pster wrote:I showed a 65 year old, native, not particularly scholarly yet not particularly dumb, Greek man my Plato one day and I asked him if he could read it. He popped it open and read a sentence and waved his hands as though to say that it wasn't that hard to read. I also got the impression that he had had some exposure to the original texts when he was back in grade school. It is interesting though that native Greeks do not dominate classics the way, for example, Italians dominate Dante studies and Italian Renaissance studies. Of course there are plenty of non-Italians who work on Dante and the Italian Renaissance, but my sense is that the most knowledgeable writers and probably a majority overall are native Italians. Italy is four times bigger than Greece, and the Italian of 1200-1600 is closer to today's Italian than Attic is to today's Greek. Still, off the top of my head, I can only think of a couple of prominent native Greek classicists.
LSorenson wrote:Nicholas Adamou, on the B-Greek site, gave an extensive account of how he studied modern Greek and then Ancient Greek in the 1950's or 1960's. His story can be found at the topic "Learning Greek Experience as a Native Greek" http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1117&p=5396&hilit=adamou#p5380
LSorenson wrote:Nicholas Adamou, on the B-Greek site, gave an extensive account of how he studied modern Greek and then Ancient Greek in the 1950's or 1960's. His story can be found at the topic "Learning Greek Experience as a Native Greek" http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1117&p=5396&hilit=adamou#p5380
Scribo wrote:For several important reasons, but its best not to go into it. There have been some would be prominent Greek Classicists like Kakridis but they were demonised by the establishment, even now the best Greek Classicists tend to end up marginalised, I can think of (for example) Athanassaki who is a powerhouse internationally but is barely read in Greek and teaches in Rethymno I believe.
There are...lots of reasons, and just thinking about it makes me mad. Very mad. There is something very, very, very rotten in the Greek mindset.
MiguelM wrote:Scribo wrote:For several important reasons, but its best not to go into it. There have been some would be prominent Greek Classicists like Kakridis but they were demonised by the establishment, <snip>
I stumbled upon this thread while checking if there was any thread where hints for learning Modern Greek after having learnt the Classical had already been started around here. Instead I found this, and you'll forgive me for resurrecting an old conversation and asking: I know you said it's best not to go into it, but what did you mean by that? I ask that as someone who's had barely no acquaintance with Modern Greek philology — were you talking about the True Heirs of Classical Greece jingoism, or something else?
Alexandros Pallis (Αλέξανδρος Πάλλης) (Piraeus, 1851 – Liverpool, 1935) was a Greek educational and language reformer who translated the New Testament into Modern Greek. The publication, in the Akropolis newspaper, caused riots in Athens in 1901 in which 8 people died. The New Testament in Modern Greek was not legalised until 1924.
daivid wrote:Sort of relevant is the story our Greek teacher told of his national service in the army. The army still uses Ancient Greek but in an entirely fossilised form. For instance a sentry will make the challenge "Halt, τις ει"
(Any mistake is down to me). Not even the officers had a clue what it actually meant - it was just the words you used when challenging someone when on sentry duty. From that I conclude that for a section of the Greek establishment a symbolic but empty connection with Ancient Greek was more important than the reality.
The influence of Puristic is pervasive enough to illustrate in the following anecdote. To set the context: the Greek Army was an institution well placed to roll out Puristic to the populace: you had a captive audience, that you barked orders to, that they had to obey. It was the one place where you could convince people that the word for “fire” is not φωτιά “lightness” (or λαμπρόν “bright” in Cyprus, or στιά “hearth” in the Ionian islands), but the Ancient πῦρ.
Psichari of course had a field day with this: the sergeant could bark “fttpt” or “herring”, and the soldier will still shoot; that doesn’t mean you’ve rewired his brain to call “fire” anything but φωτιά (or λαμπρόν or στιά).
As it turns out, my brain has been rewired. Not quite in the way Psichari said, but close.
When King Otto arrived in Greece in 1833, an honour guard of veterans was set up to fire off a 21 gun salute. When the appointed time came, the designated officer walked up, and proudly shouted, in the only form of Greek worthy of the occasion:
OFFICER #1: … Ignis! [Πῦρ!]
VETERANS: ….
OFFICER #1: … Ignis! [Πῦρ!]
VETERANS: ….
OFFICER #1: … Ignis? [Πῦρ;]
VETERANS: … (Who the hell’s this Innis guy he keeps calling out for?) (Nay, nay, you see, he’s addressing his Majesty in his native Barvarian.)
OFFICER #2 (BILINGUAL IN ANCIENT AND MODERN GREEK): [from the crowd] … *FIRE*, damn your hides! [Φωτιά, πανάθεμά σας!]
VETERANS: … Oh! *bang bang bang* (See, told you! That’s Sgt Innis right there.)
When I read this, I thought to myself (in Greek): what does setting things on fire (φωτιά) have to do with shooting guns (πυρά)?
Then I translated both words into English.
Then I was sore amused.
There’s a simple metaphor in many a language between setting things on fire and shooting guns. Hence, gunfire, and fire!. Saying fire! in Ancient Greek at the barracks did not succeed in reviving the ancient Greek word for setting things on fire.
But it did succeed in destroying the metaphoric link: the Ancient Greek word for “fire” is the only word now used for “fire” in a military context—that is, gunfire. The Modern Greek word for “fire” is the only word now used for “fire” in any other context. And modern speakers do a double-take, to realise that gunfire has something to do with burning.
Not what people in 1833 had in mind…
Hylander wrote:When I visited Greece in 2012, our driver/tour guide, who was otherwise quite knowledgeable as well as enthusiastic about Greek history and the sites we visited, looked back with disgust on the agony of having been forced to learn some ancient Greek in school, which he seemed to have completely forgotten beyond a few expressions such as μολων λαβε. I think the ancient Greek requirement has since been abolished.
opoudjis wrote:
The influence of Puristic is pervasive enough to illustrate in the following anecdote. To set the context: the Greek Army was an institution well placed to roll out Puristic to the populace: you had a captive audience, that you barked orders to, that they had to obey. It was the one place where you could convince people that the word for “fire” is not φωτιά “lightness” (or λαμπρόν “bright” in Cyprus, or στιά “hearth” in the Ionian islands), but the Ancient πῦρ.
Scribo wrote:As for the translation [Kazantzakis & Kakridis' Iliad] itself its not very accurate and often difficult due to its use of hyper demotic words but its rather pretty, take the first lines where Akhilleus loses his patronym and is simply called "famous" (ξακουστος). It generally has a wonderful slightly swaying rhythm and I love it but its not Homer.
ἐντεῦθεν οὖν μόνον δημιουργεῖσθαι τὸ πεῖθον οἰόμενος οὐ συνεχώρει τοῖς Χριστιανοῖς ἐν τοῖς τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἀσκεῖσθαι μαθήμασιν· ἡνίκα δὴ Ἀπολινάριος οὗτος εἰς καιρὸν τῇ πολυμαθείᾳ καὶ τῇ φύσει χρησάμενος, ἀντὶ μὲν τῆς Ὁμήρου ποιήσεως ἐν ἔπεσιν ἡρῴοις τὴν Ἑβραϊκὴν ἀρχαιολογίαν συνεγράψατο μέχρι τῆς Σαοὺλ βασιλείας καὶ εἰς εἰκοσιτέσσαρα μέρη τὴν πᾶσαν πραγματείαν διεῖλεν, ἑκάστῳ τόμῳ προσηγορίαν θέμενος ὁμώνυμον τοῖς παρ’ Ἕλλησι στοιχείοις κατὰ τὸν τούτων ἀριθμὸν καὶ τάξιν. ἐπραγματεύσατο δὲ καὶ τοῖς Μενάνδρου δράμασιν εἰκασμένας κωμῳδίας, καὶ τὴν Εὐριπίδου τραγῳδίαν καὶ τὴν Πινδάρου λύραν ἐμιμήσατο. καὶ ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν ἐκ τῶν θείων γραφῶν τὰς ὑποθέσεις λαβὼν τῶν ἐγκυκλίων καλουμένων μαθημάτων, ἐν ὀλίγῳ χρόνῳ ἐπόνεσεν ἰσαρίθμους καὶ ἰσοδυνάμους πραγματείας ἤθει τε καὶ φράσει καὶ χαρακτῆρι καὶ οἰκονομίᾳ ὁμοίας τοῖς παρ’ Ἕλλησιν ἐν τούτοις εὐδοκιμήσασιν· ὥστε εἰ μὴ τὴν ἀρχαιότητα ἐτίμων οἱ ἄνθρωποι καὶ τὰ συνήθη φίλα ἐνόμιζον, ἐπίσης, οἶμαι, τοῖς παλαιοῖς τὴν Ἀπολιναρίου σπουδὴν ἐπῄνουν καὶ ἐδιδάσκοντο, ταύτῃ πλέον αὐτοῦ τὴν εὐφυΐαν θαυμάζοντες, ὅσῳ γε τῶν μὲν ἀρχαίων ἕκαστος περὶ ἓν μόνον ἐσπούδασεν, ὁ δὲ τὰ πάντων ἐπιτηδεύσας ἐν κατεπειγούσῃ χρείᾳ τὴν ἑκάστου ἀρετὴν ἀπεμάξατο.
jeidsath wrote:Derailing this thread somewhat, Sozomen has the following story of the period when Julian the Apostate forbid Christian study of the Greek classics.
So the Christian bishop Apollinaris quickly produced his own Christian imitations of Homer, Menander, Euripides, and Pindar, set on Biblical themes. And according to Sozomen, they were all better -- or at least as good -- as the originals. It is a tragedy that none of these works survive, and that we have to make do with the old versions.
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