HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.classics
Subject: Re: Recommendations for Classical Studies
Date: 13 Oct 92 11:31:12 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620

In article <jester.718912979@crash.cts.com>, jester@crash.cts.com (Ken Bibb) writes:
> 
> Homer	Illiad
Only if you want to learn screwy, really old Greek; better left until you're
reasonably competent in Classical Greek. Fairly simple, but confusing. (And
it's verse, which adds to the confusion.)


> Caesar	Gallic Wars
> Xenophon Anabasis

These are what all schoolboys used to have to read, so I suspect they're easy.
> 
> I plan on reading these after I'm done with these intro texts.  Should I be
> doing them concurrently?  (I've previously read the Homer and Xenophon in
> translation, but would prefer to read it in the original.)
> 
You won't be able to read them unless you can already read fairly fluently.
Work through an introductory course first. If you don't mind a course aimed
basically at kids, the Cambridge Latin Course is thorough and presents pretty
straightforward sentences in logical order. A reasonbly intelligent person
ought to be ale to zip through it fairly quickly and be left with a good
impression of what Latin is all about. It got me almost up to O level, so I
would say that, wouldn't I!

> Finally, what colleges are recommended (in the Boston area in particular, or
> the New England area in general) for Classical Studies?
> 
Well there's Oxford University. Oh, you said NEW England. Sorry!

-- 

Stephen Wilcox             |   Remember what happened to the dinosaurs!
wilcox@maths.oxford.ac.uk  |    I did---and look what happened to me.
From: jester@crash.cts.com (Ken Bibb)
Newsgroups: sci.classics
Subject: Recommendations for Classical Studies
Keywords: help, i'm clueless
Date: 12 Oct 92 18:02:59 GMT
Organization: CTS Network Services (crash, ctsnet), El Cajon, CA

I'm beginning "Classical Studies" by attempting to learn Greek and Latin.
I'm curious if anyone has any comments on my choices of introductory texts.

When this group first started, I recall someone praising Wheelock, so for Latin
I picked up "Wheelock's Latin Grammar (4th Ed Rev)".  Is this the recommended
edition?  (I remember that one of the editions was not lauded.)  Also, should
I be using any additional texts?

Looking through introductory Greek texts, the "Joint Association of Classical
Teachers Greek Course: Reading Greek" looked intriguing.  Is this the
recommended text?  If not, what are its faults?  Is something else recommended
instead?  Should I be using any additional texts?

Also, the following authors seem to be popular for beginning classes, should
I pick up the appropriate works from them?

Homer	Illiad
Caesar	Gallic Wars
Xenophon Anabasis

I plan on reading these after I'm done with these intro texts.  Should I be
doing them concurrently?  (I've previously read the Homer and Xenophon in
translation, but would prefer to read it in the original.)

Finally, what colleges are recommended (in the Boston area in particular, or
the New England area in general) for Classical Studies?

As you can see, I'm pretty much without direction or clue.  If there are any
texts on how one should proceed about these things, that might be useful too.
At this point, I'm planning on reading the texts recommended by Thomas
Jefferson to Peter (?) Carr upon completion of the introductions.  Is this
a good path?

Also, what grammars and lexicons are recommended for each language?

Thanks!
--
Ken			"You're right about the moon
jester@crash.cts.com	 but wrong about the stars"--J. Browne
ucsd!crash!jester
From: mcovingt@aisun3.ai.uga.edu (Michael Covington)
Newsgroups: sci.classics
Subject: Re: Quackery? Re: Greek words of Semitic Origin
Date: 13 Oct 92 03:05:22 GMT
Distribution: sci,world
Organization: AI Programs, University of Georgia, Athens

In article <1238@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>In article <1992Oct11.103516.621@vms.huji.ac.il> backon@vms.huji.ac.il writes:
>|In article <1992Oct9.170654.27402@athena.cs.uga.edu>, mcovingt@aisun3.ai.uga.edu (Michael Covington) writes:
>|
>|Anyone with a good background in Hebrew who scans the list of
>|proto-Indo-European roots in the back of the American Heritage Dictionary can
>|easily come up with many Hebrew roots.

I did not write that!  I was *refuting* the person who wrote that!
-- 
:- Michael A. Covington     internet mcovingt@uga.cc.uga.edu 
:- Artificial Intelligence Programs       phone 706 542-0359
:- The University of Georgia                fax 706 542-0349
:- Athens, Georgia 30602 U.S.A.          amateur radio N4TMI
Newsgroups: sci.classics
From: jbm@hal.trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Subject: Re: Quackery? Re: Greek words of Semitic Origin
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne, Australia
Distribution: sci,world
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 05:18:51 GMT

backon@vms.huji.ac.il writes:

>Anyone with a good background in Hebrew who scans the list of
>proto-Indo-European roots in the back of the American Heritage Dictionary can
>easily come up with many Hebrew roots.


But that is always true of anyone with a good, say Austronesian background,
ingenuity, and anything roots, not only PIE. 

Off the top of my head:

English "room", Indonesian "rumah" (house)
English "palace", Balinese "balay" (house)
PIE gwou "ox", Balinese "kbo" (same meaning)

Ingenuity, imagination, and sloppiness, nothing more is required.



Newsgroups: sci.classics
From: alderson@elaine40.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Subject: Re: Greek words of Semitic Origin
Originator: alderson@leland.Stanford.EDU
Reply-To: alderson@elaine40.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Organization: Stanford University Academic Information Resources
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 22:40:28 GMT

In article <1992Sep23.150741.202886@uctvax.uct.ac.za>, naturman@uctvax.uct.ac.za writes:
> In article <ARA.92Sep19023116@camelot.ai.mit.edu>, ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler) writes:
>>
>> I've seen books that give Indo European roots of Greek words and they
>> look useful. However, some Greek words apparently are not of Indo European
>> origin. For example, I think the word asphalt comes from the Greek
>> asphaltos, which my dictionary says is probably of Semitic origin.
>>
>> In view of this, is there a book which lists all of the Greek words
>> of Semitic origin and discusses their etymology?
>>
>> Allan Adler
>> ara@altdorf.ai.mit.edu
>
> And what about a similar book for Latin. "Aurora" is clearly Hebrew for
> "wakening".

It may be clear to you, but it's not true.  "aurora" is related to Greek e:o:s,
Sanskrit us.as, all derived from a PIE prototype *Xusos-, with the usual
development of intervocalic *s to r in Latin, retroflexion of *s after *u in
Sanskrit, and loss of *w (consonantal *u) and intervocalic *s in Greek.

All of which rules are regular, attested in many correspondence sets.  No need
for Hebrew in this word's history.
-- 
Rich Alderson   'I wish life was not so short,' he thought.  'Languages take
                such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'
                                                        --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@leland.stanford.edu                              _The Lost Road_
From: oneil@cwis.unomaha.edu (Sharon O'Neil)
Newsgroups: sci.classics
Subject: Re: Recommendations for Classical Studies (Don't use Cambridge Latin)
Date: 16 Oct 92 11:38:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: cwis.oneil.719235519
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha

joshua@coombs.anu.edu.au (Joshua Geller) writes:

>adjg@sour.sw.oz.au (Andrew Gollan) writes:

>>In <1992Oct13.123112.9473@vax.oxford.ac.uk> wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:

>>|In article <jester.718912979@crash.cts.com>, jester@crash.cts.com (Ken Bibb)
>|writes:

>>|> Caesar	Gallic Wars
>>|> Xenophon Anabasis
>>|These are what all schoolboys used to have to read, so I suspect they're 
>>|easy.

Don't forget us schoolgirls.  I read Livy and Caesar when I was a 15 year
old high school sophomore.

>>Easy-ish, but boring as all hell. You end up with all sorts of military
>>vocabulary which prepares you for further military historians, if that's
>>what turns you on. These works are regarded as the _pain_ we must suffer
>>on the way to classical languages, but in my opinion turn many people off.
>>Read something a little harder but interesting to keep your morale high...

When I student taught Latin last semester, what I did is teach Caesar, but 
it was really only because the book that he'd been using for the last couple
of years had been specifically preparing him for this situation.  I did 
try to make things more interesting by having him read some Tacitus in 
translation, which actually made Caesar less boring.  I also kept him out
of the "And then we set up camp" parts.  He read Book I but then I had him
go to the parts about Gallic and Germanic culture which are a heckuva lot
more interesting.  I don't feel I necessarily cheated him.  

>xenophon's anabasis, boring? oh come on. it's one of the most stirring 
>classical histories extant. now the kyropaedia is boring. 

Xenephon is the most major yawn: I hated it, hated it, hated it.  I hated
it worse than reading Tacitus' Annals in the original Latin.

Keep in mind, some of us really aren't into classical history.  :-)  At
least not to the point of it being able to hold our attebntion in the 
original language.

>now, I read it in translation, but I refuse to believe it improved that much 
>in translation.

>josh

Sharon O'Neil
oneil@cwis.unomaha.edu
From: marke@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Mark Ellison)
Newsgroups: sci.classics
Subject: On-line Latin Corpora
Date: 10 Oct 92 16:53:15 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK


Do any of you fine classical netlanders know where I might find
ftpable corpora of Latin texts (not dictionaries)?


I have a program for identifying morphemes and morpheme boundaries,
which I want to try on a nice inflexional language, viz. Latin.
Currently it is suffering from a paucity of data (~500 words), so it
seems to be managing only about 70% correct divisions.


Thanks,
marke
-- 
T Mark Ellison ##### And when the milkman comes, leave him a note in the bottle
Cognitive Science #### Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust
University of Edinburgh ################## - Gregory Corso ####################
Xref: sparky sci.classics:799 sci.lang:7590
From: markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark)
Newsgroups: sci.classics,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Quackery? Re: Greek words of Semitic Origin
Date: 14 Oct 1992 18:47:50 GMT
Organization: Computing Services Division, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Distribution: sci,world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.89.7.4

In article <1992Oct12.222003.27416@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>	I guess I goofed here.
>
>	I agree that Hebrew and Arabic both resemble IE fairly closely
>for "6" and "7", but not for any other numerals. How do other Semitic
>languages compare? Any reconstructed proto-Semitic forms?
>
>	I've seen the theory that borrowing was involved, probably
>from Semitic to IE.
>
>	For the IE numerals, I've also seen theories like "5" from
>"fist", "8" from the dual of something (*okto: shares the dual ending
>of *dwo:, "2"), "9" from "new" (*newn from *newos), and "10" from
>"swollen one" (?) (courtesy of Thomas Scharle).

I forgot the details but the Indo-European root for 6 probably derives from the
roots for hand and finger.

Also, I've seen other good comparitive and historical arguments that indicate
that other number words have a similar derivation in body parts -- people used
to count by pointing to successive body parts.

Much along those lines I've seen a connection drawn between the Uralic root
for 2 and the Indo-European root for 4.

Also, there is a prevalence of the dw/duo combination for the word 2 in
languages worldwide that cannot be explained on probabilistic grounds alone.

This suggests that in order to study linguistic origins beyond a certain point
in history, the traditional approach of searching out sound change paradigms
between cognate bases is not only insufficient, but counterproductive and
misleading.  What one should be doing, instead, is bringing the full weight
of probability theory to bear on the issue and making assessments on the basis
of how probable certain common occurrences are.

I've seen arguments made countless times that certain similariries should be
discounted as "coincidence".  Well, these arguments do not carry any weight
and will not until they are backed by a more rigorous foundation.  The question
isn't whether certain commonalities are "coincidence" or not, the question is:
how probable is a certain prevalence of common occurrences based on the
assumption that the two or more languages in question have independent origin?
How probable are these occurrences based on the assumption that the languages
have a common origin 100 years back, 1000 years back, 5000 years back, etc?

The goal of a probabilistic analysis is to derive estimates on times of
divergence of two languages based on the "distance" that their phonemic
systems and their base set of morphemes have from one another.  The goal is
to quantify this notion of distance in such a way that known relations among
languages fit in consistently with this distance measure.
From: monaghan@cac.washington.edu (Tracy Monaghan )
Newsgroups: sci.classics
Subject: Re: akropolin vs akropolis
Summary: 3rd declensions' are a pain :)
Date: 16 Oct 92 20:10:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Oct16.201036.20301
Organization: UW Computing

In article <jester.719250022@crash.cts.com> jester@crash.cts.com (Ken Bibb) writes:
>In a text I was working on, I noticed that a lot of names end with n instead
>of s (the English shows the name with an s).  Akropolin is an example of this.
>I assume that this is a word ending that shows what kind of a noun we're
>dealing with, but I haven't figured out where the grammar section is
>that deals with this (yet).
>
>Is my theory correct?  If so, is Akropolin Dative?

The grammar section to look into is called declension (of nouns), polis is
one of the worst (IMHO) to start with, being a 3rd-declension (ie breaks
all the rules) noun.

The noun is feminine, and in the singular declines:

N:  polis  (p = pi, l = lambda)
G:  polews (w = omega)
D:  polei
A:  poliv  (v = nu)

It's a compound of akro (high) and polis (town), so it literally means
the highest spot in town.

Stay with greek!!


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tracy Monaghan: arithmetic-mean, melanin-deficient, gender-advantaged
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: jester@crash.cts.com (Ken Bibb)
Newsgroups: sci.classics
Subject: koine = new testament?
Date: 12 Oct 92 18:00:33 GMT
Organization: CTS Network Services (crash, ctsnet), El Cajon, CA

I'm a beginner at Greek and Latin, so this is a clueless question :)

Do I have these definitions correct?

	septuagint	Greek Old Testament
	koine		Greek New Testament

Also, what kind of Greek is each written in?

Thanks!
--
Ken			"You're right about the moon
jester@crash.cts.com	 but wrong about the stars"--J. Browne
ucsd!crash!jester
From: backon@vms.huji.ac.il
Newsgroups: sci.classics
Subject: Re: Greek words of Semitic Origin
Date: 8 Oct 92 13:07:52 GMT
Distribution: sci,world
Organization: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

In article <1992Sep23.150741.202886@uctvax.uct.ac.za>, naturman@uctvax.uct.ac.za writes:
> In article <ARA.92Sep19023116@camelot.ai.mit.edu>, ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler) writes:
>>
>> I've seen books that give Indo European roots of Greek words and they
>> look useful. However, some Greek words apparently are not of Indo European
>> origin. For example, I think the word asphalt comes from the Greek
>> asphaltos, which my dictionary says is probably of Semitic origin.
>>
>> In view of this, is there a book which lists all of the Greek words
>> of Semitic origin and discusses their etymology?
>>
>> Allan Adler
>> ara@altdorf.ai.mit.edu
>
> And what about a similar book for Latin. "Aurora" is clearly Hebrew for
> "wakening".
>
> *****************************************************************************
> * Baby Doc Naturman                                                         *
> * USS Enterprise                           "It's life Jim,                  *
> * Final Frontier                                  but not as we know it."   *
> * naturman@uctvax.uct.ac.za                                                 *
> *                                                       Spock of Vulcan     *
> *****************************************************************************


There are many thousands of words appearing in Mozeson's THE WORD: THE
DICTIONARY THAT REVEALS THE HEBREW SOURCE OF ENGLISH, ISBN 0-933503-44-X.
Shapolsky Publishers, 136 West 22nd Street, New York NY 10011

Josh

Dr. Josh Backon
backon@VMS.HUJI.AC.IL






Newsgroups: sci.classics,sci.lang
From: joshua@coombs.anu.edu.au (Joshua Geller)
Newsgroups: sci.classics
Subject: Re: Recommendations for Classical Studies (Don't use Cambridge Latin)
Date: 16 Oct 92 08:04:35 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.76.2

adjg@sour.sw.oz.au (Andrew Gollan) writes:

>In <1992Oct13.123112.9473@vax.oxford.ac.uk> wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:

>|In article <jester.718912979@crash.cts.com>, jester@crash.cts.com (Ken Bibb)
|writes:

>|> Caesar	Gallic Wars
>|> Xenophon Anabasis
>|These are what all schoolboys used to have to read, so I suspect they're 
>|easy.

>Easy-ish, but boring as all hell. You end up with all sorts of military
>vocabulary which prepares you for further military historians, if that's
>what turns you on. These works are regarded as the _pain_ we must suffer
>on the way to classical languages, but in my opinion turn many people off.
>Read something a little harder but interesting to keep your morale high...

xenophon's anabasis, boring? oh come on. it's one of the most stirring 
classical histories extant. now the kyropaedia is boring. 

now, I read it in translation, but I refuse to believe it improved that much 
in translation.

josh

Newsgroups: sci.classics
From: rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (John Rickert)
Subject: Re: Quackery?  Re: Greek words of Semitic Origin
Keywords: I don't know about this...
Organization: Vanderbilt University Mathematics Department
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 13:50:19 GMT


     Incidentally, Martin Bernal spoke here last night.  He spent about
half of his lecture on the history of the attitudes toward Egypt and the
remainder on the reception of his books.  His forthcoming third volume
is on language, and while he didn't go into any details, he made the
claim that up to 40% of Greek words are of Semitic and Egyptian origin.

     Now, please understand that I don't want to get into a flame war,
but I think this claim is outlandish, and I did find many of his presented
arguments tenuous, to put it diplomatically.

     There may be something to a Hellenic-Semitic link, certainly, but
I don't think it's being argued well right now.


John Rickert					This great spectacle
rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu		of human happiness.
							--Sydney Smith
From: vere@netcom.com (Steven Vere)
Newsgroups: sci.classics
Subject: Machine Readable Plutarch
Date: 16 Oct 92 21:52:51 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)


   I would like to find machine readable versions of Plutarch's Lives
and/or Moralia in English translation.  Does anyone know if these
exist or are available?

-- 
_____________________________________________________________________
     __    __    __    __    __    __    __    __    __    __    __  
 |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  | 
                                                                     
  Steven Vere                                       vere@netcom.com  
  Boulder Creek, California                70571.521@compuserve.com  
     __    __    __    __    __    __    __    __    __    __    __  
 |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  |__|  | 
_____________________________________________________________________
Newsgroups: sci.classics
From: dhosek@cbrown.claremont.edu
Subject: Re: koine = new testament?
Organization: Quixote Digital Typography
Date: 13 Oct 92 09:46:39 PDT

In article <jester.718912833@crash.cts.com>, jester@crash.cts.com (Ken Bibb) writes:
> I'm a beginner at Greek and Latin, so this is a clueless question :)
 
> Do I have these definitions correct?
 
> 	septuagint	Greek Old Testament

Or more properly, the canon of the Alexandrine Jews which
consists of the Hebrew canon translated into Greek (tradition
says by 70 translators who working independently ended up with
identical texts) plus a few additional books and additions to
canonical books. Of the additions roughly 50% are translations of
Semitic language works (attributed as such either by surmission
based on language or through discovery of lost originals). (btw
the 50% above is plus or minus 25% or so--I don't feel like doing
a mental survey just now.).

> 	koine		Greek New Testament

Koine is the dialect of the New Testament. There is no funky name
like septuagint for the NT.
 
> Also, what kind of Greek is each written in?

I think, but am not sure, that the Septuagint is written largely
in the precursor to the NT Koine. There is a span of quite a few
centuries between the earliest translation and the latest
(tradition aside) so there are naturally some linguistic
differences in  the LXX. Also, there are passages in the NT which
emulate the language of the LXX.

-dh
Xref: sparky sci.classics:795 sci.archaeology:2612
From: ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler)
Newsgroups: sci.classics,sci.archaeology
Subject: Philistines
Date: 13 Oct 92 21:41:02 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab.



Has anyone been following the archaeological work reported in the Science 
Section of the NY Times on Sept.29, 1992? They claim to have evidence that
the Philistines were Mycenaean Greeks.

Allan Adler
ara@altdorf.ai.mit.edu
Newsgroups: sci.classics
From: dhosek@linus.claremont.edu
Subject: Re: Quackery?  Re: Greek words of Semitic Origin
Organization: Quixote Digital Typography
Distribution: sci,world
Date: 9 Oct 92 17:15:51 PDT

In article <1992Oct9.170654.27402@athena.cs.uga.edu>, mcovingt@aisun3.ai.uga.edu (Michael Covington) writes:
> In article <1992Oct8.130752.612@vms.huji.ac.il> backon@vms.huji.ac.il writes:

>>There are many thousands of words appearing in Mozeson's THE WORD: THE
>>DICTIONARY THAT REVEALS THE HEBREW SOURCE OF ENGLISH, ISBN 0-933503-44-X.
>>Shapolsky Publishers, 136 West 22nd Street, New York NY 10011
 
> Yes, but since the non-Hebrew origin of English is very well established,
> does he conclusively refute it?  Or is this the work of a crank?
> (If he merely points out lots of similar words, all he is doing is
> finding coincidences.)

Well there are some words in English which are genuinely derived
from Hebrew. Some were brought in through Latin and/or Greek via
Christianity. Others from Jewish English speakers. I don't know
if there are thousands though. Until your post, it hadn't even
occurred to me that the book be the loopiness you suggest. 

-dh
 De nautis reginisque multa dicere possum.
Newsgroups: sci.classics