[B-Greek] Rules for reading Latin perhaps applicable to Greek

frjsilver at optonline.net frjsilver at optonline.net
Sat Mar 3 08:19:05 EST 2007


Hear!  Hear!

To paraphrase what someone wrote me not long ago:  It's unhelpful to do an autopsy on fragments of a dead language and expect them to mean anything.

Greek is not a dead language, anyway.

Let's go for the meaning first, and see how the grammar *assists* the meaning -- not how the grammar *makes* the meaning.

Father James Silver

Monk James
Orthodox Church in America

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl W. Conrad" 
Date: Saturday, March 3, 2007 6:32 am
Subject: [B-Greek] Rules for reading Latin perhaps applicable to Greek
To: B-Greek 

> I've just come across a downloadable PDF poster entitled "Rules 
> for 
> Reading Latin Prose" from _Latin: How to Read it Fluently_ by 
> Dexter 
> B. Hoyos. The poster can be downloaded at 
> http://www.txclassics.org/ 
> rulesposter.pdf , the book itself ( 58 p.) is available for 
> $7.00 at 
> http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~glawall/cane.htm (scroll down to 
> the 
> section entitled "Pedagogy."
> 
> I haven't read it, but judging from the "Rules" set forth on 
> that PDF 
> poster, I would guess that this might be an inexpensive and 
> useful 
> resource for students of Greek: most of the principles would be 
> the 
> same, I think.
> 
> I'm not trying to promote the book so much as one theme that it 
> evidently states very clearly. I particularly approve of Rule 
> #5: “If 
> translating, translate only when you have seen exactly how the 
> sentence works and what it means. Sub-rule: Do not translate in 
> order 
> to find out what the sentence means. Understand first, then 
> translate.” It is abundantly evident that much of the teaching 
> of 
> Ancient Greek -- perhaps especially the teaching of Biblical 
> Greek -- 
> has focused on translating MORe than on understanding, perhaps 
> on 
> translating RATHER THAN on understanding. So also the resources 
> employed -- grammars, word-lists or "shorter lexica" seem 
> focused 
> upon the reformulation of a Biblical text in English (not 
> necessarily 
> intelligible English) -- or some other target language.
> 
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
> 1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
> cwconrad2 at mac.com
> WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
> 
> 
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> 


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