/r/AncientGreek

Photograph via snooOG

This subreddit is dedicated to discussions about ancient Greek language and literature. However, we certainly welcome discussions of ancient Greek culture, history, and mythology, so long as they pertain to their reflection in an ancient Greek linguistic context. Posts may involve every dialect of ancient Greek. We invite discussion about topics as diverse as Homeric poetry, papyrology, biblical interpretation, and grammatical analysis.

  • Q: I want to learn Greek but I don't know how to go about it or where to start.
  • A: Take a look at our resources page, there you'll find all the material needed.


    • Q: What does it mean to read Greek?
    • A: Reading the text and understanding it, perhaps after a few attempts, but without recourse to another language, like you presumably understand English.


    • Q: Why don’t they teach me this?
    • A: A result of the way that Greek has been taught for the last 150 years is that teaching or even reading it is beyond many classicists' abilities. Yes, you read that right. Teaching and learning Greek requires a level of spoken fluency. Reading a lot requires much more time than most programs allow. Standardised tests don't test language proficiency, but must be prepared for. Thus teaching Greek is replaced by teaching about it, and reading it by what used to be the emergency crutch of decoding it. In short, you will need to rely on yourself.

    • Q: Do you have solid evidence against Grammar-Translation?

    • A: Here's a sample. All standard references of Language Acquisition (like this or this) agree on this. This article and this article elaborate on why it's not beneficial to use GT, a part from the fact that it's not conductive to learning a language.


    • Q: Where can I get assistance in studying or chatting in Greek?

    • A: The General Latin Discord Server


    • Q: Are translations and bilinguals bad or cheating?
    • A: No. On the contrary, they're the next best thing after Ørberg-style notes and your saviour from being constantly stuck in a dictionary.

    • Q: I'm very systematic and I want a reference grammar.
    • A: They best way to learn grammar is from an actual grammar. Choose one of the grammars listed in the resources page

    • Q: Should I learn Classical Greek (Attic) or Koine? Is there a difference?
    • A: There's no insurmountable difference, it's like asking whether you should learn posh Oxford English or Wyoming English. You can learn one and with little difficulty understand the other. Some people confuse Koine with Biblical Greek, Biblical Greek is just one of the many variants of Koine.

    /r/AncientGreek

    27,356 Subscribers

    5

    What do you think of "Reading Greek" as a way for a future classicist to learn Greek in university?

    That would be me. I'm used to grammar-translation method and using it in highschool I learned Latin and am now able to even speak it. However, this natural method for Greek is terrible for me now--I don't learn as much as I would like to and I think it would take enormous amount of time to even crawl to such a level as I am in Latin. Have in mind that we are learning only 3 semesters for both Latin and Greek. Greek grammar is bigger/harder than Latin, so I cannot comprehend how am I going to be familiarised enough with this new language for me. I'm panicking a bit...

    5 Comments
    2024/10/31
    10:27 UTC

    1

    What is the most difficult verb in Ancient Greek?

    Hey guys! I’ve just created a video about one of, if not the most, difficult verbs in Ancient Greek, in which I walk you through all of its intricacies with examples. A full translation is provided in the description, too. Hope you enjoy the video!

    0 Comments
    2024/10/31
    08:45 UTC

    3

    Ionic οἰκηιεῦνται

    Why is there Ionic οἰκηιεῦνται (Herodotus 1.4.4)? CGL lists οἰκηιόω as the Ionic form of οἰκειόω. So then for the third-person plural of the present middle, I would expect uncontracted οἰκηιόονται. Then according to my favorite wikipedia article, οο contracts to ου in Ionic, just like it does in Attic, so it should be οἰκηιοῦνται.

    The εῦ looks like what you normally get in Ionic -έω verbs, e.g., ποιεῦνται, since in Ionic εο contracts to ευ. But this is an -όω verb, so what's going on? Is this just some Attic scribe whose brain is hypercorrecting and trying to over-Ionicize the word, like people who say "octopi" and "virii?"

    6 Comments
    2024/10/30
    23:19 UTC

    18

    2nd Hellenikon Idyllion Winter School in Ancient Greek

    4 Comments
    2024/10/30
    21:55 UTC

    9

    Better windows Greek keyboard!

    Hey guys, so I use the Greek keyboard on my laptop a decent bit for class and also I had a software project in mind that i want to make soon, however the windows keyboard layout for accent and breathing marks is super confusing and i can never remember it. I’ve tried it on Linux and it’s much easier to remember and makes a lot more sense, I’ve attached a picture of what the layout looks like. I was wondering if anyone had found an alternative windows keyboard that works the same way as this one?

    1 Comment
    2024/10/30
    18:40 UTC

    1

    Help! ἀπεσιώπησα

    Conjucated: ἀπεσιώπησα
    Lex: ἀποσιωπάω

    Aor-Mid-Part-Fem-Nom-S
    Aor-Mid-Part-Neut-Nom/Acc-Pl

    Those look correct?

    1 Comment
    2024/10/30
    16:03 UTC

    2

    Help with description

    Would you be able to give me any pointers on what comes across as not making much sense? It seems that I struggle with matching aspect and gender, often with participles. Thanks in advance :)

    πλανηθείς δὲ διὰ τὴνδε πολὶν ἀπόπροθεν ἐν ἄρκτῳ καὶ αἰεὶ κρύερον․ παρὰ τοὺς πολλοὺς λιθοστρώτους ὁδοὺς ἐκεῖσε κἀκεῖσε εἱλισσομένους περιπατῆσαι ἀναμνῄσκομαι ˙ ὁ δὲ αὐτὸς τρόπον Ἑλλήνων ἔδειμε․ πολλοῖσι μὲν δὴ κίοσιν κοινῇ οἰδε ὥς γε τὰς Ἀθήνᾱς τοῦ ἄρκτου˙ λέγεται δὲ πρῶτον φῦλον Κελτῶν Οὐοταδίνους ἐποικησάμενους παλαίοτερον κεῖθι καὶ ἆρα κεῖθι μένεσκον ἕως ἄν ἶφι τοῖσι Ῥομαίοισι νῑκηθῶσιν․

    My intended translation is as follows: Having wandered through this city, ever cold, and far in the North, I recall walking along the many cobblestone roads, winding hither and thither. The city itself was constructed in the style (manner) of the Greeks. With its many pillars it is known commonly as the Athens of the North. it is said that the first tribe, whom settled here long ago, were the Votadini of the Celts. They consequently remained here until by the might of the Romans, they were vanquished.

    10 Comments
    2024/10/30
    13:20 UTC

    8

    How was /a:/ written?

    Wikipedia says that the sound [a:] was written with /ᾱ/.

    However, I haven't been able to find that character in any ancient greek text i've came across. So, is it valid to say that [a:] was writtent with /ᾱ/, or was it just written as /a/?

    8 Comments
    2024/10/30
    10:03 UTC

    5

    Educated studies to determine the average vocabulary of Ancient Greek person?

    Greetings!

    Has there been any work to estimate the average number of words in an average Ancient Greek persons vocabulary.

    As an indication, the average for English is around 20K words for a high school graduate, for modern Greek I have seen others state 100,000 in a subreddit, but that seems a bit of an exaggeration to me unless a native speaker can shed more light.

    Google AI stated that Aristotle and Plato had 60K words in their works, but that is literary Greek and probably not the speaking vocabulary of an average person.

    6 Comments
    2024/10/30
    08:14 UTC

    13

    Are there any good 'natural method' books for Ancient Greek?

    I am taking an Ancient Greek course at the university, and while I have been doing relatively well so far (1st and 2nd declension), verb conjugations, the vocabulary, etc, I feel, that I need something more intuitive. And yeah, I am already falling behind on the third declension.

    I have previously studient classical Latin on my own, mostly by reading LLPSI (Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata), but also practiced the grammar to a lesser extent. This method has helped me immensely, and while I might not be able to tell the exact rules of Latin 3rd declension, I can do 99% of them intuitively, without ever having memorized them.

    Are there any similar books for Ancient Greek?

    11 Comments
    2024/10/30
    07:55 UTC

    7

    Modern languages with long and short diphthongs

    Are there modern languages that have phonemically distinguished long and short diphthongs, like Attic ᾳ, ῃ, ῳ vs αι, ει (genuine), οι (before /ei/ became /e:/)? It would be helpful to hear what minimal pairs sound like from a native speaker.

    12 Comments
    2024/10/29
    21:33 UTC

    3

    Corrections

    Would you be able to give me any pointers on what comes across as not making much sense? Also where would be the best place to put the ἄν?

    νοέοι τις μόνον ἄν Ῥομαίοισι αἰσθομένους ὡς ἄνω βλέποντες πρὸς μέλανας ὀροὺς ὑπὲρ ὁμίκλην τε καὶ νεφέλην σταμένους θρασέως

    13 Comments
    2024/10/29
    16:11 UTC

    7

    no reduplication in ἐξεμπολημένων?

    Herodotus 1.1.3:

    ἐξεμπολημένων σφι σχεδόν πάντων

    their merchandise having nearly all been sold

    I'm confused by the participle. Smyth 453-454 discusses the fact that ἐμπολάω comes from a compound noun ἐμπολή, and therefore the augment doesn't split it into ἐνεπολα- in the imperfect. LSJ gives the perfect middle as ἐξημπόλημαι, which makes sense, because the reduplication comes before the second preposition, in the same way that Smyth describes for the augment.

    So far so good. But then the form that Herodotus uses looks like it's had its reduplication removed. Why is that? When I first looked at ἐξημπόλημαι, my brain saw the η as an augment, and then it would make sense that you would not use the augment when forming the participle. But it's not an augment, it's a reduplication, so why isn't the participle ἐξημπολημένων? E.g., for ἐρέφω, I think the perfect participle would be ἠρεμμένος (that's what Wiktionary lists), not ἐρεμμένος.

    Maybe I'm just groggy because I haven't had my third cup of coffee yet.

    7 Comments
    2024/10/29
    14:24 UTC

    8

    correptio epica

    wikipedia says that correption in greek poetry "is the shortening of a long vowel at the end of one word before a vowel at the beginning of the next" and per se it is easy, but i'd like to understand why that happens. is there an explanation to this or is it mere convention?

    10 Comments
    2024/10/28
    22:07 UTC

    0

    Parsing ἀνανήξηται

    Text: ἀνανήξηται
    Lexical: ἀνανήχομαι
    Parsing: Aor-Pass-Subjunctive-3S

    Does this look right?

    1 Comment
    2024/10/28
    18:47 UTC

    2

    κουράλλιον parsing

    I have no idea what this is and can't find anything!

    2 Comments
    2024/10/28
    16:04 UTC

    4

    Different possibilities for translating a Parmenidean fragment

    DK 3: ...τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἐστίν τε καὶ εἶναι.

    If we take the infinitives to be articular because of τὸ at the beginning, then it would go:

    ... for, thinking and being is the same.

    If we just take τὸ as "the thing", then the translation would become more literal:

    ... for it is the same thing to think and to be.

    I do not understand why Burnet renders the verbs in passive:

    For it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be.

    5 Comments
    2024/10/28
    07:43 UTC

    1

    morphology of ἄτομος (átomos)?

    Hello. How is ἄτομος formed?

    1. ἄ-(a-) + τόμος(tómos) 'slice, piece' (noun)

    2. ἄ-(a-) + τoμός(tomós) 'sharp' (adjective)

    3.  ἀ- (a-) + τέμνω (témnō) 'to cut' (verb)

    4. other? please explain

    2 Comments
    2024/10/28
    03:26 UTC

    2

    Need verification or translation of cleopatra the alchemist

    Does the text here say “the all is one?”

    Thanks!

    5 Comments
    2024/10/28
    04:28 UTC

    84

    Saw this cool artwork of Athena, but I wonder if the letters on the left is correct?

    22 Comments
    2024/10/28
    01:53 UTC

    2

    How does punctuation work in Ancient Greek

    How did people know where to stop for like commas and stuff like that?

    Did something like the comma exist in ancient greek?

    14 Comments
    2024/10/27
    20:53 UTC

    12

    compensatory lengthening

    i'm studying compensatory lengthening and the book from which i'm studying distinguishes in first, second and third type of cl. i'm having troubles understanding the third type (which is the type of cases like for example ξενFος>ξεινος). in particular my problem is that my book says that this type of cl is directly linked to an ancient syllabication of words (so, not ξε-νFος, as we would expect, but ξεν-Fος). but why is the ancient syllabication so important? why the cl does not happen when the syllabication is the normal one?

    6 Comments
    2024/10/26
    17:40 UTC

    13

    When to use articles with proper nouns

    I teach Attic/Koine Greek to middle schoolers, and I'm writing some supplemental stories for them to read. One thing I've been stuck on is when to use articles with proper nouns, especially names. I know this isn't the most important thing to focus on, but I'm trying my best to create something as "authentic" sounding as possible.

    I'm most familiar with New Testament Greek. A cursory search seems to indicate that nominative/dative nouns are almost always articular (or have some other kind of determiner), but genitive/accusative nouns are about 50/50. This Smyth link (which I found here) is helpful, but I'm wondering if anyone has any more insight.

    6 Comments
    2024/10/26
    13:46 UTC

    5

    Translation requests into Ancient Greek go here!

    10 Comments
    2024/10/26
    12:00 UTC

    5

    Feminine Genitive Plural question

    I learned that for Genitive Plural the parsing basically always had -ων as their ending, but I'm noticing that sometimes Feminine can sometimes have -αν as their Genitive Plural (which I learned as only being the Feminine Acc S).

    Is there an explanation for this? [Background is basically Koine at a Seminary]

    3 Comments
    2024/10/26
    02:31 UTC

    1

    Parsing σοφισθέντες

    || || |σοφισθέντες|Aor-Pass-Part-Masc-Nom-S|σοφίζω|

    Mainly need to know if σοφιζω is the lexical form here

    1 Comment
    2024/10/26
    02:20 UTC

    3

    Question about Ῥαμμανιτῶν.

    For an original research paper that I am working on, I am trying to locate some sites in ancient Yemen. Strabo refers to the Ῥαμμανιτῶν. This gets transliterated Rhammanitae or Rhammanites. Am I correct in thinking that the original South Arabian (Yemeni) name would have been Rhamman and that what follows is a Greek suffix or ending? Any explanation of the ending would also be very helpful. Thank you very much for your help!

    11 Comments
    2024/10/26
    02:08 UTC

    2

    Herodotus translation to compare with own work?

    title about sums it up! i’m translating some herodotus at the moment and just wanted to know which english translations people recommend using for comparison!

    i currently own aubery de selincourt’s one. from what i’ve seen so far he sticks close to the greek but also changes some odd things (e.g. λεγεται becoming “there is a story” instead of “it is said”). i know tom holland’s is popular nowadays and was considered buying it — would it even be better to have several different ones to compare and contrast with my own?

    4 Comments
    2024/10/25
    21:54 UTC

    7

    What English translation of Xenophon's Anabasis is simply easiest to read? I'm interested in the storyline, not adherence to these original text format, wording, etc. Looking for a good narrative with flow that doesn't feel like I am reading the Bible. Not even sure it exists, but worth a shot.

    8 Comments
    2024/10/25
    13:58 UTC

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