# Do modern Greeks understand ancient Greek texts?



## klemen

Do modern Greeks understand ancient Greek texts without learning ancient Greek? How similar are modern and ancient Greek?


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## Perseas

Maybe they(we) could understand some words or small phrases, but that's all. If you prefer a simple yes or no, I 'd say no.
Here's a similar thread.


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## apmoy70

Depends on one's education, the problem is not only vocabulary (a large chunk of the inherited words in the modern language from the ancient, have changed meaning), IMHO the major difference is syntax


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## Iraklakos

I would also say that the vast majority of Greeks don't really understand ancient Greek texts, due to the reasons already mentioned.


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## Nikolaos_Kandidatos

Even university students of philology tend to have problems and prefer to read translations, tackling the original texts only or mostly only when required to do so.


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## apmoy70

Please bear in mind that we're talking about the Classical language of 5th-4th c. BCE; the later language of the Christian New Testament & Gospels in particular (the epistles is another subject), is alot easier (my grandmother who was practically illiterate, was able to grasp any passage from any of the four Gospels, if not to understand it to the last detail, to convey its core meaning)


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## Polyvius

I  understand quite well an ancient text in attic or koine. I may need to consult a dictionary for some words. I am not a philologist and the likes. I got a good education in primary and secondary school because I was there before 1980's. After that period, pupils were oriented to read cartoons rather than Thukydides.


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## fdb

klemen said:


> Do modern Greeks understand ancient Greek texts without learning ancient Greek?



I would say: no. But most Greek do learn at least some Classical Greek in school. So, as apmoy said, it depends on their education.



klemen said:


> How similar are modern and ancient Greek?



Roughly as similar as Latin and Italian. Italian is more conservative than Modern Greek in terms of *phonology*, but Modern Greek is probably more conservative in terms of *morphology* (e.g. retention of the case system).


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## apmoy70

apmoy70 said:


> Please bear in mind that we're talking about the Classical language of 5th-4th c. BCE; the later language of the Christian New Testament & Gospels in particular (the epistles is another subject), is alot easier (my grandmother who was practically illiterate, was able to grasp any passage from any of the four Gospels, if not to understand it to the last detail, to convey its core meaning)


It's bare of course, and not "bear" (duhh)


fdb said:


> Roughly as similar as Latin and Italian. Italian is _more conservative than Modern Greek in terms of morphology_, but Modern Greek is _probably more conservative in terms of morphology_ (e.g. retention of the case system).


The use of the contrast conjunction "but" confuses things, did you mean something different?


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## fdb

apmoy70 said:


> It's bare of course, and not "bear" (duhh)
> 
> The use of the contrast conjunction "but" confuses things, did you mean something different?



Sorry, I have corrected my typo, and highlighted what I was trying to say.


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## Pedro y La Torre

To try and compare to English, would ancient Greek be as different from modern Greek as Old English is from Modern English (I presume not) - or would it be more like early Middle English versus Modern?


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## fdb

The time difference between Classical Greek and Modern Greek is of course much greater than that between Old English and Modern English. Nonetheless, I would surely say that in the latter case the lingusitic difference is considerably greater. Languages do not change at the same speed. The relative conservatism of Greek (and also of Italian) has at least partially to do with the fact that the Greek and Roman classics were constantly read and studied by educated people in Greece and Italy respectively, so there is a constant interplay between the classical and modern language. In England, however, no one ever read Old English texts until the Romantic movement of the 19th century.


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## Eltheza

apmoy70 said:


> Please *bear* in mind that we're talking about the Classical language of 5th-4th c. BCE; the later language of the Christian New Testament & Gospels in particular (the epistles is another subject), is a lot easier (my grandmother who was practically illiterate, was able to grasp any passage from any of the four Gospels, if not to understand it to the last detail, to convey its core meaning)



That's really interesting! 

*bear *is correct!


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## klemen

fdb said:


> The time difference between Classical Greek and Modern Greek is of course much greater than that between Old English and Modern English. Nonetheless, I would surely say that in the latter case the lingusitic difference is considerably greater. Languages do not change at the same speed. The relative conservatism of Greek (and also of Italian) has at least partially to do with the fact that the Greek and Roman classics were constantly read and studied by educated people in Greece and Italy respectively, so there is a constant interplay between the classical and modern language. In England, however, no one ever read Old English texts until the Romantic movement of the 19th century.


When classical Greek existed (5 - 4 th century BC, proto Germanic still existed and branches of Germanic languages are totally mutually unintelligible today). Thus, it isn't as comparing old English to modern English, but proto Germanic to today's Germanic languages. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Germanic_language)


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## Scholiast

χαῖρετ᾽ ὦ φίλοι



> The relative conservatism of Greek (and also of Italian) has at least partially to do with the fact that the Greek and Roman classics were constantly read and studied by educated people in Greece and Italy



This is perfectly true, but in the case of Greek, the constant recital of the New Testament κοινή in liturgical contexts gave it a longevity not granted to anything comparable in OE or Latin. Cf. apmoy's #6 in the thread.

Σ


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## fdb

Was not Latin used in liturgical contexts in the lands of the Western Church?


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## Scholiast

Greetings again



> Was not Latin used in liturgical contexts in the lands of the Western Church?



Of course it was. But as fdb well knows, Latin was never a biblical language, and in the Latin west, it was a couple of centuries before Jerome and Tertullian were able to manufacture a scriptural and doctrinal corpus of biblical or doctrinal _Stoff_ in Latin, whereas the die was cast already for the Greek New Testament (despite, of course, fringe argie-bargie over the "Shepherd of Hermas", "Gospel of Thomas" &c.).

From the point of view therefore of historical linguistics, there is a crucial hiatus or caesura for the Latin West which does not apply to the orthodox East.

And that's before we even begin on the language of Roman Christians...

Σ


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## Saucetray

Yes and no. If you are born in America such as myself, you do not learn Ancient Greek. As my friends however, they are required to take at least one year of Ancient Greek in high school. No one really uses it or cares... It's because their cultural archives from the ancient era are all in Ancient Greek... so It's best to keep the language going. Greek today is more simplistic, with only one accent(exceptions). So it's annoying and hard to learn. Greek tutors for languages is very big there.


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## marco.sinese

Hi all, I am new here.

A pair of years ago I read an ancient Greek colloquial description of an inept person: "He can't neither read nor swim". I took it as a sign of esteem by reading, even at a time when not everybody was literate.
Could it be that such esteem caused Greek people to take the few literate ones as referents about linguistic doubts, not impeding but slowing language changes?

Best regards

Marco


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## apmoy70

_In the case of Greek we must bear in mind not only the direct influence of the purist language upon the literate, but its indirect influence upon the illiterate, who hear it used on occasions of solemnity or by persons enjoying prestige in society: the familiarity of the vast majority of Greeks with the language of the Orthodox liturgy is particularly important in this connection"_
(Robert Browning, "Medieval & Modern Greek" pg. 10-11)


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