Greek Language and Linguistics - Ancient Greek, mostly Hellenistic

February 14, 2022February 15, 2023

Punctuation in Ancient Greek Texts, Part II

Here is a good example of what I had to say in my last post about the lack of punctuation in Ancient Greek, including the absence of spaces between words. The image is from Codex Sinaiticus, Philippians 1:1-2.

Here is the same text with spaces added between the words:

ΠΑΥΛΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΙΜΟΘΕΟΣ ΔΟΥΛΟΙ ΧΥ ΙΥ ΠΑΣΙΝ ΤΟΙΣ ΑΓΙΟΙΣ ΕΝ ΧΥ ΙΥ ΤΟΙΣ ΟΥΣΙΝ ΕΝ ΦΙΛΙΠΠΟΙΣ ΣΥΝ ΕΠΙΣΚΟΠΟΙΣ ΚΑΙ ΔΙΑΚΟΝΟΙΣ ΧΑΡΙΣ ΥΜΙΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΙΡΗΝΥ ΑΠΟ ΘΥ ΠΑΤΡΟΣ ΗΜΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΚΥ ΙΥ ΧΥ

Notice in addition to the lack of punctuation and spacing, the regular use of abbreviations for the words God (ΘΕΟΥ = ΘΥ), Lord (ΚΥΡΙΟΥ = ΚΥ), Jesus (ΙΗΣΟΥ = ΙΥ), and Christ (ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ = ΧΥ). In Codex Sinaiticus as in all of the early manuscripts, such abbreviations are marked by a macron (¯) over the letters. I was not able to do that when I typed out the version with the spaces above. By including both the first and last letters in the abbreviation, the CASE of the words in question is clear (Genitive in this context for all of them), so even the abbreviations present minimal difficulty for a reasonably fluent reader of Hellenistic Greek.

To see the earlier discussion, go here:

Punctuation in Ancient Greek Texts, Part I

On January 6, 2013 I added a third post on the topic of punctuation:

Punctuation in Ancient Greek Texts, Part III (Quotations)

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.

February 14, 2022

Usage of καί

Originally published May 15, 2012: Usage of καί

Earlier today, Eric Rasmusen posted the following comment in the Punctuation in Ancient Greek Texts discussion. While his comment is related to that topic, it raises a question more specific to the usage of καί, and I would like to invite other comments more particular to the use of that conjunction than to punctuation.

Here’s what Eric had to say:

I don’t know Greek. I have a question about Biblical Greek, which often strikes me as ugly in literal translation. I was just reading Colossians in English and wondered whether most of the “and”‘s in it ought to be translated by periods. In other words: is the Greek word kai actually mean NEW SENTENCE?

3:13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have aquarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

3:14 And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.

3:15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.

And here’s my response, to which you can feel free to add:

I agree that overly literal translations sound “ugly.” That’s because they try to make English sound like Greek, and that’s just not normal English usage!

As to the meaning of καί…

No. Καί is not equivalent to a verbal punctuation mark. It can be used in all of the ways that the English word “and” can be in English, plus a few others. I’ll stick to ways that have a parallel in English to make the discussion below easy to follow.

Usage of καί to link words

Καί can be used to link two or more simple words in a list:

χρυσὸν καὶ λίβανον καὶ σμύρναν

gold and frankincense and myrrh (Matthew 2:11)

Σίμωνος καὶ Ἀνδρέου

Simon and Andrew (Mark 1:29)

To link phrases

Καί can be used to link two or more phrases:

γῆ Ζαβουλὼν καὶ γῆ Νεφθαλίμ

The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali (Matthew 4:15)

To link clauses

Καί can be used to link entire clauses:

τέξεται. . . υἱόν, καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν

She will bear a son, and you will name him “Jesus” (Matthew 1:21)

Usage of “and” in English differs from the usage of καί in Greek.

In English we often omit “and” when it would sound repetitive. For example, in the first example above (Matthew 2:11), a more natural English translation would be “gold, frankincense, and myrrh” rather than “gold and frankincense and myrrh.” In a list of three or more items, we tend to use “and” only between the last two in Engli sh. In ancient Greek texts, however, it is quite common to find καί between each set of items in the list. While including “and” in all of these places in the English translation would sound “ugly” as you put it, including και´in Greek sounds quite normal.

Because Ancient Greek had a much more developed system of grammatical endings (for verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, etc.), it was possible to write sentences that were considerably longer than what would be understandable in English. Often the parts of such long sentences were held together by conjunctions like καί. There were, of course, many other such conjunctions, but καί was among the most common. Overly literal translations attempt to make English work like Greek and include all of those conjunctions rather than breaking the long sentences down into the smaller units that English usage requires. This results both in “ugly” sounding sentences and a significant loss of comprehensibility.

Note added February 14, 2022:

For more on punctuation in Ancient Greek, see these posts:

February 14, 2022February 14, 2022

Punctuation in Ancient Greek Texts, Part I

Originally published on December 27, 2010: Punctuation in Ancient Greek

Recognizing that readers of this blog represent various levels of competence in reading Ancient Greek and levels of familiarity with Hellenistic Greek texts, I am posting an email I wrote to a user of Greek-Language.com back in 2005 in response to the question, “Did Ancient Greek use punctuation?” If you already know the answer to that question, just skip this post! (Or better yet, comment!)

On Mon, August 29, 2005 I wrote regarding punctuation in Ancient Greek:

Dear _________:

Thank you for your letter. Your question is an interesting and important one, and we have considerable evidence with which to answer it.

The ancient Greeks did not have any equivalent to our modern device of punctuation. Sentence punctuation was invented several centuries after the time of Christ. The oldest copies of both the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Old Testament are written with no punctuation.

In addition, the ancient Greeks used no spaces between words or paragraphs. Texts were a continuous string of letters, with an occasional blank line inserted to mark the end of a major section, though even this was not always done.

They also had no equivalent to our lower case letters. Texts were written in all capitals.

While this clearly creates some challenges for Bible translation, those challenge are seldom very large. As a simple test, try reading the English text in the following line:

WHATDOESTHISSAY

With very little difficulty you can probably tell where the spaces should be and what kind of punctuation belongs at the end. You can tell this because you are a native speaker of the language in which the text is written, so you can easily recognize the words as well as the implication of the word order. Native speakers of Ancient Greek, in the same way, could recognize where one word ended and another began even though the spaces were not written. They could also distinguish a question from a direct statement without the need of punctuation.

Here’s the real problem: You and I are NOT native speakers of Ancient Greek.

While I read Ancient Greek quite well, I did not grow up speaking it. All modern scholars, including those who grew up speaking Modern Greek, are in this same situation.

When there is more than one possible way of dividing the words in a sentence or paragraph, or when there is more than one possible set of punctuation, we must look for clues as to what the author intended in order to correctly determine which is the correct division and what punctuation the author would have used if it had been available.

Of course there is an element of subjectivity in this process, but many scholars have dedicated the better part of their lives to reading the Biblical documents in the original languages and have come to have a good sense of the style and preferences of each author. As we develop this skill, it becomes easier to see what the author would most likely have intended in each of the few places where a sentence could be divided more than one way.

If you do not read Ancient Greek and Hebrew, it is important to compare various translations to see what the options for punctuation might be. Then you should ask yourself which punctuation results in something that the author would most likely have said. This may not always provide you with the correct answer, but it will be a valuable learning experience.

Thank you again for your letter. I wish you well in your studies.

Micheal W. Palmer

Greek Language and Linguistics Gateway

http://greek-language.com

A few years later, I posted two other discussions of punctuation in Ancient Greek. You can find them by following the links below:

Another topic tangentially related to this one is available here: Usage of καί.

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.

January 30, 2022February 16, 2023

Starting Over

Once again, I am starting over. The blog associated with this website used to have hundreds of posts dating back quite a few years. Over a year ago, while the site was located at GreekLanguage.blog, it was the subject of a malicious attack that took down the blog and and corrupted the database that supported it. The process of rebuilding has proved to be extremely slow, and this is my second attempt to start from scratch rebuilding the blog.

Along with writing new posts, I will gradually repost much of what was on the old blog. I look forward to interacting with you again!

July 23, 2017February 16, 2023

GreekLinguistics.com and Greek-Language.com

The domain name greeklinguistics.com, which for some time now has worked as an alias for greek-language.com, will be out of service for a few days as we make the move to a more secure web server. I will be using the name greeklinguistics.com to set up the new server and test the site to ensure that everything works well before everything goes live there.

You should not experience any disruption of service as long as you use the address greek-language.com. If you try to go to greeklinguistics.com, you may notice glitches or the site may refuse to load. Just be patient. We will get there!

July 17, 2017February 15, 2023

ἀφίημι ὑμῖν — I forgive you?

Yesterday in church, a friend leaned over and pointed to the verb ἄφετε in Luke 18:16 with a puzzled look on his face. (Yes. He and I both read the Greek text in church while the English translation is being read. We’re incurable geeks.) In introductory Greek classes, students often learn to associate ἀφίημι with the act of forgiving someone for something, but that’s clearly not its meaning in this text. Any decent Hellenistic Greek dictionary will present a range of different options for translating this verb into English, including, forgive, release, permit/allow, etc, but they do little to help you understand the implications of the verb in Greek.

This brief interchange in church began a thought process that did not interfere too much with the sermon, which was an awesome excursion through the Jacob cycle of stories in Genesis, but led me to want to write something about ἀφίημι. It’s a great example of how shifting worldviews can make ancient texts seem strange to us. How is it that a single verb can be used with such divergent senses in the biblical texts?

In today’s world we think of forgiving as something that has to do with emotions. “You did something thoughtless (hurtful, etc.),” we might think, “but I’m going to forgive you.” That is, “I’m going to overlook what you did and feel okay about you in spite of it.” This way of thinking about forgiveness is a very long way from the ancient Greek notion of ἄφεσις (the noun associated with the verb ἀφίημι).

In the ancient world these words were associated with release (release from obligation, release from imprisonment, release from ownership, release from impeded movement, release from limits imposed by someone else). Emotion might be associated with these things—and almost certainly was—but it’s not part of the meaning of these words. Both the verb ἀφίημι and the noun ἄφεσις had much more practical import. Photo by Kevin Bacher

In John 14:27 we are told that Jesus said to his disciples, Εἰρήνην ἀφίημι ὑμῖν. In this scene Jesus is not forgiving his disciples for anything they have done. He is handing over peace to them. Peace (εἰρήνη) is his to give, and he is releasing it to them. In Luke 18:16, Jesus is not asking his disciples to forgive the children for anything, he is demanding that they release them to come to him (ἄφετε τὰ παιδία ἔρχεσθαι πρός με).

In Hebrews 10:18 we find the aphorism, ὅπου δὲ ἄφεσις τούτων, οὐκέτι προσφορὰ περὶ ἁμαρτίας. The pronoun τούτων refers to sins and “lawless deeds” mentioned in the previous verse. Where there is ἄφεσις of these, the offenders are released from their obligation to bring offerings.

None of this implied anything about God’s feelings or the feelings of the disciples toward the children in Luke, or the feelings between Jesus and his disciples. But in our modern world this is precisely what we associate with forgiveness. We miss something fundamentally important when we make this mistake. Forgiveness (ἄφεσις) is not about present emotions. It’s about the advent of freedom.

Today, may you be released from whatever is holding you down!

July 14, 2017February 17, 2023

Monosemy and Polysemy in Biblical Studies: A Minimalist Basis for Empirical Analysis of the Biblical Languages

Ryder Wishart has completed a masters thesis that fits very well into the category of works applying concepts from the field of Linguistics to the study of Ancient Greek. His theses has a broader focus on the biblical languages more generally, but the application to Greek is of direct relevance for the community here at Greek-Language.com.

I have added Wishart’s thesis to the bibliography where you will find a link to download a copy from Academia.edu if you would like.

Congratulations to Ryder for completing this work!

March 29, 2017February 19, 2023

A Linguistic Analysis of the Articular Infinitive in New Testament Greek

Dennis Ray Burk Dissertation I have added Dennis Ray Burk’s doctoral dissertation “A linguistic analysis of the articular infinitive in New Testament Greek” to the bibliography.

Dr. Burk wrote this dissertation in 2004, and the data he compiled has contributed positively to the ongoing development of open data resources.

If you have other works that you would like to see included in A Comprehensive Bibliography of Hellenistic Greek Linguistics, you can check the criteria for inclusion and make a suggestion by clicking the bibliography link at the top of any page on this blog.

March 25, 2017

Improving the Online Grammar

Alphabet Stone I would like to thank those of you who, over the last several years, have submitted suggestions for improving the online grammar here at Greek-Language.com.

I have added a link to a new report page at the top of every lesson and at the top of the table of contents to make doing this easier. Keep the suggestions coming, and it will make the grammar more useful for everyone.

January 9, 2017

LA DETERMINATION DU NOM EN GREC CLASSIQUE by Michele Biraud

A colleague recently ask me about Biraud’s treatment of determiners in Ancient Greek and its implications for the DP hypothesis (Determiner Phrase hypothesis). I had not seen the book in over a decade, so I put my colleague off until I could find a copy. I found one in a nearby library and it seems to confirm my vague recollection that Biraud (despite the sound of the title to English speakers) was not really discussing the issue that falls under the term “determiner” in English Linguistics.

Here’s the description of the book from its back cover along with my feeble translation. I am not fluent in French. In fact, I’ve never had a French class. What I can read in French is entirely self-taught, so the translation I provide after the French text is certainly open to debate! If you see any mistakes, please point them out, and I’ll make the necessary changes.

L’attique classique est riche en déterminants et la variéte des structures des groupes nominaux appelle une étude précise. A l’aide de quelques principes simples de description, empruntés pour la syntaxe à l’analyse distributionnelle, et pour la sémantique plus librement inspirés par diverses théories, l’auteur montre que cette diversité se laisse réduire à un système de quelques règles aux implications multiples, dont les écrivains anciens ont exploité toutes les possibilités expressives. Sont abordés en cours d’étude plusieurs problèmes de linguistique générale, pour certains desquels sont esquissées des solutions originales (le statut des déterminants d’identité es d’altérité, une possible hiérarchisation de la structure du syntagme nominal en fonction des apports déterminatifs…).

Ainsi non seulement cet ouvrage peut-il donner aux hellénistes une vision plus claire d’une question sacrifiée dans les grammaires alors qu’un mot sur six dans les textes est un déterminant, mais il peut aussi présenter quelque intérêt pour des linguistes curieux des résultats d’une approche systématique de la détermination en grec ancien et des probèmes qu’elle soulève.

Classical attic is rich in modifiers and the variety of the structures of noun phrases calls for a precise study. Using a few simple principles of description, borrowed from syntax for distributional analysis, and more freely inspired by various theories for semantics, the author shows that this diversity can be reduced to a system of a few rules with several implications, of which the ancient writers have exploited all the expressive possibilities. Several problems of general linguistics are addressed in the course of the study, for some of which original solutions are outlined (the status of modifiers of identity and otherness, a possible hierarchy of the structure of the noun phrase according to the contributions of modifiers…).

Thus not only can this work give Hellenists a clearer view of a question ignored in grammars although one word out of six in the texts is a modifier, but it may also be of interest to linguists curious about the results of a systematic approach to modification in ancient Greek and the problems it raises.

[Any mistakes in the translation are entirely my fault! Don’t blame Biraud!]