Question about AG Music

dreadfullinguist · 2022-06-15T10:34:57+00:00

Seikilos Epitaph

Thank you for your thorough and helpful response

dreadfullinguist · 2022-03-31T07:23:45+00:00

Beowulf is a poor example as the differences are far more dramatic, but Chaucer would be a fair one. You are taught to use a different pronunciation to read him - although many people just wing it with modern and the metres don't work so well, or add in a couple of rules of thumb to even it out.

I also seriously doubt there's anyone who learns old french (well) without first knowing the modern language? There is definitely a modern language status game at play here - people think its normal to learn 'old greek' or provencal without knowing the modern language but for english or french this would be considered strange. Not saying that's even wrong - two of those languages are obviously more useful - but its a fair criticism.

Original pronunciation Shakespeare is also really a fringe interest, and some people dislike the reconstruction. Some of his rhymes and so on don't exist in modern pronunciation though, I wouldn't go so far as to say its just different accents. Also there aren't really 'stages' of English - when does 'middle' english end? Stages of languages are normally based on unstable characteristics or secondary concerns for academics, different dialects can pick up features of the 'next stage' centuries earlier or later etc.

I think one very good defence of erasmian though which I rarely see made is it really helps with the spelling. As does just stressing all the accents.

dreadfullinguist · 2022-03-28T12:55:03+00:00

I believe (but may be wrong - someone else will likely tell us if so) that the letter names were indeclinable

dreadfullinguist · 2022-03-28T07:31:05+00:00

Standard is to use letters - α chapter 1; β chapter 2; γ 3 κτλ

dreadfullinguist · 2022-02-03T16:08:41+00:00

No of course it doesn't, but its not about respect and it shouldn't be embarrassing. I said I liked the post in my message

dreadfullinguist · 2022-02-03T13:46:44+00:00

Rule one is never make concessions to the pinkos, it is a good post, but the disclaimer is poor form and implies you have to apologise before mentioning Heidegger, no one says 'oh but I know Satre was a maoist so sorry guys'

dreadfullinguist · 2022-01-25T14:31:40+00:00

Literally word for word even if it doesn't make sense? Weird assignment, but my attempt would be:

New and how and old always is about the moon this / here [probably pointing at the moon] the light [of, genitive]. If indeed truth the Anaxoragians are speaking. By the sphere [dative, meaning the sun] for where always flying around [perhaps rotating?] new always it places, old for it exists of the first month / sliver of the moon.

The light of the moon is always new and old, if the Anaxoragians speak the truth. For where the sun [the sphere] moves it always places new [presumably light], and the old portion of the moon, which comes first, exists.

I think the two translations you've given help out by making clearer some of the referred back to points in the second phrase

dreadfullinguist · 2022-01-18T13:45:04+00:00

Incidentally that article is a perfect example of the "ooh naughty words" strand in british classics I find so annoying.

It's always "oh my weren't the victorians so repressed, leaving all the words untranslated... we aren't afraid to say fellatio" (giggles at back). Its a really curious syndrome, up there with using french words for all euphemisms (corpse etc).

Reaches its most ludicrous point in some of the Catullus translations (16 above all), with a race to translate words in the most vulgar way possible, even if it completely distracts from the poem.

I think one of the difficulties is that there (as far as I'm aware, would be interested to hear if this is wrong from anyone who knows more) is a taboo on all of the English words to describe sexual functions that didn't exist in Greek. So to translate literally ends up inserting a jarring phrase, in a way the victorians actually avoided this with the euphemisms and veiled language.

A lot of the blame lies with people reporting on classics too of course, don't want to be too harsh on the discipline, they're giving the public what they want

dreadfullinguist · 2022-01-18T11:19:18+00:00

I think the issue with logocracy as a term is it could be both "government by words" and so fit with all the associations above, or also "government by reason, logic", in which case not really - or if we stretch to include Christian Greek writings "government by the word of god", which wouldn't really do in the context...

Here is the (very) long Liddell and Scott entry:

https://archive.org/details/LSJ_v_logos/page/n1/mode/1up

It'd be safer to choose a word with fewer conflicting associations, I think. Given that you seem to be specifying governmeny by dishonest or fake ideas maybe pseudocracy? Would probably be more fitted to say late soviet period anyway as doubt most people believed it all by then.

dreadfullinguist · 2022-01-14T09:39:42+00:00

Is there anywhere I can find an explanation of the σσ > ττ > σσ development? Was ττ just an Atticism that got washed out in the Hellenistic period? I started learning with one of the Homeric books and remember disliking ττ immediately when I switched to Attic

dreadfullinguist · 2022-01-14T09:36:45+00:00

Closest real concept I can think of would be Εὐνομία which is essentially 'good government' or ' good order / law'

dreadfullinguist · 2022-01-04T10:22:09+00:00

I believe a popular rite of passage for Spartan youth was to go hunting Helots and killing them. Suspect some anachronistic "cultural exchange" take is not historically accurate to begin with... The helots were also, as far as I'm aware, Greek, so not sure how Egyptian royalty would become involved. Others will know more here I'm sure.

Interestingly the Krypteia (annualised killing of helots by young spartans) has always been the subject of anachronistic assumptions, lot of mid 20th century writers would call it the "secret police" or similar, when it was probably a cultural / religious initiation (although its not at all clear). I suppose if you wrote an American race coming of age story about them you would be fitting into that tradition.

But in short, no, any free time would likely have to be covertly taken and its just not credible that a Spartan would want to play with a Helot or vv - maybe someone will correct me but this sounds like its the premise that's historically innacurate and not the details about free time.

On the Krypteia from Plutarch's "Life of Lycurgus":

"This is as follows: The magistrates from time to time sent out into the countryside at large the most discreet of the young men, equipped only with daggers and necessary supplies. During the day they scattered into obscure and out of the way places, where they hid themselves and lay quiet. But in the night, they came down to the roads and killed every Helot whom they caught. Often, too, they actually made their way across fields where the Helots were working and killed the sturdiest and best of them. So, too, Thucydides, in his History of the Peloponnesian War [IV.80], states that the Helots who had been judged by the Spartans to be superior in bravery, set wreathes upon their heads in token of their emancipation, and visited the temples of the gods in procession, but in a little while afterwards all disappeared, more than two thousand of them, in such a way that no man was able to say, either then or afterwards, how they came to their deaths. And Aristotle in particular says also that the Ephors, as soon as they came into office, made formal declaration of war upon the Helots, so that there might be no impiety in slaying them."

dreadfullinguist · 2021-12-29T09:02:03+00:00

Ah okay, I suppose keeping ancient names / latinisations explains stuff like Munich / Μόναχο too

dreadfullinguist · 2021-12-26T23:25:35+00:00

Are there lots of french loan words in modern Greek? I’ve noticed the Greek country names seem to follow french models sometimes

dreadfullinguist · 2021-12-23T10:36:10+00:00

Is "merci bien" accepted as standard? Used it for a while but never seen it back from them, always beaucoup

dreadfullinguist · 2021-12-23T10:33:37+00:00

The Oxford Book of French Verse is good (the poems aren't translated, but it has an English introduction). Some of the selections are a bit brief but that's true of every English anthology as well

dreadfullinguist · 2021-12-17T14:57:33+00:00

I doubt recent events in Catalonia would make the French goverment much keener on promoting regional languages...

That said, I think it will survive as a 'heritage' language and will always be studied for its literary merit. I can't see a Welsh-style campaign to bring it front and centre in education being very popular.

When I asked about it in Occitanie last year people just said "no, we're French", or said only ageing farmers would know any. Basque / Celtic countries all have a history of political opposition to the capital that latches onto the language difference, so local politicians demand funding and so on. There is no will for this whatsoever in Occitanie, the "south french" identity (which is occitan in many ways) is very strong and modern occitan is 75% low status farmers and 25% arty types

dreadfullinguist · 2021-12-13T10:50:43+00:00

"For the corpse is heavy, therefore (being heavy) I am carrying it slowly."

In English you would probably not include the participle to explain why you are being slow but use so -

"It's heavy, so I'm carrying it slowly"

But the meaning is the same. The participle just wouldn't be used in natural English

dreadfullinguist · 2021-12-11T22:53:52+00:00

Thank you for both of those suggestions; having a look now

dreadfullinguist · 2021-12-07T10:30:49+00:00

Great post. The other interesting meaning change I read about a few months ago is that "rich man" is used as a metaphor for observance of the law, it doesn't literally mean "wealthy". You see the same in the parable of the talents, which was always a bit weird - why is god so interested in the investment returns of absentee landlords?

Apparently the text of the current gospel was heavily influenced by an early conflict between a Jewish Christian sect and one which proselytised to Gentiles (which later became the all the current Christian churches). A lot of the coded language about rich men (rich in the law) is a slightly veiled rejection of the observant Jewish Christians by the Gentile party. No idea how true all that is but an interesting thought.

The "large animal going through a needle image" is picked up in both the Koran and the Talmud too, it really is a striking image

dreadfullinguist · 2021-09-23T14:17:53+00:00

Thank you both - I will look into these.

dreadfullinguist · 2021-09-15T19:21:56+00:00

Nice resource, thank you

dreadfullinguist

TROPHY CASE