English-Greek Phrasebooks and Lexicons
Posted: October 30th, 2011, 4:29 am
For those who are looking for a English-Greek lexicon, Carl Conrad has translated the bulk of the German Book, Sprechen Sie Attisch into English. The book can be found on Google Books, or an online version of the ongoing translation can be found at http://www.letsreadgreek.com/phrasebook/default.htm. Those who want a pdf print version can download http://www.letsreadgreek.com/phrasebook ... sebook.pdf. There are still some errors being corrected; the pdf has instructions on how to send corrections in to the editor.
A recent discussion about this book came up on B-Greek: http://www-test.ibiblio.org/bgreek/foru ... ie+attisch
A recent discussion about this book came up on B-Greek: http://www-test.ibiblio.org/bgreek/foru ... ie+attisch
It's precisely this sort of phrase that constitutes the bulk of the Johannides Sprechen Sie Attisch? chat book; the objection raised against that has been that these are Attic, not Koine expressions. I think the same would apply to the Platonic conversational phases. Of course I personally think that the objections are a sort of reverse-snobbery: Phrynicus warns would-be speakers of good Greek to avoid colloquial Koine usages and to adhere to "pure" Attic expressions. I think, on the other hand, that the objections to Attic conversational usage constitute a preference for the language of the street and a rejection of phraseology that Plutarch and Josephus and Philo might have used if they'd had the opportunity to chat with each other. The fact is that there were, even in the Hellenistic era, Stilhöhen comparable to the modern distinction between Katharevousa and Dimotiki
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)