Conversational Classical Greek

Here you can discuss all things Ancient Greek. Use this board to ask questions about grammar, discuss learning strategies, get help with a difficult passage of Greek, and more.
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annis
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Conversational Classical Greek

Post by annis »

Rather than further the hijacking of our modern Greek visitor's introduction, I thought I'd continue some thoughts about this in a new thread.
mingshey wrote:Learning the poems by heart might help. But poems are more free from normal grammar, isn't it true for greek, too?
Quite. Still good for vocabulary, though any Greek prose you compose may have more poetic vocabulary than Aristotle would approve of. Even with the poetic freedoms, though, the basics (agreement, aspect/tense, much morphology) will be the same.
How about those drama scripts as by Aeschilos or other authors? Are they recommendable for learning normal conversational grammar and vocabulary?
Probably the dialogues of Plato and Lucian would be the best. The Attic of drama is still quite poetic.

Just a snippet:

As discussed on the classics list today, apparently one correct response to χαῖρε is καὶ σύ. In the right context, it might also be considered rude, I gather.
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

chad
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Post by chad »

a little thing i noticed while flicking thru the loeb papyri: private letters volume is that greeks writing casual letters to each other always started the same way: A to B [size=150]χαίρειν[/size], the verbal noun, rather than [size=150]χαῖρε[/size], i.e. in spoken conversation they said something like "hi A", but in written conversation, "A to B greetings". the openings and closings of those papyrus letters seem as formulaic as "dear x" and "yours sincerely".

annis
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Post by annis »

chad wrote:a little thing i noticed while flicking thru the loeb papyri: private letters volume is that greeks writing casual letters to each other always started the same way: A to B [size=150]χαίρειν[/size], the verbal noun,
A whole mess o' salutations in Greek and Latin: Classical Salutations and Closings
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

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benissimus
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Post by benissimus »

That's a really interesting site, you should mention it in the links forum 8)
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae

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Post by Emma_85 »

I've noticed that learning things of by heart does help me for Greek. We had to learn the first few lines of the Odyssey off by heart, and I know all the vocab used there, maybe all I need to do to learn vocab is learn more of the Odyssey off by heart. It might help me if I try to copy out the Odyssey in nice handwriting, too.

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Re: Conversational Classical Greek

Post by Kerastes »

annis wrote:As discussed on the classics list today, apparently one correct response to χαῖρε is καὶ σύ. In the right context, it might also be considered rude, I gather.
This exchange occurs in E. Joannides, Sprechen Sie Attisch? (Leipzig, 1889):

Guten Morgen, Karl! Good morning, Karl. [size=134] χαῖρ’ ὦ κάρολε.[/size]

Guten Morgen, Gustav! (Erwiderung) Good morning, Gustav. (reply) [size=134]καὶ σύγε ὦ γούσταβε.[/size]

It's an interesting little booklet. Anyone else ever seen it?

Kerastes

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Re: Conversational Classical Greek

Post by mingshey »

Kerastes wrote:This exchange occurs in E. Joannides, Sprechen Sie Attisch? (Leipzig, 1889):
Must be in the public domain?
Many, including me, will be very grateful if it shows up on the textkit. :D

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benissimus
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Post by benissimus »

If you speak German... :?
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annis
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Post by annis »

benissimus wrote:If you speak German... :?
It is called a booklet. Surely it would not be much work to translate.

(Assuming enough readers of fraktur, of course. :) )
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

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Post by Kerastes »

annis wrote:Surely it would not be much work to translate.
(Assuming enough readers of fraktur, of course. :) )
You've seen it, then. Yeah, fraktur, my favorite. :roll:

It's only 68 pages. I'm eventually going to translate it and post it publicly, to make it more accessible, but my capacity to commit is a bit uncertain right now. I'm eyeing either of the two Homeric study groups, but I'm not sure I can follow through or even which one to join. As you can tell, I'm new here.

Not for nothing is my Internet name Kerastes Polythymos.

annis
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Post by annis »

Kerastes wrote:You've seen it, then. Yeah, fraktur, my favorite. :roll:
I've not seen it, but assumed it would be in fraktur based on the publishing date.
It's only 68 pages. I'm eventually going to translate it and post it publicly, to make it more accessible, but my capacity to commit is a bit uncertain right now.
I don't know about your computer hardware circumstances, but scanning a few pages a week and putting them up on a web page would, I'm sure, inspire the German speakers to give us translated text.
I'm eyeing either of the two Homeric study groups, but I'm not sure I can follow through or even which one to join. As you can tell, I'm new here.
Welcome!
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

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Post by mingshey »

annis wrote:(Assuming enough readers of fraktur, of course. :) )
Fraktur is no problem(We have a fraktur Greek grammar recently posted by Waraysa in the outside links forum ;)). I love it. But my limited german can be a little problem.

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