I want to learn Roman Latin and Byzantine Greek so that I can read old manuscripts and documents in the native language so that I don't have to be exclusively dependent on translations.
What is the best way to go about this? What sources and books should I utilize to accomplish this? I'm not particularly fond of online sources. I would take a class at university if it were offered, however it's not (no idea why they stopped teaching Latin in HS).
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Waste of time desu
I mean, I'm not expecting to become some Latin or Greco-linguistic master or anything. I just want to understand enough that I can comfortably read common texts.
Lingua Latina per se Illustrata
I don't know what that measn. Latin Language learned through Illustration?
Look up the /int/ wiki latin section.
It's the name of a book for learning Latin.
Awesome, I'll check it out.
Neat, this looks really great. I could actually probably learn from this. Should I bother with getting the audio recordings as well for correct pronunciation, or would I be just as well off looking it up? I'm not planning on really speaking it, just mostly in reading and understanding it.
Maybe if you like orthodox ecclesiastical music, it'll help you learn some vocabulary. The downside is that the context is always religion.
Well, a lot of Byzantine sources come from religious people, so it only makes sense. I don't know by what margin it is to secular sources though.
But exactly how far does Byzantine Greek deviate from classical Greek?
>But exactly how far does Byzantine Greek deviate from classical Greek?
A lot. Grammatically at least. Medieval Greek is closer to modern day Greek than to the Classical Attic dialect of antiquity. During the Hellenistic period, the language was simplified a lot and by the fall of Byzantium it was closer to 19th century demotic (vulgar Greek) than to its original form. The good thing is that if you learn Koine/Medieval Greek, you've covered everything you'd want to read from Roman times up to pretty much today with little difficulty.
So basically I should start with Koine/Medieval Greek so I'm not wasting my time learning something twice. So do you have any recommended texts?
As I said earlier, I don't plan on becoming super proficient in it (maybe over time), just good enough that I can read texts and manuscripts and such.
Well as someone who is learning Latin at university and who has a test on gerunds/gerundives tomorrow I say do it, but it will be very hard. Make sure you ask for help on forums or you won't progress. It's best learned when you have someone explaining what you got wrong to you.
>I want to learn Roman Latin and Byzantine Greek
>Byzantine Greek
Why would you want to learn that over Attic Greek?
>I would take a class at university if it were offered
I don't know of any courses
but I think your best bet would be to check out if your Greek Embassy/Greek culture center or whatever, or some orthodox church offers courses in Koine.
Main reason is for comparisons between the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire around the same time period. And also because I want to start an ambition, which I haven't for a while now.
I need a goal to strive towards.
I don't think there are any where I'm at. I live in the US Southwest, mostly Catholic stuff here.
Fair enough.
Hm, maybe you can find a bible study group or something, some of your local churches might teach it regardless, since the New Testament is written in Koine. That is if you are willing to join such a group and study the bible, just to learn the language. If you are religious it's a win-win I guess.
I'm not particularly religious, but I am interested in learning truth and understanding the knowledge and viewpoint of early church philosophies (which means I'm not too fond of protestants, modern ones especially where they try and be all kool with rock n' roll for Jesus, ugh). If anything, I'm most accurately described as "theistic-agnostic".
I mean, all in all, I'm just interested in the knowledge of the older tradition and the ancients.
Then look up if there's anywhere to learn "New Testament" or "Biblical Greek" and be careful that they are serious and not a prep school for "muh semantics and debating atheists 101". It'll give you an insight to what the proper translation of the text is and it'll give you a pretty good boost on your way to reading other sources.
Well, at the baptist church that I attend, the pastor does have a doctorates in Theology and is well versed in the Greek (and Hebrew) of the bible. I think I can actually ask him for some good resources as he went to seminary school.
>Roman Latin
You want to learn all the variations of the language that existed while the civilization existed?
>Byzantine Greek
What you mean is Koine
Go for it, and don't give up. It's a tough to learn language but it's a great plus in what you want to achieve.
Thanks. The only thing is I have a constant nagging thought. I took a linguistics course a couple semesters ago, and one of the most important concepts I learned about language learning was that beginning right after puberty, a person's ability to soak in language knowledge (grammar, syntax, annunciations, pronunciations, etc) begins to diminish steadily, and the longer a person waits, the much harder it becomes to actually learn a language.
Your brain as a child is very different than as an adult when it comes to learning languages, and you will never be as good as a native speaker if you were not born into the language.
But my point is, I don't know what that threshold is where a person's capacity to learn a language is diminished too far, but that right there has gotten me paranoid. I just hope I'll stick with it.
It's true to an extent but learning new languages is feasible at any age. All you need is to dedicate time and effort. You are, what, in your early-mid twenties? I know people that age who are trilingual. If your end goal motivates you enough, you'll get there.
Wheelock's Latin is pretty standard in most intro Uni Latin courses.
Unsure about Greek but the "Library of Alexandria" thread had a great bundle of stuff. Maybe an user has it.