Over Thirty Years Ago: An Introduction

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chexmix
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Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2014 10:57 am

Over Thirty Years Ago: An Introduction

Post by chexmix »

Greetings from Arlington, Massachusetts!

I studied Ancient Greek back in what seems an eternity ago, 1979-80, at the College of Wooster in Ohio. If I recall correctly, I had three quarters worth: in the first quarter we used what must have been a very early version of the Luschnig text (I recall that it was bound like a book but looked more typed than typeset); in quarter two we did something from the New Testament (one of the Johannine Letters, I think); and I can't remember what we did in the third quarter.

By that third quarter I was not doing at all well with the Greek, hypnotized away as I was from most worthwhile academic efforts by my newfound obsession with theatre ... and I could mutter for pages about THAT, and will not. Unless someone asks.

So I find myself at this stage with a reborn, lively interest in trying to teach myself Greek -- and perhaps, if I become ambitious and my free time expands, Latin as well. I'm very glad to have found this site -- the level of discourse appears to be high, and civil to boot, which is saying something these days.

I work at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Around the age of 40, I'd shaken off the last clinging desire to ever touch theatre again, and began moving back, much the worse for mental wear, toward math and science. My original love was astronomy, and I'd planned to study it in college before the theatre bug bit. I'm only righting that wrong now via online courses.

This year I received the dubious gift of a heart attack over Memorial Day, while climbing a small mountain in New Hampshire. How time and vitality fly! Fortunately, I have a nutball black cat named Oort Cloud. She keeps me going.

I don't know how active I will be able to be immediately, but I look forward to meeting some of you in the forums.

Regards,

Glenn

Lucretius2327
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Location: Detroit, MI
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Re: Over Thirty Years Ago: An Introduction

Post by Lucretius2327 »

Dear Glen,

I am trying to gather a critical mass for the launching of the 2nd iteration of a intro to Homeric Greek course based on Book One of the Iliad and using Pharr "Homeric Greek" as a pace-horse. In the first iteration we finished Book one of the Iliad in 14 weeks, meeting 6 hours per week on Google Hangouts. This second iteration is directed towards working persons and retirees, so it will be more slowly paced. I hope to meet twice a week in the evening for 1.5 hours. Here, I attache the official advertisement. Feel free to contact me if you are interested or have any questions. By spring you would have a VERY strong foundation in Ancient Greek.

SING GODDESS!
Fall-Winter Introduction to Homeric Greek
Part I: Late-October to Late-January: $ 1, 200

‒ ⏑ ⏑ ‒ ⏑ ⏑ ‒‖
Μῆνιν ἄειδε Θεά

Meeting live on Google Hangouts 2 days a week at 7pm EST for 1.5 hours each session, this course will begin with the Greek alphabet and progress through Clyde Pharr, Homeric Greek: A book for beginners. By the end of the course you will have read a good portion of Iliad Book I in Greek and be sufficiently acquainted with Ancient Greek to move easily to the reading of Ionic (Herodotus) Attic (Plato, Xenophon, or Lysias) or New Testament Greek. Enrollment is limited to 8 persons.
(A Winter-Spring follow-up course will complete the reading of Iliad Book I and conclude with samplings from other Greek authors.)
Required Texts: (1) Pharr, Homeric Greek; (2) Smyth, Greek Grammar; (3) Bekker's text (1858) showing Digamma is preferred (Bekker's text is available through numerous print on demand outlets, for instance Paige M. Gutenborg of the Harvard Book Store); (4) hard-copy version of W. M. Roberts III, Three Quarrels: Lexical Grammatical Aids to Iliad Book I will be available = $50 materials fee.

Both Pharr and Smyth are available in PDF form online; so one can begin this course without having yet received the books. Possession of the hard-copy texts, however, is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Suggested Text: (1) Mondi and Corrigan, A Student Handbook of Greek and English Grammar. (This work is especially useful to persons not entirely confident in their grasp of grammatical concepts. It is highly recommended to anyone approaching Greek without a previous acquaintance with a fully declined language, such as Latin or Russian.)

Instructor: Walter M. Roberts III, PhD: wroberts@detroitgreekandlatin.com

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