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Modern Greek, Koine Greek and Ancient Grk | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| benzionisrael Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4656 days ago 79 posts - 142 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese, SpanishB2 | Message 1 of 8 15 April 2012 at 2:54am | IP Logged | ||
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Recently I have considered studying modern Greek along with Serbo-Croatian.
I would like to ask how much transparency or diference exists between Modern Greek, Koine Greek and Ancient Greek? Without doubt I will opt of study modern Greek, but at the same time I have interest in the previous forms of the Greek language for their literary value. If I am not mistaken, Koine Greek is the language in which the New Testament is written and therefore is the form of Greek one would learn in a theology seminar, whereas Ancient Greek, an older form, is the language of the Greek classics. How transparent are these three forms of the Greek language? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4835 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 2 of 8 15 April 2012 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am not an expert on Greek, but as far as I know the transparency between the different forms of Greek is rather limited. It might not be a problem to understand a New Testament text written in Koine Greek if you have a good foundation in Ancient Greek, but I don't know if this is true the other way round. Koine Greek has a tendency towards simplifying the morphology and the syntax of Ancient Greek, so you would have trouble reading Plato only on the basis of Koine Greek.
This is even more true for Modern Greek (in the Dimotiki variant). It has taken a lot of Turkish and Bulgarian loanwords during the Ottoman occupation of Greece (e. g. ψάρι instead of ἰχθύς for 'fish'), and the grammar has been massively simplified (e. g. abolition of the infinitive). I do not think it is possible to understand Aristotle and the other classics with a knowledge solely of Modern Greek. Even the New Testament might not be transparent for a learner of Modern Greek. You might recognize some familiar words but the meaning of the sentences would not be clear to you as there would be a lot of words and grammatical forms you are not used to. As already mentioned, I am not an expert on the development of Greek. Maybe Iversen or someone else can give more information on this topic. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mezzofanti Octoglot Senior Member Australia mezzoguild.com Joined 4739 days ago 51 posts - 112 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Arabic (classical), Arabic (Egyptian), Irish, Arabic (Levantine) Studies: Korean, Georgian, French | Message 3 of 8 16 April 2012 at 3:42am | IP Logged | ||
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I studied Koine Greek for years myself and I'm considering taking up Modern Greek this year.
What I can tell you is that I tried reading the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible which is believed to have been written a few centuries before the NT) and I had trouble understanding it. I haven't looked at Ancient Greek (many more centuries before the Septuagint but I'm assuming it's vastly different). Also it's incorrect to think of Koine Greek solely as "New Testament Greek". Don't forget it was the global lingua franca for centuries at one of the most significant periods of human history. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4900 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 4 of 8 17 April 2012 at 9:41pm | IP Logged | ||
Your final sentence made me think of the classical syllogism: all dogs are mammals, all mammals are animals, therefore all dogs are animals. It would be wrong, however, to conclude that all animals are mammals, or all mammals are dogs. All New Testament Greek is Koine Greek, but not all Koine Greek is NT Greek. Koine means common, by the way. Anyway, I started my Greek studies with Attic Greek, and then turned to NT Greek. In one sense, it is the same language, but it is true that there are structures and forms which became less common by the time of the New Testament. In order to broaden my study of Koine, I have read some books from the Septuagint, as well as dabbling in letters of common people from a volume of selected papyri. In my experience, it was not difficult moving from one to the other. However, if you only study NT Greek, then it would certainly be difficult to move on to other forms of Greek, simply for the reason that the NT is a limited corpus. It would be like if you learned French only from attending football matches, reading football news, etc. To comment on the OP's question, there is a fair amount of transparency between Ancient Greek and Koine Greek. I would imagine there is less between them and modern Greek, simply because a lot more time has passed, but I have no personal experience of modern Greek (except for attempts to read the Greek parts of labels on food from Lidl!) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sipes23 Diglot Senior Member United States pluteopleno.com/wprs Joined 4861 days ago 134 posts - 235 votes Speaks: English*, Latin Studies: Spanish, Ancient Greek, Persian | Message 5 of 8 18 April 2012 at 12:39am | IP Logged | ||
This is probably the key. The New Testament, no matter your opinion about it, is a limited corpus. From Ancient Greek to NT Greek is not a problem. The changes are not difficult. Loss of the optative seems big— so far as I can tell. I'm sure with a decently annotated intermediate reader, a good student of NT Greek could get through Ancient Greek. Here's an analogy that may work: think along the lines of English literature from the 17th Century as a stand in for Ancient Greek and modern popular fiction for NT Greek. Both are pretty clearly the same language, but there are marked differences in style, vocabulary and grammar. To add to the anecdotal evidence: Most Modern Greek is impenetrable to me. There are some really strong signposts for me—the article for one. Some vocabulary looks pretty obvious, but I'm certain false friends between Ancient and Modern exist. None of this means I can follow it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Luk Triglot Groupie Argentina Joined 5326 days ago 91 posts - 127 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English, French Studies: Italian, German, Mandarin, Greek | Message 7 of 8 20 April 2012 at 12:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm currently learning Modern Greel myself. I use Assimil Le nouveau grec san peine for now.
mitsos: Do you know of a site where I can find movies or TV shows with English subtitles? I know of some sites but no subtitles are avaiable. How about magazines or books in modern greek? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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