From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Dec 13 1999 - 17:43:46 EST
At 4:45 PM -0600 12/13/99, George F. Somsel wrote:
>"Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu> writes
>
><<Smyth's _Greek Grammar_ is unquestionable the best reference grammar for
>classical Attic Greek in English, but it is decidedly NOT a textbook from
>which to learn Attic.>>
>
>Perhaps, but I'm assuming that a knowledge of Greek (Koine) already exists.
> In that case, all that needs to be done is to sit down with a text, a
>grammar (such as Smyth), and a lexicon (Liddell & Scott). A little hard
>work and voila! Account for every form. (I remember being up until 3:00
>A.M. every morning with Smyth while reading Homer and Plato).
I remember doing that too, and although I don't really regret that my first
year of Greek was NT Koine, I remember the struggle of coping with Homer as
a sophomore in college and with Aristotle and Sophocles as a junior. Of
course it's all the same language, but it is a lot easier to familiarize
oneself with distinct features of NT Koine than to begin with NT Koine and
then go backwards; it will be a struggle, I think, for anyone who ever does
it. And although one can do it with Smyth, I think one is likely to acquire
it a lot quicker by working through a regular Attic Greek beginning
textbook--after all, that's nothing like starting Greek from scratch; one
discovers that there really IS a lot that one already knows--but things
like the optative and the range of usages of participles and infinitives
and subjunctives fall more easily into context if one grasps them as part
of a whole structure that is coming together at once in one's mind and
reading practice.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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