Ãœbung macht den Meister.

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.
Post Reply
mingshey
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1338
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2003 6:38 am
Location: Seoul
Contact:

Ãœbung macht den Meister.

Post by mingshey »

It's a proverb I got while learning German at highschool. I want to put this in Ancient Greek and paste it on the wall. Indirect translation is welcome. If there's a similar proverb already put in AG it is most welcome. My attempt is like this:
μελέτη τεύχει τέκτονα
Last edited by mingshey on Mon Feb 04, 2008 2:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

annis
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 3399
Joined: Fri Jan 03, 2003 4:55 pm
Location: Madison, WI, USA
Contact:

Re: Übung macht den Meister.

Post by annis »

mingshey wrote: If there's a similar proverb already put in AG it is most welcome.
I know of no proverb, but there is this line from Archilochus, at least tangentially related:

πάντα πόνος τεύχει θνητοῖς μελέτη τε βροτείη. IEG, Ar.17
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

mingshey
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1338
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2003 6:38 am
Location: Seoul
Contact:

Re: Übung macht den Meister.

Post by mingshey »

annis wrote:
mingshey wrote: If there's a similar proverb already put in AG it is most welcome.
I know of no proverb, but there is this line from Archilochus, at least tangentially related:

πάντα πόνος τεύχει θνητοῖς μελέτη τε βροτείη. IEG, Ar.17
Aye, thanks for the quote! It would be better for a life long reminder.

On the other hand I would like a catchphrase for a short termed or a limited diciplinary like learning Greek, or math, for example. I hope my English express what I mean. :?

And in light of the quote, I think I should rather use πόνος than μελέτη for "practice" in my original composition, if I try further, right?

P.S.
I see you have the quote in your Aoidoi home page. The pdf file has τι instead of τε. Which one's correct? -- though I guess it's τε.

annis
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 3399
Joined: Fri Jan 03, 2003 4:55 pm
Location: Madison, WI, USA
Contact:

Re: Übung macht den Meister.

Post by annis »

mingshey wrote:On the other hand I would like a catchphrase for a short termed or a limited diciplinary like learning Greek, or math, for example. I hope my English express what I mean. :?
I think I know what you mean.
And in light of the quote, I think I should rather use πόνος than μελέτη for "practice" in my original composition, if I try further, right?
It depends on what you want to emphasize. If toil, then use πόνος; if care over the work, then μελέτη.
I see you have the quote in your Aoidoi home page. The pdf file has τι instead of τε. Which one's correct? -- though I guess it's τε.
Correct, at least according to my edition. The PDF is actually a link to Bill Harris' web site.

Because I'm insane, I tried to come up with a verse rendition of your proverb. So I used the paroemiac (proverb) meter, x-uu-uu--, where x=u, - or even uu:

μελέτη φορέειν ἀρετήν σοι

But I'm not sure this is terribly elegant. I will think on it some more.
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

annis
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 3399
Joined: Fri Jan 03, 2003 4:55 pm
Location: Madison, WI, USA
Contact:

Post by annis »

Or, from a fragment of Euripides, οἱ γὰρ πόνοι τίκτουσι τὴν εὐανδρίαν.

(Again, just as a model; it doesn't say quite what you want yet.)
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

mingshey
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1338
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2003 6:38 am
Location: Seoul
Contact:

Re: Übung macht den Meister.

Post by mingshey »

annis wrote: Because I'm insane,
It turns out that those who are a bit insane are the most friendly. 8)
"Ich bin a bisl meshugie, ober zayre heimische..."
from the homepage of a guy I came to know several years ago.

ThomasGR
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 444
Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 8:49 pm

Post by ThomasGR »

"Επαναληψις μητηρ πασης μαθησεως"

Repetition is the mother of all learnings.
Last edited by ThomasGR on Wed Dec 08, 2004 7:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

annis
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 3399
Joined: Fri Jan 03, 2003 4:55 pm
Location: Madison, WI, USA
Contact:

Re: Übung macht den Meister.

Post by annis »

mingshey wrote:
"Ich bin a bisl meshugie, ober zayre heimische..."
from the homepage of a guy I came to know several years ago.
My knowledge of Yiddish isn't up to this. What's the last word?

I'm a little crazy, or very ...
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

Emma_85
Global Moderator
Posts: 1564
Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2003 8:01 pm
Location: London

Post by Emma_85 »

That's Yiddish, is it? Sounds just like colloquial German :P , says:

I'm bit mad, but very local.

Skylax
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 672
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 8:18 am
Location: Belgium

Post by Skylax »

Yiddish is simply "Jüdisch". You are right, it is German, as spoken (and probably a little altered) by the former German Jewish community, just as Ladino is Jew's Spanish (and some kind of Koine Greek Jew's Greek...)

Skylax
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 672
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 8:18 am
Location: Belgium

Post by Skylax »

"Heimisch" means "cozy, homey, home", it says here :
http://www.ectaco.com/online/diction.ph ... &x=52&y=12

mingshey
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1338
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2003 6:38 am
Location: Seoul
Contact:

Post by mingshey »

ThomasGR wrote:"Επαναληψις μητηρ πασης μαθησεως"

Repetition is the mather of all learnings.
Thanks! Is it Modern Greek? It is welcome because I'd like to pick up a little Modern Greek now and then.

mingshey
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1338
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2003 6:38 am
Location: Seoul
Contact:

Post by mingshey »

Skylax wrote:"Heimisch" means "cozy, homey, home", it says here :
http://www.ectaco.com/online/diction.ph ... &x=52&y=12
Yes, and the guy who wrote it said he was not good at Yiddish himself and he picked up the word to say something like 'easy to make friends'.

Skylax
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 672
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 8:18 am
Location: Belgium

Post by Skylax »

About Übung macht den Meister, here is a quotation from Democritus (fragment B 242 Diels-Kranz, Ionic dialect) :

πλέονες ἐξ ἀσκήσιος ἀγαθοὶ γίνονται ἢ ἀπὸ φύσιος

"More people get good from training than from nature."

(In a more Attic way :
πλείονες ἐξ ἀσκήσεως ἀγαθοὶ γίγνονται ἢ ἀπὸ φύσεως)

adz000
Textkit Member
Posts: 162
Joined: Mon May 19, 2003 9:45 pm
Location: Cantabrigiae Massachusettensium

Post by adz000 »

I don't have access to a good enough library to check this out, but the Latin quotation: me usus docuit, magister egregius is recorded in the authoritative dictonary of Latin proverbs, A. Otto's, "Die Sprichwoerter und sprichwoertlichen Redensarten der Roemer" (1890, repr. 1962) under #359. I would bet Otto quotes a good number of Greek forerunners of this saying.

You know since this is out of copyright, it would be a great thing to have on Textkit...(sigh). Well I've just ordered it through my library from some place in Conecticutt and if I end up photocopying it, which I probably will so that I can have it for more than thirty days, I'll be sure to see if Jeff would like a copy.

mingshey
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1338
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2003 6:38 am
Location: Seoul
Contact:

Post by mingshey »

Thank you all for the invaluable quotes. Can I guess the Ionic dialect had undergone more evolution than Attic, since it looks more simplified in pronunciations?
And I'd love to see Otto on textkit. :D

---

FWIW, http://www.bibles.org.uk/ has a few additional typeset bibles, including Yiddish NT. (this November) And an early english version of Tyndale, Rogers, and Coverdale.

ref) Geoff has posted about the site here.

ThomasGR
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 444
Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 8:49 pm

Post by ThomasGR »

mingshey wrote:
ThomasGR wrote:"Επαναληψις μητηρ πασης μαθησεως"

Repetition is the mother of all learnings.
Thanks! Is it Modern Greek? It is welcome because I'd like to pick up a little Modern Greek now and then.
Does it not sound like ancient Greek? I tried my best :wink:

mingshey
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1338
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2003 6:38 am
Location: Seoul
Contact:

Post by mingshey »

ThomasGR wrote:
mingshey wrote:
ThomasGR wrote:"Επαναληψις μητηρ πασης μαθησεως"

Repetition is the mother of all learnings.
Thanks! Is it Modern Greek? It is welcome because I'd like to pick up a little Modern Greek now and then.
Does it not sound like ancient Greek? I tried my best :wink:
It looks like Ancient Greek except it's without the diacritical marks, but I can almost here you speak it and it sounds modern. ;)

mingshey
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1338
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2003 6:38 am
Location: Seoul
Contact:

Post by mingshey »

adz000 wrote:me usus docuit, magister egregius
Parsing this with Words.exe, magister egregius seems to be nominative. Is it a rephrasing(what's the proper grammatical term for this?) of usus here? If it is the case, I decipher it as ``Experience, (which is) an excellent teacher, leads me''.

adz000
Textkit Member
Posts: 162
Joined: Mon May 19, 2003 9:45 pm
Location: Cantabrigiae Massachusettensium

Post by adz000 »

Hi,

Sorry I hadn't noticed your question about the Latin, Mingshey. You are right on that magister egregius is nominative and an appositive (I think that's the term) to usus. But docuit is the perfect tense of the verb doceo "to teach" rather than duco "to lead". So it's something like:
"Experience has educated me, an excellent professor."

I came back to this post because I happened to check out that reference on ancient aphorisms (A. Otto, Die Sprichwoerter und sprichwoertlichen Redensarten der Roemer) and though they had a bunch more Latin to add, they only contributed one Greek quote. But since we're starting to get quite a nice collection, I thought I'd add it to our list:

ἡ δ’ ὁμιλία πάντων βροτοῖσι γίγνεται διδάσκαλος
Euripides, Andromache 683.

mingshey
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1338
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2003 6:38 am
Location: Seoul
Contact:

Post by mingshey »

Sorry for digging up the old thread, but in the course of translating Chase & Phillips I came up with something that's in the same line of thought:

μελέτη τὸ πᾶν.
Practice is(or does) the everything.

Googling a bit tells me it's Periander of Corinth, one of the seven sages, who said it.

Post Reply