Ancient v. Modern Greek

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At 03:27 PM 4/16/99 -0800, Ray and Sandy Briggs wrote:

>>From Helen

>>>I'm sorry, Ed, but I think your degrees are some kind of blinder for

you. At 

>>>one

>>>point you claimed that modern Greeks can not understand the Greek of the 

>>>ancient

>>>plays. 

>>

>>Ed

>>That's right, they can't unless the plays are translated into Present-Day

>>Greek, which they usually are.  

>>

>Ray

>Questions for Ed: 

>

>I am not sure of your abilities in Greek, but can you understand classical

>Greek and modern Greek?

>

>Also, who attends the plays in ancient Greek when they are not translated

>into modern Greek?


Ed

One of the benefits of this job is that I get paid to take classes that
improve my qualifications, so I've been studying classical Greek for some
years now.  So I'm reasonably fluent in classical Greek, but certainly not
an expert.  I have only "restaurant" PDG, but know enough, and have had
enough personal experience in Greece and with Greeks to know that Nancy is
plumb wrong.  A modern Greek needs almost as much education in classical
Greek to understand it as a modern American would.  That's understandable,
since all languages have drastically changed in the course of almost 3,000
years.  My "significant other", who's a classicist, has attended
performances at the ancient theater at Epidauros, and got very little out
of them because the scripts had been translated into modern Greek.  She
could have understood the performance in classical Greek; couldn't get much
out of the modern.  

A very cursory investigation will confirm what I say about the ancient v.
modern Greek languages.  Nancy's claims to the contrary notwithstanding, I
don't expect anyone on this list to take my word for anything, and urge you
to confirm it for yourself.

Some productions are performed in ancient Greek for the benefit of
antiquarians and scholars.  I attended one in Athens a few years ago, but
at the time my AG wasn't fluent enough for me to appreciate it.

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