Re: Old Languages

At 8:19 pm -0400 3/10/01, Colin Halverson wrote:
>I was wondering- how many people here speak dead languages, especially Latin,
>Ancient Greek, Ancient Hebrew.
I can _read_ (and, if required, write) Ancient Greek and Latin, with more
fluency in the latter.  I'd find it heavy going, however, to speak Ancient
Greek, but I could get by in Latin.  The main trouble is that it's a tad
difficult to find someone (other than oneself) to converse with  :)

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At 8:37 pm -0500 3/10/01, Alfred Wallace wrote:
[snip]
>down, though, if I were to claim any competence.  I've dallied with
>Ancient Greek (mostly Koine), and translated part of the Gospel of John,
>but I wouldn't call my Greek fluent by any stretch of the imagination.
>I'm now trying to learn Middle Welsh.
Koine Greek is comparative modern (like Middle Welsh  ;)

You have to go back another half millennium or so to get the real ancient
Greek stuff (8th cent BC [Homer] down to late 5th cent or early 4th cent -
thereafter we get into Koine which is rather different).

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And now I'm off to South Wales for a few days so, in view of the fairly
heavy rate of traffic on Conlang recently, I think I'd better go nomail.

Ray.




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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                     [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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