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Ancient Greek, Latin, dead languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 9 of 13 01 May 2014 at 3:55pm | IP Logged |
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Is it too obvious to say that if you want to get better at reading Greek and Latin,
well, you have to read Greek and Latin? Most classical language programs I am aware of focus on the nitty-gritty of grammar, particularly understanding all of those declensions. I think most students feel that they will be able to read only after they can parse every verb like a pro. This is particularly true of those who study Biblical Greek; after all it is the word of God, every tense matters. And students usually enter their studies with the belief that the proper interpretation of every text hangs on the tenses, and they expect to use their Greek studies to accomplish "feats of exegetical prestidigitation" (as one of my professors jokingly described it). Like most students of classical languages, I laboured for hours over a page of text. I planned to parse and interpret every element first, and then when I mastered all of the little bits, I would go back and read through it, understanding everything. And like most students, the task of working through every detail of a page was so demanding that I never had the time nor the inclination to read it through afterwards. My approach now is the opposite: first read through a page in its entirety, then (if necessary) work on the nitty-gritty. There are two resources which I would recommend for improving your reading: 1. Reading Greek by JACT. This course is built around a set of texts of increasing difficulty. They are interesting texts, and they cover a pretty broad spectrum of classical Greek. JACT also has a Reading Latin course, but I don't know anything about it other than the name. In addition, they have audio of some of the readings, and a series of follow-on readers. 2. Harry Potter is available in ancient Greek and Latin. I hear you can also get the second book in Latin. I can't say much yet, but I am going to read the ancient Greek version for the Super Challenge. What I am hoping is that it will be simple enough that the fine grammatical details I might not have mastered will not overly affect the meaning. Reading an extensive and familiar text seems to me to be a good way to get significant reading practice. I also plan to read the New Testament in ancient Greek for the Super Challenge, because it is a familiar text to me. I have probably read (or struggled my way slowly through) about a quarter of it in the past. This time I intend to primarily just read it. Edited by Jeffers on 01 May 2014 at 3:57pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| akkadboy Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5409 days ago 264 posts - 497 votes Speaks: French*, English, Yiddish Studies: Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Welsh | Message 10 of 13 02 May 2014 at 8:52am | IP Logged |
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I can only second what Jeffers has written. At some point (when basic grammar and vocabular are known) extensive reading is the key. Parsing every word doesn't give enough practice and is so dull that one can really lose interest in the language. Reading a lot while still missing 30/50% (or even more) of what is said is not confortable in the beginning but I feel this is the sure way to develop a feel for the language and make grammar stick.
On a side note, I found Harry Potter in Ancient Greek harder than most of the Classical texts... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6660 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 11 of 13 02 May 2014 at 9:47am | IP Logged |
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I can only speak for cuneiform languages – but apart from retired professors, I don't think there are people who can
read cuneiform comfortably. However, that has to do with it being roughly a 2000 year continuum over a large area with a lot of dialectal and timely differences in vocabulary. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 13 02 May 2014 at 10:42am | IP Logged |
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I have read about the horrors of Akkadian Cuneiform, and I noticed that the Sumerian language for which Cuneiform was created wasn't really spoken by people in the cultures which adapted the writing systems. So it must have been a highly specialized skill to read Cuneiform even at the courts and temples of those cultures. In a sense they were in the same situation as the scolars of today, except that they had a reason to produce new texts, and they had a network of collegues with the same skills. The modern scholars may have a network, but I doubt that they have the incentives to learn to write and speak Sumerian, and if they did nobody could understand them.
The situation for scholars within the field of Old stages of Greek is similar, though the network here is probably somewhat larger, and the language is closer to something actually spoken today. Nevertheless Koiné with all its diacritical signs is something certain professions learn to read, but I doubt that anybody alive needs to be able to write it (apart from the retired English professor who translated Harry P). But what goes on in the head of scholars or interested lay people who just learn an old language and its writing system to read the old texts? I learnt Latin through undiluted grammar-translation, and yes I did learn the grammar, a lot of words and I could even read fairly difficult classical texts. But because I didn't also learn to think and write in the language (apart from translations) I never saw Latin as an essential part of my own mind, and because I didn't have a special interest in reading Classical literature my Latin dissipated within a few years after I left the university, where I studied French and other Romance languages. For me it is essential that I can do something actively in my languages - otherwise I just lose interest in them and in the texts I could have been reading. OK, I can read Old Norse, Old French etc. without being able to write them, but here there are living languages which can help me to get through the old texts without too much fuzz. To learn an old language and its writing system just to read things is simply not enough. And learning languages which aren't sufficiently documented to allow for thoughts about space rockets and weird animals and modern politics is something I'll leave for hardcore scholars with an archeological mindset. Even dead languages should be treated as if they were living languages with lots of speakers. If there isn't enough left of a language or if there aren't sufficiently comprehensive dictionaries and grammars and a lot of materials to read then I leave that language to the scholars. And in this respect I'm unlike the archeologists who are fascinated by bits of pottery and slightly miscoloured patches of earth. I am only interested in complete pots and complete houses. The irony is that 'do things actively' doesn't necessarily mean that I have to find real living people I can write or speak to - otherwise I would have dropped Low German and a number of other languages long ago. But it is enough that I can push a button and start thinking in a language, I don't need a recipient, but I need a community which produces dictionaries, grammars and new materials. Edited by Iversen on 02 May 2014 at 11:06am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zografialep Hexaglot Groupie GreeceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4140 days ago 41 posts - 71 votes Speaks: Ancient Greek, Greek*, EnglishC2, GermanB2, Spanish, Latin Studies: Russian | Message 13 of 13 02 May 2014 at 2:21pm | IP Logged |
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I think it's doable, just keep trying!
In Greece there are many people who can do it; it's inevitable here that one studies the ancient language at school and later in uni if they want, so many have achieved a higher level. Our language- modern greek- is also very similar to the ancient one and speaking it helps incredibly. You could try and learn the basics of modern greek for a better understanding of the language, since even though there are some differences,the logic is the same, the vocabulary is the same or similar and modern greek is by far easier. Perhaps by learning a bit you could get better at ancient greek. Also, i don't know your level or what kind of classes you take, but I suggest that you be extra careful on the syntax- this is the hardest part for the greeks at least. It can be very complecated and needs a lot of time to comprehend and master, however once you do this everything is easier. Also very important: while you can always translate with your dictionary, it would help a lot learning the meaning of the most frecuent words, as well as the circumstances that they are used for. Last but not least, keep in mind that many ancient writers/philosophers have their own special way of writing and need extra attention, so before studying them make sure that you know what to look out for, and what abnormalities you could encounter. This particular historician that you chose is considered very hard, along with Plato . The easiest are of Xenofon and perhaps Isokrates. Perhaps you could start by them and see how you do. I hope I've helped somehow! I'm glad that there are people outside of greece learning ancient greek intensively- I don't know if anyone cares, but in greek schools the teachers in order to motivate the children to study they say: come on, people in Netherlands or Germany (or whatever country they know) learn ancient greek even though it's not at all like their native language ,'' it's a shame that you don't want to'' (our teacher points that out all the time :P) - people are very happy and surprised that someone would bother , so if you came in greece they'd treat you like a hero haha :P Anyway, sorry for my stupid stories, I hope something actually makes sense and helps you! keep trying and I'm sure you'll do it! Edited by zografialep on 02 May 2014 at 4:44pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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