Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yohanan bin-Dawidh" <yohanan.bin.dawidh AT gmail.com>]

Peter,

I am not actually a speaker of Koine Greek, and admit that what I am stating
could be complete nonsense per se, for it is information that I have come
across over the years reading articles posted to JSTOR by various professed
scholars.

Yohanan bin-Dawidh

P.S. Since I cannot verify my knowledge on this subject, since I truly do
not speak the language I will cease to be a part of the discussion on this
dialect of the Greek language.


On 4/14/07, Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org> wrote:
> On 14/04/2007 21:22, Yohanan bin-Dawidh wrote:
> > Dear Harold,
> >
> > Note that this cited text from Wikipedia refers to Koine Greek as
> > Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Common or New Testament, and states that it is
> the
> > Greek dialect that arose within the Meditteranean, i.e. mainly Semitic
> > lands, where Semitic language was spoken, and thus a dialect of
> > Greek/Semitic language arose. This reminds of the perversions of Yiddish
> and
> > Ladino that my people speak, which are dialects of Hebrew mixed with
> other
> > languages.  It is likewise reported that Koine while taking from Semitic
> > languages also carries Latin variants within. Basically, it is trash
> talk,
> > as testified to by those who spokeAttic Greek.
> >
> >
> Yohanan, do you actually know any Koine Greek? Can you read it? Do you
> know what proportion of Semitic, or Latin, words are found in typical
> texts? Do you really have any evidence to suggest that it is a mixed
> language of the time you claim? It was indeed a mixture of Greek
> dialects, but not of Greek and Semitic, except for a rather small number
> of Semitic loan words. Yes, the intellectual snobs who still tried to
> speak Attic, rather like some people today who claim to speak
> Shakespearean English but don't, looked down on the common people who
> spoke a less literary dialect.
>
> --
> Peter Kirk
> E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
> Blog:    http://www.qaya.org/blog/
> Website: http://www.qaya.org/