Teaching Ancient Greek in Greek: A Recent Experience

I recently had the opportunity to provide professional development (PD) to all of the principals in a local school system. The objective of the PD was to make them aware of the experience of newcomers in their schools—students who arrive in the US understanding no English—and demonstrate ways teachers need to be adapting instruction for them. The school system has roughly 1,300 English Language Learners, and 240 of those are newcomers.

I gave the principals a taste of what it is like to understand nothing of what is being said to you, then showed them what their teachers need to do to help these students acquire English. To accomplish this, I addressed them in Ancient Greek and conducted the first 20 minutes or so of the professional development only in Ancient Greek.

For our purposes here at Greek-Language.com, what I did illustrates what we need to do to teach Ancient Greek in Greek. For the principals in this training, it was to help them see the scope of the need for solid English instruction.

We started the session with my colleague, Jessica Tallant instructing the participants to close their laptops. We did this for two reasons: first, to keep them focussed on the Ancient Greek lesson that was about to begin, but that they did not know about, and second, because near the end of the upcoming lesson I would instruct them in Greek to open their laptops. This would be a quick way to see who was understanding and who was not.

Slide 4, Build 1
εἰκὼν α

I began by reading aloud α Greek text which includes a set of instructions for beginning a brief assignment based on that text (see εἰκὼν α).

Of course they understood nothing and were unable to follow the instructions. I repeated them more slowly. When no one began to work on the assignment, I repeated the instruction a third time, this time slowly and louder.

Unfortunately, this is all some teachers know to do to “help” newcomers complete their schoolwork in English, and I wanted to demonstrate clearly the futility of this. 

Jessica then led the principals in a brief discussion in English of what they had just experienced and whether they thought they could learn Greek this way. They quickly made the connection to their students and the need to do more than speak slowly and loudly if we want them to learn English.

I then told the participants that we would read the Greek text again, but this time I would “scaffold it” for them so that they could understand. Again, I displayed the text, but this time the first word was highlighted in red, and there was an illustration to help understand it (εἰκὼν β).

Slide 6, showing a Greek text and an image of a Google Calendar page
εἰκὼν β

Signaling the image of a Google Calendar page, I said Σήμερα as I pointed to October 23 (the day of the PD) and to the word Σήμερα that I had added to the calendar above the date.

Next I pointed to the highlighted word in the Greek text and again said Σήμερα.

American Sign Language for "Today"
Today

Pointing to the calendar again I said Σήμερα, είκοσι τρίτο τοῦ ᾽Οκτωβρίου,  illustrating Σήμερα” with the American Sign Language sign for “today” and illustrating είκοσι τρίτο with two fingers then three (23). I did this twice, then I repeated είκοσι τρίτο τοῦ ᾽Οκτωβρίου as I pointed first at the number 23, then to the word Ὀκτώβριος above the month.

Finally, I pointed again to the first word of the Greek text and said: σήμερα.

Slide 7, the Greek text with an image of a woman looking through binoculars
εἰκὼν γ

On the next slide (εἰκὼν γ) the word διερευνήσομεν was highlighted, and there was in illustration of a woman looking through an oversized set of binoculars.

Pointing to the first two words of the text, I said Σήμερα διερευνήσομεν, illustrating σήμερα with the sign for “today” and using my hands to make pretend binoculars. I looked around the crowd as if examining them.

Pointing to myself, I said διερευνήσω (still with the pretend binoculars. Pointing to the crowed I said διερευνήσετε. Pointing to both myself and the crowd, I said διερευνήσομεν. 

Pointing to the first two words of the text, I repeated Σήμερα διερευνήσομεν, illustrating σήμερα with the sign, and διερευνήσομεν with the binoculars gesture.

Slide 8, with an illustration of data
εἰκὼν δ

The next slide (εἰκὼν δ) repeated the same Greek text, but with the words τὰ δεδομένα highlighted in red and illustrated by three examples of data. Pointing to the highlighted words, I read aloud, τὰ δεδομένα. Then, indicating the illustration, I repeated the phrase. Pointing to each example of data one at a time, I said δεδομένα, and pointing to the beginning of the text, I read aloud, Σήμερα διερευνήσομεν τὰ δεδομένα.

Slide 9
εἰκὼν ε

The next slide (εἰκὼν ε) highlighted the words τῶν μαθητών. Once again I read the highlighted words aloud, then pointing to the picture of four school children I repeated τῶν μαθητών. Next I pointed to each student individually and said μαθητής. Then I moved my hand from the first student to the last as I repeated, τῶν μαθητών. I read the beginning of the text aloud again, Σήμερα διερευνήσομεν τὰ δεδομένα τῶν μαθητών.

At this point I heard one of the principals say softly, “We’re going to look at our student data.”

On the next slide I skipped the words καὶ πώς since understanding those words would not increase the likelihood of success for the participants.

Slide 10, Build 1
εἰκὼν ζ

Showing an illustration of two students with contrasting work (one strong, one weak), I read aloud the highlighted words on the next slide: ἡ αποδόση (εἰκὼν ζ). Pointing to the passing grade I said αποδόση καλή (giving a hearty thumbs up). Then I pointed to the failing grade and said αποδόση κακή (giving a thumbs down with a frown).

Next I pointed to both papers and repeated, ἡ αποδόση.

In this brief section I had adapted the modern Demotic Greek word απόδοση (performance, yield) and treated it as if it were Ancient Greek. (Note, for example, the change in the accented syllable to reflect the pattern prevalent in the Hellenistic Period). I guess I could have used καρπός, but it just didn’t feel right in this context. If you know an Ancient Greek word that would fit well here, suggest it in the comments, and I’ll use it next time!

Greek text with the phrase ἡ αποδόση highlighted plus an illustration of contrasting scores
εἰκὼν η

At this point, the slide updated to place a label above each student. Pointing to the strong student in the illustration, I said “δυνατός μαθητής” (flexing my biceps). Then I pointed to her work saying, αποδόση καλή (with thumbs up), and I added: Ὀι δυνατοί μαθηταί (pointing to the label) ποιοῦσιν ἀποδόσην καλήν (pointing to the student’s paper).

I pointed to the second student saying “ἀδύναμος μαθητής” (while frowning and drooping my shoulders). Signaling her work, I repeated αποδόση κακή (with a thumbs down sign), and added: Ὀι ἀδύνατοι μαθηταί (pointing to the label) ποιοῦσιν ἀποδόσην κακήν (pointing to the student’s paper).

Slide 11 Illustration - Teacher with Students
εἰκὼν θ

I briefly reviewed the meaning of τῶν μαθητών by showing an image of a teacher with her students.

Pointing to the students in the picture I said, μαθητοί. Then I pointed to their teacher and said said, οὶ μαθητοὶ αὐτής.

Reading from the text again (ἡ αποδόση τῶν μαθητών ὐμῶν) I emphasized the word ὐμών as I pointed to the audience.

Slide 13
εἰκὼν ι

Next I read aloud ἡ αποδόση τῶν μαθητών ὐμῶν τῶν πολυγλώσσων. Displaying an illustration of two multilingual students (εἰκὼν ι), I held up two fingers, and said Δύο μαθηταί πολύγλωσσοι.

Pointing to the girl’s speech bubble, I counted the languages: ἕν, δύο, τρεῖς, and said μαθητής πολυγλώσση. Next I pointed to the boy’s speech bubble and counted the languages: ἕν, δύο, τρεῖς, and added, μαθητής πολύγλωσσος. Then I repeated μαθηταί πολύγλωσσοι (moving my index finger from one student to the other).

Once again reading from the text, I said ἡ αποδόση τῶν μαθητών ὐμῶν τῶν πολυγλώσσων, illustrating τῶν μαθητών ὐμῶν τῶν πολυγλώσσων as I read.

The next slide highlighted the words ἐπηρεάζει τὸν σχολείον.

Σχολεῖον was not the usual way of referring to a school in Hellenistic Greek, but it came to be used that way not long after, and I decided to use it because our English word “school” derives from this Greek root. It would make the work of the students (principals) a bit easier.

Slide 14, showing students and a school on opposite sides of a balance scale.
εἰκὼν κ

Running my finger under the words ἡ αποδόση τῶν μαθητών ὐμῶν τῶν πολυγλώσσων, I read the words aloud, then paused briefly before reading the words highlighted in red on the next slide:  ἐπηρεάζει τον σχολείον σου (εἰκὼν κ).

Pointing to the upper image of students, I said, οἱ δυνατοί μαθηταί αἴρουσι τὸν σκολίον (raising my palms under the school on the opposite side of the upper scale. 

Then pointing to the lower image of students, I said, οἱ ἀδύνατοι μαθηταί κατεβάλλουσι τον σχολείον (pointing to the school and pretending the push it down).

Slide 15, including an image of a laptop computer
εἰκὼν λ

The next slide displayed the text again, with the instruction Ἀνοίξετε τὸν ὑπολογιστήν σου highlighted.

Making the open book sign, I said, Ανοίξετε τον υπολογιστήν σου. I pointed to the illustration and said ὑπολογιστήν, then repeated the instruction: Ανοίξετε τον ὑπολογιστήν σου. All of the principals promptly opened their laptops.

I then pointed to the second bulleted instruction and said Ἔλθετε εἰς Ἐλλεβατιὸν Ἐδυκατιὸν τελεία κομ. Most of the principals immediately started typing the URL. The rest took their cue from those around them and did the same.

Giving them a few seconds to get to the correct website. I asked in English, “Are you all at EllevationEducation.com?” They were.

At this point I turned the meetινγ back over to Jessica, who led them in a productive discussion of what they understood the Greek text to mean, and how they had been able to follow the instructions.

Our objectives had been to get them to follow the instructions AND to have a rough understanding of what the entire Greek text said. While their understanding of the text was not perfect, it was gratifyingly accurate given that this was the first time any of them had studied Ancient Greek. They understood that the passage indicated we would examine our student data, and that the performance of multilingual learners impacts the performance of the entire school. They correctly identified the scaffolding techniques I had used to convey this meaning and to enable them to follow the directions.

What does this mean for us at Greek-Langauge.com?

This experience demonstrates clearly that students who have no previous understanding of Ancient Greek can follow along, understanding a rather complex text, and following instructions, if the teaching incorporates strong enough support to enable understanding. 

When I told my wife about this experience, she raised an obvious question, “Were they really understanding the Greek, or just your gestures and the images?” This is a valid question, and it deserves a careful, well supported response. 

My day job is to administer a language acquisition program for a medium sized school district in North Carolina. Equipping teachers to succeed at teaching English has given me a wealth of experience watching successful language instruction at work. That experience confirms what research on the topic has firmly established: If students consistently comprehend what is said to them, meeting lesson objectives in the language of instruction, they will acquire the language in which the receive that instruction.

Getting students to successfully follow along understanding what they hear, will implant the language of instruction in their brains. Of course they will not be able to speak the language at first, but they will begin the process of acquiring the language, not just learning about it.

Language acquisition is the process by which we develop the ability to both understand and produce language, primarily through exposure to spoken language in our environment, where we naturally absorb sounds, patterns, and meanings, gradually expanding our vocabulary and building grammar skills. Speech comprehension precedes speech production. Our ability to understand what we hear is always slightly ahead of our ability to speak. By enabling comprehension, we lay the groundwork for emerging speaking ability.

With our first language, we learn to understand and speak long before we begin the process of becoming literate. We learn to read and write only after becoming orally fluent.

Authentic reading comprehension in a second or third language is also dependent upon oral language comprehension. When studying modern languages we learn to comprehend what is said to us, speaking the language, and learning to read and write it all at the same time. Sometimes our reading ability may even slightly outpace our oral comprehension, but the two remain tightly connected.

Students who are not orally fluent struggle terribly to learn to read in English. Increasing their oral fluency enables higher levels of literacy. Similarly, teaching Ancient Greek through reading alone creates limits comprehension. If we can develop methods to acquire oral fluency in Ancient Greek, we will enable higher levels of reading comprehension, removing the barriers that are naturally present when trying to read without the oral language foundation to support literacy.

I am not orally fluent in Ancient Greek. I had to prepare and rehearse to be able to conduct the lesson described above, but witnessing the success of the “students” on October 23 confirms that what I do to support modern language acquisition, can and does work when applied to an ancient one. We can teach Greek beginning with the oral language, and when we do it well, comprehension will follow. It’s hard work, but if my experience as a modern language acquisition specialist is any indication, doing so will benefit not only the students.

Good teachers progress faster than their students. If you want to become fluent in Ancient Greek, start preparing to teach Ancient Greek in Greek.


For further reading

Shawn Loewen, Introduction to Instructed Second Language Acquisition, Routledge, 2020.

Kirsten M. Hummel, Introducing Second Language Acquisition, Wilie-Blackwell, 2021

Acquire Hellenistic Greek: Alpha with Angela



Today I added
FreeGreek.online to the Learn Ancient Greek page. The series of videos entitled Alpha with Angela, freely available through YouTube, provides a very competent example of teaching the language using a communicative approach. Of course, as with any video based course, it is not completely communicative given that the user cannot respond in real time, but the viewer is able to see and hear the language being taught to an online “student”.

This provides great support for developing receptive language (listening, reading), which is the focus of most Biblical Greek classes. Other resources will be needed to practice expressive language (speaking, writing).

The pronunciation system is the one used at the Polis Institute. While it does not accurately represent the Greek pronunciation of the hellenist period, it can be argued that it allows easy access to the spelling conventions of the time. Personally, I prefer the reconstructed pronunciation of the period used by Randall Buth and others, but this resource is free and very high quality.


With over 40 videos already posted, there’s plenty here to either get started on the path to acquire Hellenistic Greek or brush up on what you already know.

Changes in complement structure from Classical to Byzantine Greek

The post below was originally published in 2017. It was among a large number of posts that were lost for several years, and I recently recovered it. I have added a brief comment below after the republished post.


Journal of Greek LinguisticsIn the first issue of the Journal of Greek Linguistics of 2017, Klaas Bentein examined changes in the way verbal complements were formed between the Classical and Byzantine periods. Here’s what the abstract of his paper says:

While Classical Greek has a particularly rich complementation system, in later times there is a tendency towards the use of finite complementation. In this context, Cristofaro (1996) has claimed that the Classical opposition whereby the accusative and infinitive is used for non-factive complements, and ὅτι with the indicative and the accusative and participle for factive ones, is disappearing, ὅτι being used as a ‘generic’ complementiser. In this article, I investigate to what extent Cristofaro’s (1996) claim of the pragmatic neutralisation of complementation patterns can be upheld, and whether it could be claimed that a new pragmatic opposition, in terms of ‘register’, is being established. For this purpose, I turn towards documentary papyri, a corpus which is particularly fruitful for socio-historical investigations.

You can read this article here here. I have added it to the Comprehensive Bibliography of Hellenistic Greek Linguistics.


The title of Bentein’s article is “Finite vs. non-finite complementation in Post-classical and Early Byzantine Greek: Towards a pragmatic restructuring of the complementation system?”

What he calls “complement structure” is referred to as “argument structure” in other theoretical frameworks and “case frames” in still others. These two alternative models both place a strong emphasis on the relations of these complements to the verb with which they appear.

Two Items Added to the Bibliography

Today I added two items to the bibliography at Greek-Language.com. One was a paper by Paul Danove that has been around since 2013, but I have failed to add it. My apologies to Paul! 

Danove, Paul, ‘A comparison of the usages of δίδωμι and ἀποδίδωμι compounds in the Septuagint and the New Testament’ in Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts (eds), The language of the New Testament: Context, history and development Linguistic Biblical Studies 6, Leiden: Brill, 2013. 365–400.

The second is a paper published in the Transactions of the Philological Society in 2017. Dr. Stolk provides a well-reasoned look at prepositions (mostly πρός and εἰς) and the usage of the dative and accusative cases in phrases without a preposition. She challenges the widely accepted notion that increased use of these prepositions caused the eventual decline of the dative case.

Transactions of the Philological SocietyStolk, Joanne, “Dative Alternation and Dative Case Syncretism in Greek: the use of dative, accusative and prepositional phrases in documentary papyri.” Transactions of the Philological Society. Volume 115:2 (2017) 212–238.

Transliteration versus Translation

A number of highly important words in translations of the Bible are in fact not translated at all, but merely transliterated. A translation is a rendering of the meaning of a text into a different language. A transliteration does not render the meaning of the word into the other language, but only represents its sound. βασιλεύς, for example, can be translated into English as king. Transliterated into English, it would be Basileus.

Clearly, transliterating this word into English would not make its meaning clear. It would, in essence, hide the meaning and give us a new English word, which we would then have to explain to readers of the text. This is exactly what happened with quite a few theologically important words in the earliest English translations of the Bible. Rather than translating them into English, the earliest translators chose to transliterate them, representing their sound rather than their meaning in English.  In most cases, these transliterations were accepted by the churches of the time and became traditional usage in the new languages into which the Bible was translated, with the church providing new “official” meanings for these words. 

Four examples of such transliteration still found in our modern English Bibles are shown below.

Original Language Word Translation Transliteration
βαπτίζειν dip, wash, rinse baptize
χριστός anointed Christ
מַשִׁיחַ anointed Messiah
χριστιανός of the party of the anointed Christian

Why do you think the earliest translators chose not to translate these word, but to transliterate them? What could happen if we chose now to actually translate them rather than continuing to use the transliterations given to us by those early translators?

Ἐγὼ μὲν ὑμᾶς βαπτίζω ἐν ὕδατι εἰς μετάνοιαν (Matthew 3:11)
I dip you in water for repentance
I wash you with water for repentance 
I rinse you with water for repentance

At the very least, in the case of βαπτίζω, we would have to think very hard about which English word best represents the sense of the Greek word in each particular context. Continuing to use the transliteration baptize hides this problem from us

BICS, CALP and what they mean for Acquiring Ancient Greek

I recently gave a presentation to a group of parents of school children enrolled in Chatham County Schools’ English Language Acquisition program. They wanted to know how children qualify for help acquiring English, how the program works once they qualify, how they exit the program when their English is good enough, etc. In answering that last questions, I addressed something that I have long wanted to write about in regards to ancient language acquisition–particularly acquiring Ancient Greek. So… here we go.

BICS and CALP

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. By SimonP CC by SA 3.0

In 1979 Jim Cummins, professor at the University of Toronto, coined these two acronyms to distinguish between two very different levels of language competence observed in students acquiring English.

BICS means Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills, while CALP is an acronym for Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency, now commonly referred to simply as Academic Language Proficiency. Cummins observed, along with others working in applied linguistics, that students rapidly reach the ability to converse with their peers and even do a reasonable job of functioning at school and sounding fluent, but their academic performance often lagged far behind their native speaking companions.

The distinction between BICS – acquired rapidly through oral interaction – and CALP – which requires considerable effort and much more time to acquire – has stood the test of time, remaining a fundamental distinction in studies of modern language acquisition. Since Cummins’ initial proposal the distinction has been applied not only to the acquisition of an additional language beyond the one developed as a child. It can even apply to monolingual speakers of English (Spanish, German, or any other present-day language.).

Auto mechanic repairing an engine
Auto mechanic repairing an engine. CCO or Public Domain license

Almost everyone, absent a major cognitive impairment, acquires BICS. This is the language of everyday life, the way children talk to each other and to their parents and the way adults speak to each other in day to day conversation. BICS is all that is necessary for many jobs, for example. You can wash cars, work at a fast-food restaurant, gather crops, and perform many other jobs without the need of much academic language. As we all know, though, these are the lower-wage jobs.

If you want to work in a more demanding and higher paying setting, you generally need CALP.  If you interview for a job as a Finance Manager, BICS will usually not be enough. The only jobs available to you at an institution of higher education if you only have BICS are the service jobs. Certainly prejudicial attitudes play into this, but no matter the race or ethnicity of the applicant, Professor, Department Chair, President, IT Specialist simply don’t go to applicants without CALP. It has to do with your ability to do the job. You need CALP for sophisticated and highly technical enterprises.

So What?

What does this distinction have to do with acquiring Ancient Greek?

For generations Ancient Greek was taught almost exclusively through memorization of forms, paradigms, and lists of vocabulary. Nobody ever learns or learned real fluency that way, but a fair number of gifted students managed to acquire the ability to read Ancient Greek texts with the aid of a good lexicon and a reference grammar. An embarrassingly large percentage of students never even managed this rather limited ability. Nobody, not even those gifted students, could develop BICS in this manner, much less CALP.

Thankfully, that is changing. Some magnificent work is being done to teach Ancient Greek in Ancient Greek, with students actually acquiring the ability to speak the language as well as read it without the need of frequent reference to a lexicon or grammar. This work was pioneered by Randall Buth who founded the Biblical Language Center in Israel more than two decades ago. 

It is in this new context that I wish to address the question of BICS and CALP. Scholars have long recognized the variety of language registers embedded in the Greek New Testament. Reading Mark’s Gospel is an experience quite unlike reading Luke-Acts, for example.  While slogging through Mark after only one year of elementary Greek is a possibility, making it through Luke, Acts, or Hebrews is not. The authors of these last mentioned documents wrote with a variety of vocabulary and sentence structure much more demanding than most of the rest of the New Testament. They had Ancient Greek’s version of CALP.

The ability to speak fluently in Ancient Greek will not insure an understanding of that register of Ancient Greek literature, though it is certainly a good start. To produce CALP, listening and speaking in class must move beyond conversational fluency to include both reading and writing with high standards.

This is a self-criticism, by the way. I have a long way to go before even being conversationally fluent in Greek. I am bilingual and biliterate—able to understand what I hear, make myself understood in speech like a native, read with understanding, and write at a reasonably high level in both English and Spanish—but I only read Ancient Greek. I hope to change that. 

Resources are becoming more and more available to help with this goal. I discovered this week Seumas Macdonald’s  Ἡ Ἐλληνικὴ γλῶσσα καθ᾿ αὑτὴν φωτιζομένη (aka) Lingua Graeca Per Se Illustrata. What a gift to the world of Ancient Greek students! It’s released with a CC BY-SA 4.0 license!

As Seumas himself acknowledges, the work is not ready to use as a stand-alone tool for teaching yourself Ancient Greek, but it certainly is a major help for anyone already started on that learning journey and looking for some good reading practice that doesn’t require reference to English explanations. I can also envision how it could be incorporated into an in-person learning experience with the teacher using the communicative method. Have the students read each chapter of Seumas’ work, then discuss it in class in Greek. This would require a good bit of preparation on the teacher’s part, but it would be worth it!

Another great resource available online—this one not free unfortunately—is Biblingo. The four and a half minute video below gives an overview of the method and its goals. Whether or not you agree with the theology that drives their work, the method is what is of interest here. The video is an ad, but you can get an idea of how the program works.

The course includes audio and video and requires the user to write in Greek, beginning with very simple structures and increasing in complexity as you advance through the course. This also could be adapted for use in a classroom setting, having students complete lessons on their own, and designing communicative classroom experiences to take advantage  of what they have learned.

Another online course with a good bit of material already developed is Benjamin Kantor’s work at KoineGreek.com in association with the Biblical Language Center. You can see his introductory video below to get an idea of what to expect. 

All of these online resources represent a great step forward in terms of fluency. Other programs that can accomplish the same, such as the Polis Institute and one of the options at the Biblical Language Center, use the communicative method in particular locations requiring travel to the course location site. 

I am unable to travel to those sites, but I’m excited to see the communicative method showing up increasingly in online resources. My own personal goal goes well beyond oral fluency (BICS) to include the ability to read and write the way I can in English and Spanish (CALP). That requires, in addition to working on oral fluency, reading roughly contemporary works outside the canon, reading to learn rather than just learning to read. 

Maybe one day I’ll get there. But there will always be more to learn.


If you are learning Ancient Greek using the communicative method, please feel free to comment telling us what you are using and where you are studying.

 

Mike Aubrey’s Masters Thesis

Originally published on December 31, 2014

Mike Aubrey has uploaded his anxiously awaited thesis:

The Greek perfect and the categorization of tense and aspect: Toward a descriptive apparatus for operators in Role and Reference Grammar

Mike has also posted two reflections on his blog that you will find helpful as you read his thesis. Here’s what he says about their value:

If you’re a Greek student/scholar. I would encourage you to read the two posts dedicated to discussing my thesis. This is because it’s not a work that’s oriented toward biblical scholars [or] to classicists. It’s a work by a linguist for linguists. The two posts I’ve put up […] on my blog are designed to provide some orientation for people whose primary interest is Greek rather than linguistics proper.

Here are links to the two discussions on his blog:

Part I: Challenges in language analysis: thesis prefatory material
Part II: Thesis Prefatory Material: A Narrative Account

Abstract

Here’s the abstract that Mike included on Academia.edu:

This thesis attempts to expand the theoretical and methodological basis for operators within Role and Reference Grammar for purposes of language description, using the Greek perfect as a test case. This requires first examining the current theoretical and methodological approach to tense and aspect in RRG and its strengths and weaknesses. Here I demonstrate that while some areas of RRG have a well-developed and robust set of theoretical and descriptive tools for language description, operators such as tense and aspect are distinctly lacking in this regard. To that end, I propose a model for tense and aspect operators that attempts to fill in the gaps that exist in RRG while also maintaining the integrity and spirit of the linguistic theory. This involves three steps. I begin with a survey of the broader typological literature on tense and aspect in order to establish a set of morphosyntactic tests for the evaluation and categorization of operators. This is followed by an application of the proposed morphosyntactic tests to a particular grammatical problem: the Greek Perfect in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the tests. I then concluded with a synthetic model for tense and aspect operators that both satisfies the theoretical and typological claims of the broader literature and also validates the existing structure of the Role and Reference Grammar framework, thereby furthering the goals of RRG as a useful theoretical model for language description.

The Greek Perfect

While the Greek perfect has been the subject of numerous treatises, it has received less attention that other forms of the verb in treatments of aspect. Mike’s thesis enables Role and Reference Grammar to address this deficit.

I encourage you to take the time to read it along with the posts on his blog that address it.

μακαριοῦσίν με πᾶσαι αἱ γενεαί A first century Speech Act

Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church

Originally published December 17, 2014: μακαριοῦσίν με πᾶσαι αἱ γενεαί

I had the privilege this Sunday of hearing a spectacular sermon by Rev. Stephanie Ford on the Magnificat. When the text was read before the sermon I noticed something that raised for me a question about translation and cultural assumptions.

The translation being read rendered Luke 1:48 as

God has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. 
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed.

It is the second of these lines that concerns me. The Greek text of that second line reads:

ἰδοὺ γὰρ ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν μακαριοῦσίν με πᾶσαι αἱ γενεαί

Does the verb μακαρίζω really mean “call blessed” here? In the ancient world one did not “call” someone blessed, but simply blessed that person. It was a speech act. The act of affirming a person or making a positive statement about a person’s future was to bless that person (μακαρίζω).

The interpretive difference this raises has to do with who is doing the blessing, who is performing the speech act. To translate μακαρίζω as “call [someone] blessed” suggests that it is someone other than the speaker who does the blessing. The speaker is simply reporting the fact of “blessedness.” In both Classical and Hellenistic Greek, though, the subject of μακαρίζω is the person doing the blessing, not someone else reporting about it.

This issue did not come up in the sermon, which addressed more pressing matters and related the Magnificat fabulously to issues of justice that still should concern us in the 21st century. I apologize to Rev. Ford for being distracted by the Greek text! Her sermon was excellent and blessed.

Punctuation in Ancient Greek Texts, Part III (Quotations)

Originally published on January 6, 2013

This morning I heard Peter Carman preach on Matthew 2:1-12. He did a super job, striking a great balance between scholarship and pastoral guidance.

As the scriptural text was being read aloud in English, I followed along in my Greek text. [Yes. I am one of those geeks who takes the Greek text to church. I don’t use it to intimidate other worshipers but because I find reading the Greek texts to be a meaningful experience.] As I was reading this text, it hit me that it’s a great example of the problem posed by the lack of clear indication of where quotes begin and end in Ancient Greek.

While it’s usually very easy to see where a quote begins, finding the end of the quote is much more challenging because there was no punctuation, and no grammatical convention, to indicate this. The particular point at which the issue appears in this text is in the priests’ and scribes’ response to Herod when he asks them about where the Christ will be born.

Ηρῴδης . . . συναγαγὼν πάντας τοὺς ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ γραμματεῖς τοῦ λαοῦ ἐπυνθάνετο παρ᾿ αὐτῶν ποῦ ὁ χριστὸς γεννᾶται (verses 3 and 4).

Herod . . . gathering all the high priests and scribes of the people, inquired of them concerning where the Christ would be born.

The clause introducing their response is quite clear:

οἱ δὲ εἶπαν αὐτῷ·. . .

And they said to him: . . .

So it’s not hard to find the beginning of the quote. Where we decide the quote ends, though, has a significant impact on the meaning of the passage. The NRSV, NIV, NET Bible, and TEV all use quotation marks to have the response include all of the following:

ἐν Βηθλέεμ τῆς Ἰουδαίας· οὕτως γὰρ γέγραπται διὰ τοῦ προφήτου· 6 καὶ σὺ Βηθλέεμ, γῆ Ἰούδα, οὐδαμῶς ἐλαχίστη εἶ ἐν τοῖς ἡγεμόσιν Ἰούδα· ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ ἐξελεύσεται ἡγούμενος, ὅστις ποιμανεῖ τὸν λαόν μου τὸν Ἰσραήλ. (verses 5 and 6)

In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it has been written by the prophet: ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you will come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.”

This interpretive decision is perfectly reasonable, of course, but it is not the only one possible, and it does have significance for what Matthew intended. It asserts that the chief priests and scribes quoted scripture to Herod. While there is no clear reason to think they wouldn’t do this, it’s also not clear that Matthew meant us to understand the text in this way.

Let’s consider another option that is equally well supported by the the text. Suppose Matthew meant only that they answered, ἐν Βηθλέεμ τῆς Ἰουδαίας (in Bethlehem of Judea).

Keep in mind that the raised dot in the printed text further above is an editor’s decision based on evidence that first appeared in the text much later than its date of composition. A period is an equally reasonable interpretation of that same evidence.

If the author of this text intended the quote to include nothing more than ἐν Βηθλέεμ τῆς Ἰουδαίας, then the rest of this section would be his own attempt to explain why they gave this answer.

οὕτως γὰρ γέγραπται διὰ τοῦ προφήτου· 6 καὶ σὺ Βηθλέεμ, γῆ Ἰούδα, οὐδαμῶς ἐλαχίστη εἶ ἐν τοῖς ἡγεμόσιν Ἰούδα· ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ ἐξελεύσεται ἡγούμενος, ὅστις ποιμανεῖ τὸν λαόν μου τὸν Ἰσραήλ.

For thus it has been written by the prophet: “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.” 

In this reading of the text, the scriptural quote does not represent something the high priests and scribes said to Herod, but something the author quoted to his readers to show the significance of the answer given by the high priests and scribes to Herod’s question.

I apologize to Peter for thinking about this while he was delivering his insightful sermon this morning. While he didn’t discuss the punctuation of the text, he did make me think a lot about the text’s significance for today’s church. For that I thank him seriously.

Here’s a little reflection on why we should care about the punctuation:

Punctuation matters. When I mentioned this issue to my 16-year-old daughter earlier this afternoon, she responded, “Of course punctuation matters. ‘Let’s eat, Grandma’ doesn’t mean the same as ‘Let’s eat Grandma.'” She’s right, of course. It matters.

For a competent reader of Ancient Greek to fail to question the punctuation in our printed editions of the Ancient Greek texts is an abdication of a significant part of our responsibility. If we don’t struggle with the punctuation, we are simply handing that responsibility off to the editors of those texts. While that is a reasonable thing for students early in the study of the language to do, it is not a reasonable thing for accomplished readers to do. Question the punctuation. Struggle with it. Ask how the text would change if we punctuated it differently. What options are reasonable? Which ones are not? This is a part of what it means to read seriously.

Here are some other posts dealing with the lack of punctuation in Ancient Greek:

There is also one tangentially related topic that arose out of this discussion earlier:

Happy reading!

Important! [Added Jan. 19, 2015]:

While the earliest manuscripts of the biblical texts did not contain punctuation, it is usually clear to a competent reader of Ancient Greek where the punctuation belongs.

It is a serious mistake to assume that the absence of punctuation in those manuscripts means a person who does not read Greek is free to choose where to put the punctuation in an English translation. To make decisions about where the punctuation belongs, it is necessary to read Ancient Greek very well. Many options that would seem to be available in an English text are ruled out by the structure of the Greek text.