Modern Greek For Classicists

Ilias Kolokouris's Modern Greek for Classicists is a reading companion for those who have already had some exposure to the Greek world - be it a solid foundation in Ancient Greek, some knowledge of the Greek alphabet acquired while studying Latin, or even just a few set phrases memorized to communicate with locals during a trip to Greece. This book aims to build upon such foundations to expand access to the fascinating culture, literature, and society of Modern Greece. Modern Greek for Classicists is structured as a graded reader, with fictional narratives in Modern Greek, followed by comprehension and discussion questions designed to facilitate language acquisition. Each dialogue has a limited set of vocabulary, and the grammar moves from the more simple to the more complex. Animated videos accompany and expand upon the main story. How does this book teach Modern Greek? Incremental repetition and progressively more complex readings play a key role in our pedagogical approach. We believe that, when highly motivated learners are given confidence in their abilities and an environment with low levels of anxiety, they will be better equipped for success in second language acquisition. This is why we want each lesson to be a playful, enjoyable activity. Most importantly, this book is designed to feel yours. You can read it at your own pace, whenever and wherever you prefer, with whomever you wish. As you go on to use this book, you will notice that learning Modern Greek is both feasible and inspiring.

Taken from The Common Reader, these essays take the form of a series of reflections on diverse literary topics, brought to life by Woolf' s extensive knowledge, lively wit, and piercing insight. "For it is vain and foolish to talk of knowing Greek, since in our ignorance we should be at the bottom of any class of schoolboys, since we do not know how the words sounded, or where precisely we ought to laugh, or how the actors acted, and between this foreign people and ourselves there is not only difference of race and tongue but a tremendous breach of tradition."

Excerpt from A Guide to Modern Greek But it has another, and, if possible, a still stronger recommendation to our notice. Ten years ago I stated in my book The Modern Greek Language in its relation to Ancient Greek (published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, in that Modern Greek is nothing but Ancient Greek made easy. Constant study and con verse with Greeks since that period have but served to confirm me in the opinion that that statement is literally correct. But if so, what follows? Why, that the study of Modern Greek is the true key to the mastery of the. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Standard Languages and Language Standards: Greek, Past and Present is a collection of essays with a distinctive focus and an unusual range. It brings together scholars from different disciplines, with a variety of perspectives, linguistic and literary, historical and social, to address issues of control, prescription, planning and perceptions of value over the long history of the Greek language, from the age of Homer to the present day. Under particular scrutiny are the processes of establishing a standard and the practices and ideologies of standardization. The diverse points of reference include: the Hellenistic koine and the literary classics of modern Greece; lexicography in late antiquity and today; Byzantine Greek, Pontic Greek and cyber-Greek; contested educational initiatives and competing understandings of the Greek language; the relation of linguistic study to standardization and the logic of a standard language. The aim of this ambitious project is not a comprehensive chronological survey or an exhaustive analysis. Rather, the editors have set out to provide a series of informed overviews and snapshots of telling cases that both illuminate the history of the Greek language and explore the nature of language standardization itself. The volume will be important for students and scholars of the Greek language, past and present, and, beyond the Greek example, for sociolinguists, historians and social scientists with interests in the role of language in the construction of identities.

With the publication of Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, widely considered a classic in Modern Greek studies and in collateral fields, Margaret Alexiou established herself as a major intellectual innovator on the interconnections among ancient, medieval, and modern Greek cultures. In her new, eagerly awaited book, Alexiou looks at how language defines the contours of myth and metaphor. Drawing on texts from the New Testament to the present day, Alexiou shows the diversity of the Greek language and its impact at crucial stages of its history on people who were not Greek. She then stipulates the relatedness of literary and "folk" genres, and assesses the importance of rituals and metaphors of the life cycle in shaping narrative forms and systems of imagery.Alexiou places special emphasis on Byzantine literary texts of the sixth and twelfth centuries, providing her own translations where necessary; modern poetry and prose of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and narrative songs and tales in the folk tradition, which she analyzes alongside songs of the life cycle. She devotes particular attention to two genres whose significance she thinks has been much underrated: the tales (paramythia) and the songs of love and marriage.In exploring the relationship between speech and ritual, Alexiou not only takes the Greek language into account but also invokes the neurological disorder of autism, drawing on clinical studies and her own experience as the mother of autistic identical twin sons.

Publisher description

The question of Modern Greek identity is certainly timely. The political events of the previous years have once more brought up such questions as: What does it actually mean to be a Greek today? What is Modern Greece, apart from and beyond the bulk of information that one would find in an encyclopaedia and the established stereotypes? This volume delves into the timely nature of these questions and provides answers not by referring to often-cited classical Antiquity, nor by treating Greece as merely and exclusively a modern nation-state. Rather, it approaches the subject in a kaleidoscopic way, by tracing the line from the Byzantine Empire to Modern Greek culture, society, philosophy, literature and politics. In presenting the diverse and certainly non-dominant approaches of a multitude of Greek scholars, it provides new insights into a diachronic problem, and will encourage new arguments and counterarguments. Despite commonly held views among Greek intelligentsia or the worldwide community, Modern Greek identity remains an open question – and wound.