Interesting discussion on specialization, one in which I have little personal experience myself. Can’t help dropping in though…
Maybe one of the reasons for a lack of technical skills is that Latin and Greek are now longer taught to kids like before, and the first years at university are spent teaching basic grammar stuff? My intuition is that all this specialization and scientific progress has led to a situation where the average student or scholars has a much profounder “general culture” than before, but just isn’t as fluent in the languages. I mean I started English at age 11 and I can read it as if I were native (though when I write, not mention speak, English, I never manage to say exactly what I want). I started Greek about 8 years ago at 24 and I never, ever hope to attain any real fluency. Maybe if I could read several hours of Greek every day, maybe then I could after many years of work. But I have to work, I have a family, a social life (well, less and less…). My guess would be that one of the basic problems is that it’s hard to attain true fluency when you start a language around age 20 when you go to university. It’s possible, but difficult especially if it’s a dead language; and how are you supposed to learn metrical skills etc. if you’re still learning the basics.
Anyway, that’s my guess about what might be one important problem in the field of classics. I have absolutely no personal experience to back this up.
Actually there have been several doctors, bankers, lawyers etc producing that sort of thing.
This is exactly my ecological niche! I’m dreaming maybe one day I’ll be able to produce something… Don’t expect a comprehensive up-to-date commentary of the Iliad or anything like that though. You can guess which one of the above is the trade I’m in…
Well not having Latin or Greek before university is a problem, sure, but its only part of it. Its seriously not as large a problem as people make out. Places like textkit prove that rapid acquisition of grammar and syntaxis is quite possible. Its just…the focus of courses are changing for many reasons, among them the dread “f” word (fiscal). In the long run, one can’t complain. If it all ends up being soft literary readings and reception studies…well as long as blind Homer is still being read I guess.
Contributing: I don’t see why not, it’s just that people aren’t mental enough to take on huuge projects like the entirety of Homer without a team behind them. Ha I’m disinclined to guess
You make some good points about the difficulty in picking up the more technical bits without oodles of time. You’re right it needs time, but then there are a lot of good free resources nowadays too.
My guess would be that one of the basic problems is that it’s hard to attain true fluency when you start a language around age 20 when you go to university.
It’s absolutely true that nothing would be more helpful in learning Greek than to start it when you are about 10 or 12. I took just a few years of French in Middle School and High School, and I never really kept up with it, but 30 years later I can still read French. I realize that French is much easier than Greek, but when you learn something at that age it goes deep in your brain and you never forget it.
The ability to learn, like youth itself, is wasted on the youth.
Heh, I sort of like you sincerity on “soft literary readings and reception studies”… As for me, what I’m thinking of in the first place is “low-weight” stuff like translation. The current Homer translations in Finnish are so idiosyncratic that almost anything would be an improvement, for example.
). My guess would be that one of the basic problems is that it’s hard to attain true fluency when you start a language around age 20 when you go to university. It’s possible, but difficult especially if it’s a dead language; and how are you supposed to learn metrical skills etc. if you’re still learning the basics.
