Learning Modern Greek

Greek Learning Greek
21

I’ll reply to the rest of your post tomorrow, after I get some sleep.

  1. And what’s the purpose of reading “the” Aeneid? To say you have read it?

Why do we read anything? For enjoyment, for pleasure, for boredom, for information etc etc.

Why listen to a Bob Dylan album when you can read the liner notes instead?

Look I get what you’re saying, but the Homeric epics haven’t been sung for at least two thousand years. IIRC, the tradition was dying out when the Alexandrian commentators were writing on Homer. One could ask why we bother with Homer at all now if we can’t even appreciate its oral nature. Haven’t we neutered its power?

Or, as I think, can we appreciate at least some of what remains in a new format? True, we’re never going to be able to hear the epic poet with musical accompaniment, but we can still get a reflection of the original thing. And I think that’s true of translations as well.

  1. I think a Russian lover of Tolstoy would indeed tell you that reading him in translation is not “good enough”. But there is a significant difference between reading a novel in translation and a poem. You necessarily lose a tremendous amount in the latter which is perhaps not the case in the former.

Good enough for what? To appreciate Russian prose style? Obviously not. To appreciate his themes? I argue, yes.

I agree that translating poetry is very different from translating prose. This is going to sound weird but what the heck. It’s like translating Disney songs into different languages. They change things around - for example, the Arabic version of Hercules’ ‘Gospel Truth’ changes the Muses to brides because the idea of goddesses is nonsensical to Arabic culture. So it’s different, but I’d rather that an Arabic Hercules existed than not exist at all. Disney movies aren’t exactly masterpieces, but still: would you rather have Homer in English, or no Homer in English at all? How many millions of people have the opportunity to learn Homeric Greek?

  1. So is the purpose of a painting to be seen or to be possessed?

It has whatever purpose you give to it. Some people see art as a valuable commodity to be sold and bought, some value art only for aesthetic reasons.

Finally regarding your comments on Buddhism, it seems to me that you are the Eurocentric one here in that you project a Greek conflation of wisdom with reason onto a way of life that does not seek wisdom through reason.

To shoehorn Buddhism into “world philosophy” is, to use the old saw, a Procrustean effort. Whatever Buddhism may be (revelation perhaps?) and whatever truth it may hold, it’s not philosophy. To read that as an insult to Buddhism is to display a deeply-rooted Western prejudice in favor of philosophy.*

I feel you need to look up Nagarjuna or Dharmakirti or Dogen.

Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism, Confucianism all have a long history of philosophy.

22

Since none of us ever have or ever will be able to listen to an authentic ancient Greek performance of Homer then why bother learning Homeric Greek? To read the Iliad in Greek is little more than reading the lyrics of a song you never actually heard.

23

The point has nothing to do with authenticity. The point is about complacency.

I would not fault Aquinas for reading Aristotle only by way of Arabic translations (the Greek was not available to him). I would fault him for not sorely regretting the fact that he couldn’t get his hands on the original.

It’s simply shows a disregard for something beautiful to say offhandedly that reading a poem in a translation to a very different language is “good enough”. To me it smacks of a modern sort of coarseness, wherein all good things are presumed to be available to all people at all times and at a low low price. [To be fair to my interlocutor I may have quite misunderstood him.]

If I were an admirer of Vergil who did not have the opportunity to read him in Latin, that would sadden me. I’m not saying I would jump off a bridge, but I would regard it as a truly unfortunate thing.

For that matter I think it is a real shame that the oral tradition of Homer is inaccessible. Is reading aloud to oneself “good enough”? I wouldn’t say so, but it’s certainly better than nothing.



And regarding the Buddhism as philosophy question (disregarding the other Asian -isms for now), I stand by my comment that if Buddhism has any resemblance to my understanding of it, it is not philosophy.

Again I want to stress that to say that Buddhism is not philosophy is in no way to slight it. To perceive that as as slight is to presuppose that philosophy is the best way of life, or the only path to wisdom. Such a belief strikes me as the very core of “Eurocentrism”.

The reason I say that Buddhism is not philosophy is Buddhism seems to suggest that wisdom or enlightenment comes with the negation of all desire, whereas philosophy is desire, the unrestrained desire to know what is.

Buddhism also has a religious element which is probably bit of a political imposition on the core teaching. Karma and reincarnation and the like. This is certainly not philosophy.

I would also point out that the Western philosopher who is probably at the bottom of the post-WW2 interest in Eastern “philosophy” in American universities is Heidegger, and Heidegger thought philosophy was basically a mistake and saw Buddhism as possibly offering a more authentic relation to the nothingness of the world. (“The Nothing” I think he would say). In other words he appreciated Buddhism precisely because it was not philosophy.

24

But your attack of this supposedly widespread complacency seems to be predicated upon a lack of authenticity.
So someone ought not to be satisfied with having read Fitzgeald’s translation of The Odyssey because they haven’t read it in Greek.

25

I would not fault Aquinas for reading Aristotle only by way of Arabic translations (the Greek was not available to him). I would fault him for not sorely regretting the fact that he couldn’t get his hands on the original.

The only reason that Aquinas should have found it regrettable is if he was unsure of the quality of the translation. If the translation is accurate, why should you only read Greek philosophy in Greek? Is there something magical about the original language? Will I only understand Nietzsche’s points in German?

  1. Sartre would definitely have had some Greek. And how do you know what the sort of philosophy you are interested in “requires”? What does it mean to seriously understand existentialism? I think neither Sartre nor Heidegger would agree with you about the unimportance of Greek.

What does it mean to seriously understand existentialism? I know that it doesn’t require you to learn another language to understand its basic tenets. Some of those basic principles are freedom and responsibility. These are English terms, but they are universal concepts. No language holds a monopoly on them. That is the only thing I care about.

If I’m lucky, I’m going to survive for a couple more decades barring any major accidents. I don’t care about how many languages I’ll notch on my belt nor will I ever be smart enough to be an academic who needs to know so and so languages to write a paper.

26

I so very agree with this.

Reading Trakl in English is reading Trakl stripped down to a wobbly approximation of the German meaning. The English version, at least the one I read, is flatly unsatisfying, despite the best efforts of the translator. When one translates, a new and different work is created. One must always hope that the interpolation is as unobstructive as possible, but this isn’t the case much of the time in my experience.

Speaking to earlier points in this argument, learning new languages will broaden your cultural and academic perspective and give you instant access to a lot of works that are not yet translated. If one’s goal is to be a better thinker, speaker or writer in any field, learning new languages—whether ancient or modern—is an excellent means to the end of having a mature intellectual mind.

27

My college German teacher often remarked to his students that merely learning another language does not make one intelligent for he knew many people who could speak several languages yet had nothing to say. That has matched my personal experience.

28

You have difficulty understanding what you have read. Moreover, your particular personal experience is meaningless.

29

My experiences have simply supported what my German teacher said. Unfortunately, I’ve met too many polyglots who are just as silly or as stupid or as incurious as some monoglots. So I’m skeptical of correlating such multilingualism with having a ‘mature intellectual mind’.

30

This post is about closed now and I’m off topic… But Scribo, you mentioned Luwian loan words. I guess you were thinking about Luwian influences in Homer and other early epic, and especially the particle ταρ in Homer, alleged to be a Luwian loan word. Now this is an interesting topic… Do you, or anyone else, know if there is any relatively easily accessible literature on Anatolian (Luwian and other) influence on early Greek epic? There are bits and pieces here and there, but is there anything especially on this subject? I mean the “Sarpedon was a Lycian god” kind of thing…

31

Yes the ταρ thing is especially noticeable, especially when we consider the common usage of kwis tar in Luvian in similar places.

As for Literature…well…it depends what one means by “accessible”. I don’t think so. I know the West editions of the text are a good, if unwieldy, source to learn about these things.

Anatolian influences on Greek Literature in general are rather well noticed. For example the similarities between the Kummarabi and Ulikikummi “songs” in the Hurrian/Hittite tradition and the Hesiodic corpus are well known.

West 1997 “East Face of Helicon” Oxford
Penglase, C 1991 “Mesopotamian something something Hesiod”

are good places to start. Much more easy to read though from a slightly different perspective is Latacz’s “Troy und Homer” also available in English, “Troy and Homer”, which includes summaries of such pertinent information as Priamos being a retroflex of a genuine in Luvian hero - Priawamos or something, replete with workable etymologies for his name and in general a fantastic contextual overview of the background to the Iliad.

32

Thanks… Well, of the four sources you gave me, three are already in my bookshelf… :wink: They are the books that gave me appetite for more. I did some googling, and Penglase’s book looks interesting too. I think this is the one you meant:

Penglase, C., Greek Myths and Mesopotamia: Parallels and Influence in the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod, 1994

In all sources I read the picture about Luwians and Anatolians remains pretty fragmentary, I think. Maybe because the focus is on the Greek. And maybe the fact is that Anatolian studies are simply less mainstream than Greek studies, and this information is to be found scattered in obscure Hittitologist specialist literature. And I’m reading this stuff for fun, between other obligations of life like family, work etc. And maybe what is known about the Luwians anyway is fragmentary.

Also, the focus in these books tends to be rather on Mesopotamians than Anatolians, which probably reflects amount of sources available.

Maybe what I want to do is just read about Luwians and West Anatolia and forget for a while about early Greek epic…

33

Well I’m not sure really what to recommend since I’ve no idea what you’ve read or what level you’re aiming for.

Sources for the Luwians are, of course, very very fragmentary and putting together a full scale study on them simply isn’t really that feasible from a literary point of view.

Anatolia does get quite a bit of attention thanks to the massive collection of Hittite texts. Try Hoffner Jnr (I think!) book on Hittite Myths and go from there. It should have a bibliography in the back.

Most of the good stuff will be in German I suspect.

34

Neither do I :wink: But I’ve been noticing that your interests are not very different from mine and I thought maybe I should be going the same way you’ve gone… But this is a hobby, I’m not going anywhere precise. I turn to whichever direction looks interesting.

Maybe I’ll try Hittite Myths.

I’ve long since come to regret being a lazy student of German at high school. But I’m going to make that up one day! Donnerwetter!

35

No worries, my German is probably even worse, you haven’t seen me try to read it. This is getting a little bit off topic here I know but I would reiterate my suggestion for that book on Hittite Myths since it’s simple, concise but not patronizing and I think mentions Luwian variants alongside the Hatto/Hurrian ones. Nice to see someone else finds this stuff interesting, feel free to start a thread/get in touch if you like.

36

I guess I’m starting with Hittite Myths then. Clicking at Amazon is easy, too easy considering all those unread books in my shelf…

Saying this a little off topic is quite an understatement. I’ll start a new thread as soon as I have something to say :wink:

Thanks a lot, though!

37

Thank you, Koehnsen. I’ve been trying to get hold of books, mostly grammar books in Greek but no luck. Either most of them are for kids learning the language or too expensive. Now, i can have it for free. I owe it to you :slight_smile:

38

When it comes to place names, how different are ancient and modern?

If I got a modern atlas of Greek, how many ancient locations would appear?

39

It can vary heavily. First of all most ancient place names are putative and subject to heavy revision in the first place - due to a large problem with cultural continuity it’s not as if we’ve had continuous occupancy and until the massive propaganda drive post Independence most places had Slavic/Albanian toponyms. There are several cases where, despite what the tourist boards say, are basically probably wrong.

Comparing maps from a few hundred years ago is quite revealing actually. Ancient Geography is not my thing, though one of my friend researches in that area (boring thing) and personally I think in terms of modern Greece anyway, so.

Sometimes they are basically the same: anc Ath:enai mod Athina. Sometimes they are markedly different: anc Kudonia mod Hania.

40

Thanks. I just would like a wall map or an atlas of Greece,with all the (ancient) place names in Attic. I have never seen one. Seems hard to believe nobody has produced one. And I was wondering whether a modern one would be a good subsitute. Are the major places, like islands, spelled the same–accents and all–in modern Greek and Attic?