by Christophe Rico POLIS with the collaboration of Michael A. Daise illustrated by Pau Morales INSTITUTE PRESS ~uvEypal(JEv Xpt.crt6cbop°'; 'P(Kw auvEpyouvto<; Mi.xa~A. ~m( Kat 61.aypa<f>ovto<; IIauA.ou MwpaA.E<; Speaking Ancient Greek as a Living Language Level One, Student's Volume (wau AaA.Ei.v tiJ KOLVij OL<XAEKtC¥ tiJ IIpwroc; pcxeµ6c;, rEuxoc; rou µcxerirou POLIS INSTITUTE PRESS no Ale; POLIS AcxA.E1 v tiJ KOL viJ bLCXAEKttp tiJ ( W01J Speaking Ancient Greek as a Living Language IIpwro<; paeµ6<;, rEuxo<; rou µaerirou Level One, Student's Volume by Christophe Rico with the collaboration of Michael A. Daise Illustrations by Pau Morales ~uvEypcntJEv Xpt.atocpopoc; ( P(Kw auvEpyoDvtoc; M1.xcx~A. ~cxl.( Kcx't. 61.cxypcfQ>ovtoc; IIcxuA.ou MwpaA.Ec; Polis: Speaking Ancient Greek as a Living Language Level One, Student's Volume By Christophe Rico Copyright© Polis - The Jerusalem Institute of Languages and Humanities (Registered Association 580539591 ), 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or transmitted or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Polis Institute. [email protected] www.polisjerusalem.org 8 HaAyin Het Street, Jerusalem ISBN 978-965-7698-00-6 Polis Institute Press is a subsidiary of Polis - The Jerusalem Institute of Language and Humanities Illustrations by Pau Morales Design and Layout by Lior Ashkenazy, Lotte Design To Gerard Lignac Acknowledgements The Polis method comes from more than fifteen years teaching ancient Greek in Jerusalem. It is difficult to articulate all I owe to my colleagues and students, both for the choice of exercises and for the order of chapters. Let me thank them all here for the precious help they have given me in this work. I particularly wish to express my gratitude to Professor Jordash Kiffiak, who tested the method in his own teaching. He has enriched the book by developing a series of exercises on Greek cases especially for it My gratitude, also, to Sabina Soper, who organised and edited the audio files, taking the character of Rhoda. And thanks to all those who took part in the recording with her: Eyal Nahum (Nikolaos), NicolaAgnoli (Alexandros), Michel Petrossian (Philippos), Wasso Kikuni (Nikanor), Lyse Kikuni (Martha), Melanie Gunnoo (Bernike) and Benoit Colonval (Nestor). The following people composed the lyrics of the 7 songs that are displayed in the audio files: Angel Tabares (Alphabet; Hen, duo, tria, humeis anastete pantes; Elthe moi, Rhode) Marc Faride (Hen, duo, tria; treche, Philippe, treche) Pascaline Dedji (Aineite ton Theon) Domenico Pontari (Ti gineta1) Marc Vail lot (Planatai ho Philippos) I also wish to thank Denis Goutier for the drawings he has created for this book as well as Deborah Broda who colored Pau Morales illustrations. And regarding the first edition of this book, I wish to thank Emmanuel Vicart for the ideas he offered as well as Alejandro Bertelsen for the mise en page solutions he suggested. I also wish to thank Lior Ashkenazy from Lotte Design for the page design and layout and Nar Vinleaf for the cover design. Christophe Rico Table of Contents IlEpLEXOµEva. Introduction. Elaaywy~ ................................................................................................... II Foreword. Ilp6A.oyoc; ...................................................................................................... VII Commands (TPR). 'EvtoA.aC ........................................................................................... 1 1. To i5Cfoyµa to Tipwtov. 'AvaywwaKnv ............................................................. 5 2. To i5Ci5ayµa to i5EutEpov. fpa<Pnv ..................................................................... 15 3. To i5Ci5ayµa to tpC tOV. T(c; EL au; ..................................................................... 23 4. To i5Ci5ayµa to tErnptov. 'Ev t'fl atpanq ....................................................... 45 5 . T0' us:L.'su:.< Xyµa tO' TIE/ µTitOV. uAE L-<r,;O' V µOL ta'c ; XEL-p<Xc; ............................................ . 61 6. T0, us:L.'su:.< Xyµa to' "E KtOV. 'EV ty- yuµV<XO'L y ........................................................ . 73 7. To i5Cfoyµa to EPi5oµov. L'.l6c; µoL to PLPHov ................................................... 97 8. To i5Lfoyµa to oyi5oov. 'Ev axoA.'fl .................................................................. 111 9 . T0' us:L.'su:. <Xyµa tO' "E V<XtOV. TI'X 1TpO'O W1T<X toU- nf--.'Lnf-.-'111'. LOU ...................................... .. 121 10. T0' us:.L's:u. ayµa to' us:E.' K<XtoV. T'L 1TOLE-L 0' X pLOto't'1t-'.o poc;; ...................................... 135 11. To i5Ci5ayµa to Evi5EKatov. 'Oµ LAC a Kw<Pwv ................................................... 151 12. To i5Ci5ayµa to i5wi5EKatov. Nu~ Kat ~µEpa .................................................... 165 13. To i5Lfoyµa to tpwKmi5EKatov. IlEpt tf)c; EA.A.rivLKf)c; yA.waaric; .................. 183 14. T0' u5:. L'5u:. ayµa to' tEOO<Xp<XK<XL5u:.'E K<XtoV. '1su:. OU' "E OtflK<X E' 1T'L tf'l V 8u' pav ............ . 201 1s. To i5Lfoyµa to 1TEVtEKmi5EKatov. ITEpt i5uaK6A.ou 'LTITiou .............................. 223 o 16. To i5Lfoyµa to EKKmi5EKatov. 'o TioLµ~v KaA.oc; ........................................ 243 17. To i5Cfoyµa to ETitaKmi5EKatov. IlEpl. BouKE<PaA.ou Kat Nfotopoc; ............ 263 18. T0' us:. L'su:.< Xyµa tO' O' KtWK<XLus:E.' K<XtOV. K pOU' OUOLV E' 1T'L tf'l V 8 U' p<XV .................... .. 277 o 19. To i5Lfoyµa to EvvrnKaLi5EKatov. L'.l Llf/q N LKoA.aoc; .................................... 295 o 20. To i5Lfoyµa to E'LKOatov. Ilou Eat w BouKE<PaA.oc;; .................................... 311 A word about the Polis Institute .................................................................................... 327 L inguist Christophe Rico (Ph.D. Greek Linguistics, Sorbonne University, 1992; a Habilitation Diriger des Recherches, Strasbourg University, 2012) belongs to the Faculty of the University of Strasbourg and teaches ancient Greek at the Ecole Biblique etArcheologique Frarn;:aise de Jerusalem and the Polis Institute (www.polisjerusalem.org). He has authored some forty scholarly articles treating Indo-European languages, general linguistics, translation theory, hermeneutics and K.oine Greek. And he serves as a member of the Editorial Committee for 'la Bible en ses Traditions'. Since 1993 Dr. Rico has been applying the teaching methods commonly used for modern languages to Koine Greek and, as a culmination of his work, has created and written the Polis method. Artist Pau Morales (Diploma of Barcelona Arts Faculty, 1999) has won art competitions in Barcelona, Madrid and Rome and has given exhibitions in several European countries. Illustrator of numerous works published in Catalonia, he has also drawn the illustrations presented in the Polis method. (www.paumorales.com). Michael A. Daise (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary, 2000) is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, College of William and Mary, where he has been awarded Alumni Fellowship Award for excellence in teaching. Author of fiasts in John: Jewish Festivals and Jesus' Hour' in the }ourth Gospel (Mohr Siebeck, 2007), as well as numerous articles on the Gospel of John, the historical Jesus, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism, he is a veteran member of the 'Enoch Seminar: International Scholarship on Second Temple Judaism, Christian, Rabbinic, & Islamic Origins', serves on the North American editorial board of Annali di Storia dell' esegesi (Bologna) and works on the editorial board and as book review editor for the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus (Brill). About the book The first edition of the Polis method has been published in French (Editions du Cerf, 2009), Italian (Edizioni San Paolo, 2010) and German (Helmut Buske, 2011). The English edition of Polis fully revises the first edition and expands its original twelve chapters to twenty. I Introduction This course is intended for all who wish to read ancient Greek texts without a dictionary. The Polis method is an introduction to Greek through the dialect which has yielded some of the most important works of literature: Kaine Greek. From Plutarch to the New Testament authors, from Polybius to the Septuagint translators, from Plotinus to the author of the treatise On the Sublime, a host of writers have composed their texts in the common dialect (koine dialektoJ. KOLV~ cSu0. . EKrnc;;) from which Western culture has sprung. Since the literature of this dialect spans over a thousand years, we had to choose a reference point: the first century AD The Greek from this period has the advantage of lying midway between early (3'd c. BC - 211c1 c. BC) and late Kaine (3'd c. - 1O 'h c. AD) and, further, allows us to read the most interesting Greek works of Antiquity and the early 11iddle Ages. Vocabulary This method proceeds by offering a series of Greek texts ordered according to a natural progression. To compose them we drew material from concordances of Apollonius Dyscolus (grammatical vocabulary), Plutarch (daily terms) and the New Testament (common vocabulary). These three corpora allow us to base the language of our texts on a vast range of literature from the first century AD. Whenever these concordances did not provide the word needed, they were supplemented by the vocabulary of the Septuagint. In some cases, such as telephOnon (tTJAE¢uwov), we created neologisms for objects that were non-existent at the beginning of the Christian era. It thus became possible to produce texts that carry the full strength of a living language. Further, we drew from the various concordances frequent idioms and ways of speaking specific to first century Greek. This allowed us to produce some texts which could be considered centos of the New Testament. Moreover, we included in this first English volume of Polis two passages from the New Testament that are lightly reworded for the beginner. II Introduction. ELaaywy~ Pronunciation Lingua ex auditu: this book comes together with audio files that comprises the recordings of all the lessons 1 Pronouncing Kaine Greek is a very sensitive issue, since . it entails many pedagogical, emotional and identity factors. Two major options are available for the student: the historical and the modern. 1. Modern Greek pronunciation A growing number of Greek teachers recommend modern Greek pronunciation when studying ancient Greek. Several reasons are usually given. First, it is argued that nobody will ever attain the exact pronunciation of ancient Greek, since no recording of it exists. Further, since at least Byzantine Greek pronunciation has been very close to modern pronunciation, the continuity between these different periods of Greek culture would be lost if one adopted another way of pronouncing ancient Greek. It would be a pity, it is argued, to sever the student from a natural link with modern Greek culture, the heir of the ancient Greek world. From this point of view modern Greek pronunciation is the best way to pronounce ancient Greek. 2. Historical pronunciations Despite these arguments favouring a modern Greek pronunciation, we have decided to follow an historical one. The main reason concerns the communicational character of our method. Due to the main phonetic changes Greek has undergone since Antiquity, many words have become impossible for the hearer to distinguish. True, Septuagint and New Testament texts are continuously read with modern Greek pronunciation in Orthodox liturgy, without confusing the learned reader. Yet there is a difference between reading a text and interacting orally. According to modern Greek pronunciation, we should pronounce 1EL.xoc; ('walls of a city') exactly as 10!.xoc; ('wall of a room'): [tihos]. And even more problematic, the basic words ~µE'ic; ('we') and uµEl.c; ('you') are impossible to distinguish in modern Greek pronunciation. Both are heard as [imis] and modern Greek has resolved the ambiguity by developing two different words for 'we' and 'you': EµE(c; [emis] and EOEtc; [e sis]. 1 You can download for free the audio files from our site: www.polisjerusalem.org III And, though no authentic recording of ancient Greek exists, this does not mean that phoneticians cannot reconstruct it with a fair degree of certainty. Some precious clues have helped: the tendencies of 'general phonetics', spelling errors recorded in ancient inscriptions, the spelling of Greek loan words in other ancient languages such as Latin and even descriptions of Greek phonetics by ancient Greek grammarians. Consequently, phoneticians have reached a large consensus about the exact pronunciation of ancient Greek at the different stages of its development.2 The historical pronunciation of Koine Greek is more difficult to define within clear chronological and geographical boundaries than that of Attic Greek. For Attic it suffices to adopt the reconstructed historical pronunciation of Athenian Greek during the S'h and 4rh centuries BC. But Koine Greek is a language that spans some one thousand years-from the 3rd century BC till the beginning of the Middle Ages-in large regions of the eastern Mediterranean. a) Historical first century AD pronunciation Extensive research has been conducted on the pronunciation of New Testament Greek by Randall Buth. Those curious to know the real first century pronunciation of Greek will find an example in the audio files associated to this volume, a reading from the beginning of the Prologue in John's Gospel as it could have been pronounced by the time it was redacted. b) Historical early Kaine Greek pronunciation The pronunciation chosen for this book, however, is more conservative. Save for three consonants, it is quite close to the one Erasmus reconstructed for classical Greek, the so-called 'Erasmian pronunciation'. As a matter of fact, we followed the pronunciation that belonged to the cultural elite at the beginning of the Koine period, even though for the sake of convenience the consonants cp, 8 and X are here pronounced [f], [8] and [h] instead of the historical [ph], [th] and [kh]. ' Michel Lejeune, Phonetique historique du mycenien et du grec ancien (Tradition de l'humanisme 9 ; Paris : Klincksieck, 1972) ; W. Sidney Allen, Vax Graeca : A Guide to the Pronunciation of Classical Greek (3d ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Georgios Babiniotis, I:uvo11nKD wi:op(a tD' EAATJVLKD' y/..wooa, (Athens, Ellenika Grammata, 1998). Note also the different Wikipedia articles on this topic in either English, Greek or French. IV