I found the following in an ‘old’ Greek children’s book that retells the myth of Perseus and Andromeda in rhyming couplets under gaudy illustrations (lovely!). Most words are in my classical Greek dictionary but I also note the modern future particle θα (as in θα παω να φαω) as well as σε merged with the following article – στα (did that happen in ancient Greek too?). I guess it’s an example of the dreaded katharevousa, abandoned in the 1970s … (Excuse lack of accents, haven’t learned how to make ’em yet .)
Οταν στα κ?ονια τα παλια το Α?γος κυβε?νιοταν
απο το γε?ο Ακ?ισιο σκλη?ος χ?ησμος λεγοταν.
Δαναη η θυγατε?α του αγο?ι θ’αποκτουσε
και τον παππου θα σκοτωνε κι’ αυτο θα κυβε?νουσε.
Could anyone rewrite this in correct ancient Greek - or in modern Greek for that matter? Rhyming not essential.
By the way, is there a useful book or article out there that compares modern and ancient Greek item by item (grammar, vocab, pronunciation, etc) for people interested in learning both?
Actually this is Modern Greek, butI cannot translate itto Ancient Greek, so hopefully someone else will.
Some quick comments:
a) στα just comes from εις τα. I believe that it is a pretty modern development (one or two hundred years?).
b) θα comes from the Medieval Greek construct θελω ινα + subjunctive, which I believe served as the future (probably I’m oversimplifying, but that is all that I remember). Here the particle θα + (present_subj|aorist_subj) serves to create the future. If the verb stem used is the present stem, then the construct refers to the continuous future, but if the verb stem used is the aorist stem, then the construct refers to the aorist future (lol, it follows).
As for a Modern Greek grammar, the last standard text that I am aware of is that by ΜΑ?ΟΛΗΣ ΤΡΙΑ?ΤΑΦΥΛΛΙΔΗΣ, ?ΕΟΕΛΛΗ?ΙΚΗ ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΙΚΗ, but this somewhat old and perhaps it has been superseded by now. Hopefully Irene will confirm if this is still the standard text or not.
An excellent Modern Greek verb book:
Α??Α ΙΟΡΔΑ?ΙΔΟΥ, ΤΑ ΡΗΜΜΑΤΑ ΤΗΣ ?ΕΑΣ ΕΛΛΗ?ΙΚΗΣ, ISBN 960-293-670-3
As for a text comparing Ancient Greek and Modern Greek, there is a book which somewhat meets your description, but it is in Modern Greek: ΕΚΔΟΣΕΙΣ ?ΕΦΕΛΗ, ΠΑ?ΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΙΟ ΚΡΗΤΗΣ, ?έα ελληνικά για κλασικο?ς φιλολόγους (1999), but I suspect that you will not be able to order this unless you order through a Greek book merchant. Sorry, I could find an ISBN number, quite strange. The book is meant to serve as instruction for Modern Greek to those with knowledge of Ancient Greek, so it is not quite what you mention.
Thanks for your detailed response. Taught me a lot. I also followed your link to the Amazon site, where I read selected pages of the Browning book using the “Surprise me? feature. Interesting stuff - which, incidentally, confirmed what you had been saying. Something for my future shopping list. But I’ll have to put the Greek books on hold until I know more Greek…
So the 4 lines are witten in modern Greek? But surely not normal everyday Greek? At least not according to my local Greek barman. So what is Katharevousa? Perhaps I need THREE versions of the text: everyday modern, K, and ancient. (I guess that’s too much to expect ).
At a slight tangent, here’s another question: has rhyme been used much in modern Greek poetry? (Modern? well, let’s say medieval -19th century).
Well,
a) Triandafyllidis is still a good grammar book and I think the easiest to find. Maybe not the best though for a non-Greek speaker starting to learn Greek.
b) well, apart from “κ?όνια” (χ?όνια in non-dialectal modern Greek) which is definitely not scholary (quite the opposite), all the other words are very every day MG! Perhaps your barman was referring to the word order? I mean in prose the word order wouldn follow more usual patterns but on the other hand, the pattern used here is the most usual in our folk poetry so maybe I’m talking nonsense. Note also that the “λεγόταν” (common MG) is not the verb most would choose it prose (existed, υπή?χε seems a better choice to me)
I won’t attempt to write it in either AG or Katharevousa right now (in a few days maybe) but what follows is how the text would look in MG prose.
Όταν τα παλιά χ?όνια το Ά?γος κυβε?νιόταν από το γέ?ο Ακ?ίσιο, υπή?χε ένας σκλη?ός χ?ησμός. Η Δανάη, η θυγατέ?α του (κό?η του is the more common MG synonym) θα αποκτο?σε αγό?ι και θα σκότωνε τον παππο? (obviously instead of “kai” we’d choose something like “που” or “το οποίο/ο οποίος” since “kai” isn’t the best in this context) και θα κυβε?νο?σε αυτό.
My triandafyllidi is falling apart, lol sticky tape is holding the spine together its really quite over-used… great book though! We call it our ‘bible’ at school.
As for rhyme in MG poetry:
Οταν στα κ?ονια τα παλια το Α?γος κυβε?νιοταν
απο το γε?ο Ακ?ισιο σκλη?ος χ?ησμος λεγοταν.
Δαναη η θυγατε?α του αγο?ι θ’αποκτουσε
και τον παππου θα σκοτωνε κι’ αυτο θα κυβε?νουσε.
(im no expert) but im pretty sure that rhyming isnt overly popular, not as much as in english anyway… The MG metre has more to do with the order of accented and non-accented syllables:
from- Hymn to Liberty- Solomos (ὕμνος εἰς τὴν ?λευθε?ίαν):
That κ?ονια was naturally the result of my poor typing/proofreading skills. Of course in the original it was χ?ονια!
I guess my barman was thrown off by the few less common variants you mention. Unless he’s been living in Sweden too long… (though Browning says that Greeks abroad cling on fiercely to their language).
I suppose the choice of λεγοταν instead of υπη?χε is to be explained by the need for a rhyme to match κυβε?νιοταν.
Thanks for unwrapping the lines into normal MG. Good reinforcement for the scanty MG I know. It’ll be fun – and instructive – to compare it with an AG version. When you get the time…
Megas_yiannakis:
Thanks for your comments and great examples.
What about modern folksongs / rembetika … say, the lyrics of George Dalaras? Is rhyming part of the scheme of things?
@ Irene:
Could you please give me other grammar references for CMG? I may be in Greece this summer or the next, and I’ll be looking to buy dictionaries and grammar books.
@ Interaxus:
You mentioned the “dreaded Katharevousa” (Puristic Greek) in your first post. You need not fear it at all, as it is in its more modern examples usually only a mix of Modern Greek and Ancient Greek (with the latter greatly predominating, but with dative/optative used little if at all). In fact, if you wish to read non-fiction from the 70s and earlier (like say, scholarly articles in Greek journals), you will absolutely need it. Hence I give this superb reference:
Katharevousa was synthetic, and it could vary in its degree of deference to Ancient Greek. This book covers simplified Puristic Greek, but you can easily fill in the blanks with your knowledge of Ancient Greek. If you ever learn Common Modern Greek, you’ll have on the whole very little trouble reading Puristic Greek as you already know Ancient Greek.
I have long hoped for a Katharevousa-English/English-Katharevousa dictionary online, on the theory that it’d be a useful resource sometimes when you want to compose ancient Greek with modern vocab.
Of course he did, since we abolished the other marks in 1981 (and I can still remember how happy I was! Those breathing marks were a pain for a girl in the second class of elementary school let me tell you!)
By the way, at some point I will have to sit down and translate it to ancient Greek. My apologies for having done so yet!
Ah, thank you Irene for that clarification. And FWIW I can have a guess about how happy you must have been to switch to μονοτονικό. After all the accents had ceased to be pronounced as tones by AD 400 (going by memory from the OCD), so it must have been really difficult and unnatural to continue to use πολυτονικό in the 20th century (I find even simple Attic Greek quite a challenge). Not that I can’t help but admire the Attic Greek revival in literary works from the 2nd century to the 15th century, but that is from a comfortable distance…
BTW if you could recommend a good Modern Greek reference grammar I would be grateful.
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