the LSK (Modern Greek version of LSJ)

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Markos
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the LSK (Modern Greek version of LSJ)

Post by Markos »

“LSK” stands for Liddel, Jones and Konstantinidis. Anestis Konstantinidis was the guy who translated the lexicon into Modern Greek in 1904.

I had known that this version existed. Randall Buth had referred to it a few times, but until recently I had never seen it. I had assumed that the Modern Greek it used was sufficiently different from classical so that the lexicon would only be useful to those who knew Modern Greek. Otherwise, you would have thought that Buth and others would have promoted it as a type of monolingual Ancient Greek lexicon.

But recently Emiliano Caruso, author of the new Monolingual Dictionary of Ancient Greek, brought the LSK to my attention by locating some previews of a new edition offered by Pelekanos Press:

https://books.google.it/books?id=8HC8Bw ... &q&f=false

And this site provides a searchable version of the complete older edition:

http://myria.math.aegean.gr/lds/web/view.php

As far as I can tell, the only real difference between the two versions is the type face. I assume the older version is in the public domain.

Now, it turns out the the Greek used in LSK, far from being the sort of Demotic one finds in contemporary Greek newspapers, is extremely close to Classical-Koine. The bulk of LSJ, of course, are the citations from Ancient Authors, and these remain unchanged in LSK. The only things that need to be translated from English to Greek are the meta-language, most of which is actually composed of abbreviations, and the glosses-definitions. The abbreviations are virtually all intelligible to anyone who knows Ancient Greek: μέλλ., ἀόρ Β, Παθ., etc.

Now, to come to the heart of the matter, you can check it out yourself and come up with your own figures, but I would say that at least 80% of the time, the English definitions are rendered in a Greek that is indistinguishable from Ancient Greek, providing the intermediate student with an excellent monolingual definition of the headword. The LSK, that is, 80% of the time functions as an excellent monolingual Ancient Greek lexicon.

There are only three types of instances where the fact that LSK is in Modern rather than Ancient Greek is a problem.

1. Sometimes the Modern word is the same as the Ancient word, so LSK will not give a Greek rendering but will simply say ὡς καὶ νῦν.

2. Sometimes the glosses/definitions will be in a type of Modern Greek that is not comprehensible to someone who knows Ancient, but not Modern. As a practical matter, though, many of us who will wind up using the LSK have picked up quite a bit of Modern Greek, so this mitigates against the problem. Modern Greek words which are completely different than classical are put in quotation marks.

3. Theoretically the LSK could use words that mean something a little different in Modern Greek than they do in Ancient, potentially causing some confusion. I haven't seen any instances of this. It it happens it would be extremely rare.

To make use of LSK, the student of Ancient will have to learn a very limited amount of Modern to Ancient conversions: ειμαι = ειμι, ειναι = εστι, να = ινα. etc.

The value of LSK will be judged differently by those who do and do not value monolingual resources. To Grammar-Translation advocates who see no need to avoid L1, a Greek version of LSJ will seem unnecessary. To those of us who wish to avoid what Joel has caused "code switching," or to embrace what Chad has called the "re-enforcing language loop" the LSK will be very welcome. With the LSK and Caruso, which supplement each other very well, we are about 85% towards the goal of having a complete monolingual Ancient Greek lexicon.

I've been using the LSK in my monolingual reading of Ajax. I am of course very familiar with using the LSJ, so I can compare the two. The advantage of the LSJ is that it is much faster to get to the meaning of the headword, and the English gloss gives you a meaning which (in a way, anyway) is more precise to someone who is more fluent in English than in Ancient Greek. The advantage of LSK over LSJ will be self-evident to those committed to the Direct Method/Immersion Approach to learning Ancient Greek.

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Re: the LSK (Modern Greek version of LSJ)

Post by anphph »

Is there a way to access the found page without downloading it?

mwh
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Re: the LSK (Modern Greek version of LSJ)

Post by mwh »

LSK is a translation of LSJ from English into katharevousa, a reactionary and nationalistic 19th-century form of Greek abandoned in the 20th century. (It has a fascinating history.)
If your katharevousa is better than your English, this is the lexicon for you.
If you’re fluent in both and want to avoid “code-switching” (but why would you?, bilingual speakers do it all the time), this is the lexicon for you.
If you’re not fluent in katharevousa and your English is better than your Greek, this is not the lexicon for you. You’d be much better off with LSJ.

Incidentally, no-one should set up an opposition between use of LSK and “Grammar-Translation.” As far as “grammar” goes, the only difference between LSJ and LSK is that LSK translates LSJ’s grammatical terms (what Markos likes to call metalanguage) into katharevousa. You’re still stuck with the metalanguage. On top of which you’ll have to learn the katharevousa metalinguistic terminology, which is extensive. And as for “translation,” well, if you think about it (as Markos might say), or even if you don’t, LSK is just that, a translation.

Correction: Markos’ initial statement (“’LSK’ stands for Liddel, Jones and Konstantinidis”) ought to have served as a tip-off: LSK is not a translation of LSJ but rather of a very old edition of Liddell and Scott. That makes it badly out of date (I could find mistakes and omissions on every page), but for most purposes is not seriously harmful. To make use of it you need to know modern Greek syntax, vocabulary, and usage; but as Markos indicates, that is less of an obstacle than you might think. (Just don’t go thinking that να functions like ἵνα.) If what you want is an ancient Greek lexicon (dictionary), LSJ or one of its abridgments is what you should use. But LSK was a reputable work in its day, and this new "edition" could well be used by those who are willing to take more time and want to get better acquainted with ancient and modern Greek simultaneously (another form of code-switching!), as well as by those who think (misguidedly) that avoiding English is a good thing.

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Re: the LSK (Modern Greek version of LSJ)

Post by Markos »

MiguelM wrote:Is there a way to access the found page without downloading it?
No, I don't think so.

Markos
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Re: the LSK (Modern Greek version of LSJ)

Post by Markos »

Amplaos found both volumes on archive.org:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=cr ... 46-1901%22

One can print these oneself, or perhaps Bedwere or Joel will do a (giant print) Lulu edition?

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Re: the LSK (Modern Greek version of LSJ)

Post by Victor »

Markos wrote:Amplaos found both volumes on archive.org:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=cr ... 46-1901%22

One can print these oneself, or perhaps Bedwere or Joel will do a (giant print) Lulu edition?
If mwh's persuasive reasoning isn't enough to dampen your enthusiasm for LSK, then probably nothing is, but I'll share one anecdote with you anyway.

An elderly Greek gentleman I once knew living in the UK had had a copy of LSK for many years. When I visited him one day (over ten years ago now) he proudly showed me his brand new copy of LSJ, which he said he was very favourably impressed with in all respects except its price. I asked him what had made him stump up for LSJ when he was a native Greek speaker and therefore might be expected to get along more comfortably with a Greek-Greek version of the dictionary.

I can't remember his exact response, but I do remember he rolled his eyes and said something about them being very different dictionaries. Since his LSK by this time was languishing in a cardboard box somewhere, I'll leave it to you to work out which dictionary had come out on top in the comparison test.

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Re: the LSK (Modern Greek version of LSJ)

Post by bedwere »

I have some teething problems with a new computer (hopefully it's only not well seated RAM). You'll have to wait a little, unless Joel wants to go ahead himself.

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Re: the LSK (Modern Greek version of LSJ)

Post by Amplaos »

It turns out there are four volumes. I'm going to try to find the last two.

UPDATE: Vols 3-4: http://medusa.libver.gr/jspui/bitstream ... 000174.pdf
Ῥήθεντα ὑπὸ τοῦ μεγάλου ῥήτορος Δονάλδου Τρᾶμπ·

"Ἡμᾶς μὲν δεῖ τεῖχος οἰκοδομῆσαι, αὐτὸ δὲ ταχέως οἰκοδομηθῆναι."
"Συνίημι τοὺς λόγους. Ἔχω δὴ τοὺς ἀρίστους λόγους."
"Ὀλίγόν μοι ἐδανείσεν ὁ πατήρ, ἑκατομύριον δολάρια."
"Μοι δὲ ἀρέσκουσι οἱ μὴ ζωγρηθέντες."

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Re: the LSK (Modern Greek version of LSJ)

Post by Amplaos »

Markos and Bedwere, I think you'll like this:

It seems that the authors of this lexicon were aware of Gaza's Illiad paraphrase! In the article on ἀργαλεός, Gaza's paraphrase to Illiad 17.252 is cited, after the excerpt from Homer it paraphrases:
http://myria.math.aegean.gr/lds/data/vo ... g_0411.pdf

(I think I understand the word ἀργαλεός now. Until now I thought it meant something like ἔνδοξος, μέγας, πλήρης δόξης, but I have been corrected).
Ῥήθεντα ὑπὸ τοῦ μεγάλου ῥήτορος Δονάλδου Τρᾶμπ·

"Ἡμᾶς μὲν δεῖ τεῖχος οἰκοδομῆσαι, αὐτὸ δὲ ταχέως οἰκοδομηθῆναι."
"Συνίημι τοὺς λόγους. Ἔχω δὴ τοὺς ἀρίστους λόγους."
"Ὀλίγόν μοι ἐδανείσεν ὁ πατήρ, ἑκατομύριον δολάρια."
"Μοι δὲ ἀρέσκουσι οἱ μὴ ζωγρηθέντες."

Markos
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Re: the LSK (Modern Greek version of LSJ)

Post by Markos »

Amplaos wrote:Markos and Bedwere, I think you'll like this:

It seems that the authors of this lexicon were aware of Gaza's Illiad paraphrase! In the article on ἀργαλεός, Gaza's paraphrase to Illiad 17.252 is cited, after the excerpt from Homer it paraphrases:
http://myria.math.aegean.gr/lds/data/vo ... g_0411.pdf
Yes, you're right. I find it cool that LSK uses Gaza. I think this is the first time I have seen him used pedagogically in a resource. Thanks for finding this. I'll be curious to see other places where Gaza shows up in the lexicon, as well as other citations of other intra-lingual versions. I have noticed that LSK uses the scholia more often than LSJ, which makes sense given the audiences.

Note how Psellos renders ἀργαλέος
Homer Iliad 17:252: ἀργαλέον δέ μοί ἐστι διασκοπιᾶσθαι ἕκαστον
ἡγεμόνων:
Gaza 17:252: χαλεπὸν δέ μοί ἐστι διασκοπιᾶσθαι ἕκαστον τῶν ἡγεμόνων:
Psellos 17:252: δυσέφτικον δέ μοί ἐστι διασκέπτεσθαι ἕκαστον τῶν ἡγητόρων:
and in turn how Favorino renders δυσέφτικος:

δυσέφτικον -- δυσκατάληπτον.

ἔρρωσο!
οὐ μανθάνω γράφειν, ἀλλὰ γράφω τοῦ μαθεῖν.

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