ἀναγιγνώσκω

Greek Learning Greek
1

In Unit 24, page 201 of Dr. Mastronarde’s Introduction to Attic Greek, I have the vocabulary
word: ἀναγιγνώσκω.

It is a verb which means, read (aloud), recite (from a written document).

What word would I use for reading silently?

2

ἀναγιγνώσκω
LSJ does not say only aloud. However, it seems that reading silently was not so common in antiquity. As we read in his Confessions, St. Augustine marveled at St. Ambrose reading silently in his room.

3

In Phaedo 97 and 98, there is a section where Socrates hears a book of Anaxagorus read aloud, and in his excitement over the contents, takes it and reads it as fast as he was able, so that he could know what was in it at fast as possible.

αναγιγνωσκειν is the verb used for both actions, but I suspect that it means “read aloud” only in the first case.

The Augustine episode is strange.

4

There’s a decent essay by A. K. Gavrilov on reading techniques in classical antiquity:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/639597?seq=1

Reading silently or aloud would appear to be a much disputed question.

5

Confessiones 6.3.3 and commentary by J.J. O’Donnell

sed cum legebat: Silent reading: This passage has attracted much notice, seeming to show Amb. as the veritable inventor of silent reading (J. Balogh, Philologus 82[1926], 84-109, 202-40), but it has since been shown (B. M. W. Knox, GRBS 9[1968], 421-436) that the practice was known from much earlier in antiquity (Cicero, Tusc. 5.40.116, describes the pleasure the deaf can derive from reading, without hearing, poetry). Reading aloud remained a–probably the–common practice for many centuries (sometimes a necessary one: in ep. 101.3 A. says that his de musica is hard to understand unless you have somebody to read it out loud who can vocalize the quantities properly); being-read-to also attested at Io. ev. tr. 112.1. A near contemporary recommended reading aloud softly as an aid to memorization (Mart. Cap. 5.539, in the persona of Rhetoric). The written word was prompt-copy for a text that was still essentially oral in nature; only when read aloud did the symbols on the page become words in a useful sense. With some kinds of texts, A. was a perfectly competent consumer of a purely textual artefact (see on 4.16.28, the categ. of Aristotle); but his earlier, purely textual, encounter with scripture (3.5.9) had failed, and here he betrays his need for a more traditional, orally-mediated reading of the text. There remains to be written a history of reading that would do justice to the variety of techniques and situations across the centuries, on the one hand, and to the way reading techniques affected the ways people thought and acted.

The significance of this passage is to be found elsewhere; see above. (Balogh already noted that if Amb. invented the skill, A. was a quick learner; cf. 8.12.29, aperui et legi in silentio'; G. Lawless, REAug 26[1980], 55, also notes that 10.8.13 offers the parallel of silent singing’ : et quiescente lingua ac silente gutture canto quantum volo'; and cf. 11.27.36, et voce atque ore cessante peragimus cogitando carmina et versus et quemque sermonem’.) A better context is the history of vocal and silent prayer, on which see J. Balogh, Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 23(1925), 345-8. For example, Cassian, conl. 9.35, in abscondito oramus, quando corde tantum et intenta mente petitiones nostras soli pandemus deo, ita ut ne ipsae quidem adversae valeant potestates genus nostrae petitionis agnoscere. propter quod summo est orandum silentio, non solum ne fratres adstantes nostris susurris vel clamoribus avocemus . . . sed ut ipsos quoque inimicos nostros, qui orantibus nobis maxime insidiantur, lateat nostrae petitionis intentio.' From Amb., cf. exp. Ps. 118.17.9, Anna, cum oraret tacita clamabat, labia non movebat et interioris voce pia mentis excitabat Iesum,’ reflecting the text of 1 Sam. 1.13, `Anna loquebatur in corde suo, tantumque labia illius movebantur, et vox penitus non audiebatur’.

6

Today coincidentally I happened to read that the reason Greeks read aloud was because there were neither word breaks nor punctuation in the texts. It was only by reading aloud that they recognized the word breaks and made sense of the text.

7

You can spend some time reading the Codex Sinaiticus online to discover whether this is true. It is reading aloud which is hard to do without the editorial marks. I go very slowly (and silently). Medieval manuscripts with punctuation, accents, and breathing marks – though still no word breaks – are much easier to read correctly the first time.

8

Also coincidentally (or maybe people just love talking about this subject), someone over at GlyphStudy mentioned the Chester Beatty IV papyrus (BM 10684, 12th century) yesterday when discussing silent reading, which has the passage:

A man has perished: his corpse is dust,
and his people have passed from the land;
it is a book which makes him remembered
in the mouth of a speaker.
More excellent is a scroll than a built house,
than a chapel in the west.

(R.B. Parkinson, Voices From Ancient Egypt)

From a very small amount of reading into the topic it seems this is evidence of the role of the lector in ancient Egypt rather than of private reading practices, but I thought it was a nice passage to add to the mix.