I really want to learn a language that people actually speak
I really want to learn a language that people actually speak
Just so you know where I'm coming from, my area of study is linguistics. One of my interests, more like a passion really, is in language endagerment.Scribo wrote:Well that's neither here nor there. If we were being so utilitarian why would bother with extraneous languages anyway?
It's ironic that I can read Homeric Greek but I don't appreciate it!Scribo wrote:I learnt AG and Latin due to my overwhelming interest in the ancient world and my chosen courses of study. I'm all about the context, it would be inconceivable for me to ever look at Homer in English and be satisfied, after all don't you know how weird his language actually is? When we're discussing whether or not such a particle is a Luwian loan word or whether such a phrase is a clumsy rendering of an Akkadian original or even reading a Hellenistic novel and laughing at the slight change of an old Homeric phrasing Greek is obviously important.
Yes well, French is for next year in university.Scribo wrote:No learning is in vain. You want Italian or French? well go learn it in the safe knowledge that having learnt Latin your acquisition of them will be somewhat faster and perhaps even more pleasant.
Scribo wrote:. I spend most of my team in Modern Greek....I don't think anyone would reasonably call it a beautiful language.
IreneY wrote:Scribo wrote:. I spend most of my team in Modern Greek....I don't think anyone would reasonably call it a beautiful language.
I think native speakers would take an issue with that wouldn't you?I mean I don't consider it the most beautiful language in the whole wide world but it's not such a plain language either to me. Actually, for some obscure reason, it sounds better than reconstructed classic and homeric AG to my ears. Go figure!
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As for the similarities between the two, well, yes, those that over-stress them are going way too far, but you wouldn't believe the amount of things that bug foreign students of ancient Greek (no matter which their native language is and whether it's declined or not, or whatever) that a native speaker that actually knows their own language (Greek) finds completely natural.
I didn't suddenly switch to the "MG and AG are almost identical" side (still nuts but not a nut-job thankfully) but I'm just saying.
Nooj if you need any help and/or online sources tell me.
Nooj wrote:Is it just me, or do Greek speakers speak Greek faster than English speakers do with English?
To read.Also to the person commenting on the Aeneid in translation being "good enough". Good enough for what purpose?
What you're saying is that it's worth reading in the original language or it's not worth reading at all. I don't agree.I guess I could understand that. But otherwise it's like saying the Cliff's Notes of a novel, or a photograph of a painting, are "good enough". The Aeneid is a poem. The only purpose a poem has is to be read (well sung actually, but close enough). If you read it in translation you're reading a different poem. Either it's worth reading or it's not worth reading.
Tolstoy has been translated numerous times into English. Are they Cliff Notes versions? That's doing a disservice to the translators. I don't have the time to read every one of my books in the original language they were written in.But otherwise it's like saying the Cliff's Notes of a novel,
Actually, yes I think it is. I don't want or need a big painting, I'd be happy with a photograph of it blown up and framed.or a photograph of a painting, are "good enough".
The sort of philosophy I'm interested in doesn't require Greek, although interestingly enough Simone de Beauvoir taught herself Greek. Not sure about Sartre.And if you have a genuine interest in philosophy you're doing yourself a grave disservice by not learning Greek. I think it says a lot about the quality of liberal education these days that one can obtain a philosophy PhD without having any Greek.
Why do we read anything? For enjoyment, for pleasure, for boredom, for information etc etc.1. And what's the purpose of reading "the" Aeneid? To say you have read it?
Look I get what you're saying, but the Homeric epics haven't been sung for at least two thousand years. IIRC, the tradition was dying out when the Alexandrian commentators were writing on Homer. One could ask why we bother with Homer at all now if we can't even appreciate its oral nature. Haven't we neutered its power?Why listen to a Bob Dylan album when you can read the liner notes instead?
Good enough for what? To appreciate Russian prose style? Obviously not. To appreciate his themes? I argue, yes.3. I think a Russian lover of Tolstoy would indeed tell you that reading him in translation is not "good enough". But there is a significant difference between reading a novel in translation and a poem. You necessarily lose a tremendous amount in the latter which is perhaps not the case in the former.
It has whatever purpose you give to it. Some people see art as a valuable commodity to be sold and bought, some value art only for aesthetic reasons.
3. So is the purpose of a painting to be seen or to be possessed?
I feel you need to look up Nagarjuna or Dharmakirti or Dogen.Finally regarding your comments on Buddhism, it seems to me that you are the Eurocentric one here in that you project a Greek conflation of wisdom with reason onto a way of life that does not seek wisdom through reason.
To shoehorn Buddhism into "world philosophy" is, to use the old saw, a Procrustean effort. Whatever Buddhism may be (revelation perhaps?) and whatever truth it may hold, it's not philosophy. To read that as an insult to Buddhism is to display a deeply-rooted Western prejudice in favor of philosophy.*
LCN wrote:
Why listen to a Bob Dylan album when you can read the liner notes
Ahab wrote:LCN wrote:
Why listen to a Bob Dylan album when you can read the liner notes
Since none of us ever have or ever will be able to listen to an authentic ancient Greek performance of Homer then why bother learning Homeric Greek? To read the Iliad in Greek is little more than reading the lyrics of a song you never actually heard.
LCN wrote:Ahab wrote:LCN wrote:
Why listen to a Bob Dylan album when you can read the liner notes
Since none of us ever have or ever will be able to listen to an authentic ancient Greek performance of Homer then why bother learning Homeric Greek? To read the Iliad in Greek is little more than reading the lyrics of a song you never actually heard.
The point has nothing to do with authenticity. The point is about complacency.
The only reason that Aquinas should have found it regrettable is if he was unsure of the quality of the translation. If the translation is accurate, why should you only read Greek philosophy in Greek? Is there something magical about the original language? Will I only understand Nietzsche's points in German?I would not fault Aquinas for reading Aristotle only by way of Arabic translations (the Greek was not available to him). I would fault him for not sorely regretting the fact that he couldn't get his hands on the original.
LCN wrote:And translation is an odd business now that you mention it. I think you will find that for many translators of poetry it is a labor of love but they are quite ambivalent about whether they are really doing a service to the world by encouraging reading poetry in translation.
Koehnsen wrote: If one's goal is to be a better thinker, speaker or writer in any field, learning new languages—whether ancient or modern—is an excellent means to the end of having a mature intellectual mind.
Ahab wrote:Koehnsen wrote: If one's goal is to be a better thinker, speaker or writer in any field, learning new languages—whether ancient or modern—is an excellent means to the end of having a mature intellectual mind.
My college German teacher often remarked to his students that merely learning another language does not make one intelligent for he knew many people who could speak several languages yet had nothing to say. That has matched my personal experience.
Koehnsen wrote:Ahab wrote:Koehnsen wrote: If one's goal is to be a better thinker, speaker or writer in any field, learning new languages—whether ancient or modern—is an excellent means to the end of having a mature intellectual mind.
My college German teacher often remarked to his students that merely learning another language does not make one intelligent for he knew many people who could speak several languages yet had nothing to say. That has matched my personal experience.
You have difficulty understanding what you have read. Moreover, your particular personal experience is meaningless.
Scribo wrote:When we're discussing whether or not such a particle is a Luwian loan word or whether such a phrase is a clumsy rendering of an Akkadian original or even reading a Hellenistic novel and laughing at the slight change of an old Homeric phrasing Greek is obviously important.
Scribo wrote:Well I'm not sure really what to recommend since I've no idea what you've read or what level you're aiming for.
Koehnsen wrote:I have used the FSI series with good results when working on German and French. Here is the Modern Greek course:
http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Greek
The page description says: The Greek Basic Course introduces the modern spoken language to those who wish a working command of contemporary Greek. The Greek represented in this course is a representative of the Kathomilumeni variety that is the "standard" speech of educated Greeks. It is neither entirely colloquial nor strictly formal. In the written materials the Greek alphabet is used from the beginning.
It is free, and completely legal (having been developed by US tax dollars). You can easily have the pdf book printed at a local copy center for convenience.
pster wrote:When it comes to place names, how different are ancient and modern?
If I got a modern atlas of Greek, how many ancient locations would appear?
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