Mathman's Question 1
Doris, here is something that I always wanted to know. Is ancient Greek about the same as modern Greek, or is it much different? Would a twenty-first century Greek citizen be able to pick up Plato in the original and read it, or would it be like an English-speaking person trying to read Beowulf?
I am curious about this because when the Rosetta tone was discovered, and one of the languages was Greek, this immediately broke the code of Egypian hieroglyphics. So people must have had no problem with the Greek. Or was it just professional scholars who could read it by that time.
Mathman, I can't speak for what a 21st century Greek person can read or not. But when I could actually read ancient Greek, I couldn't do much with modern Greek newspapers. It is likely that modern Greek students learn Plato, but whether it is easier for them than Beowolf is for us, I don't know.
In fact, ancient Greek is an interesting course, because there were many dialects. They teach you Grimm's law to help you sort out the differences. Yes this is the Brothers Grimm as in fairy tales:
Pi beta phi
Kappa Gamma Chi
Tau Delta Theta
If you don't recognize a word, you know that dialectic changes tend to occur according to Grimm's law.
For example, consider the Latin and German words for brother:
Frater Bruder
Your law says that an f (ph) may morph to a B (and it did)
Your law says that a T may morph to a d (and it did)
Note that vowels slide around a lot. (And even in our supposedly standardized world, the vowels of a Kennedy and the vowels of a Carter are not too close!)
The version of ancient Greek sung by Homer is enough different from the version of ancient Greek written by Plato that you have to buy 2 different dictionaries for the courses. To point this up, Homer had and used the digamma (essentially a W/V) and Plato didn't. Even the alphabet was different! And that isn't the only difference, obviously.
The Spartans had a different enough dialect that when an Athenian was writing a comedy about Spartans, he deliberately did the dialect, which British translaters generally translate the Spartans as having a Scotch accent.
As to the Rosetta stone, it was translated by a language prodigy named Champolion, a Frenchman. The demotic Greek was a form of ancient Greek well known and well studied by scholars all over, as it came from an era where many many manuscripts had survived. Whether demotic Greek was readable by a 21st century Greek person, again, I can't say. 20 years ago, I could read it. Certainly the British were fervent studiers of ancient Greek in the era that the Rosetta stone was found. Every school boy knew the stuff.
I don't know if that really answers the question, but I hope it helps.
Doris
