Product Description
The future has exercised students of Modern Greek language developments for many years, and no satisfactory set of arguments for the development of the modern form from the ancient usages has ever been produced. Theodore Markopoulos elucidates the stages that led up to the appearance of the modern future in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He does so by focussing on the three main modes of future referencing ('mello', 'echo', and 'thelo'). He discusses these patterns in the classical and Hellenistic-Roman periods, the early medieval period (fifth to tenth centuries), and the late medieval period (eleventh to fifteenth centuries). The argument is supported by reference to a large and representative corpus of texts (all translated into English) from which the author draws many examples. In his conclusion Dr Markopoulos considers the implications of his findings and methodology for syntactic and semantic history of Greek. ... Read more

Product Description
The Pocket Oxford Classical Greek Dictionary is a brand new dictionary that is ideal for beginners learning Classical Greek at the college level. It covers over 20,000 Greek words and phrases in clear, user-friendly translations, and over 4,000 English words in common usage. The dictionary also offers help with Greek to English sentence construction and prose composition, and provides grammatical guidance with tables of irregular verbs and a glossary of grammatical terms. Additional information includes a list of numerals, a guide to pronunciation, and a map of Greece. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Handy, useful, incomplete
The book is small, so I easily hold it in one hand while writing with the other.It contains nearly all the words I try to look up.However, I am trying to read the Septuagint, and a few words I need are not in this little Morwood and Taylor.Perhaps I am being unfair: these words seem also not to be in the Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon of Liddell and Scott.

an affordable, concise dictionary
This book is concise, clearly organized ancient Greek-English dictionary. It also contains a pronunciation guide and list or irregular verb. The printing of the entry is very clear, and gives the article and genitive for the nouns--a great pocket dictionary!

Just what I expected
Just what I expected in a Greek to English Dictionary....Oxford books are expected to be top notch and again this one is just what I expected it to be. I would recommend this book....

Best Buy for a classical Greek Dictionary
Every Greek student should own a Classic greek dictionary. Several are available, but this one The Oxford Pocket Dictionary has the advantage of being cheap, and thorough. It has an excellent section on pronunciation; a section on Proper names; a list of common irregular verbs;and best of all it alone of available dictionaries it has an English-Greek section. You will find this particularly helpful when beginning Greek, as you will often want the Greek word for a remembered English biblical phrase.

Deipnon kunos
My only complaint about this otherwise excellent dictionary is the lack of a proper English - Greek section: only 65 pages as opposed to 365 pages of Greek-English. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a course for those who wish to read Homer in the original tongue but know no Greek, or are only just beginning to work through a course in Classical Greek and wish to read Homer from a very early stage. It assumes no previous knowledge of Greek. The first six sections of the book deal with the fundamental elements of grammar that are a necessary preliminary to study. From the seventh section onwards the course proceeds through the "Odyssey", Book Five, with grammatical explanations and exercises. It provides an introduction not only to the Greek language but also to one of the great classics of world literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Let it to help you with Greek.
Step by step, page by page, I am learning. I read a page, part of a section, I write on a notebook, do the exercises, check the anwers in the answer key and correct my mistakes or celebrate my success. I know NO greek before buying this book. The answer key was a criterion in the purchase decision, and I was not wrong. I study a little part every day, reading, writing, translating and I feel that soon I will be understanding greek, I am enjoying it. As with every thing, discipline, persistance are needed. But if you let it happen and work on it, this book will help you to learn Greek.

The Immortal Bard
This book is modest compared to the same-priced Pharr's Homeric Greek.
Being more compact can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. Compaction necessitates getting on with the essentials and leaving out those aspects of a course which, however interesting, may be considered as needless detail. Pharr can go into greater depth, hence its larger size. There are those who prefer greater depth from the start. For them Pharr would be the obvious choice. But if you are looking for a shorter introduction to the language of Homer, then this is book to use.
Beetham differs from Pharr in another important way; it focuses on Odyssey, Book 5 rather than Iliad, Book1. The author has tailored the book to serve both as a course textbook for a class as well as a self-tuition manual. Keeping the latter in mind, he has very thoughtfully provided an answer key at the back for the autodidact, unlike the much older but recently revised Pharr (where, much to our annoyance, no key is included, though answers for Greek-English exercises seem to be available on the internet).

The book manages to survey all the basics of Homeric Greek morphology and syntax in a mere 185 pages. The chapters are reasonably short (only 6-7 pp) and explanations are rather brief. All Greek words that occur at least twice in Books 5 & 6 are indexed. Some grammatical explanations appear only at the back as Appendices but he has you reading real Homeric texts by pg 45!Later chapters present increasingly longer fragments (with explanations), thus giving you plenty of reading practice by the time you finish Book 5. The recommendation is to go to the later books, e.g. Books 6, 7, 8 etc., in order to consolidate what has been learnt here.

Some may complain about the arrangement of the book as well as the somewhat unappealing manner in which the Greek text is dwarfed by the explanatory notes below on the same page. However, such an arrangement also provides for ease of learning. For more detailed grammatical explanations, one can have recourse to Monro's book, available at the Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/details/grammarofhomeric00monruoft

There is a real advantage of starting Greek with Homer. You not only get to study Greek as it moved from the earlier Homeric to later Attic forms but also read great literature in its original language. Homer, moreover, also provides a way to proceed to Herodotus, who, like the former, provides another opportunity of reading a text with relatively uncomplicated syntax.This helps build confidence - a vital function of any course - though one needs to keep in mind that the (definite) article is introduced in a mere footnote on p. 7;perfectly correct from the Homeric angle, yet few things are more important for reading Greek prose than the article. Nevertheless, many have successfully moved from Homeric to Attic after a relatively short introduction. Such a move also seems not to require too much time and effort.

Due to its compact size, this book could also be used in conjunction with programs that use Attic as the usual entry to the Greek language, providing a fairly quick means to introduce the Homeric dialect - frequently a casualty of the traditional approach.

Though not perfect - few books are - this volume delivers what it set out to achieve. The only minus for the book is the rather basic font used throughout.

about the quality of the edition
In Italy there are no tools for the self study of Latin and Greek: the many traditional handbooks, some good, some better, all require a very competent teacher and much determination because of the very sound, comprehensive but oh-so-dull approach and exercises.

There being a very large number of secondary schools where Latin at least is still taught, sometimes by very dedicated teachers, there is probably little need for self study tools.
Therefore I was overjoyed finding out some well reviewed handbooks for adults such as myself and I bought ALL OF THEM.

Their worth as textbooks I still do not know: it will obviously take me time to ascertain it and I shall edit my reviews later on to comment on that.
What I need to say now is that I was APPALLED by the lack of quality of all these books as editorial objects: I love and cherish my books and wish them to be quatity stuff, I am ready to pay more if necessary.

The binding look solid enough, which is lucky, even if a sewn spine would have guaranteed more comfort of read.
The paper is of devastatingly poor quality, blinding white in colour.
The inking being no more than mediocre and the font just tolerable, you can imagine the fun of reading them, especially under artificial light!

The layout of the pages is utterly unappealing, different paragraphs and or sections ill distinguishable. Texts are not even justified on the right margin!

Books like these need to catch and keep the eye of the reader who is going to refer to them for many years to come: beauty and clarity of typesetting are NOT an optional feature - do not forget they are quite expensive and the publisher should have taken much more care.

I am disappointed. Let us hope that at least the content is worth my money.

start with the best!
in terms of the roots of western civilization, Homer is everything (to a language guy like me, at least ;-).don't start learning Greek with the New Testament; start with Homer (who was earlier).this Beetham book has you fully into reading the Odyssey book V by page 45; nothing like it.

learning Greek isn't so hard; put in some time with it and you begin to be able to see the Greek in everything.fluency with the alphabet is key, and that takes a little work for first-timers; but it's so worth it.and this Beetham book is a great intro! ... Read more

Product Description
First published in 1978, Reading Greek has become a best-selling one-year introductory course in ancient Greek for students and adults. It combines the best of modern and traditional language-learning techniques and is used widely in schools, summer schools and universities across the world. It has also been translated into several foreign languages. This volume provides full grammatical support together with numerous exercises at different levels. For the second edition the presentations of grammar have been substantially revised to meet the needs of today's students and the volume has been completely redesigned, with the use of colour. Greek-English and English-Greek vocabularies are provided, as well as a substantial reference grammar and language surveys. The accompanying Text and Vocabulary volume contains a narrative adapted entirely from ancient authors in order to encourage students rapidly to develop their reading skills, simultaneously receiving a good introduction to Greek culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Well, I loved it
Reading the other reviews, and one of them was clearly an excellent comprehensive review, I still felt a need to put in my opinion.I just loved the Reader in this series.It has been a lot of years since I studied Greek, but from the day I bought the grammar and reader, I just felt so enthusiastic about the entire process.

I recall going home and sounding out the words and working out the translation of the first readings, even before the first class.Everything was crystal clear.It is true I had studied Latin before, and that did give me some framework on which to hang the Greek grammar.I always figured it would be much harder for students who hadn't had that advantage.Having said that, our excellent prof took a week and explained some fundamental concepts (inflected grammar, etc), and we did just fine.

But the point about this specific book I'd like to make is that the structured learning via the readings just made the grammar so much more tolerable than it might otherwise have been.I LOVED the readings, and after completing each one, could hardly wait to start the next.Conversely, I recall one Latin class I took where we spent an entire semester doing nothing but grammar exercises and translating sentences from Latin to English.The exercise sentences had no relationship to each other.Nothing related to anything else.I might as well have been studying math for all the pleasure it gave me...This Greek reader is the opposite of that experience -- it is engaging and teaches very effectively.

I recommend this book, and the grammar text that goes with it, wholeheartedly.I have not seen the third text, and might just buy it for the fun of it.

Learning the Greek of Plato and the Aristophanes, etc, is so rewarding in every way.I wish everyone could have the fine experience.

2008 edition much improved, still not for newbies
This review is from the point of view of an adult self learner.

WHAT IT IS
This book is part of a three-book set, which includes:
1. Reading Greek: Text and Vocabulary
2. Reading Greek: Grammar and Exercises
3. An Independent Study Guide to Reading Greek

Think of the set as one book broken up into three parts, with the Greek practice text from every chapter in book #1, the grammar and exercises in every chapter in book #2, the answers to exercises in book #3. Nutty, but it works.

#1 Short passages of Greek text (with vocab lists at the end of each passage). Early passages are modern Dick-and-Jane "easy Greek" written especially to complement parallel sections of Grammar; later passages are simplified (and further on, not so simplified) passages from ancient texts.

#2 Grammar theory, forms, and exercises all keyed to parallel passages in the Text. So when you study middle voice verbs in Grammar, you read the accompanying passage in Text, and see how that form works in real Greek sentences.

#3 A. Translations of Text #1.
B. Answers to exercises in Grammar #2.
C. Hints and insights.

WHICH TO BUY?
This is an integrated set whose whole is much greater than the sum of the parts. You will want all three books. The TEXT complements the grammar, the GRAMMAR makes much much more sense when supported by the text readings. The answers to exercise in the STUDY GUIDE will show you stuff you missed learning--but you won't find that out unless you have book #3 to check your answers.

[There are other JACT RG books with short Greek passages from ancient texts. You don't need them now (or ever, IMHO Loebs are better).]

BAD STUFF
1. In my experience this is NOT a good set for absolute newbies. It was originally designed in the 1970s when students started Greek after a year of Latin, and thus already understood inflected grammars. If you don't understand inflected grammars already, you may get lost. I did. I tried (the old version) of RG as my first learn-Greek-on-your-own book about 18 months ago, and was immediately lost.

I'd suggest starting with Dobson's Learn New Testament Greek, them moving on to RG.

2. Vocabulary selection is excellent, Attic prose wise, but you're forced to make your own flip cards or memorization list. Because Greek diacriticals are a bitch, making your own computerized flip cards is a major pain. In the internet age, JACT really should have vocab flip cards at their web site.

3. Ancient Greek is still hard.

.
GOOD STUFF
Since giving up on RG the first time I've been through Dobson's Learn NT Greek and memorized the forms in Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar. Now that I've come back to RG it makes much much more sense, and it seems to me the most excellent book.

1. Simple Readings Cement Forms.
After memorizing all the verb forms in Mounce, I found struggling with Greek text a frustration--passing each word through a memorized translation table. RG's solution is to teach your brain to bypass the form tables and recognize word endings-meanings directly. The reading for the Present Tense chapter is full of simple sentences like: "Dikaiopolis walks on the ship." "Then the captain walks on the ship." and "The sailors walk on the ship." - different word endings in each case. Over and over. Repetition, particularly repetition in the context of a memorable little story, cements recognition. (Of course you do still have to memorize the forms.)

This is a whole additional layer of learning that you simply will not get from table-Greek books like Mounce, or tables-and-rules books like Mastronarde's Introduction to Attic Greek.

2. Sentence Structure.
It's not obvious till you've struggled a while, but ancient Greek has a layer of complexity on top of the alphabet and words. English brains extract word function--subject, verb, direct object--from word order; Greek brains extracted subject, verb, direct object from word endings; Greek sentences used word-order for other purposes. You've got to train you brain to process sentences a whole different way. Again, practice is the key. An RG has lots and lots and lots of text to help.

By the time I was through RG chapter 7, I could pick up Loeb's Xenophon's Anabasis and quickly recognize (via case endings) the structure of each sentence (though of course my vocab still wasn't up to an unassisted reading). This was very exciting.

Again, this is a whole additional layer of learning that you will not get from table-Greek books like Mounce, or tables-and-rules books like Mastronarde .

3. Learn By Reading; Lots Of Readings.
RG is not a tables-and-rules book with an expanded Examples section. It is an integrated system of teaching ancient Greek through a graded series of long and progressively complex reading passages. Again, a whole additional layer of learning that you will not get from Mounce or Mastronarde .

4. Attention To Detail
Someone spent a long time getting the big stuff and the little stuff right.
.

.
COMPARING 2008 WITH EARLIER EDITIONS
1. The books are physically bigger, better laid out, with larger type and better fonts--much easier to read. A small thing that makes a big difference.

2. The Grammar has been entirely redone, and is much much better.

3. The Text readings are the same.

4. The vocabulary has been moved from Grammar to Text, which makes the readings much easier. (In the old version you were constantly flipping book to book.)
.

.
COMPARED WITH ATHENAZE
Neither RG or Athenaze is perfect, but the both have lots of simple readings that I find most helpful. I've bought and used both, and would again.

1. Athenaze also has very good readings.

2. Athenaze is slower, with less complex early readings. Athenaze translations are also in a separate, 2d book.

3. Athenaze has NO ANSWERS TO EXERCISES. The current 2003 edition of the Athenaze main text has exercises, but the workbook with the exercise answers was created but apparently never released. For me this is the TIE BREAKER. RGs exercises are very hard, but very useful. If you ace the exercises, you understood the material. If you didn't you didn't.

Look has been inproved but contents is the same
I have not purchased this book, but after reviewing the table of contents and the other excerpts, the content appears to be the same as the 1st editions.I expect that errors in the 1st edition have been corrected and the look of the book has been improved.But I would not buy this if you are expecting a text radically different from the 1st ed.That being said, I have taught myself Ancient Greek using this text and the study guides. I like how JACT presents the material and would recommend it, regardless the edition.

Help!
Will some public-spirited & knowledgeable person please review this new edition of RG? I have no idea whether I should buy this expensive new set (with the reader) or "An Idependent Study Guide to Reading Greek". What are the pros & cons? And is it really any better than the 1st edition of RG?? Thanks! ... Read more

Product Description
The purpose of Ancient Greek: Intensive Review and Reference is to bridge the gap between the first year of Greek and further studies in the language. Ruck designed the book to accompany any choice of advanced readings or authors. The basics of grammar are reviewed in eight lessons. Each grammatical example is presented as it functions in Greek rather than English to avoid reader confusion. The structure of the declensional and conjugational systems is presented in terms of their linguistic evolution, against the backdrop of ancient dialectical variations and the continuing development of the language into the modern speech.

Ancient Greek is useful for students of Homeric Greek, all dialects of Classical Greek, Hellenistic and New Testament Greek, and Byzantine Greek. The book also serves as an introduction to the study of Modern Greek in its historical context. ... Read more

Product Description
First published in 1978 and now thoroughly revised, Reading Greek is a best-selling one-year introductory course in ancient Greek for students of any age. It combines the best of modern and traditional language-learning techniques and is used in schools, summer schools and universities across the world. This Independent Study Guide is intended to help students who are learning Greek on their own or with only limited access to a teacher. It contains notes on the texts that appear in the Text and Vocabulary volume, translations of all the texts, answers to the exercises in the Grammar and Exercises volume and cross-references to the relevant fifth-century background in The World of Athens. There are instructions of how to use the course and the Study Guide. The book will also be useful to students in schools, universities and summer schools who have to learn Greek rapidly. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

The best way to learn classical Greek
In the past year i have worked my way through three introductory courses in classical Greek, including the excellent Intensive Course developed at Fordham, but until I discovered the three-volume course designed by the classical scholars at Cambridge University I found nothing that was completely satisfactory. The Cambridge set excels in several respects. First, it gets you reading adaptations of major Greek writers from the first lesson, along with the relevant grammar. Reading in the first volume is accompanied by grammatical study in the second, and--unique among the texts I have seen--the third volume, the Independent Study Guide, translates all the passages in the Reading volume and gives the correct answers to the exercises in the Grammar volume. Thus the student is able to check his/her own work as if there were a teacher standing by. For me the result has been that for the first time I feel solidly grounded when I read, and I am retaining much more than I did with any other textbook (and this includes Chase and Phillips, which I tried years ago and got nowhere). I heartily recommend this set to anyone who wants to learn Greek independently.

Where is the Kindle version of the 1st vol.?
I've purchased the 2 vols. that are available in Kindle versions.
When will the 1st and most important vol. become available in Kindle format?
Starting to become impatient waiting for it.

Kindle format worthless
The kindle format is useless - it does not have the book in a managable format and must not show all the sections. I'm sure the "real" book is just fine, but this format needs some work.

For the most part great
'Reading Greek' has been my introduction to Classical Greek, and I've been blessed with a wonderful teacher, so I've litle bad to say about the other two books.This is a fairly good 'answer' companion to the two, but I've got one major complaint - there are quite a few typos throughout!

Too many of the answers for the exercises fall into a habit of following a pattern.Not too bad when only the first and second declensions are dealt with, but once the third declension is introduced it causes lots of troubles.

This is the only real letdown of the book, but it's a big one!It can easily cause a lot of confusion for the independent beginner.

2008 edition much improved, still not for newbies
This review is from the point of view of an adult self learner.

WHAT IT IS
This book is part of a three-book set, which includes:
1. Reading Greek: Text and Vocabulary
2. Reading Greek: Grammar and Exercises
3. An Independent Study Guide to Reading Greek

Think of the set as one book broken up into three parts, with the Greek practice text from every chapter in book #1, the grammar and exercises in every chapter in book #2, the answers to exercises in book #3. Nutty, but it works.

#1 Short passages of Greek text (with vocab lists at the end of each passage). Early passages are modern Dick-and-Jane "easy Greek" written especially to complement parallel sections of Grammar; later passages are simplified (and further on, not so simplified) passages from ancient texts.

#2 Grammar theory, forms, and exercises all keyed to parallel passages in the Text. So when you study middle voice verbs in Grammar, you read the accompanying passage in Text, and see how that form works in real Greek sentences.

#3 A. Translations of Text #1.
B. Answers to exercises in Grammar #2.
C. Hints and insights.

WHICH TO BUY?
This is an integrated set whose whole is much greater than the sum of the parts. You will want all three books. The TEXT complements the grammar, the GRAMMAR makes much much more sense when supported by the text readings. The answers to exercise in the STUDY GUIDE will show you stuff you missed learning--but you won't find that out unless you have book #3 to check your answers.

[There are other JACT RG books with short Greek passages from ancient texts. You don't need them now (or ever, IMHO Loebs are better).]

BAD STUFF
1. In my experience this is NOT a good set for absolute newbies. It was originally designed in the 1970s when students started Greek after a year of Latin, and thus already understood inflected grammars. If you don't understand inflected grammars already, you may get lost. I did. I tried (the old version) of RG as my first learn-Greek-on-your-own book about 18 months ago, and was immediately lost.

I'd suggest starting with Dobson's Learn New Testament Greek, them moving on to RG.

2. Vocabulary selection is excellent, Attic prose wise, but you're forced to make your own flip cards or memorization list. Because Greek diacriticals are a bitch, making your own computerized flip cards is a major pain. In the internet age, JACT really should have vocab flip cards at their web site.

3. Ancient Greek is still hard.

.
GOOD STUFF
Since giving up on RG the first time I've been through Dobson's Learn NT Greek and memorized the forms in Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar. Now that I've come back to RG it makes much much more sense, and it seems to me the most excellent book.

1. Simple Readings Cement Forms.
After memorizing all the verb forms in Mounce, I found struggling with Greek text a frustration--passing each word through a memorized translation table. RG's solution is to teach your brain to bypass the form tables and recognize word endings-meanings directly. The reading for the Present Tense chapter is full of simple sentences like: "Dikaiopolis walks on the ship." "Then the captain walks on the ship." and "The sailors walk on the ship." - different word endings in each case. Over and over. Repetition, particularly repetition in the context of a memorable little story, cements recognition. (Of course you do still have to memorize the forms.)

This is a whole additional layer of learning that you simply will not get from table-Greek books like Mounce, or tables-and-rules books like Mastronarde's Introduction to Attic Greek.

2. Sentence Structure.
It's not obvious till you've struggled a while, but ancient Greek has a layer of complexity on top of the alphabet and words. English brains extract word function--subject, verb, direct object--from word order; Greek brains extracted subject, verb, direct object from word endings; Greek sentences used word-order for other purposes. You've got to train you brain to process sentences a whole different way. Again, practice is the key. An RG has lots and lots and lots of text to help.

By the time I was through RG chapter 7, I could pick up Loeb's Xenophon's Anabasis and quickly recognize (via case endings) the structure of each sentence (though of course my vocab still wasn't up to an unassisted reading). This was very exciting.

Again, this is a whole additional layer of learning that you will not get from table-Greek books like Mounce, or tables-and-rules books like Mastronarde .

3. Learn By Reading; Lots Of Readings.
RG is not a tables-and-rules book with an expanded Examples section. It is an integrated system of teaching ancient Greek through a graded series of long and progressively complex reading passages. Again, a whole additional layer of learning that you will not get from Mounce or Mastronarde .

4. Attention To Detail
Someone spent a long time getting the big stuff and the little stuff right.
.

.
COMPARING 2008 WITH EARLIER EDITIONS
1. The books are physically bigger, better laid out, with larger type and better fonts--much easier to read. A small thing that makes a big difference.

2. The Grammar has been entirely redone, and is much much better.

3. The Text readings are the same.

4. The vocabulary has been moved from Grammar to Text, which makes the readings much easier. (In the old version you were constantly flipping book to book.)
.

.
COMPARED WITH ATHENAZE
Neither RG or Athenaze is perfect, but the both have lots of simple readings that I find most helpful. I've bought and used both, and would again.

1. Athenaze also has very good readings.

2. Athenaze is slower, with less complex early readings. Athenaze translations are also in a separate, 2d book.

3. Athenaze has NO ANSWERS TO EXERCISES. The current 2003 edition of the Athenaze main text has exercises, but the workbook with the exercise answers was created but apparently never released. For me this is the TIE BREAKER. RGs exercises are very hard, but very useful. If you ace the exercises, you understood the material. If you didn't you didn't.
... Read more

Product Description
A highly innovative approach to Classical Greek for beginning students
... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A more natural approach
This book is rightly named. The first lesson begins with simple Greek sentences taken from actual Greek texts. The book focuses, not on memorization of grammatical charts, but on learning to understand real classical Greek sentences, and by the end moves on paragraphs and finally to several pages from Plato. Rather than doing endless grammatical drills, students are encouraged to dive into Greek sentences and make sense out of them. The book stresses the concept of sentence kernals (such as transitive, intransitive and factitive), teaching students to recongnize the core of the sentence and its type of structure. The main goal of most chapters is to be able to translate a list of sentences taken from classical Greek authors.

I do have a couple complaints. There are a few (though not many) typos in the book in Greek (such as a soft breathing when there should be a rough breathing) that can be quite confusing to a student if there is not a teacher who can point out the typo. There are a couple times when one of the sentences at the end of a chapter that is too difficult for the student's current level and even include significant vocabulary that has not yet been learned. (My advice is just to ignore any sentences that are too difficult and go back and try them again after a few lessons.) The book on the whole divides information into managable units, but ch.15 (participles) tries to fit a lot into one chapter (I would recommend doing ch.15 in two segments).

The methodology used in this book is terrific, in my opinion, for the average beginning Greek student because it encourages students to read from the start and is not overwhelming with jargon and grammar. Hopefully a revised edition will come out that is more polished. Until then, this is still a book that I would recommend for anyone willing to try a new technique for learning Greek.

Excellent basic course to start reading quickly
Greek for Reading covers the basic grammar of Classical Greek in a fairly unusual way.Most texts have lengthy discussions of grammar and syntax and few reading exercises, and fewer with translations to guide you.This text, however, has you reading basic sentences as soon as possible, most of them drawn from classical sources like Plato or Menander.The quotes are often quite clever and, therefore, easier to remember than the dull drills one encounters in many other books.If you want a thorough grammar with everything you could want to know, try Hansen and Quinn's intensive course.

The other reviewer here (April 2000) implies that this book is a course in modern Greek, which it is not.Classical and modern Greek are not mutually intelligible (a common mistake).

Greek for Reading.
Well, the first thing I have to say is that my girlfriend is from Greeceand I am from the Dominican Republic.We live in the United States andwe'd like to go to Greece next year and I'm trying very hard to learnGreek. When my girlfriend saw the book, she said: "This is the onethat I need for you."After that I have improved my reading, ofcourse, because of the structure of this book.yeeahsou. ... Read more

Product Description
The reconstruction of the prosody of a dead language is, on the face of it, an almost impossible undertaking. However, once a general theory of prosody has been developed fromeliable data in living languages, it is possible to exploit texts as sources of answers to questions that would normally be answered in the laboratory. In this work, the authors interpret the evidence of Greek verse texts and musical settings in the framework of a theory of prosody based on crosslinguistic evidence and experimental phonetic and psycholinguistic data, and reconstruct the syllable structure, rhythm, accent, phrasing, and intonation of classical Greek speech. Sophisticated statistical analyses are employed to support an impressive range of new findings which relate not only to phonetics and phonology, but also to pragmatics and the syntax-phonology interface. ... Read more

Product Description
Ancient greek sholarship constitutes a precious resource for classicists, but one that is underutilized because graduate students and even mature scholars lack familiarity with its conventions. The peculiarities of scholarly Greek and the lack of translations or scholarly aids often discourages readers from exploiting the large body of commentaries, scholia, lexica, and grammatical treatises that have been preserved on papyrus and via the manuscript tradition. Now, for the first time, there is an introduction to such scholarship that will enable students and scholars unfamiliar with this material to use it in their work. Ancient Greek Scholarship includes detailed discussion of the individual ancient authors on whose works scholia, commentaries, or single-author lexica exist, together with explanations of the probable sources of that scholarship and the ways it is now used, as well as descriptions of extant grammatical works and general lexica. These discussions, and the annotated bibliography of more than 1200 works, also include evaluations of the different texts of each work and of a variety of electronic resources.

This book not only introduces readers to ancient scholarship, but also teaches them how to read it. Here readers will find a detailed, step-by-step introduction to the language, a glossary of over 1500 grammatical terms, and a set of more than 200 passages for translation, each accompanied by commentary. The commentaries offer enough help to enable undergraduates with as little as two years of Greek to translate most passages with confidence; in addition, readers are given aids to handling the ancient numerical systems, understanding the references found in works of ancient scholarship, and using an apparatus criticus (including an extensive key to the abbreviations used in an apparatus). Half the passages are accompanied by a key, so that the book is equally suitable for those studying on their own and for classes with graded homework. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Enormously helpful
I dare say that currently there is no other book like Eleanor Dickey's Ancient Greek Scholarship (AGS) available. Being truly one of a kind, AGS provides a much needed aid to aspiring classicists.

AGS is not a history or survey of Ancient Greek scholarship. Rather it is a guide to the resources with which every student of classics must become familiar in order to become a professional in the field. Thus, although it is very much written for beginners, it is not a book primarily for the beginner: It is written in a clear and accessible manner for someone who is not yet acquainted with the resources introduced in the book, and it does not assume any philological training on part of the reader, and in that sense it is aimed at beginners. But beginners in classics, who have their hands full learning Latin and Greek and some Ancient History, will not have an urgent need for this book yet. Once they are ready to begin their gradual transformation into professionals AGS will be there to nurture and support them. Upper level college students and 1st and 2nd year graduate students will cherish this book.

The first chapter contains a general introduction. The second chapter surveys the available scholia (i.e. ancient comments, notes, and glosses found in ancient and medieval commentaries and in the margin of manuscripts) to archaic and classical poetry, classical prose, and Hellenistic literature. Dickey explains why some scholia are important while others are hard to use and diligently points out good editions of the texts. Chapter three is devoted to other scholarly works, such as various ancient grammatical treatises and lexica. Chapters 2-3 are not least valuable for Dickey's comments and tips to the reader, but also for the unique assembly of information.

Chapter 4 contains an introduction to the actual language and conventions of scholarly Greek. This chapter is invaluable because nowhere else can one find such an introduction. But a student who has mastered Ancient Greek ought to be able to read the comments of later commentators, right? Maybe, but it's still made difficult by certain conventions with which the student will most likely not be familiar. Chapter 5 has examples which the student can use to practice. A glossary of grammatical terms in chapter 6 is very helpful too, as well as the two appendices on how to find works on ancient scholarship in library catalogues and how to use facsimiles, the annotated bibliography and the three indices at the end of the book.

Whether you are a student of classical literature, ancient history, classical archaeology, ancient philosophy, or linguistics, if you are a person who would study antiquity professionally then this book will be incredibly helpful to you. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Real Greek, Real Hard
Why four stars? For what this book can accomplish, it is excellent.

WARNING:This is not a beginning grammar for our generation; it presupposes a knowledge of Latin.It is also not a "self-teaching" text.Don't buy this if a) you are a teacher and it is the only book you want to use in the classroom or b) you want to teach yourself Greek.It is not ideal for either of these.

That said, it is a great book for two main purposes.

The first is for the student who wants to brush up on grammar and paradigms as well as get an introduction to an anthology of Ancient Greek.The majority of the book consists of short excerpts from Greek Literature.There are several other sections in the back.The first is a short set of lessons and exercises to enable the student to brush up on his/her grammar.The second section is a concise Greek Grammar.Then there is a section with the principle parts of common irregular verbs.Finally there is a short vocabulary including all the words used in all the stories.

The second is for a teacher at a high school level who wants to switch texts in the second or third year of Greek.I'll speak from experience.I teach from "Athenaze" and we go through chapters 1-24 in the first two years.But then, in the third year, my goal is to get students 1) a review of grammar 2) a basic vocabulary and 3) a reading knowledge of authentic Greek.By their third year, many students have trouble remembering some of the vocabulary in chapters 1-24 in Greek.To remedy this, I plan on using the vocabulary lists from the exercises of "Greek through Reading", review the grammatical concepts introduced, and read/write the Greek exercises.Then, as we have time, I plan on reading the excerpts, starting from easiest to most difficult and discussing the grammar.

Using this book requires a lot of planning and it is not (except in rare instances) useful as an introduction to Greek.Nevertheless, I highly recommend it.

Other suggestions for an Intermediate Greek class:
"Colson's Greek Reader" [as a supplement of graded reading]
Vis-Ed's Blank Flashcards [for keeping students' vocabulary organized]
Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek [the best "pocket" Greek Grammar]
... Read more

Product Description
Modern students' lack of formal training in the grammar even of their own language leads to an impatience with the jargon and rules of syntax in their study of the ancient inflected languages. This comparative approach to Greek and Latin (first published in 1934) serves to introduce students to the syntax of both languages side by side. It has three main thrusts: the first critical - to explain usages and the labels and theories attached to them; the second historical - to explain the process by which the languages developed and changed; the third psychological - how did the working of speakers' or writers' thoughts make them express themselves? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

for language lovers
I think you have to be in love with languages to like this book, but then who else would buy it in the first place.Inflected languages are so foreign to an English speaker that every little bit helps.I understood Latin much better after learning Russian.Since Russian has more cases, they are more logical (in my opinion).In a similar way, the presentation of cases in this book makes everything clearer by comparing the two languages.For me, when I compared the different inflected languages I could get to the basic meaning of each case, instead of just memorizing individual functions.I also learned in this book that "accusative" is a bad translation of the term used by the Greeks, which is why it doesn't make much sense.If you are crazy about languages, I recommend this book. ... Read more

Product Description
Speaking Greek supports the second edition of the bestselling beginner's course, Reading Greek, by providing on two CDs lively new recordings of some of the ancient texts presented in the Text volume. Made by experts and accompanied by special sound effects, the tracks include readings from Homer, Herodotus, Euripides, Aristophanes and Demosthenes. There is also a new introductory track containing a talk by Professor David Langslow about the sounds of ancient Greek. An accompanying leaflet provides a summary, a description of technical terms and further reading. These new CDs will enlighten the experience of the student of ancient Greek, demonstrating that this was a living language, spoken as well as read. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Hurts my ears
These recordings are loud enough and the enunciation quite clear, no problem .Perhaps the intonation and lengths are technically correct, who knows -- and who cares?To my English ear, they sound so bad I cannot listen to them anyway.The tones sound too forced and the cadence is supremely annoying.I have been studying Ancient Greek for over six years and wanted something nice to listen to in order to speak conversationally.This is definitely not that. What good is the correct Greek pronunciation if it sounds so bad?Isn't Greek supposed to be universally appreciated as the most beautiful language ever spoken?If we don't know how it is supposed to be spoken precisely, why not bend the rules a bit (id est, reinterpret our previous understanding) and make it sound more pleasing to our ears?Skip the pedantry, please.A language that sounds so ugly no one wants to listen to it will remain dead.

Very helpful
This CD is a companion to JACT's three-volume Reading Greek (2nd ed.) series.It contains the reading assignments for the "Text and Vocabulary" volume.I have tried to learn Attic Greek from other courses, but as I have never taken a formal course, I have had no exposure to the spoken language. The pronunciation I had developed from my study of written explanations turned out to be very much off the mark. Once I got a feel for the correct pronunciation, I found I was far better able to learn vocabulary and my overall reading comprehension improved.This CD has made all the difference for me, and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

A word of caution regarding the JACT three-volume course is in order. I have tried several courses, to include JACT's three-volume set (with CD), Clyde Pfarr's "Homeric Greek," Mastronarde's "Introduction to Attic Greek," and Schoder's "A Reading Course in Homeric Greek."Unless you already understand the basics of Greek grammar, you simply will not make it through JACT's grammar explanations. Admittedly, one should probably not attempt Greek without previous experience with an inflected language. But even with a good grasp of Latin, along with exposure to the Greek courses listed above, I was at a loss with JACT. It is disjointed, fragmentary, and convoluted. I soon gave it up and relied on Mastronarde for my grammar, JACT's "Text and Vocabulary" with CD for the reading and listening, and Pfarr for Homeric vocabulary and practice. (I also like Morice's "Stories in Attic Greek" for a change of pace.)

JACT's "Independent Study Guide" has the translations for the "Text and Vocabulary," but it really isn't needed, as you can work out the translations easily with the provided vocabulary.And stay far away from JACT's grammar! Instead, use the "Text and Vocabulary" with CD as a supplement to a better course.

"It's All Greek (or British) to Me!"
This 2 CD set is quite invaluable to investigate to get a grasp on how Ancient Greek sounded like in ancient times.

The first disc is a lecture on sounds in the Ancient Greek world ie: vowels, consonants and sentence structures, and then goes into a scenerio of actors speaking in dialogue in Ancient Greek.Disc 2 furthers this scenerio and then covers excerpts of Plato, Herodotus, Aristophanes, and others, read and acted by various British proffesors and actors.

The scenerios have some relistic sound effects that make the listening a bit easier.The woman reader for instance must be the worst speaker I've ever heard!She sounds like a mechnical machine, terribly monotonous... it's very hard to bear!Other than her, the others do okay and get quite lively when they play different characters.It's very engaging when there are muliple roles being acted.

There is no text or translations in the booklet, just brief point-form notes, cues and diagrams, which can be used for those who want to try out some of the sounds for themselves.

This set offer us a rare glimpse into almost forgotten world of how Ancient Greek sounded like, even though it probably didn't sound like these Brits make it to be, but facinating nevertheless! ... Read more

Product Description
Planned as a companion volume to Writing Latin by Richard Ashdowne and James Morwood, this brand new guide to writing Greek will be useful both in the upper forms of schools and for those starting Greek prose composition at university. Part 1 deals with the constituent elements of the simple sentence, and in Part 2 all major constructions are covered, each with thorough explanations and clear examples. Each chapter has either two or three exercises of practice sentences, further supplemented throughout Part 2 by passages for continuous composition. 100 important irregular verbs with their principal parts are listed at the back of the book, and there is a complete vocabulary for all the exercises, a useful learning and revision resource in itself. ... Read more

Product Description
Prose fiction, although not always associated with classical antiquity, did in fact flourish in the early Roman Empire, not only in realistic Latin novels but also and indeed principally in the Greek ideal romance of love and adventure to which they are related. Popular in the Renaissance, these stories have been less familiar in later centuries. Translations of the Greek stories were not readily available in English before B.P. Reardon’s excellent volume.
Nine complete stories are included here as well as ten others, encompassing the whole range of classical themes: ideal romance, travel adventure, historical fiction, and comic parody. A new foreword by J.R. Morgan examines the enormous impact this groundbreaking collection has had on our understanding of classical thought and our concept of the novel. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Ancient Novels
This is an excellent book for anyone who is interested in prose work by ancient Greeks.

these Greek romances strongly influenced the modern novel
This 800 page book contains all the extant Greek novels, or romances, that have made it to us out of antiquity. These romances are mostly in the line of boy meets girl, suffer shipwreck, are eventually reunited and discover they're rich. Like modern romances! Other of the romances are more historical, like the one about Alexander the Great. But great this particular romance is not. It's rather boring. My favorite in the book is Chariton, Chaereas and Callirhoe. Not exactly world famous these days. But of surprising invention and delight. More famous names are Heliodorus, An Ethiopean Story. Or Longus, Daphne and Chloe. Or Lucan, A True Story. If you're interested in expanding your idea of the novel, this would be a great place to spend a few weeks.

Little known novels that everyone should know
This was the required text for a Classical Novel course I took, and at first I felt as if I was going to be disappointed by the novels it contained because to me it seemed as if they were all romances with little substance, kind of like the modern pulp fiction novels that you buy at your local drugstore.

However, after reading the first novel in the anthology, Chaereas and Callirhoe, I was hooked.These ancient novels are wonderful works of literature, written in a readable style that will grip anyone who reads them.I think also, that there is no better way to get in touch with Hellenistic history than to read a contemporary source.

The Remnants of a Genre
Prose fiction is the segment of Greek literature that has left the faintest impression on later ages, as is demonstrated by the fact that virtually all of its remnants fit within this thick but not unwieldy volume.The contents include nine complete tales, most of which we wouldcall novellas, plus epitomes or fragments of ten more.None of them isfamous today, though Lucian's "True Romance" is often cited as aprecursor to science fiction and Heliodoros' "Ethiopian Story"was widely read through the 18th century.

The core of the book consistsof five "novels" - all from the 2nd century A.D., give or take ahundred or so years - that share enough conventions to be labeled a"genre".Their plots, in broadest outline, are identical:Boyand girl meet, fall in love, are married or about to be married, then aresnatched apart by misfortune, faced with escalating threats to life andchastity, and finally reunited with virtue intact (hers anyway - his maywind up a bit tattered).

Within this pattern, there is much variation. "An Ephesian Tale" is sheer melodrama, "Chaereas andCallirhoe" a loosely historical romance, "An EthiopianStory" a skillful narrative that opens with a trompe l'oeil scene thatwould do credit to a contemporary novelist.Perhaps the most interestingto the modern reader is "Daphnis and Chloe", where the perils tothe lovers are more psychological than physical and the story traces theirlove affair from the first stirrings of adolescent attraction throughlong-delayed consummation.

Also present are works in other genres:abawdy comedy ("The Ass", wrongly attributed in the Middle Ages toLucian), a Munchausen-like travelogue (the authentic Lucian's "TrueRomance") and the faux historical "Alexander Romance", whichshaped the later image of Alexander the Great as much as or more than didgenuine history.

The translations, all but one specially prepared forthis volume, are readable and generally lively.Only one of translators(burdened with the rather hopeless "Leucippe and Clitophon", inwhich he labors to uncover deeply hidden virtues) feels compelled topreface his effort with a discourse on literary theory.

The narrativesgathered here are little-traveled paths in the terrain of classicalliterature and the reader may stumble now and then among the brambles, butthe sights along the way are not without interest and charm.

you will like it for a while probably
This is a huge book of romantic stories of the ancient world in which the young hero and heroine are beautiful and in love. Either they areseparated by being stolen by pirates, or thought to be dead (a la Romeo and Juliet) or some such...and after much ado they are reunited.In my collegeclass we are observing the role of the supernatural/divine in the variousworks,as a reflection of the kaliedoscopic religion of those times andplaces of the authors. ... Read more

Product Description
A self-contained instructional system for an introduction to ancient Greek, this volume includes a supplementary selection of readings from Plato's "Meno" and "Republic" and Aristotle's "Physics" and "Nicomachean Ethics". The appendix has sections on phonology, syntax, morphology, and word formation. This text was developed over 20 years in the language program of St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A Question
Can any Johnnies out there tell me the name of the
Greek text I used in Santa Fe in 1969-70?

Thanks.

Just a second here. . .
While this is NOT the text I used primarily in learning the Ancient Greek language, I have surveyed and own this text. The text referred to at the bottom of this page as of my writing this is, I am almost certain, written by a Dr. Luschnig. I studied Ancient Greek by that text at St. John's in Santa Fe and agree that it is by far the worst, most counterintuitive language textbook I have seen. The wrath for that book is deserved, but this is not that book.
Please do not be misled by the first comment at the bottom of this page. This really is about the best you can hope for in studying Ancient Greek, a legendarily difficult task. Those involved in the learning process for such an academic language are likely to be people with such strong opinions that a work like this simply can't please everyone. It does an excellent job of bridging the gap between a primer and a rudimentary grammar, and aside from occasionally wishing I didn't have to consult my lexicon as often, I have no complaints, and certainly not after comparison to the Luschnig.

a small point
Mollin and Williamson is perhaps the most poorly bound paperback I've ever used. Of all the students who purchased the paperback and used it throughout freshman year, I know of perhaps 5 whose book is still intact. The pages start falling out almost as soon as you open the book. If you want to purchase a copy, I suggest you go with the hardbound version. Given the price of the book, this alone is enough to merit a low rating. The text itself is satisfactory,; a bit confused at times, and with an insufficient lexicon, but altogether fairly easy to use and understand.

Differing Opinion
I was surprised to read Mr. Baldwin's review.I, too, am a current student at Saint John's College (a freshman in Annapolis) and I like Mollin and Williamson's book a great deal.I agree with Mr. Baldwin's claim that the vocabulary listing in the back is unsatisfactory, but I cannot agree with the rest of his review.I find both the layout and the content to be very helpful and the book is, to my estimation, a very good one.I am also compelled to point out that I know nothing about a change in the curriculum at Saint John's to exclude this Greek text or to include another one and I imagine Mr. Baldwin is speaking only of the Santa Fe campus; as of this writing, Mollin and Williamson is still in use by freshmen in Annapolis.Learning a language can be difficult, Ancient Greek perhaps moreso than most, and no book will make it easy.But I have spent a fair bit of time looking at the various introductory texts which are available and I have encountered none which I would prefer to this one.I recommend Mollin and Williamson very highly.

Save your money
I am, at the time of this writing, a Sophomore at St. John's college, where Al & Bob's Introduction to Ancient Greek was the required textbook for Freshman Language class. I spent a little over a year living with their textbook and translating the passages that they included and I cannot in good faith reccomend it to any other student of Greek. The layout of the basic chapters is somewhat eccentric and the appendix of vocabulary in the back is woefully lacking in words needed to translate even the example sentences and usually provide one English word for each Greek word.The footnotes for words used in the original passages, when they exist, are similar. This year St. John's College switched to a different Greek textbook for incoming Freshman, despite the close ties between the authors of this one and the college. I reccomend another textbook. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Excellent Text
Dr. Voeltz has written the premier Koine Greek text available.His vast expereience helping seminarians successfully through Koine Greek before their regular classes begin is a testament to thetext.I found it easy to digest and understand.The Exercises allow one to make their way through an ancient language with a minimum of difficulties.Excellent Text.

Great if You know how to use it.
I have read several of the reviews here online about this book. Some good, some bad, but all of them come from the perspective of either you have or haven't had Voelz for class. I am a pastor, and I teach Greek to those who want to learn at my church. When teaching I use Voelz. When I first started I admit that I did not like Voelz, I found it very confusing and thought it was slightly two advanced to be a beginning grammar. I preferred using some of the other books that I was slightly more comfortable with, whether it be Mounce, Adams, or Black. I started using Voelz because some of the people I was teaching had potential to to enter into the Seminary, especially Concordia St. Louis, and I know from my own experience (Graduated 2008) that the Voelz grammar and method of translation is what has been adopted there. I found that mixed with the videos online (iTunesU)That this way of teaching was very beneficial, not just to the class but also to myself as well. In the end I learned a lot about Verbal Aspect that is simply not covered in most grammar books, it is usually considered a advanced topic, but I found it to be very helpful, even for beginners, in understanding the hows and whys of translation.In conclusion I gave this book three stars, I would not "avoid it like the plague" as some have written, but I would say that if you are going to use this book to teach yourself make sure that you use the videos that go along with it, or just avoid the dilemma all together and find someone to teach you. If you already know Greek, I found this to be a book that can still teach you things, especially the third edition, the previous editions had some things that could have been done better, I have noticed great improvement in the Third edition.

Excellent Resource
Highly recommend this book for anybody serious about learning biblical Greek. Voelz has done an outstanding job with the format and content. Would have valued more practice sentences utilizing words appearing in the NT.

A wonderful thorough text for learning Greek (with emphasis upon the NT)
I find this text extremely thorough and detailed, and it quickly had me translating NT Greek verses by chapter 4. Grammar rules are given with careful description of the exceptions, and varied examples are also provided to illustrate these rules. Although I have read some complaints about prior edition typos, I have not come across any in the 3rd Edition which inhibit the learning process. Make no mistake--this is not your remedial language lesson to learn conversational or simple translation of Greek. Many of the complaints regarding this text seem to be rooted in Voelz's use of proper English grammar to help define the Greek counterparts. In my mind, it's not too much to ask that the student have a firm grasp in the primary language (in this case, English) before learning a foreign language. The "scholarly vocabulary" and "linguistic jargon" referred to is nothing greater than what would be taught through the high school level, and anyone who has taken an English grammar/composition course at the college-level should be well-prepared. It should also be pointed out that the text was geared (I believe) towards seminary students, thus the intent is to teach and promote scholarly exegesis--if you're going to read the NT in its original language, why settle for anything less?! The Bible is too important a text to not have thorough training in translation, lest the reader interpret the text incorrectly.

Awful
I recently began an online Greek course offered by Concordia Theological Seminary.The course mandates the use of Voelz' Third Edition, but I've found it unusable.It appears to be Voelz' lecture outlines repackaged as a "grammer".Because of its true nature, it lacks much of the explantory information needed by students to learn the language.This forced me to spend hours of frustration trying to decipher Voelz' bizarre rules and notes.Those were hours I could have used to learn the language, or better yet, spend with my wife and kids.So I've given up on Voelz and am now using Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek which I highly recommend. ... Read more

Product Description
This book, published in its first edition in 1989, is aimed primarily, but not exclusively, at readers who know ancient Greek. It aims to show how accessible Modern Greek is, once the basic adaptations over time are understood. For speakers of Greek the book provides an overview of the language’s past. For those with no Greek the historical introductions and the translations of the extracts serve as an introduction to the Greeksand their language.

The chapters trace the long march of the language from the use of Greek in the Linear B tablets through the classical, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Frankish/Venetian, Ottoman, and post-independence periods to the present day. The developments are illustrated within their historical context and the extracts give a taste of the literature of a period as well as providing examples of changes in the language, which are explainedin the grammatical points that follow.

This second edition has been revised throughout. The translations are more literal, to enable the reader to follow the Greek text more closely, and a new appendix summarizes the grammar of Standard Modern Greek. Finally an up-to-date and fuller bibliography provides a useful guide for further study. ... Read more

Product Description
In this companion volume to his earlier work, The Latin Language, Leonard R. Palmer now provides a history of The Greek Language, including an overview of the coming of the Greeks, the Linear B. Tablets, the Greek dialects, genres (in poetry and prose), and a comparative-historical grammar. Palmer discusses the transformation of the Greek language from its Indo-European roots, through the Bronze and Dark Ages, to the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods and beyond. Major authors and genres are discussed throughout the history, including essays on Homer, Melic poetry, tragedy, Herodotus and Thucydides. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Generally informative, but dated and superseded in many respects
Leonard R. Palmer was one of America's great classical educators in the 20th century. His 1954 book THE LATIN LANGUAGE was an immensely helpful book for people who wanted a rigorous linguistic, not just philological, history. His companion volume THE GREEK LANGUAGE was delayed for many years so the author could get up to speed with Linear B studies, but it finally appeared in 1980.

The book consists of two parts. The first, "An Outline History of the Greek Language" is a sweeping view going from the first evidence of a distinct Greek presence in the Balkan peninsula to the birth of Modern Greek. The introduction to the Mycenaean world here, though in many respects dated, is still among the friendliest in English. Palmer's arguments for Greek-Anatolian language contact are sure to be thought-provoking. But what may prove most useful here is an introduction to the various literary languages, from elegy and iambos to melic poetry, choral poetry to tragedy, and the prose styles. I'd recommend this for anyone who has finished a rigorous course in Attic and who wants to start tackling other writings. However, those looking for very detailed analysis of various styles and registers may instead want to look at Stephen Colvin's recent Historical Greek Reader (Oxford, 2007).

The second part is the "Comparative-Historical Grammar", which tries to show how Greek evolved from Proto-Indo-European. All I can say is that this entire section is superseded by Andrew L. Sihler's New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (Oxford, 1996), which represents significantly more recent thought on Proto-Indo-European and which uses a much more mainstream transcription.

MORPHOLOGY RULES O K.
Palmer's companion volume The Latin Language appeared as long ago as 1954. Greek is a bigger and more complex topic, but what delayed this book for 20 years was what had just made it bigger still - the decipherment of the Linear B tablets found on Crete and in mainland Greece. Their language had proved to be Greek, and Greek 500 years more ancient than the Iliad, up till then the oldest established Greek text. The great Leonard Palmer, professor of comparative philology at Oxford, put his full weight right from the start behind the amateur Michael Ventris who had achieved the decipherment, and only when he felt that the topic was nearing exhaustion barring further discoveries did he let The Greek Language see the light.

This book is no kind of primer. It assumes not only good knowledge of Greek (ancient Greek that is - modern Greek is included in this historical survey because this is a living tongue and not dead or undead like Latin, but it is a minor issue from this book's standpoint) but also familiarity with the lingo of linguistics. It is addressed mainly to students, and insofar as it speaks to a wider audience that audience probably consists mainly of Palmer's fellow academic professionals. The back cover pitches hopefully for `readers whose interest is literary rather than philological', but I'm not sure what these may find to assuage their interest here. Palmer is a linguistic scientist and a through-and-through professional at that, and while his comments in the sections on ancient Greek poetry and prose show true and obvious sensitivity and his translations exhibit the sensibility of a lover of language and not just an analyst of language nevertheless he sticks to his last. Anyone looking for lit crit had better look elsewhere.

However any reader whose interest is literary could still find some interesting perspectives here. The most startling aspect for me was how little attention was given to Demosthenes. Palmer explains quite clearly why this is so - Demosthenes may have been the greatest virtuoso of Athenian oratory but he is great for his individual artistry and not a significant figure in the history and development of the language, which is what this book is about. It surely affects my own appreciation of Greek literature to understand how such-and-such word-formations reflect traditions coming down from Homeric epic and the dithyrambs, but in that respect I am a bit of a geek whose thrill at the magical use of my own tongue in Paradise Lost or The Rime of the Ancient Mariner or The Lady of Shalott is probably more a matter of the authors' skill with English than of the subject-matter. Lovers of literature untainted by such tendencies ought certainly to read things to their advantage in Palmer's sketch of the change in the idiom of Athenian tragedy from Aeschylus to Euripides, and perhaps even more in his quiet and devastating proof that our modern romantic and sentimental focus on Demosthenes rather than on Isocrates exhibits a confusion of thought that we need not have fallen into if we had troubled to look at how the ancients, e.g. Cicero, looked at the matter.

There is no reason why anyone need read this book from cover to cover, but in the last resort it is a history and that is how one normally reads histories. You are thrown in at the deep end at the start, and rightly so, with Linear B. It is the most ancient Greek known, but if you can keep afloat among the detail you will learn one whale of a lot about not just this language but about languages generally. This is evidently a `chancellery' dialect, a formalised and artificial idiom spoken by nobody in real life but still utterly priceless in the early evidence it gives of the development of the language and not least in the antique elements it preserves. Its idiom is not alone in being artificial - so is the epic dialect to a great extent, and so though to a lesser degree are the styles of the great historians Thucydides and even Herodotus, not to mention the tragedians in more respects than one. Above all you will be kept right by an unsurpassed professional in the matter of what the definition of a `language' is. Briefly, and doing some violence to the argument, it is a matter not of vocabulary but of how words are formed - a process that can be analysed and categorised so that we can define a specific language and its relationship to other languages.

Translations are provided this time, because Palmer had been criticised for not doing this in The Latin Language. Thank God, say I, getting my Greek together again after nearly half a century. Before I made his acquaintance I was told that he had been a boxing blue at Cambridge and that his manner in academic disputation was reminiscent of this. In fact Palmer is a model of calmness and courtesy in this respect. The old-style classical textual critics, most famously Housman but going back all the way to Scaliger in the 16th century and doubtless even earlier, fought like ferrets in a bag. Palmer's way is not like this, but there is an intriguing sense, that I also felt in his lectures, that there were left hooks and right uppercuts being restrained with difficulty from use against people who might dare to argue with him.

This notice is a bit of a little memoir of someone I knew and stood in awe of. By way of envoi I might mention that on p136 part of the translation has dropped out and we need `lawless with no feasting not husband-fearing'. On p110 I also had brought back one of the most entertaining lectures (by someone else) that I ever attended. Palmer ignores the textual problem with lofty indifference, but the issue remains in the Tyrtaeus fragment - if the blood was coming from Priam's privates why would have he been wounded in that region in particular; and if the blood was coming from his hands why was he holding his privates? I never thought I would see this text again. Happy days. ... Read more

Product Description
Extensively tested in classrooms around the country, thistext offers quick yet solid instruction in Biblical Greek.

Designed with the needs of today's hurried college and seminarycurriculums in mind, this new textbook offers a succinct,single-volume introduction to Biblical Greek that has already beenproven in classroom settings. Divided into 32 lessons, Croy's grammaruses a primarily deductive approach that quickly yet effectivelyteaches new students the skills necessary to handle BiblicalGreek. Loaded with special features that separate it from other workscurrently on the market, this book will become the text of choice forteachers and students of Biblical Greek. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (21)

A good primer
In my opinion the 30lb gorilla in the beginners Greek Grammar market is Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar. I've used it and now Croy's. I wanted to offer my quick contrast between the two. If you are learning completely on your own, I think Mounce's is easier and better geared to that (besides you can buy his course lectures from his website). Croy's on the other hand seems well suited for the classroom and those who know Greek but want to refresh. I say that because Croy's is straight to the point in most cases, it also doesn't contain the humor of Mounce (which is good or bad depending on your perspective).

Now to what's just good about Croy's? Like I said, it's to the point. You start off with Verbs and Nouns much faster than Mounces. Actually lesson 2 is verbs and lesson 3-4 are declensions.

Capricious amounts of examples! Not only do you have author created sentences, LXX, and NT as well as couple of English to Greek sets there is also a CD includes even more exercises (more akin to Tests) for each chapter (it also includes answers). It takes me a week or two to just complete one lesson with all the exercise (this is a good thing).

I also enjoy the technical explanation of different grammar principles as they relate to Greek. As an example: he goes in depth into the accents and how they work and function.

Then why just of 3 stars? I like the book and on its content alone it earns 4 stars. I enjoy Mounces better but this book is less expensive (you also don't have the by a separate work book and you have direct biblical exercises to do). The book is just cheap (even the 2nd edition). It's already about to split at its glued seems and all I do is try and prop it open while doing exercises. I'm not completely confidence how long this will last.

Kindle edition is misprinted!
I downloaded the Kindle version of this book, and it is a pretty good textbook, but the Kindle edition has a major problem: some of the passages for review and exercises are misprinted. For example, the practice exercise in the first chapter containing the first few verses of Genesis in the Greek translation have weird spacing between letters that breaks up some of the words and makes it impossible to read correctly. From the preview pages on the print version, it doesn't look like the regular print version has this problem, so I would strongly recommend AVOIDING the Kindle version at all costs. Other than that, this is a good book in and of itself, other than the problem others have noted that no answers to the exercises are included, so it's hard to work through on your own.

Take care in handling this book
Since I am only a first term Greek student, I don't have much to compare with Croy, but I am doing fairly well in my class. The CD is of some help as it provides answers to some (but not all) of the homework exercises. Croy's composed exercises (based on vocab and grammar given to that point) are much more helpful than the LXX and NT exercises that he includes because the scripture includes many words not yet taught. Because he has to provide those words, there's less opportunity to practice skills. Took off one star for this.

The cover and binding on this volume are not of top quality. A 60 page chunk has fallen out of mine and the clear veneer is peeling off of the cover. Other students in my class are also noticing deterioration of their copies. Those who are unusually gentle with their textbooks may not have a problem. However, Greek requires a lot of study time which does translate to more use for the textbook. Took off another star for this.

great book
I love this book. Also the sender gave it to me promtly and in great condition.

Kindle Edition Review
I picked up this book so that I could give myself a head start in learning biblical era Greek, which I hope to take at university next semester.It's been a fun adventure so far.

I opted to pick up the Primer based on Amazon reviews, and further opted to get the Kindle edition as it is nice to be able to take multiple study texts with me wherever I go.I have not been through the entire book yet but I thought I would share a few observations.

In general, I like the book.Because I'm self-learning, I find that using other resources with the book is a must.Fortunately, there are many great on-line resources for helping one to learn Koine Greek.Without them, I would probably get less out of the Primer, again due to my attempting this as someone new to the subject and without an instructor.

Pluses:The writing style is engaging and relatively easy to follow.The exercises are likewise engaging.I look forward to doing them and so far they have been appropriately challenging and rewarding.

Minuses:The lack of an answer key is unfortunate, as it leaves the solo-learner having to guess whether he/she is doing the exercises correctly.Of course, this is a non-issue if you are not a solo-learner.

Kindle Version Problems:I've run into two problems that I would guess are exclusive to the Kindle version of the Primer.The first is that sometimes a Greek letter will show incorrectly. Sometimes it will show only half the letter, or, even more oddly, split the letter in half with what appears to be a full space between.This led to a lot of confusion for me until I realized what was happening, as they at first appeared to be new letters I did not know.The other, perhaps more significant problem with the Kindle version is that the Greek alphabet table is, to be succinct, really messed up.Alpha is missing, and the columns do not line up leading to letters being associated with the wrong name, transliteration and/or pronunciation.It is so bad that if you were to rely totally on the chart in the Kindle version you would be unable to proceed.Fortunately, I had another alphabet chart with me and was able to recognize this error immediately.

If I were to make my purchasing decision over again, I would still buy this book, but I would get the hard copy.The Kindle version suffers from quite a few rendering errors.It does not make the Kindle version unusable, but it does create some unnecessary challenges for the reader. ... Read more