The Greek
Language
Above: Friends talking. Source: Unsplash. Creator: Priscilla du Preez. License: Unsplash license.
Bilingualism in Ancient Society
Focusing on written texts, this book provides an introduction for classicists, ancient historians, and other scholars interested in sociolinguistic research to the evidence of bilingualism in the ancient Mediterranean world. Language contact intruded into virtually every aspect of ancient life, including literature, philosophy, law, medicine, provincial administration, army, magic and trade, and topics which have been fashionable in sociolinguistics for some time have now begun to attract the attention of scholars working in Graeco-Roman studies. The fifteen chapters in this collection, which have been written by well-regarded experts, cover theoretical and methodological issues and key aspects of the contact between Latin and Greek and among Latin, Greek, and other languages.
Vox Graeca: The Pronunciation of Classical Greek
W.S. Allen's highly successful book describes the pronunciation of Attic Greek in classical times. In this third edition, Allen has revised the section on stress in classical Greek, the chapter on quantity has been recast, and the author has added an appendix on the names and letters of the Greek alphabet, to provide historical background and a parallel to the similar appendix in the second edition of his Vox Latina. In addition to the new material, the supplementary notes of the second edition are now incorporated into the main text, making this book much more convenient to use.
A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language
A comprehensive account of the language of Ancient Greek civilization in a single volume, with contributions from leading international scholars covering the historical, geographical, sociolinguistic, and literary perspectives of the language. This collection of 36 original essays by a team of international scholars treats the survival and transmission of Ancient Greek and includes discussions on phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
This book encourages a deeper appreciation of ancient Greek poetry and prose by showing where a nod of the head or a wave of the hand can complete meaning in epic poetry and in tragedy, comedy, oratory, and in works of history and philosophy. All these works anticipated performing readers, and, as a result, they included prompts, places where a gesture could complete a sentence or amplify or comment on the written words. Where part of a work appears to be missing, or the syntax is irregular, or the words seem contradictory or perverse--without evidence of copyists' errors or physical damage--an ancient author may have been assuming that a performing reader would make the necessary clarifying gesture. Boegehold offers analyses of many such instances in selected passages ranging from Homer to Aeschylus to Plato. In this radical and highly accessible book, Boegehold urges all readers to supplement the traditional avenues of classical philology with an awareness of the uses of nonverbal communication in Hellenic antiquity.
To speakers of modern Greek the Homeric poems of the 7th century BC are not written in a foreign language. The Greek language has enjoyed a continuous tradition from earliest times until now. This book traces its history from the immediately post-classical or Hellenistic period to the present day. The aim is both to analyse the changing structure of a language stabilised by a peculiarly long and continuous literary tradition, and to show how changing historical circumstances are reflected in its development. In particular the historical roots of modern Greek's internal bilingualism are traced.
Body Language in the Greek & Roman Worlds
Saying hello in the village of Skiathos, Greece. Source: Unsplash. Creator: Nick Karvounis. License: Unsplash license.
A Brief History of Ancient Greek
Colvin's book accessibly depicts the social history of this ancient language from its Indo-European roots to the present day. It explains key relationships between the language and literature of the Classical period (500 - 300 BC); provides a social history of the language which transliterates and translates all Greek as appropriate, and is therefore accessible to readers who know little or no Greek; and is written in the framework of modern sociolinguistic theory, relating the development of Ancient Greek to its social and political context.
A Historical Greek Reader: Mycenaean to the Koine
This work provides an introduction to the history of the ancient Greek language by means of a series of texts with linguistic commentary, cross-referenced to each other and to a reference grammar at the front. It offers a selection of epigraphic and literary texts from the Mycenaean period (roughly the fourteenth century BC) to the koine (the latest text dates to the second century AD), and includes a wide range of Greek dialect texts. The epigraphic section balances a number of well-known inscriptions with recent discoveries that may not be easily available elsewhere; a selection of literary texts traces major developments in the language of Greek poetry and literary prose. The book finishes with an account of the linguistic and sociolinguistic background of koine Greek. The commentary assumes no prior knowledge of Greek historical linguistics, but provides a basic amount of up-to-date bibliography so that advanced students and others can pursue linguistic issues at greater depth where necessary.
A.M. Devine & Laurence D. Stephens, 2008
The reconstruction of the prosody of a dead language is, on the face of it, an almost impossible undertaking. However, once a general theory of prosody has been developed from reliable data in living languages, it is possible to exploit texts as sources of answers to questions that would normally be answered in the laboratory. In this work, the authors interpret the evidence of Greek verse texts and musical settings in the framework of a theory of prosody based on cross-linguistic evidence and experimental phonetic and psycholinguistic data, and reconstruct the syllable structure, rhythm, accent, phrasing, and intonation of classical Greek speech. Sophisticated statistical analyses are employed to support an impressive range of new findings which relate not only to phonetics and phonology, but also to pragmatics and the syntax-phonology interface.
This book approaches word order in Greek tragic dialogue from the perspective of language rather than metre. The tragic poets engaged in mimesis of natural dialogue; therefore the analysis of the linguistic characteristics of the dialogue precedes exploration of the metrical dimension, on the assumption that poets would not be overly constrained by the iambic trimeter, which, after all, was the most natural speaking verse according to Aristotle. Dik analyses the word order of tragic dialogue in pragmatic terms, arguing that, in sentences, words functioning as Topic (the 'starting point' of an utterance) or Focus (the most salient piece of information) will come early, and that other less important words will follow. Similarly, the position of adjectives within noun phrases is analyzed as a function of their relative salience rather than in terms of their semantics. The book concludes with a commentary on the word order in four passages of Sophocles' Electra.
Modern Athens at sunset, with Mount Lycabettus visible to the right. Source: Unsplash. Creator: Evan Wise. License: Unsplash license.
The Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek
Evert van Emde Boas, Albert Rijksbaron, Luuk Huitink, and Mathieu de Bakker, 2019
This is the first full-scale reference grammar of Classical Greek in English in a century. The first work of its kind to reflect significant advances in linguistics made in recent decades, it provides students, teachers and academics with a comprehensive yet user-friendly treatment. The chapters on phonology and morphology make full use of insights from comparative and historical linguistics to elucidate complex systems of roots, stems and endings. The syntax offers linguistically up-to-date descriptions of such topics as case usage, tense and aspect, voice, subordinate clauses, infinitives and participles. An innovative section on textual coherence treats particles and word order and discusses several sample passages in detail, demonstrating new ways of approaching Greek texts. Throughout the book numerous original examples are provided, all with translations and often with clarifying notes. Clearly laid-out tables, helpful cross-references and full indexes make this essential resource accessible to users of all levels.
What could a Greek poet or Roman historian say in their language that’s lost in translation? After all, different languages have different personalities, and this is especially clear with languages of the ancient and medieval world. This book celebrates six such languages—Ancient Greek, Latin, Old English, Sanskrit, Old Irish, and Biblical Hebrew—by first introducing readers to their most distinctive features, then showing how these linguistic traits play out in short excerpts from actual ancient texts. It explores, for instance, how Homer’s Greek shows signs of oral composition, how Horace can achieve striking poetic effects through interlaced word order in his Latin, and how the poet of Beowulf achieves a remarkable intensity of expression through the resources of Old English. But these are languages that have shared connections as well. Since most people don’t have the opportunity to learn these languages, the book throughout aims to give such readers an aesthetic appreciation of just how rich and varied they are.
Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speakers
Geoffrey Horrocks, 2nd ed. 2009
This book reveals the trajectory of the Greek language from the Mycenaean period of the second millennium BC to the current day; offers a complete linguistic treatment of the history of the Greek language; features increased coverage of the ancient evidence, as well as the roots and development of diglossia; and includes maps that clearly illustrate the distribution of ancient dialects.
This book investigates the history of the ancient Greek tradition of oral epic poetry which culminated in the Iliad and Odyssey. These masterpieces did not exhaust the tradition, and poems were composed in the same style for several generations afterwards. One group of such poems is the 'Homeric Hymns', ascribed to Homer in antiquity. In fact the origins of these Hymns are as mysterious as those of the Homeric epics themselves with little external evidence to assist. This book will be of interest to scholars concerned with Greek philology and dialects, Homeric epic and Greek literature of the Archaic period. It should also find readers amongst specialists in other oral poetries and those using computers in the humanities.
Sophocles and the Greek Language
ed. I.J.F. de Jong & A. Rijksbaron, 2006
This volume offers an extensive overview of the various ways in which Sophocles' use of the Greek language is currently being studied. Greatly admired in antiquity, Sophocles' style only became a serious subject of investigation with Campbell's Introductory essay "On the language of Sophocles" (1879). Fourteen chapters, divided into three sections (diction, syntax, pragmatics), discuss the linguistic register and use of "gnomai" in Ajax's deception speech, Homeric intertextuality, the style of the Sophoclean satyr-plays in relation to tragedy and comedy, the relation between the repetition of words and focalization, the language of blindness, the image of 'fire', the use of deictic pronouns, the semantics of the middle-passive and of counterfactuals, the historic present and the constitution of the text, the suggestive power of descriptions, speech-acts, and strategies of politeness.
The nighttime fish market at Varvakeios in modern Athens. Source: Unsplash. Creator: Aris Sfakianakis. License: Unsplash license.
K.W. Krüger; ed. & trans. Guy L. Cooper, III; 2 vols. 1998
The language of classical Greek literature has been extensively studied since the Renaissance, and the most generally admired approach to Greek grammar and syntax has long been K. W. Krüger's Griechische Sprachlehre. In this translation, Guy L. Cooper III accepts Krüger's simple and transparent organization, but greatly expands the substance of the earlier work by increasing the total number of citations from the original texts. Research since 1875, especially the contributions of Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, is incorporated so as to create a reference work, in English, which covers the full range of this complex subject. Krüger's original paragraph numbering has been maintained so that references in previously published works can be followed directly in the new work. However, every paragraph and chapter has been revised and expanded, opening up new subheadings within Krüger's format. The net result is a new comprehensive reference work, an essential reference for libraries and personal collections alike.
Greek Syntax: Early Greek Poetic and Herodotean Syntax
K.W. Krüger; ed. & trans. Guy L. Cooper, III; 2 vols. 2003
Guy L. Cooper III offers us the third and fourth volumes of a revised and copiously expanded new edition of a recognized masterpiece of German syntactic analysis. In these volumes, he translates K. W. Krüger's work on Herodotus and on the Greek poets from Homer through Aristophanes. With the first two volumes of the set, Attic Greek Prose Syntax volumes I and II, these additional volumes will make an essential reference for libraries and personal collections alike.
Greek-English Lexicon with a Revised Supplement
H.G. Liddell, R. Scott, H.S. Jones, R. McKenzie, P.G.W. Glare, 1996
Liddell & Scott's Greek-English Lexicon is the most comprehensive and up-to-date ancient Greek dictionary in the world. Used by every student of ancient Greek in the English-speaking world, the dictionary covers every surviving ancient Greek author and text discovered up to 1940, from the Pre-Classical Greek of Homer and Hesiod to Classical Greek to the Hellenistic Period, including the Greek Old and New Testaments. This monumental work is now available with a brand new Revised Supplement. Representing the culmination of thirteen years' work, the new Supplement is a complete replacement of the 1968 Supplement. Nearly twice the size of the 1968 edition, with over 20,000 entries, it adds to the dictionary words and forms from papyri and inscriptions discovered between 1940 and the 1990s as well as a host of other revisions, updates, and corrections to the main dictionary. Linear B forms are shown within entries for the first time, and the Revised Supplement gives the dictionary a date-range from 1200 BC to 600 AD, and it is fully cross-referenced to the main text.
Albert B. Lord, ed. David F. Elmer, 3rd ed. 2019
First published in 1960, Lord's book remains the fundamental study of the distinctive techniques and aesthetics of oral epic poetry. Based upon pathbreaking fieldwork conducted in the 1930s and 1950s among oral epic singers of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia, Lord analyzes in impressive detail the techniques of oral composition in performance. He explores the consequences of this analysis for the interpretation of numerous works of traditional verbal art, including--in addition to South Slavic epic songs--the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland, and the Byzantine epic Digenis Akritas. A cardinal text for the study of oral traditions, this work also represents an exemplary use of the comparative method in literary criticism. This third edition offers a corrected text of the second edition and is supplemented by an open-access website providing all the recordings discussed by Lord, as well as a variety of other multimedia materials.
Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek
The Oxford Grammar gives clear, concise, and easily understood explanations of all the key points of Classical Greek grammar. With additional features such as a glossary of grammatical terms, a vocabulary list covering all the Greek words found in the main text, study tips, and practice exercises to help develop knowledge and gain confidence, this invaluable resource ensures that students have all the support they need to complement their language learning. The Oxford Grammar also offers hundreds of example sentences illustrating grammatical points, an explanation of literary terms, and a guide to how Classical Greek was pronounced. The first book of grammar dedicated to Classical Greek for students in almost a century, this handy reference will replace existing Greek grammars and help students bring this ancient language to life.
Below: A passageway on the island of Paros. Source: Unsplash. Creator: Daria Nepriakhina. License: Unsplash license.
The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry
Milman Parry, ed. Adam Parry, 1971
Milman Parry, who died in 1935 while a young assistant professor at Harvard, is now considered one of the leading classical scholars of this century. Yet Parry's articles and French dissertations--highly original contributions to the study of Homer--have until now been difficult to obtain. This book for the first time collects these landmark works in one volume together with Parry's unpublished M.A. thesis and extracts from his Yugoslavian journal, which contains notes on Serbo-Croatian poetry and its relation to Homer. Adam Parry, the late son of the scholar, has translated the French dissertations, written an introduction on the life and intellectual development of his father, and provided a survey of later work on Homer conducted in Parry's glorious tradition.
The Syntax and Semantics of the Verb in Classical Greek
The verb is, in any language, the motor of all communication: no verb, no action. In Greek, verb forms change not only with person, number, tense, and voice, but in four possible moods as well. Available now in a special reprint for the North American market, this work is an incomparable resource to students and scholars charged with the considerable task of untangling the Greek language’s many complexities. With clear, concise instruction, Albert Rijksbaron shows how the various verb forms contribute to the richness of the Greek literature.
Like C.D. Buck's Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (1933), this book is an explanation of the similarities and differences between Greek and Latin morphology and lexicon through an account of their prehistory. It also aims to discuss the principal features of Indo-European linguistics. Greek and Latin are studied as a pair for cultural reasons only; as languages, they have little in common apart from their Indo-European heritage. Thus the only way to treat the historical bases for their development is to begin with Proto-Indo-European.
This book is an English version of two series of highly acclaimed introductory lectures given by the great Swiss linguist and classical philologist Jacob Wackernagel (1853-1938) at the University of Basle in 1918-19 on aspects of Greek, Latin, and German as languages. Out of print in German since 1996, these lectures remain the best available introduction, in any language, not only to Greek, Latin, and comparative syntax but also to many topics in the history and pre-history of Greek and Latin, and their relations with other languages. Other subjects, such as the history of grammatical terminology, are also brilliantly dealt with. This new edition supplements the German original by providing a translation of all quotations and examples, a large number of detailed footnotes offering background information and suggestions for further reading, and a single bibliography which brings together Wackernagel's references and those added in the notes.
A man looks over books at a shop in Athens. Source: Unsplash. Creator: Aris Sfakianakis. License: Unsplash license.
This is a comprehensive account of ancient Greek quantitative metre from its beginning to the seventh century AD. An introductory chapter touches briefly on the nature of metre and the presumable development of Greek metre from Indo-European syllable-counting verse-forms, and then goes on to a detailed description of Greek prosody and a discussion of rhythm and some other general questions. The arrangement of the rest of the book is broadly chronological allowing a clearer overall view of historical trends and of the characteristics of versification at different periods than is given by the usual method of discussing each metrical category separately once and for all. The longest chapter is devoted to Drama. A short Appendix outlines the relationship between Greek and Latin metre.
This abridgement of the author's comprehensive Greek Metre has been made with the intention of providing students with a more easily approachable and digestible introduction to the subject. The explanations of basic matters have been simplified, and additional examples have been given to illustrate the commoner metres.
The contributions to this volume illustrate how the linguistic study of Greek comedy can deepen our knowledge of the intricate connections between the dramatic texts and their literary and socio-cultural environment. Topics discussed include the relationship of comedy and iambus, the world of Doric comedy in Sicily, figures of speech and obscene vocabulary in Aristophanes, comic elements in tragedy, language and cultural identity in fifth-century Athens, linguistic characterization in Middle Comedy, the textual transmission of New Comedy, and the interaction of language and dramatic technique in Menander. Research in these topics and in related areas is reviewed in an extensive bibliographical essay. While the main focus is on comedy, the diversity of the approaches adopted ensures that much of the work applies to different genres and is relevant also to linguists and literary scholars.
The Languages of Aristophanes: Aspects of Linguistic Variation in Classical Attic Greek
By examining linguistic variation in Aristophanic comedy, Andreas Willi opens up a new perspective on intra-dialectal diversity in Classical Attic Greek. A representative range of registers, technical languages, sociolects, and (comic) idiolects is described and analysed. Stylistic and statistical observations are combined and supplemented by typological comparisons with material drawn from sociolinguistic research on modern languages. The resulting portrayal of the Attic dialect deepens our understanding of various socio-cultural phenomena reflected in Aristophanes' work, such as the spread of 'sophistic' culture, the re-evaluation of gender roles, and the status of foreigners in Athenian society.
Below: Men converse outside a cafe in Durrës, Albania. Source: Unsplash. Creator: Juri Gianfrancesco. License: Unsplash license.