Cambridge Greek Lexicon

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Dante
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Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Dante »

something to look forward to for 2018!

Heres a newly published video about the project:

https://youtu.be/5ryhFSq2H8k

and here's their webpage:

http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/Research/projects/glp

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Victor »

It's certainly something to look forward to.

I seem to remember reading somewhere about them using up-to-date English and avoiding the now archaic English of earlier lexicons. That's commendable, of course, though the sample page, with its references to women's "girdles" and "maidenhood", suggests they may have a slightly archaic notion of the up-to-date.

The bold Greek face used for headwords is highly legible. The only criticism I'd make of it is that it has a somewhat cartoony appearance, with a very pronounced curliness to letters such as lambda, chi and nu, for example.

The spacing between some of the abbreviated matter leaves a little to be desired as well: "W.GEN." and "Att.orats." strike me as indefensible compaction, whilst "neut.impers.vbl.adj." is the outcome of stark insensibility.

These are minor gripes, though, and I'm sure many of us are looking forward to putting it through its paces and expecting it will perform where it really matters.

I wish they'd lose the music in the video.

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Hylander »

"indefensible compaction", "stark insensibility"

In a dictionary this big, space is always at a premium. Eliminating small spaces where they aren't necessary for comprehension results in a large cumulative saving of space. LSJ makes extensive use of inscrutable abbreviations for this reason--inscrutable, that is, unless you look them up. Hard to blame them for doing this.
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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Paul Derouda »

Looks like a replacement to Middle Liddell to me, certainly not to LSJ. Not references to specific passages in authors, so we'll still need LSJ for that.

But the dictionary does look very promising. I like it how the entry on λύω is constructed, with the main senses listed first and the nuances given later in subsections.

I agree about the music. Ditch it. I can't make out what people are saying in the video, being non-native in English and slightly hard of hearing.

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Timothée »

I await it with much more excitement than the Brill dictionary. I don’t, however, think it was ever meant to replace the large Oxford lexicon.

Nothing wrong with abbreviations whatever; it’s a dictionary after all. I’m sure there’ll be a key. They could even have reintroduced the great Victorio-Edwardian lexicographical practice of borrowing the residual space of previous or subsequent lemma to fit in a word or two that would otherwise have to go onto a new row. Nicely seen in Macdonell’s or Menge’s dictionaries, for instance.

To me it feels always weird when native English speakers complain that a work has an archaic Klang about it. There isn’t one single Greek dictionary in my native language. Imagine that you would have to use Greek dictionaries e.g. in German having none in English.

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Victor »

Timothée wrote: Nothing wrong with abbreviations whatever; it’s a dictionary after all. I’m sure there’ll be a key.
I'm afraid you've very clearly misunderstood me. Hylander half has, it seems.

I didn't say there was anything wrong with the CGL using abbreviations; in almost any dictionary, abbreviations are necessary and to be expected. Nor did I complain that the CGL's abbreviations were inscrutable. What I did say was that the spacing used (or rather not used) in some of the abbreviations left something to be desired.

Look again at the spacing in the abbreviations I referred to. There is apparently no greater space between the stop after W and the G of GEN than there is between the individual letters of GEN. The same criticism can be levelled at Att.orats and many other abbreviations on the sample page.

Middle Liddell abounds with abbreviations, yet you will struggle to find any spacing offences of the kind I'm referring to; the vast majority, if not all, of its abbreviations are generously, clearly and pleasingly spaced. This aids legibility considerably. Many of the CGL's abbreviations I can see on that page, on the other hand, are not spaced at all. There is a small aggregate gain in compression, certainly, but a more than countervailing loss in legibility.

I say this without the least arrogance, but I suspect that unless you have some insight into the aesthetics and traditions of typography you may be unable to see how inappropriate and anomalous the spacing used in some of the CGL's abbreviations actually is. In its defence all I can say is that the computer age is making typographical solecisms of this kind less unusual and therefore less objectionable to many people than they once would have been.
Timothée wrote:To me it feels always weird when native English speakers complain that a work has an archaic Klang about it.
Personally I seldom complain in the least on that score, but an increasing number of young people do, and it's a commercial own goal, even for publishers in dead languages, not to move with the times.

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

The video claimed they were adopting methodology from the OED. The sample page doesn't show much evidence of any change in methodology from previous lexicons. Perhaps there is more contextual information. I haven't seen anything coming from classical philologists that looks anything like the work being done in lexical semantics by UBS.

The big difference in biblical studies is the input from linguists doing field research who actually end up compiling dictionaries[1] for living languages which have never had a dictionary. Their approach to lexical semantics is quite different from the OED. Decades ago when I was reading E. A. Nida's published works at first I was put off by the social science framework. I wasn't thrilled about anthropologists messing with the bible. Over time I began to appreciate how the social science was producing better translations. But it took a long time for me to get over my distaste for sociology and anthropology.

Print lexicons are constrained by the book making technology. I don't think semantic networks really belong in print technology. Thirty years ago UBS did a computer based NT Greek lexicon which they also offered in print. I have both and use both. But the online UBS Hebrew lexicon isn't very print friendly, the volume of the information that can be attached to a contextual semantic domain lexicon lexicon and the volume of cross indexed information makes books not a viable delivery system.


[1] roughly 20 years ago, an under-cover translator from a "cannot be mentioned" country was living here and working on the first dictionary ever produced for her native language. On the dictionary project she was a language consultant for a secular scholar at the univ who didn't know and still doesn't know she was doing translation of the bible into her language.
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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Hylander »

Look again at the spacing in the abbreviations I referred to. There is apparently no greater space between the stop after W and the G of GEN than there is between the individual letters of GEN. The same criticism can be levelled at Att.orats and many other abbreviations on the sample page.
Yes, I noticed that, but again the savings of tiny increments of space will aggregate to a significant overall savings. The abbreviations in LSJ and this dictionary have the same effect.
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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Victor »

Hylander wrote: The abbreviations in LSJ and this dictionary have the same effect.
Yes of course, except that Middle Liddell and LSJ managed to abbreviate throughout without falling foul of traditional typographic norms, and nobody thought the resulting lexicons were unnecessarily big as a result.

If the additional space saving (over and above that achieved by the spacing of abbreviations in these earlier lexicons) achieved by the CGL's contravention of these norms is as significant as you seem to be suggesting it is, the wonder is that the earlier lexicons did not adopt the same system when it came to typesetting their abbreviations.

The simple explanation is that the earlier lexicons did not adopt the CGL's system firstly because the extra space saving would have been negligible (don't forget paper was relatively more expensive then than it is now, so any significant space saving opportunity would have been likely to be even more keenly seized on), and secondly because the publishers would have considered it aesthetically and functionally undesirable to do so.

Space saving was clearly a motivation with the CGL team for the brutal lack of spacing they've adopted in their layout of abbreviations. My point is that their system betokens insensitivity to matters of both functionality and aesthetics, and, if the CGL's predecessors are anything to go by, is unlikely to have been driven by strict necessity.

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by cb »

hi, many thanks for this link. i see that they're going to put it on perseus, which will be great (although the fact that they don't include citations will probably mean that i don't use it unfortunately - i tend to read all or most of the whole entry in the LSJ/OLD, including the citations, to learn/relearn the wider meanings of the word even if not relevant to the text i'm currently reading. also, because i usually stick to pretty canonical authors, i often find a reference to the very passage i'm reading in the dictionary article, which gives me confidence that i've found the right sense).

just a curiosity question: does anyone here know whether the people at the project are keeping a record of which specific passages in their slips form the basis of their different sense distinctions (e.g. which specific passages in the slips they've assigned to each of their 30+ sense distinctions under λύω)?

they've got a pretty cool-looking database that they're using as their slips collection; screenshots here (and they've said that they may make it available later):
(slip view): http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/images/glp/theatron.png
(LSJ weave view): http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/images/gl ... nweave.png

my question really is: if people decide to use this new dictionary as the basis of a new and bigger dictionary (with citations) in the future to replace LSJ, will lexicographers need to read all the slips again from scratch to assign the citations to the different sense distinctions? hopefully not!

cheers, chad

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by mwh »

I expect the dictionary will be useful, and they were lucky to have James Diggle invested in it. My immediate impression is that it’s largely successful in what it sets out to do. It’s certainly more up to date than the Middle Liddell it aims to replace, much more balanced in its coverage, and arguably more user-friendly. It has many excellent features, but I do have a few gripes:
(1) The crude typography, especially the lack of kerning, resulting in a very ragged right margin which offends the eye. Schoolchildren do better than this on their computers.
(2) The provincialism of the project, clearly designed to boost Cambridge. Haven’t we had enough of Oxford-Cambridge sibling rivalry? The heroization of John Chadwick goes along with this. (I doubt he’d be very happy with the result.)
(3) The lexicographical principles applied. It’s all very well for Diggle to identify 55 different “senses” of ἔχω, and to arrange them in “groups,” but the classification system is left without any underpinning, and a primitive linear sequencing like this can’t avoid being arbitrary. I’m looking at λύω on the sample page, with 35 separate senses distinguished. Why start with “1. set loose (a person, fr. restraint or captivity),” and what inherently makes that distinct from “2. set loose (an animal)” on the one hand or from “3. set free (fr. sthg. unwelcome)” on the other? Sure, you can kind of understand the distinctions made, but justification in terms of lexical semantics is entirely lacking.
The ancient distinction between literal and metaphorical meanings is almost wholly abandoned (λύω 10 is recognized as “fig.”), but nothing replaces it. Does a Pindaric passage deserve a discrete sense (#4) imposed on it? Etc. etc.
It’s easy to criticize, of course, but I do think the organizing principles could have been better articulated and more sophisticated. Compared with LSJ’s lexicographical practice I’m tempted to call it retrograde. And they could at least have called it a dictionary.

Chad’s question is a good one. We can only hope that there’s some record of what passages underlie the various senses distinguished. I wouldn’t count on it, but we need to be able to match up assigned sense with exemplifying passages, and it’s a bit of a wasted opportunity if all we’re left with is this untestable distillation of decisions made on the basis of who knows what?

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by cb »

hi, i agree - i think i'll still keep using the LSJ for looking up words when reading.

i'll probably instead read this new dictionary outside the context of reading a text, using it instead to look up those common words that have lots of senses, and read the conspectus of senses they group at the beginning of the entries, where they say "The sections are grouped as follows: ...".

for prepositions and some common verbs with millions of senses i think it could be really helpful to have another overview like that handy, as a quick semantic web refresher. cheers, chad

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by jeidsath »

I am cautiously optimistic. I will bet that the slips database does exist and that it will be the main fruit of this project. In fact, I wonder if the digital edition of this dictionary will include hyperlinks to the exact references. The current typesetting is unfortunate, but with a digital work like this, can be improved in an afternoon, and therefore may not be final.
mwh wrote:(3) The lexicographical principles applied. It’s all very well for Diggle to identify 55 different “senses” of ἔχω, and to arrange them in “groups,” but the classification system is left without any underpinning, and a primitive linear sequencing like this can’t avoid being arbitrary. I’m looking at λύω on the sample page, with 35 separate senses distinguished. Why start with “1. set loose (a person, fr. restraint or captivity),” and what inherently makes that distinct from “2. set loose (an animal)” on the one hand or from “3. set free (fr. sthg. unwelcome)” on the other? Sure, you can kind of understand the distinctions made, but justification in terms of lexical semantics is entirely lacking.
I think that there may be more method than madness here. Looking at λύω, it seems clear that the separate senses are not divided based on meaning, but instead based on context. Instead of trying to answer the question (primarily) "what does this word mean?" they are answering "where is this word used?" By providing so much information on context, the particular sense meant by the English gloss used for any given word becomes more clear. In fact, you could almost leave the glosses out and still leave the real bones of the entry.

I think that you correctly point out where this method gets into trouble: the division between figurative versus metaphorical uses is no longer a first class citizen. If you are loosing yokes, it makes no bones whether the yoke is figurative or metaphorical. And it's problematic to me that 10 seems to suggest that active and middle loosenings "from the body" are literal, but the passive use will only be figurative, and only refer to the yoke of despotism. I wonder why that section of the entry didn't use italics for an "example use" instead of a meaning.

But 15 was what really stood out to me as too much shoved together.
15 untie, undoa knot Hdt. Plu. —(fig.) a knot of words E.; (intr., fig.) untie a knot (i.e. resolve a difficulty) S.; (of a dramatist) unravel a plot Arist
It's going to be interesting to use a dictionary like this for composition. Also, this would be an interesting sort of dictionary for anyone interested in a computer translation project (aka Google Translate for ancient Greek).

EDIT: A re-read of the Introduction (not the "first chapter" to Chadwick's Lexicographica Graeca (which the article claims explains the principles of this dictionary), confirms that there is an electronic slips database. Also, there seems to be a lot more to the method beyond what Chadwick calls "the contextual approach." If people don't have access to Chadwick's book, I could try to find a scanner to make a PDF of the introduction.
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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

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The bane of many a “classical” dictionary is the plethora of poetic senses for a lemma in the authors’ desire to be as complete as they can. An example of this is Steingass’ dictionary, still (dare I say perforce) much used as there’s no replacement. I don’t claim it’s an easy balance. Would it be commendable to winnow the senses into as few as possible? The reader must be able to understand some non-literal senses, for example of yoke to steal Joel’s example.

To take a cognate, Sanskrit yoga- ‘yoking’ forms a great many senses from the idea of attaching (two) things together, e.g. (taken from Monier-Williams) yoking, joining, attaching; team, vehicle, conveyance; employment, use, application; equipping, arraying; junction, union, combination; connexion, relation; exertion, endeavour, zeal; application/concentration of thoughts, meditation, self-concentration. Some of the senses are easier, some more difficult to derive from the basic meaning. The Finnish word ies ‘yoke’, on the other hand, is figuratively used of subjugation, based on the idea that the beast of draught is cruelly vinculated (?) to the yoke.

An English example is Tennyson’s poem, where he writes “’Tis not too late to — — smite the sounding furrows”. The word furrow ‘narrow trench made in the earth with a plough’ refers here to sailing, as a ship figuratively grooves a furrow into the sea. Should this sense be included in an English dictionary? OED does have it.

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by jeidsath »

A 2008 pre-print for Fraser's lexigraphical discussion of the new dictionary. Beyond Definition: Organising Semantic Information in Bilingual Dictionaries.

A older 2005 article describing the markup languages.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Timothée »

Now postponed until 2019. One almost expected that. Well, as long as they do better than the new Berlin airfield, I suppose. :)

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by wilberfloss »

It seems that the Lexicon will now be published in two volumes in late 2019. I would have preferred a single volume. https://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/glp

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Dante »

this says that publication is now "extremely imminent" :lol:

https://williamaross.com/2019/10/28/the ... es-diggle/

I also think the lack of actual citations is strange, but as a commenter points out, thats the way it is in the Middle Liddell too, which is what this is supposed to be replacing, not the LSJ itself.

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by seanjonesbw »

Irrelevant to the thread, really, but Diggle is one of the funniest and most gracious people I have ever met. Like a sort of Victorian sprite with a twinkle in his eye. I see from the Latin board that he's been succeeded in post by a former member of this forum!

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by jeidsath »

A massive amount of digital information has been compiled and analyzed for this project. Now that publication is on the horizon, what will happen to that digital material?

We have, indeed, accumulated extensive files of information and comment, which we would like to make available, if the means can be found. Discussion is ongoing about this.
As long as this is true, the citation problem can be fixed. And the dictionary could even become the foundation of something more forward-looking.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by seneca2008 »

Dante wrote:I also think the lack of actual citations is strange, but as a commenter points out, thats the way it is in the Middle Liddell too, which is what this is supposed to be replacing, not the LSJ itself.
Thanks very much for posting this and the all the links.

I read the following in the interview with prof. Diggle

"Some more advanced users of the lexicon may be surprised to find there are no citations provided, only authors. Can you explain the reasoning behind this decision?

The attestation of a word or sense is indicated by author abbreviations, not by citation of precise references to specific passages. Nor, for the most part, are Greek quotations given. The omission of such citations and quotations allows room for the inclusion of a great deal of additional material, in particular for fuller description of meanings and for illustration of usage in a wider range of passages. Citation of specific passages, especially if they are not translated, can be unhelpful to the learner, and, by their very selectivity, are in danger of giving a partial or distorted picture."

I think the point made by prof. Diggle in the last sentence about the danger of citations giving "a partial or distorted picture" is important. It's relatively easy to look the passages up oneself now there are so many electronic resources available. All published dictionaries are inevitably a compromise. I don't see the lack of citations as a "problem".
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by cb »

Hi all, on the lack of citations, I think it's important to distinguish two things here.

First, lack of citations in the published output. As others have said, this is fine: it's comparable to other short- or medium-length dictionaries on the market.

Second, lack of citations in the underlying source code (or however one refers to this). As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I really hope the project has somehow tagged citations for the different word senses, even if this information isn't printed in the published output. I mention this because the information we can see online suggests that they haven't.

Look at the XML screenshot under "Tagging the lexicon here", halfway down the page:

https://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/research ... lp/tagging

Between the "Au" and "/Au" tags, there's just an author abbreviation—no citations. We can see something similar in the XML that they show in the introductory video at 5:51 and following here:

https://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/glp

It would have been great to see "hidden" citations there in the XML. Then the lexicon project team could have (I assume, using computer wizardry) made the published output show the author name only (without full citations)—achieving all the advantages described in the quotes above in not listing citations in the published output—but also making possible in the future the production of a longer lexicon containing citations as well, similar to what the project describes in their "weave" presentation of their underlying electronic database (note that this weave is not inserting citations under the senses of entries identified in the Cambridge lexicon, but rather the LSJ):

https://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/images/g ... nweave.png

In other words, what if they could use their hard work over two decades to produce two lexicons: the current one (medium-length), plus in the future (using that "weave" function to populate citations under each entry) a full-length lexicon?

If they've done the hard work reading all the citations to derive the different senses, I really hope they've captured the links between citations and senses somehow, to make that possible. It would be a shame if that information hasn't been systematically captured over the two decades of work in a way that links directly into the project entries. There's a shot in the introductory video where citations have been marked in pencil next to the entries, which gives me doubts (see 8:53 in the video linked above).

We'll see I guess! I'm looking forward to it coming out and will definitely get it.

Cheers, Chad

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

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I may have misunderstood how the citations have been handled but it seems that the authors of the dictionary have constructed a specific database which lists not only the LSJ citations but the other citations found by a program interrogating the corpus (TLG?). The LSJ slips will be available for the first time digitally and presumably the other citations too.

"This database has been in use since 2005, and has proved indispensible for consulting the texts as we wrote the lexicon entries. It would not have been possible to write the lexicon without it. It is much more than an archive of lexicographic 'slips': it is a semantically-organised digital library, in which the 'weave' pages constitute the first systematic display of LSJ 'slips'. The database may therefore be of interest to other classical researchers, and we hope to make a draft more widely available."
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by cb »

Hi, yes that's right, and the question is whether they've linked the citations in that database to the different senses they've identified in their new lexicon.

Let's wait and see: whatever comes out will be fantastic I'm sure and I'm looking forward to getting it.

Cheers, Chad

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by jeidsath »

There are some JSTOR papers, and even a Youtube talk from a decade or two ago that go into some detail about the slip database. I haven't looked into it for a couple years, so don't remember any names offhand. However, Diggle's statement in the interview that it will likely be made available is very good news. It's the most interesting part of the project.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by wilberfloss »

Further to the publication schedule of this dictionary, both Amazon and The Book Depository give a date of the 1st June 2020.

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Hylander »

It's the messiah -- always imminent but never arriving.
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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by wilberfloss »

Blackwell's UK is now showing a 31st March 2021 publication date for this, priced at £26.40 in paperback, a single 1000-page volume: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9780521826808

However, Cambridge University's Greek Lexicon page still mentions a two-volume, 1500-page edition to be published in late 2020: https://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/glp

I'm more than a little confused. Does anyone know anything more?

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by jeidsath »

Perhaps it's real, as there is a price, though the publication date is May 2021 according to CUP: https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/s ... ek-lexicon
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by wilberfloss »

That'll be the US publication date. The UK will get it a bit earlier, as with the CGCG.

The plan for a two-volume edition must have been abandoned. I can't say I'm sorry.

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by seneca2008 »

https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/ ... ?format=WX

Planned for March 2021. £30 -seems cheap! That’s for “multiple copy pack” so may refer to bulk orders.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Ahab »

Could the 'multiple copy pack' refer to this being a 2 volume work?

Here is a website that uses that terminology to refer to the 3 volumes of Lord of the Rings:

https://www.writersblockbookstore.com/b ... 0395489321
Why, he's at worst your poet who sings how Greeks
That never were, in Troy which never was,
Did this or the other impossible great thing!
---Robert Browning

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by mwh »

I know of no lexicographical project that did not vastly underestimate the time required for completion. When will they ever learn?
In 2019 publication was advertised as being imminent, in fact not just imminent but “extremely imminent”—and just how does that differ from “imminent”? Cambridge now anticipates publication in 2021. Even in the publishing world that hardly counts as imminent. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Of course the really important thing will be the means of access provided to the database. It’s clear that not enough thought was given to this in the initial stages. It was dismaying to read in Diggle’s 2019 interview “We have, indeed, accumulated extensive files of information and comment, which we would like to make available, if the means can be found. Discussion is ongoing about this." (My italics.) Is this naivety the cause of the delay I wonder? It looks as if this is essentially a 19th-20th century project dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st. Diggle knows Greek as well as anyone alive today, but he's always been a pen-and-paper man who’s lived with text more than with tech.

Beyond that, I stand by the criticisms I made back in 2016 (above)—among them the lexicon’s provincialism (starting with the pedestalizing of John Chadwick) and the lexicographical principles informing the project (which strike me as retrograde). But there’s no doubt that in many ways, thanks in large measure to Diggle's discriminating judgment, it will be a significant improvement on the Middle Liddell, and in some ways even on LSJ. Still, even for a classicist it’s disturbing to read that “Our coverage of the Scriptures is limited to the Gospels,” as if 1st-century Greek is “late.”

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by jeidsath »

They have a pre-order price, which usually means something (that they have a final page count, usually). This is going to be multi-volume. Usually "multi copy pack" means what it says, but the CUP site uses it for multi-volume works that are shipped as a bundle.

I really want to like this new emphasis on context and usage, but in practice I think that it may be eclipsed by lack of quotations.

Here's my comparison of the first few entries from the interview page. I would have included Morwood too, but he just has "λύσσα ης, ἡ rage fury" and no entry for the others.

CGL

Code: Select all

λυσσάς άδος, fem.adj. 
1 (of Spirits of Vengeance) frenzied, raging mad E.; (of a woman or goddess) Tim.
2 (of a fate allotted to Herakles) of frenzied madness E.
LSJ

Code: Select all

λυσσ-άς, άδος, ἡ, raging mad, Tim.Fr.3, APl.4.289; λ. μοίρᾳ E.HF1024 (lyr.).
Very similar, though CGL provides additional context in 1, and a new Euripides reference, E.HF887, where λυσσάδες ὠμοβρῶτες is actually an emendation by Wakefield for λύσσα δέ σ᾽ ὠμόβροτος.)

***

CGL

Code: Select all

λυσσάω, also Att. λυττάω contr.vb. | dial.inf. λυσσῆν (Theoc.) |
1 (of persons, their minds or feelings, a lover’s soul) be in a
mad frenzy, be frantic S. Pl. Plb.; (of a soldier, in battle) go
berserk Hdt. || ptcpl.adj. (of desires) frenzied, frantic Pl.
2 (of dogs, wolves) be rabid Ar. Theoc.
LSJ

Code: Select all

λυσσ-άω, Att. λυττάω, Ep. part. λυσσώων Man.1.244,
   AP5.265 (Paul. Sil.):—to be raging in battle,
   Hdt.9.71; cf. λύσσα init.

2.  rave, be mad, S.OT1258, Ant.492, Pl.R.329c,
   Epicur.Sent.Vat.11, Man., AP ll.cc., etc.; λ. πρὸς
   μεῖξιν Ps.-Phoc.214; ἔρωτες λυττῶντες Pl.R.586c: c.
   inf., desire madly to do, Hld.2.20.

II.  of dogs, suffer from rabies, Ar.Lys.298,
   Arist.HA604a6; of wolves, Theoc.4.11; of horses,
   Arist.HA604b13.

III.  causal, make mad, κἂν λελυσσήκῃ τινά (sc. τὰ
   δήγματα) Damocr. ap. Gal.13.821. (Hsch. has
   λύσσεται· μαίνεται.)
CGL drops the (α -> ω) epic participle, but adds the (α -> η) infinitive from Theocritus.

CGL removes the 1./2. distinction from LSJ I., and drops the LSJ III. (for attestation reasons, I assume).

CGL drops various references in 1. Dropping the Phocylides and Heliodorus is unfortunate, because they seem to demonstrate a different sort of usage. I guess that's a problem with making a list of authors that you care about. We get the new information that Polybius uses the word. He uses it to qualify θυμός and ψυχή at various times, "their minds or feelings" in the CGL entry, I suppose. What reason could CGL have for dropping horses from the rabies entry?

***

CGL

Code: Select all

λύσσημα ατος n. fit of frenzy (sent by the Erinyes) E.
LSJ

Code: Select all

λύσσ-ημα, ατος, τό, fit of madness: in pl., ravings, εἴ μ’ ἐκφοβοῖεν μανιάσιν λυσσήμασιν E.Or.270.
We lose the Greek quote, of course.
If I were building a dictionary for myself at this point in my language journey, I would just have that one Morwood entry, some forms, and lots of relevant of Greek quotations for all of the related words. The world doesn't need an LSJ replacement (or not so much). It needs a Greek dictionary targeted at learners that includes copious usage examples and is extremely light on glosses.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Ahab »

The Pre-0rder page for this is now up on amazon.com:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/05218 ... UTF8&psc=1

Have gone ahead and placed my order.
Why, he's at worst your poet who sings how Greeks
That never were, in Troy which never was,
Did this or the other impossible great thing!
---Robert Browning

-------------------------------------------------------
Hal Friederichs

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Ghermanius »

In the Making Of video it's kind of a thrill to see James Diggle, though I'm kind of puzzled he's the editor of a Greek Lexicon, rather than an edition of a major corpus of Greek literature.

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Ghermanius »

Not identifying in detail where one can find these uses, strikes me as a catastrophic choice.

So in the case (on the page released) of "lussema" there's just "E" as reference, and the reader just has to accept the lexicon's reading. It's somewhere in Euripides.

Or, pick up LSJ and check lussema and find it's Orestes 270, and check the spot oneself to see how the word works.

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Re: Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Ahab »

James Diggle is going to talk about the lexicon on March 15th at 6:30 pm London time. Information about the zoom meeting can be found here:

https://www.ccgs.csah.cam.ac.uk/events/ ... rJiiN8HBBY
Why, he's at worst your poet who sings how Greeks
That never were, in Troy which never was,
Did this or the other impossible great thing!
---Robert Browning

-------------------------------------------------------
Hal Friederichs

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Barry Hofstetter
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Interview with James Diggle and the Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Meeting takes place 2:30p EST (6:30p BST)

https://www.ccgs.csah.cam.ac.uk/events/ ... De4UWiO_cU
N.E. Barry Hofstetter

Cuncta mortalia incerta...

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Re: Interview with James Diggle and the Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Post by jeidsath »

Thank you!

And you may wish to double-check your time zones. The link says 18:30pm GMT, which is an hour behind BST (that would be 7:30pm BST, I think), and we're now in EDT, not EST. The errors cancel out, so 2:30pm EDT.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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