How do you say: 'go ahead' in Greek

Greek Learning Greek
1

When doing a language exchange one expression that you have to use a lot is ‘go ahead’. This is because it’s not clear who is supposed to speak so one person tells the other “to go ahead, it’s your turn to speak.” My partner and I just decided on πρόειμι but of course wiser people might have a better answer.

2

Ἄγε δή is a possibility. Or λέγε, if appropriate.

3

thanks, i appreciate that

4

Hi all, just to add a few points:

An imperative works well here (as Bedwere said), and if you want to add that the person should speak because it’s ‘their turn’ to speak (as we say in English), an idiom in Greek is ἐν τῷ σῷ μέρει (your turn), ἐν τῷ ἐμῷ μέρει (my turn), or just ἐν τῷ μέρει (for whosever turn it is to speak next).

See e.g. in Plato:

  • Sym. 185d: ἐγὼ μὲν γὰρ ἐρῶ ἐν τῷ σῷ μέρει, σὺ δ᾽ ἐπειδὰν παύσῃ, ἐν τῷ ἐμῷ ‘for I will take your turn for speaking, and when you have stopped it, you shall take mine’.


  • Meno 92e: ἀλλὰ σὺ δὴ ἐν τῷ μέρει αὐτῷ εἰπὲ παρὰ τίνας ἔλθῃ Ἀθηναίων ‘Now you take your turn, and tell him to whom of the Athenians he is to go’


  • Soph. 225e: ἐν τῷ μέρει σὺ πειρῶ νῦν εἰπεῖν ’ try now, for it is your turn, to give its name’


  • Gorg. 462a: ἀλλ᾽ εἴ τι κήδῃ τοῦ λόγου τοῦ εἰρημένου καὶ ἐπανορθώσασθαι αὐτὸν βούλει, ὥσπερ νυνδὴ ἔλεγον, ἀναθέμενος ὅτι σοι δοκεῖ, ἐν τῷ μέρει ἐρωτῶν τε καὶ ἐρωτώμενος, ὥσπερ ἐγώ τε καὶ Γοργίας, ἔλεγχέ τε καὶ ἐλέγχου ‘But if you have any concern for the argument that we have carried on, and care to set it on its feet again, revoke whatever you please, as I suggested just now; take your turn in questioning and being questioned, like me and Gorgias’

Another idiom, more from the world of the legal and political courts and assemblies, is the right or turn to speak: which is everyone’s favourite word, λόγος. If I give to you the right to speak, I give you λόγος, and if I obtain the right to speak, I obtain λόγος. See e.g. LSJ λόγος VI(3)(b) ‘right of discussion or speech’, e.g. Xenophon, HG 5.2.20: λεχθέντων δὲ τούτων, ἐδίδοσαν οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι τοῖς συμμάχοις λόγον ‘When these things had been said, the Lacedaemonians gave their allies permission to speak’.

Another way again of expressing this would be to identify the next speaker (i.e. the person who has λόγος next). There are many ways that this could be expressed, e.g. in Prot. 336d: μετὰ δὲ τὸν Ἀλκιβιάδην, ὡς ἐγᾦμαι, Κριτίας ἦν ὁ εἰπών ‘After Alcibiades, the next, I believe, to speak was Critias’.

Cheers, Chad