Homeric Greek Thread Part 2

[GreekBro !!wQsIW8gjueQ No.4022211]

Looks like the old thread 404'd. For those who don't know some of us are working through Pharr's textbook on Homeric Greek, then reading the Iliad. Pretty sure there are only two of us who have been doing it from the start and haven't missed any days, but there are more behind.

The textbook is here, among other places:
http://books.google.com/books/about/Homeric_Greek.html?id=C3gKAAAAIAAJ

A website for typing Greek:
www.typegreek.com

A good flashcard program:
ankisrs.net

Today those of us who have been at it from the start learn the medio-passive imperfect indicative and the middle aorist indicative of λύω, plus a little more vocabulary and we read Chryses' entreaty to the Greeks.

I really like how Pharr has you read so soon. It makes the vocabulary MUCH easier to remember when you can anchor it to a line of the Iliad. I usually write keep a list of all the words from the past few lessons and just read it over frequently at work. Grammar is one thing but vocabulary is really the lynchpin for learning any language.

[Anonymous No.4022224]

Would it be cheaper to print at Kinko's for 8 cents/page or to print it at home and pay for the ink? I can't stand reading off of a screen.

[GreekBro !!wQsIW8gjueQ No.4022237]

>>4022224

Print it at home I'd imagine. 8 cents a page is pretty damn expensive, I doubt a page takes 8 cents' worth or ink and it certainly doesn't take that much paper. You can also order it on amazon. But it's a shitty reprint, a couple of bits of a couple of pages are absolutely illegible and I have to refer to online versions to make them out.

[Anonymous No.4022243]

>>4022237
Alright, I'll print it tomorrow and join in then. Hopefully I can get this down.

[Anonymous No.4022248]

I just began learning Greek for a goal not far off from this.

[Anonymous No.4022272]

More like Homo-erotic!
>am I right?

[Anonymous No.4022309]

This is amazing, I was about to try to learn greek, i'll be following along.

[GreekBro !!wQsIW8gjueQ No.4022330]

>>4022309

Homer's definitely the way to go. Besides the fact that his ideas are literally essential to all later Greek thought, being familiar with the Homeric dialect and Homeric vocabulary will make reading non-Attic writers, like Sappho, a hell of a lot easier, and all poets are more or less influenced by him.

[Anonymous No.4022336]

>>4022272
Is there a Homer Sexual here?

[Anonymous No.4022339]

>>4022330
Reading Pharr's introduction... I'm mainly concerned with reading the Illiad, Plato, and the New Testament, and Pharr's just sold me completely on why Homer is the best starting point for that.

Does this group have any formal scheduling?

[GreekBro !!wQsIW8gjueQ No.4022349]

One issue that was brought up in the last thread but not really resolved is where to buy a good Greek edition of the Iliad that's affordable. There's always the Loeb but if I'm buying my own book I like it to have nothing but Greek/Latin, a commentary/lexicon in the back is acceptable though.

[GreekBro !!wQsIW8gjueQ No.4022351]

>>4022339

Nah not really, we've been doing one lesson a day but some people have taken days off, some have skipped review days and hence gotten ahead, etc. so we're all at different spots.

[GreekBro !!wQsIW8gjueQ No.4022360]

>>4022339

One caveat about Pharr is that his grammar is pretty "hardcore" for an introductory book. His style is abrupt and dense. Lots of philological information is provided which one doesn't need to memorize, though it's useful to be familiar with the concepts. He definitely wrote it under the belief that people would already be familiar with Latin before they started, so he doesn't spend time explaining, say, what a "perfect" tense is, and all the other basic info you'd learn your first few months of Latin. But obviously you can just ask questions here.

[GreekBro !!wQsIW8gjueQ No.4023861]

Evening bump, I barely did anything with vocab today but I'll definitely study before I go to bed.

[GreekBro !!wQsIW8gjueQ No.4024142]

Shit that google books version has a lot of lacunae. In some places the edition I own is better, in some worse. So if anyone wants me to fill in some gaps just ask. You can also check the textkit version; I think there's yet another one somewhere else. So by comparing all three you should be able to overcome the missing words.

[GreekBro !!wQsIW8gjueQ No.4024995]

And morning bump, perfect and pluperfect active of thematic verbs today.

Here's a question for anyone who already knows Greek:

How come the perfect system of βαίνω goes βέβηκα, βέβηκας, βέβηκε in the singular but βέβατον, βέβατον and βέβαμεν, βέβατε, βεβάασι/βεβήκασι in the dual/plural?

[GreekBro !!wQsIW8gjueQ No.4025052]

>>4024995

Ah I think I got it thanks to Smyth.

βαίνω has a first perfect in the singular and a second perfect in the dual/plural.

[GreekBro !!wQsIW8gjueQ No.4026512]

Evening bump.

[Anonymous No.4026640]

Stupid question: is there any harm in me picking up a 100 year old edition of the Iliad (Monro)? Will there me mistakes in the transposition of the greek or anything? I've no idea if we've had new, revised homeric greek text in the past century or not.

[Anonymous No.4026755]

>>4026640

Nah there will be minor differences but nothing major. They're all pretty substantially based on the same manuscript which has been around for over a thousand years.

There are minor differences but rarely do they effect the sense and if they do only in a very small way.

For example I noticed Pharr has in one place λῦσαι τε but my Oxford edition of the first few books of the Iliad (which I forgot I had) has λύσαιτε. They mean exactly the same thing, just one is optative and one infinitive, but they're both iussive.

If you're going to buy a book you should definitely buy a hardcopy of Pharr.

[Anonymous No.4026776]

Still reading muh Plautus as well. I'm on the Epidicus. I don't really care for it. The plot is pretty damn complex even for New Comedy. There's no prologue (in my undereducated opinion there might have once been one that's now lost, I can't imagine a rowdy Roman audience following it without one), and there are serious loose ends/plot holes left over from Plautus' editing of the Greek original.

I didn't really like the Curculio either (just forgettable and not very funny) or the Cistellaria (too fragmentary and not very funny). The Casina was bretty gud but the funniest part of the whole play when the overseer describes his encounter with the supposited bride is almost entirely lost.

[Anonymous No.4027950]

Morning bump. Today we're learning all the forms of the infinitives, more vocab, and reading a bit.

[Anonymous No.4028466]

Sed Romanes sunt meliores quam Graeci.

[Anonymous No.4029173]

>>4028466

I love Latin as much as the next guy but the Greeks have a way broader range of interesting writings than the Latins do.

Evening bump. I was wondering about why in this line

ἔνθ' ἄλλοι μὲν πάντες ἐπευφήμησαν Ἀχαιοὶ
αἰδεῖσθαί θ' ἱερῆα καὶ ἀγλαὰ δέχθαι ἄποινα ·

they have δέχθαι instead of δέγθαι but the gamma becomes a chi to better go with the theta of the infinitive, according to Smyth.

[Anonymous No.4029419]

http://archive.org/details/homericgreekabo01phargoog

Here is the best online version I've found. The pages are in better shape than the hardcopy I know. MUCH better than the google books linked in the OP.

I'm pretty pumped because I picked up a night shift tonight so work will be dead and I'll have a few hours to just memorize my paradigms over and over. Just chant them in my head again and again, write them out over and over until they're second nature.

Pharr's commentary is lacking in some places (i.e. no explanation of what form ἔπεισιν is in line 29 when we haven't learned -μι verbs yet, no explanation of how the μή νύ τοι οὐ χραίσμῃ σκῆπτρον works in line 28, since it's not an order or a wish, etc.)

Anyone know any good old commentaries in English we might be able to find online?

[Anonymous No.4029509]

>>4029173
Qui videt multum fructum in versibus latinis sed non in Greacis nimium erat, quod litterae Graecae leguntur in omnibus fere gentibus, sed Latinus in finibus suis continetur.....

[Anonymous No.4029516]

>Learning Homeric instead of glorious Attic dialect

ISHYGDDT

[Anonymous No.4029678]

>>4029509

You're missing an "r" in "erat" and that's not even how the sentence goes. I believe you're posting from some student abridgment of the Pro Archia?

Nam si quis minorem gloriae fructum putat ex Graecis versibus percipi quam ex Latinis, vehementer errat: propterea quod Graeca leguntur in omnibus fere gentibus, Latina suis finibus, exiguis sane, continentur. Qua re si res eae quas gessimus orbis terrae regionibus definiuntur, cupere debemus, quo manuum nostrarum tela pervenerint, eodem gloriam famamque penetrare.

For if anyone thinks there less glory is attained from Greek poetry than Latin, he errs violently. For Greek is read by nearly all nations, while Latin is confined to its own boundaries, meager indeed. Therefore if the deeds which we do are bounded by all the regions of the earth, we ought to desire that our glory and fame should reach as far as the spears of our soldiers.

It literally means the opposite of what you think it means, if I understand your post correctly.

Pleb as fuck.

[Anonymous No.4029733]

>>4029678

All trolling/flaming aside though there's just MORE of Greek literature. I think a dedicated student could work through the entire corpus of classical Latin literature in a matter of years, but to do that with Greek would take a lifetime.

If you don't care for Lucretius, Vergil, Catullus, Horace or Ovid you're pretty much SOL as far as golden-age Latin poetry goes. If you don't care for Cicero you're SOL for oratory. Etc.

I wonder why so much more Greek literature survived than Latin? Anyone care to weigh in?

[Anonymous No.4029943]

>>4029678
Oh wow, you're cool.

[Anonymous No.4030651]

I realized why δέχθαι is missing a sigma - sigmas between consonants disappear.

[Anonymous No.4030857]

>>4029678

I like the cut of your jib.

[Anonymous No.4031980]

The infinitives and participles really aren't that bad. The hardest for me to remember is the perfect active infinitive (which doesn't even occur in Homer): λελυκέμεν

[Anonymous No.4033524]

One more anon reporting in. Currently at the second lesson.

[Anonymous No.4033533]

>>4029943

>getting this asspained

why would you do this you should be used to getting rekt by now don't cry bitch nigga

[Anonymous No.4033717]

Morning bump. I'm hung over as a MOTHERFUCKER and I have to work so I don't know how much I'll get done today but I will try.

[Anonymous No.4033725]

Δυλξε ετ δεξορυμ εστ προ πατρια μορι

[Anonymous No.4033745]

>>4033725

You... you... DOUBLE NIGGER

[Anonymous No.4033749]

>>4029516
Theyre pretty similar, in my high school they teach attic for two years then go to homer. I agree though, attic is a lot better.
> muh contractions

[Anonymous No.4033761]

>>4033725
Ευγε! Ινυενιο υερπαμ μεαμ!

Σαλυε, Γρυμιο! Υισνε μεαμ υερπαμ γυσταρε; Μοδο ιδ ινυενι!

[Anonymous No.4033775]

Τηε Ιλιαδ

Βοοκ 1

ΑΡΓΥΜΕΝΤ

Απολλο'ς πριεστ το τηε αργιϝε φλεετ δοτη βρινγ
Γιφτς φορ ηις δαυγητερ, πρισονερ το τηε κινγ

[Anonymous No.4033937]

>>4033725
i like you

[Anonymous No.4034963]

Evening bump. I'm really enjoying the Menaechmi.

[Anonymous No.4035357]

One thing I wonder about Homer is why he uses the imperfect so much. Granted I'm only like 40 lines in, but check this out:

βῆ δ᾽ ἀκέων παρὰ θῖνα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης:
πολλὰ δ᾽ ἔπειτ᾽ ἀπάνευθε κιὼν ἠρᾶθ᾽ ὃ γεραιὸς
Ἀπόλλωνι ἄνακτι, τὸν ἠΰκομος τέκε Λητώ:

Why ἠρᾶθ and not ἠράσατο?

Anybody who knows greek care to weigh in?

Why

[Anonymous No.4035587]

>>4035357
I don't know much Greek but I know that Latin often uses an imperfect tense when we would use the perfect.