I got mine a few days ago and although I’ve only briefly skimmed it, I’m happy with what I’ve seen so far. I think they succeeded in what they set out to do - creating a lexicon that appeals to modern students. I’m saying this as a person that is part of that target audience: I’ve been teaching myself Greek for just over a year now. I’m trying to put words on what this appeal actually is… and I think it boils down to a fine balance of coverage, exposition, and just enough simplification to be approachable - without losing the feel of a reference work for beginner/intermediate texts, that can be used in the majority of cases when Middle Liddell is insufficient.
As such I think this lexicon has a similar feel to the new grammar (The Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek). I find myself picking up this grammar “for fun”, opening it at random, and refreshing my memory or learning new things. I didn’t do that with Smyths, and I have done so very rarely with the big LSJ.
In the future I will continue to use Middle Liddell as my day to day companion when reading, and using the new Cambridge lexicon as a fallback or for more information. I will still keep my big LSJ of course, but I think I will use it less often, mainly for support when reading all the authors that are not traditionally read by students.
On Thursday 7 May there was a “virtual” celebration of the publication of the CGL (as I suppose we might call it). Diggle repeated his incantation (I say that because his speech reminded me of our local rector when I was a child) from the previous introduction now available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kVdPHMbSkQ&t=1223s. In due course the celebration will make it on line too. For those who have seen the first video the main interest of the second will be the wit of the speakers who picked a particular word from the lexicon to talk about.
bjrn
I think my inclination would be to turn to the CGL first rather than continue to rely on Middle Liddell which is unrevised since its first edition in 1889. It’s difficult to change one’s habits but so far I have found the CGL very clear and easy to use.
Thanks for posting the link to the “celebration,” seneca, on top of Diggle’s original presentation. I skipped some of it, but I thought Carrie Vout (name messed up in the transcript) was the star of the show, and πόθος the perfect subject for her.
I think the lexicon has more going for it than calling a fuck a fuck.
Yes, much more going for it than the “eliminates Victoria prudery” thing (how is the Guardian not bored of that tired tired angle already?) The dictionary is frustratingly good. The concentration on usage and context is a definite advance. (Though a composition section for prepositions is missing, as in the Cambridge Grammar. An interesting shared blind spot.) But the dictionary is also frustrating, because without Greek examples and direct references, it feels like a toy. And a fair number of the English glosses could have been replaced profitably by the specific Greek context they stand for.
So it’s not really useful for expanding one’s knowledge of already known words, as compared to the LSJ. Nor is it useful for learning new words, without the Greek contexts, unless you are good at back translating (ie., not a beginner). As is, it mostly answers basic “why does the Loeb say that?” questions.
However, I would hope to see an expanded or digital version of the dictionary soon that corrects this. It shouldn’t be too hard, given its all-digital construction.
Hope you are correct but was rather discouraged to lean in the first zoom meeting back in the middle of March that despite Professor Diggle’s acknowledgment of help from the TLG in producing this lexicon there were no plans to add it to the other lexicons on that site.
Hi Barry,
Mine just arrived today on the 29th of July, so if yours hasn’t shipped yet, you shouldn’t have to wait much longer. Amazon emailed me yesterday that it had shipped and texted me this morning that it was out for delivery!
Quite surprised at the development of an e-book version. Maybe it will be possible in future to set a Kindle up for Ancient Greek the same way I do for Latin (though, not holding my breath, I can’t get modern Greek to look right…).
I saw the same just recently. The font problems (mixed up ugly looking characters) on (self-loaded) Greek documents can be fixed using Calibre and an output format like pdf. Kindle seems to use some East Asian font defaults for Greek otherwise.