How is the title to be translated literally? Started to read, but can't quite figure out the title 😅

My try on translation:

ΒΙΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΓΝΩΜΩΝ ΤΩΝ ΕΝ ΦΙΛΟΣΟΦΙΑΙ ΕΥΔΟΚΙΜΗΣΑΝΤΩΝ ΤΩΝ ΕΙΣ ΔΕΚΑ ΤΟ ΠΡΩΤΟΝ

On (εν) the most foremost (πρωτον) life's (βίον) and witnesses (γνωμον) of well-regarded (ευδοκιμησαντων) philosophers (φιλοσιαι) to ten (εις δεκα)?

Regards

"Της φυσεως γραμματευς ην τον χαλαμον αποβρεχων ευνουν."

We are reading this text written by Hölderlin (early 1800s) which discusses rules of poetry and writing using Oedipus Rex as an 'excellent' example. I stumbled upon this phrase but unfortunately didn't fully get the translation (google and something similarly called as deepl). Any one any wiser?

I need help translating these three separate phrases that I've stumbled upon. I've attempted to translate it myself using my limited Greek scholarly knowledge of grammar and my lexicons, but I feel like my results have been crude.

• Αί γυνάι αλαλαζουσι πρός των παιδων όστις αποθνήσκουσιν εν τω πόλεμω

• Κολαζείς τόν διάκονον σόν δε αξίζει ουχί τήν κολόσιν

• Μετακινεί σου ψυχήν ό σόφος ανθρώπος από τής αμαρτίας

Any help is much appreciated!

Greetings,

Some context: I'm coming from Koine. Is there a list of texts typically used in a Classics degree, preferably ordered from easiest to hardest? At some point, I'd like to read them, perhaps in about one or two year's time. However, I'd like to prepare by creating a vocabulary flashcard deck for each chapter of the text I'm reading.

I'm also weighing up reading Flavius Josephus and similar works, which are written in Atticised Koine and, from what I’ve read, place an emphasis on obscure vocabulary.

Edit:
Several reading programs can be found by searching for "Ancient Greek reading list graduate program" or "Ancient Greek reading list college." One that I particularly like is from the University of Toronto: Graduate Reading Lists.

«ΑΠΕΣΤΑΛΚΑΝ» εν τη βιβλα «ΠΡΑΧΕΙΣ τ. ΑΠΟΣΤΟΛΩΝ» 16:36

Saw “apestalkan” in Acts 16:36 and understood it as 3pl.perf.indic. of apostéllō, but I would have expected “apestalkasi(n)”

Is this a feature of Koine? Only the NT? A Lukism?

This kind of stuff isn’t too much of an issue, but the Koine variants are interesting. Are there any good book-form studies of Koine as compared to Attic (understanding the terms have their own nuance)?

EDIT: Asked ChatGPT for a reading list on the general Attic-Koiné comparison, but not the specific question on Apestalkan:

Certainly! Here's a refined list of scholarly works that specifically discuss comparisons between Attic and Koiné Greek grammar, focusing on notable grammatical shifts rather than general overviews of Koiné Greek.

English

1. "A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research" by A.T. Robertson
   • This classic work provides a detailed comparison of Attic and Koiné grammar, discussing changes in syntax, morphology, and vocabulary. Robertson frequently contrasts Koiné with classical Attic norms.
   • [Published in 1914, public domain.]
2. "The Greek of the Septuagint: A Study in Koiné" by H. St. John Thackeray
   • Discusses Koiné Greek with constant references to how it diverged from Attic Greek, particularly in syntax and lexicon.
   • [Published in 1909, public domain.]
3. "The Differences Between Attic and Common Greek" by Edward Capps
   • A focused examination of the distinctions between Attic and Koiné. Though concise, it provides essential grammatical contrasts.
   • [Published in the early 20th century, public domain.]
4. "Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb" by William W. Goodwin
   • While focused on Attic Greek, it indirectly facilitates comparison by highlighting Attic structures that are simplified or altered in Koiné Greek.

French

1. "Grammaire grecque d'Homère à la Koiné" by Joseph Bidez
   • An in-depth examination of the evolution of Greek grammar from the Homeric to Koiné period, with specific attention to how Attic forms shifted over time.
   • [Out of copyright, originally published in the early 20th century.]
2. "Histoire de la langue grecque: des origines à la période impériale" by Antoine Meillet
   • Meillet is a foundational figure in linguistic studies, and this book discusses the transition from Attic to Koiné in detail. Though broader than just grammar, it covers phonological, morphological, and syntactical differences.
   • [Out of copyright, published in the early 20th century.]

German

1. "Griechische Grammatik" by Friedrich Blass and Albert Debrunner
   • This work contrasts Attic and Koiné grammar explicitly in sections dealing with phonological and syntactical evolution.
   • [Public domain editions available.]
2. "Griechische Syntax" by Raphael Kühner and Bernhard Gerth
   • A comprehensive grammar of Greek with a section devoted to how Attic structures compare to those in the Koiné period.
   • [First editions are out of copyright.]
3. "Die Griechische Sprache in Zeit ihrer Ausbreitung" by Friedrich Blass
   • Specifically dedicated to the shifts in grammar and usage as Attic Greek transitioned into Koiné Greek during the Hellenistic period.
   • [Published in the late 19th century, public domain.]

EDIT2: Thanks to /u/benjamin-crowell, here's what he cited from A Greek Grammar of The New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature

by F. Blass, A. Debrunner y R. W. Funk

here https://archive.org/details/bdf-a-greek-grammar-of-the-new-testament-and-other-early-christian-literature/page/42/mode/2up (p. 43)

(F) Endings: Confusion of First Aorist-Perfect with Second Aorist-Imperfect

80. Introduction. Modern Greek has completely abandoned he distinction between first and second aorists (and imperfect) with regard to endings. An imperfect like égrapha, an original first aorist like égrapsa or ésteila, and an original second aorist like ébala are inflected exactly alike: égrapha-es-e egráphamen -ete or -ate égraphan. The roots of these paradigms reach back into the Koine. From élysen-élysan, êngeilen-êngeilan the transition was first mad to épesen-épesan, eílen-eílan, which afforded an easy means of distinguising the 3rd plur. from the 1st sing. épeson eîlon; then other second aorists (like eîden-eîdan) followed suit and at the same time the remaining forms of the second aorist indicative and imperative, and finally the imperfect and middle. The 2nd sing. in -es and accordingly the 2nd plur. in -ete (and the imperative in -e, -étô, -ete) held their own under the influence of the 3rd sing. in -en and intruded also into the first aorist. The old double forms eîpon-eîpa and ênenkon-ênenka and the identity of the first and second aorist subjunctive contributed to the intermingling. Since, on the other hand, the first aorist and the perfect were distinguishable only in the 3rd plur., these forms were also leveled out, usualy by taking -an over into the perfect (heórakan; under the influect of édôkan and the like); thus the way for -es to pass into the perfect was open. The NT fits well into the course of this development. Debrunner, Festschr. Kretschmer 15-22; for details in the LXX s. Thack. 209-16.

In Hansen and Quinn Unit 7 Drill IV (p.185) there is the following example (8):

λῡ́οιμεν ἄν οἱ φύλακες τοὺς ἀγαθούς;

An answer key I found online translates this as:

May we guards unbind the good men?

(Which I have simplified only by removing alternate translations for May, unbind and men.)

I wasn't aware that it was possible to have this kind of construction where the verb and subject don't match. If it is allowed could someone point me to a grammar where this is explained ? Thanks.

Greetings guys and gals much much better at Greek than I am 😭 preemptive thank you so much for anyone who assists.

I'm almost done with going through the Greek of the gospel of Mark and had some questions about syntax.

νεανικος δε τις

In this word order, can it be translated as "but a certain young man" or is it more correctly "and a certain young man" ??

I posted a month or two ago to ask if folks here thought an application of this type would be useful, and got enough of a positive reaction that I went ahead and coded it up. You enter a Greek word, and the application tries to parse it, give a lemma and part-of-speech analysis, and also explain how the morphology worked. For example, if you're seeing a contracted form that you don't understand, it can tell you what the stem and ending were before contraction. The application is open-source, and it can be run either on your own machine or in a browser.

The browser-based version is available publicly here. If anyone is willing to do a little alpha testing for me, I'd appreciate it. The underlying parser is fairly mature, and it outperforms other open-source systems such as Morpheus, Stanza, and Odycy/CLTK as measured by the percentage of the time that it can get the right lemma and part of speech.

However, the web application built on top of it is something I just coded up recently, so all I'm really hoping for is some alpha testing, i.e., I'll be grateful if you give it a little test drive and tell me whether the wheels fall off. I'm interested in things like whether the Greek characters aren't displayed correctly on your device, or whether when you type your Greek input on your device, the characters aren't recognized correctly (e.g., due to encoding issues). If you find an input that causes it to give a blank white screen or an error message, that would be good to know so that I can try to reproduce the crash and fix it.

(Downloading and installing the application to run on your own machine isn't for the faint of heart right now, but if anyone wants to try it and report back, that would be cool. There is documentation on how to do it, but it would probably be easiest to do if you run Linux, and to succeed you would need some basic skills with the Linux command line and the Gnu Make utility.)

Issues I already know about include the fact that it sometimes repeats lines of output multiple times, and also that it often lacks precision in the sense that it will print out multiple possible analyses, not all of which are right. If it simply can't parse a certain word, and it says so, then that information is not especially helpful to me right now -- I can easily generate such examples myself from real-world texts, but fixing the underlying issue can be more time-consuming (or may be impractical since I'm just working with a certain set of data sources I've cobbled together, and they don't cover every possible fact about Greek).

Thanks in advance for any help!

I'm aware of the nasal infixes in Proto Indo European, but AFAIK that was no longer productive by the Classical period.

φέρω (Ancient) -> φέρνω (modern)

παίρω (Ancient) -> παίρνω (Byzantine, modern)

I'm not asking for a translation of a Greek text (since I understand it perfectly and can translate it myself).

What I'm asking is how I should render it in English so that a native English speaker can easily understand it (since English isn’t my first language). This is a question of style. So I'm making use of the exception mentioned in the second rule, because I need precise answers, not just a translation.

Here’s part of the text I’m trying to translate, which shows the use of nominalized verbs:

"σημαινει γαρ το ειναι και το εστι, και οτι αληθες, ως το μη ειναι, οτι αληθες, καθως εν τω τεταρτω των μετα τα φυσικα Αριστοτελης φησιν· ως γουν του συνόλου λεγεται το εστιν, ο δη το ον εχει, ουτω και το εν αυθις του συνολου του οντος ενος."

I would translate το ειναι as "the to be", το εστιν as "the it is", and το ον as "the being."

I asked a native English speaker for their opinion on my translation, and they told me that "the to be" isn’t something anyone would say in English, but rather "the being." However, since they didn’t know Greek (or the grammar of their own language), they didn’t realize that "to be" corresponds to the Greek infinitive.

So, what do you think would be the best way to translate these terms so that they sound natural to a native English speaker? Keep in mind, I can't use "entity" because the author uses οντοτης to mean something else entirely, just like with "essence" and ουσια.

How would you translate these terms to make them understandable to a native English speaker?

I'm still a beginner but am ambitious. I hope to have finished Athenaze Book 1 by the end of the Summer 2025. Then I'll continue reading, of course Book 2, but lots of other stuff. I'm really loving it.

However, I also want to learn Modern Greek. My original plan was to wait until 2026, by which time I hope to have finished Athenaze 2.

Of course it varies for different people, but would it be a bad idea to start with Modern Greek before I get to at least Athenze book 2?

My ancient Greek teacher is Greek and I'm learning modern Greek pronounciation. I'd love to start but am worried it might be confusing.

Any advice? Or anyone have similar experience?

Thanks!

I’d like some tips on how I could learn to read or speak Ancient Greek (attic Greek, to be precise). I’ve seen that I should learn modern Greek first, but I don’t think that would be necessary as I’m already learning to translate Ancient Greek at school. I guess you could call that learning to read too, but I’m also very interested in learning to speak it, which we don’t learn at school at all. I’ve grown up speaking three languages at home, so I’ve got the skills to learn a new language, it’s just that the resources for learning Ancient Greek are much more scarce

I've noticed these diacritics on Wiktionary, but not as much in other resources I've used, so I was just curious as to why that might be (aside from Wiktionary - understandably - having their own guidelines around how AG is transcribed).

Hi, so I learn translating Ancient Greek at school, but recently I've decided to learn the correct pronounciations of everything, since we learn pronounciation more accustomed to our language since all we do is translate and not speak it. I frequently come up to my teacher for questions for the pronounciations (as he has studied them), but he doesn't know when the rho was trilled or tapped. I also couldn't find anything on the internet. So if anyone knows, please tell me, specifically for Attic Greek. I'd also like to know if it was tapped or trilled when it comes after another consonant, like "κρ" for example. All I know is that the rho has a voiceless trill at the beginning of a word.

Hello. I recently bought Logos to start my greek studies because I have heard that it was perfect for beginners. I've already nailed the alphabet down from youtube videos, including all the caveats. I started reading the first chapter of Logos (θεοί, άνθρωποι και Θηρια) but for some reason it seems rather difficult for me. I don't understand what roughly half the notes on the side of text are supposed to mean. Besides that, sometimes I don't understand what the grammar is trying to explain other than by trying to infer differences between examples. I've found using youtube videos far more helpful to get on the same frequency of the book than trying to actually slog through it. Is this a normal part of the learning process? Am I missing important supporting material that i dont know of? Did other beginners feel overwhelmed by Logos at the beginning?

Hi Everyone Maybe someone knows where I can find Hermias on Phaedrus in original Greek I could not find it anywhere.

Thanks in advance to all

I feel like I came across something like this years ago, but my internet searches have been unsuccessful. Did I gaslight myself or have one of you an idea of what I’m talking about? Any reviews?

Thank you!

Hi there,

I know that there are a few books that you can train prose composition in Latin and Greek with. My question is: Are there any prose composition books where you can train translationg Latin into Greek or Greek into Latin? They seem to be hard to find.

Any recommendations will be most wellcome.

P.S.: I will probably search for answers in other subreddits, too, like r/classics and  r/latin If this is the wrong subreddit for such questions, please let me know.

Found. this guy on YouTube, a Cambridge graduate I believe, with extremely helpful lessons for self-learners. Since I've never had a tutor, I'm in the dark of the accuracy of his pronounciation.

Can anyone tell if it's correct? If not, are there any sources to learn it from?

Thank you!

Hello all,

First off, please pardon the vulgarity of the word. I wanted to know what a person named literally "F**ker" would be in Ancient Greek? My understanding is that the word for the verb "to f**k" is "βινέω". Based on that, would the derived name for a male be "βῑνέων"?

Hi all! I'm trying to translate some of Plutarch's Nicias for a project. I'm normally decent at Ancient Greek but I'm in a weird headspace at the moment and I've never read any Plutarch so please forgive me if this is a stupid question!!

Anyways, it's 12.2-4: ...μετὰ τὸ ψηφίσασθαι τὸν πόλεμον Ἀθηναίους καὶ στρατηγὸν ἑλέσθαι πρῶτον ἐκεῖνον μετʼ Ἀλκιβιάδου καὶ Λαμάχου, πάλιν ἐκκλησίας γενομένης, ἀναστὰς ἀπέτρεπε καὶ διεμαρτύρετο...

I'm a little confused by μετὰ τὸ... ἐκεῖνον. Firstly, can an articular infinitive (here: τὸ ψηφίσασθαι) take an object? i.e. not a noun in attributive position, but an accusative (here: τὸν πόλεμον) outside of the article-infinitive construction? Or is this an accusative of respect or something? Likewise, what is Ἀθηναίους doing? Is that an accusative of respect? How does it function with the articular infinitive? How is it functioning with the preposition?

It seems like the whole clause is a prepositional phrase following μετὰ, and I clearly get the meaning in English, but I need to know what all of these infinitives and accusatives are doing here. Why does it seem like an indirect statement to me?? Are all the accusatives there because they're the objects of ἀπέτρεπε or διεμαρτύρετο and maybe μετὰ is just adverbial? Or just modifying the articular infinitive?

Also - please let me know if I've posted this in the wrong place or something. It's my first time posting on here.

Thank you!!

I know Άι γαμήσου(fuck you) but I need to know more

Homer and Hesiod often have prefixes like ευ and ανα (and many others) not attached to a words they are connected to. This would seem to indicate that they function as adverbs. Is this an evolution in Green language or merely a stylistic or due to preserving the metre?

Hi all,

So “everyone” recommends to use the Italian Athenaze. I have been trying, but it doesn’t really work for me. There is so much extra vocabulary, making it really hard to get through, looking up words in the dictionary all the time. (I know a little bit of Italian, but not enough to use the Greek to Italian translations.) I study from the English edition and wanted to supplement my reading with the Italian one.

Am I the only one for which the Italian edition is not working?

Thanks, Markus