Manuel Harlan Royal National Theatre -- The Bacchae: a role model for the aspiring Hellenist
Posted on 06/26/2008 10:49:54 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
At first sight, the statistics are positively wine-dark. As part of school education, countries may maintain it in theory but rarely in practice. Portuguese pupils have it as an option in their final year; in Sweden fewer than 100 schoolchildren study it, in Belgium around 800. In Britain, of a mere 241 entrants for Greek A-level (typically taken at 18) in 2007, fully 226 were from independent (private) schools... Though some classics departments in the United States have had to close or merge, the number of students enrolled in Greek has been going up since the 1990s. In 2006 fully 22,849 took some Greek (32,191 studied Latin). Applications for classics courses at top British universities are healthy too... Christianity, rather than the glories of Athens and the horrors of Sparta, may be proving the biggest draw... In America, Greek and Hebrew are standard parts of a Master of Divinity degree -- necessary to become a minister in most respectable Protestant denominations... While the koine Greek current in the eastern Mediterranean in the 1st century AD is different from the Attic, Ionian or Homeric dialects used in the greatest works of classical literature, it is also considerably easier... The real threat is not modernity, but globalisation. Europe's glorious past is one of many: when those seeking to understand China start studying Confucius's "Analects" with the same attention that past generations have paid to Pericles, the intricacies of the aorist optative may finally lose their charms. But not just yet.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
Manuel Harlan Royal National Theatre -- The Bacchae: a role model for the aspiring Hellenist
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I couldn't find the article from a while back (probably two to three years) regarding the decline in enrollment in various classical languages and lit etc. |
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I discovered one way that someone who knows how to read koinea Greek could make some money and help deal with those pesky Jehovah’s Witnesses that come to our door.
The way to do it is to take 10 innocuous passages from the new testament (or however many are decided is the best way to go) and 10 passages that relate directly to the Deity of Christ. If the Greek afficianado can translate the 10 innocuous passages correctly, then the other 10 passages would be correctly translated. This document could be published on the web for everyone to see and we can all compare the two translations side-by-side and see for ourselves which one is correct.
:’)
Speaking koina allows one to give complex etymological explanation to commoners and to sound as condescending as desired.
;-)
When I graduated from Columbia in 1961 (gasp!) our Valetorian, John Vaio, the only classics major in the class, gave his address in Greek and Latin.
It was widely reported to be the first time in modern academic history that a commencement address was presented in the classic languages although it was de riguer in the 19th Century and prior.
Of course, the class understoond nothing so we were given a sheet with the translation. The first line didn’t need translating: “O homos miseres Harvardianos!” (O miserable men of Harvard!)
At this point we all cheered so the address got off to a resounding success. :-)
One of the few regrets of my life is that I never had the opportunity to study Greek.
p.s. I toured the replica of the Parthenon in Nashville yesterday. The statue of Athena is quite impressive.
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