Monthly Archives: January 2007

aorist vs. imperfect

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Aorist means the simple past. “I did something.”

Imperfect means an ongoing activity in the past. “I used to do something.” The word ‘imperfect’ even suggests ‘incomplete,’ and that’s not just a coincidence. The whole idea is ongoing, incomplete stuff.

Here are some examples. “James was sick.” (IMPF) vs. “James threw up.” (AOR) I don’t mean to imply that they are synonyms or two sides of the same coin. Not at all. Here’s another one: “We were looking for Johanna’s earring.” (IMPF) vs. “We found the earring.” (AOR)

Or, “We lived at 123 Main Street.” vs. “We bought a house at 123 Main Street.”

I was doing some exercises in Mastronarde’s book, and one was to translate English into Greek: “on that day the cavalry guarded the camp.” I racked my brain, and struggled, and tried to figure out if it should be translated in Greek as aorist or imperfect. I guessed aorist. … And was wrong. Grrr! … But, okay, “guarding” could fit better into an ongoing activity for a day, rather than an instantaneous action (AOR).

The next exercise was “they begged the king.” And I thought, “Okay, a one-time event … they went and begged the king. Obviously Aorist.” NOPE!!! Imperfect. Grrrr. I guess the sense is “they were begging the king.”

Mastronarde’s exercises are clearly designed 1) to cover material that has been presented, but 2) in a way that makes you think, rather than in the simplest possible fashion. It’s not a “trick question” at all. But I can see (at other times too) Mastronarde tries to use exercises that really force you to think about what’s been presented, rather than “oh .. of course.”

GWOTD – the slanderer

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Here’s a decent Greek word of the day. I’ll start with βάλλω “ballaw,” which means “to throw.” I came across διαβάλλω, and since the preposition δια- means “through,” then the literal meaning would be “to throw through.” Okay. But the lexicon noted that another meaning is “to slander, to falsely accuse.” I’m not quite sure how they got from “throw through” to “slander.” It could be something like “to throw (into jail) through (false charges).”

Anyway, διαβάλλω means “to slander.”

Like “el diablo,” “diabolic,” … you know, “the devil.” :) Cool, huh?

What is “ancient” Greek?

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First, it is not modern Greek. If we think about how much English has changed in the last 500 or 1000 years, it’s easy to imagine that Greek has changed at least that much since ancient times.

If we define “ancient” Greek as that used between 700 BC and 100 AD, a span of eight hundred years, there were both regional dialects and changes within that time. For modern students, three dialects are of greatest interest. The earliest is that used by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey. There are some grammars and lexica available that focus on Homeric (also called ‘Epic’) Greek. And some proponents argue strenuously that Homeric Greek is the best place to start.

The Greek spoken in Athens in the classical period (5th and 4th centuries BC), often called ‘Attic’ for Attica, the Athenian region, represents the high point of Greek civilization, and is the language of Socrates, Plato, Aristophanes, Lysias, Xenophon, and many others. There are many, many textbooks, grammars, and dictionaries available for Attic Greek, and many scholars recommend learning Attic Greek first, even if one’s ultimate goal is to read the Iliad and the Odyssey.

The third variation is Koine, the common Greek of the Hellenistic world, is the third ancient Greek dialect of great modern interest, because the writers of the New Testament used it. Koine was a standardization and simplification of Attic Greek, and after Alexander the Great, through the Roman period, was the language of commerce, letter-writing, and ordinary life throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. I am not sure, but have the sense that Koine does not vary greatly from Attic.

As should be clear, I am learning Attic Greek, using the highly recommended text by Donald Mastronarde, “Introduction to Attic Greek.” 19 units in, I am very pleased with it so far.

GWOTD – Gymnasium

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Greek word of the day – gymnasium, from γυμναζω, which means “to train, to exercise.”

This word also neatly demonstrates the difference between the Active and Middle voices. The book notes that in the Middle voice, γυμναζομαι, (note the different ending) it means “to exercise oneself, to be in training.” I reached a real “aha” moment this morning when I encountered this verb in unit 18. Thinking about it in a transitive sense, i.e. where someone/something is the object of training, then the active word γυναζω, would apply if I wanted to say something like “I train my dog,” or “I exercise the horse.” Or a professional trainer might say “I train my client.” All these would be γυμναζω.

But, if we say, as we commonly do, “I work out at the gym today,” or “I exercise this morning,” then we mean (implicitly), “I exercise myself.” And Greek has an explicit form for this, the Middle voice. In this case, the word would be γυμναζομαι. It’s still transitive; someone (me) is still the object of the action (training). When the subject and object are the same, also called a “reflexive,” then Greek uses the Middle voice.

I just used the first person singular, to keep it simple, but of course, those endings -ω and -ομαι, will change for other genders and numbers. And, uh … also, “of course,” for other tenses.

Also, I am now making good use of the hotkey that I defined for the keyboard. When I activated the Polytonic Greek keyboard, I set up LeftAlt + Shift to toggle between them. So now, that’s easy too.