[B-Greek] New edition of Horrocks, Greek: History of Language . . .
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Mon Mar 7 10:05:58 EST 2011
*From <http://www.classics.ukzn.ac.za/reviews/11-05hor.htm>*
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Scholia Reviews ns 20 (2011) 5.
Geoffrey Horrocks, Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers.
Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010[2]. Pp. xx + 505. ISBN
978-1-40513415-6. UK£110.00. Further Details.
Philippa M. Steele
Lumley Research Fellow, Magdalene College, Cambridge
The first edition of Greek: A History of the Language and its
Speakers, published in 1997, was widely greeted as an innovative and
impressive piece of scholarship, taking a broad diachronic approach to
the study of the Greek language in both its spoken and written forms.
This second edition preserves the original thematic focus on ‘the
effects of early standardization and the consequential state of
diglossia on the long-term evolution of the language’ (p. 20), but a
number of changes have been made, some of them substantial, to the
content, structure and references.
In the preface to the new edition (p. xv- xvi), Horrocks outlines some
of the ways in which he has taken account of reviews of the first
edition, as well as a 2006 translation of the work into modern
Greek,[[1]] in order to correct some errors, and in particular to
address two new aims: to improve the section on Medieval Greek
generally, and to appease Classicists by giving a more expansive
account of the ancient Greek dialectal situation at the beginning of
the book. The changes have brought the work up to date and
strengthened its argument, allowing the diachronic development of the
Greek language to be made all the more clear through the addition of
further examples and elucidation of certain sections.
It is easy to understand why Horrocks had originally omitted any
thorough discussion of the ancient Greek dialects, since the book’s
aim was to trace the history of one particular variety of Greek,
namely the Attic dialect, the legacy of whose early standardisation
has been felt in Greece for more than two thousand years. However, the
substantial expansion of Chapter 1 (p. 9-42; originally only fourteen
pages in length), now titled ‘The Ancient Greek Dialects’, is of great
benefit to the work as a whole, because it gives a firm sense of the
wider context of the Attic dialect in the ancient period and so
provides a much fuller beginning to the story of the Greek language.
Even though Horrocks labels his discussion ‘simply an attempt at a
consensus view’ (p. 17) in place of a thorough treatment, this section
could be recommended as a starting point to anyone interested in
ancient Greek dialectology, with its impressively comprehensive
account of methodological concerns, wealth of examples and informed
references; indeed as an informative and concise overview of the
current state of knowledge on the ancient dialects, it is for the
moment unparalleled. It might further be added that many sections of
this book could be praised in a similar way, with consistently clear
and accessible explanations throughout that enable and encourage the
audience to read further into the various topics addressed.
One of the potential weaknesses of a work such as Greek is that the
sheer breadth of its scope might go hand-in-hand with some limitations
in the amount of detail that can be included, but the first edition
did not fall into this trap and the second edition outdoes it by
including even more examples and improving on the already systematic
approach to the way in which material is presented. Naturally, a book
can only take one path from beginning to end, and the overarching
chronological narrative employed here is not without its disadvantages
(for example making it impossible to survey the development of a
single feature through multiple time periods in a single section), but
Greek benefits from a good index and may be read either as a
continuous narrative or by focusing on particular sections/themes as
the reader wills it. The only disadvantage of the latter method is
that it somewhat undermines Horrocks’ aim to present a continuous
history of the Greek language, but it is inevitable that it will
frequently be used in this way.
As with any published work, Greek is not entirely without errors or
omissions, and because it covers such a breadth of scholarship it will
be the specialists in each discipline who most notice any problems
within their area of expertise. For this reviewer, the absence of an
example of the ancient Cypriot dialect, even though most others were
included, seemed an oversight: Arcadian does not represent the
Arcado-Cypriot dialect sub-group as comprehensively as one might
assume.[[2]] Furthermore the references supplied for ancient Cypriot
epigraphy are not the most appropriate, and it would have been better
to cite a work such as Olivier’s contribution to the 2006
Mycenological colloquium as a reference for the continuation of Greek
literacy on Cyprus from the Early Iron Age onwards.[[3]] However,
these are small issues, and only tangential to the central thrust of
the book as a whole.
More broadly, it is difficult to find fault with either the content or
the design of the book. The Table of Contents (p. v-xi) and Index (p.
493-505) provide two very comprehensive guides to the book’s structure
and content, making Greek easily navigable; the newly included
International Phonetic Alphabet chart (p. xvii) is also helpful,
enabling readers to understand the many phonetic transcriptions that
appear in this work. However, no list of the passages used as examples
throughout the book (which range from a Late Bronze Age Mycenaean
Greek administrative document to pieces of journalism and draft
legislation from 2009) is included, and I think this would have been a
useful addition.
A comparison of the first and second editions of Greek gives an
interesting insight into the revision process, with alterations
ranging from minute stylistic changes of phrasing (e.g. ‘incidentally’
in place of ‘for example’, p. xviii) to implicitly political changes
of tone (e.g. ‘the Balkans’ in place of ‘Greece [including Macedonia
and Thrace]’, p. 210!), and of course the inclusion of some new
sections and expansion of others. Several of the alterations are
worthy of note, among them the following: the notion of ‘identity’, a
somewhat thorny topic in recent years, has been visibly removed from
sections 8.3 (p. 210-12) and 8.4 (p. 212-20) on the status of the
Greek language in the Byzantine Empire; a new conclusion to the
chapter on Greek in the Byzantine Empire is included (p. 229f.),
bringing that whole of chapter 8 more obviously in line with the aims
of the book; at the end, an extra section giving five examples of
contemporary written modern Greek is included.
The newly added final section of the final chapter is notable in
itself. The first edition ended with a rather more traditional
conclusion, which has now become the penultimate section of the second
edition, on ‘Standard Modern Greek’ (section 17.7, p. 462-66); the
concluding sentence (which still appears, p.466) looked forward to a
‘universal acceptance of the fact that the only fully standardized
languages are dead ones, and that experimentation, diversity and
change are a cause for celebration rather than concern.’ In the new
edition, section 17.8 ‘A Range of Styles’ (p. 466- 70) has been added
to illustrate the diversity of modern Greek today, with texts in more
formal registers recalling the features of katharévousa, while
fictional narrative is more fluid and inventive. A few comments are
made before the five examples are given, but no further commentary on
these passages is provided. As Horrocks says at the end of the final
paragraph, ‘If this book has done its job, none will be needed’ (p.
467).
It is fair to say that this book has done its job, and done it well.
Through its comprehensive survey of the Greek language it has achieved
its aims to ‘explain, summarize and exemplify the principal facts of
change’ and ‘render comprehensible’ the long-term language situation
that still has relevance for Greek speakers today (p. 4). This second
edition has corrected and improved on many aspects of the first
edition, forming an up-to-date and impressively full and informative
volume that deserves a place on every Hellenist’s and Hellenophile’s
bookshelf.
NOTES [[1]] G. Horrocks (ed. M. Staurou and M. Tzebelekou), Ελληνικά:
Η ιστορία της γλώσσας και των ομιλητών της (Athens 2006).
[[2]] Cf. J. Chadwick, ‘Differences and similarities between Cypriot
and the other Greek dialects’, in J. Karageorghis and O. Masson
(edd.), The History of the Greek language in Cyprus. Proceedings of an
International Symposium Sponsored by the Pierides Foundation. Larnaca,
Cyprus, 8-13 September, 1986 (Nicosia 1988) 55-66.
[[3]] J.-P. Olivier, ‘Les syllabaires chypriotes des deuxième et
premier millénaires avant notre ère. État des questions’ in A.
Sacconi, M. del Freo, L. Godart, and M. Negri (edd.), Colloquium
Romanum. Atti del XII colloquio internazionale di micenologia. Roma
20-25 febbraio 2006 (Pisa/Rome 2008) 605-19.
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
Biblical Language Center
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