[B-Greek] Koine Greek Kashruth?

cwconrad2 cwconrad2 at mac.com
Wed Apr 20 14:00:57 EDT 2011



On Apr 20, 2011, at 12:27 PM, Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com> wrote:

> >Now it's the battle for the "kosher" Koine keyboard
>
> It's not about where a person ends, it's about where someone starts
> from when considering options. A person can choose whatever they want,
> but it should be with good, full info. The next generation should not
> be sent back to 'funky' just because the last generation started there.
 
The way I read what was being argued was that people needed to change
from the keyboard they had been using and learn something new and better. I
don't oppose change (and I'm certainly not telling people which keyboard
to use for typing Greek). There's no small portion of the Greek grammar
that I was taught that I've pleaded for changing for the sake of better
Greek pedagogy. 


> > but I just can't go that step of delimiting my vocabulary and
> writing style to a synchronic range that seems to me arbitrarily
> proposed on the ground>
>
> Communication is what counts. And most every syntactic structure
> gets used somewhere.
> However, it is quite heuristic to ask about changes in vocab
> patterns over the centuries. If ORAN was not being used much,
> why not? What was the replacement? (BLEPEIN). Why? And how and
> why did YPAGEIN weave its way into the 'move' foray?
> I find this like an adventure, trying to discover what was
> common ground.
 

Sure, the language is in flux, there's no question about that. And
it's certainly not a matter of vocabulary alone. Yes, hORAN is giving
way to the now more common BLEPEIN, but hORAN is still being
used and IDEIN (and EIDENAI) continue as standard. But the
same also applies to syntactic constructions. How many grammars
in use are still teaching that hINA + subjunctive is used to
introduce a purpose clause? Primers tend to teach primary
usages, not exceptions, although it's the exceptions that are
vital to idiomatic usage.
> PS: there is a new, 10year theological/historical LXX lexical project
> starting that will cover three perspectives for select vocab items:
> a the state of Greek with the word in the 3-2 cenut BCE.
> b. how the LXX used the word, potential Jewish background usage.
> c. impact and usage of the word 'downstream' up to 2n c. CE.

That's very interesting, and I'd like to know more about this. Who's
doing it and where can we read more about it?

At the same time, I have to say that, just as I am disturbed by
discussions of usage grounded on the vocabulary of the LXX and
GNT as a database for Koine usage -- as if these were the only
documents in question for our understanding of Koine Greek,
so also I wonder where the lines are to be drawn between the
sphere of Greek usage that we care about and the literary sphere
that is dependent on the whole literary tradition of Greek? There
are some people reading Lucian -- a good Hellenistic author from
the Decapolis across the lake, and some are reading Chariton,
some might even read some verse of Meleager of Gadara (also
across the lake in the Decapolis). What about the vocabulary of
Philo beyond what is clearly shaped by the LXX? And what about
Josephus? Epictetus is clearly important, but is Marcus Aurelius?
Does Plutarch count?

My impression is that there continue to be, throughout most of
the history of the language, both a colloquial speech that is
always in flux and a literary language that reflects the larger
literary tradition.

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





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