ολλενδορφείου μεθόδοs tr. N. Kontopoulos

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metrodorus
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ολλενδορφείου μεθόδοs tr. N. Kontopoulos

Post by metrodorus »

I recently came across a translation of Ollendorff into Katharevousa - a clear version of the text can be found at the Haithi trust (they also have a Greek translation of Kendrick in their catalogue)
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... 1up;seq=45

The text was translated into early modern formal register Greek by Nikolaos Kontopoulos for teaching English, not Greek. There is also a key, Κλε'ις τής 'Αγγλικής 'Ολλενδορφείου μεθόδου which I located after some ferreting around online:
http://anemi.lib.uoc.gr/metadata/9/9/5/ ... 000004.tkl

I have not looked through the entire text, but it seems to me as though it could be a useful quick introduction to Greek for someone wanting to enter ancient Greek via the intermediate step of early modern Greek - the vocabulary used is mostly ancient. Interestingly enough, Kontopoulos had previously translated and published Kendrick's Greek Ollendorff into Early Modern Greek https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZFU-AAAAYAAJ- and I suspect Kontopoulos' use of ancient grammatical forms in his English and Greek Ollendorff was influenced by Kendrick, who seems to have an indirect effect on the development of Katharevousa....I see a thesis topic here.

Demotic idiom and vocabulary is provided as an alternative in brackets throughout. Of course, there are many arguments against this methodology for learning Greek - but the jump from highly artificial literary early modern Greek to Attic is not as wide as that to ancient Greek from contemporary Greek. The Greek in Kontopoulos' Greek and English Ollendorff appears to be heavily Atticized.

It strikes me that it would not be too difficult to convert this early modern Katharevousa Greek Ollendorff text into good Attic, making it into a very useful textbook. Kendrick made an attempt to write a textbook like this, but his method is not a true 'Ollendorff', it has certain Ollendorffian qualities.

There have been a few proponents of this methodology, for example, Stedman's Modern Greek Mastery, or 'Short Road to Ancient Greek' teaches a form of katharevousa, and notes the corresponding ancient forms in his commentary, all the while teaching early modern Greek.
https://archive.org/details/moderngreekmast00mdgoog
I run http://latinum.org.uk which provides the Adler Audio Latin Course, other audio materials, and additional free materials on YouTube.

metrodorus
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Re: ολλενδορφείου μεθόδοs tr. N. Kontopoulos

Post by metrodorus »

As an addendum to this, Blackie's lecture on the utility of the Greek spoken by educated Greeks (i.e., Katharevousa) to the Classical Scholar, is interesting reading.

Unfortunately, the Google scan is messed up - I have written in to Google to point out that the scan is unprocessed. It is legible if the pages are magnified in your browser.

"On the Living Language of the Greeks and its Utility to the Classical Scholar" by John Stuart Blackie.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ylVbAAAAQAAJ

Blackie's recommendation: travel to Greece and spend some time there learning modern Greek, or find yourself a modern Greek teacher with whom you can speak the language. Blackie suggested each classics department should set up bursaries, in order to send the best students to Greece.
I run http://latinum.org.uk which provides the Adler Audio Latin Course, other audio materials, and additional free materials on YouTube.

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