalanguage, and I really think that we can say the same thing about its plusses
and minuses as we can say about Traditional Greek grammar: there's much terminological confusion
and some explanations seem much more adequate than do others. We need help wherever we can get
it when it comes to analyzing the HOW and the WHY of ancient Greek as a vehicle of communication.

BUT, for me, at least, the conviction grows ever deeper and stronger that a metalanguage, whether it
be that of Traditional Grammar or that of Analytic Linguistics, will do very little, if anything, to 
assist a student seeking to gain ability to speak or read or write ancient Greek. I think that an INSTRUCTOR
of ancient Greek must be able to use a metalanguage in order to be an effective teacher of it, but for
the student a "perilanguage" will be far more useful, and most useful of all will be the experience of
speaking and listening and reading and writing of ancient Greek.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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