dionysius thrax (, ; 170â90 bc) was a hellenistic grammarian and a pupil of aristarchus of samothrace. his place of origin was not thrace as the epithet "thrax" denotes, but probably alexandria (his father's descent was thracian). he lived and worked in this city but later taught at rhodes. the first extant grammar of greek, art of grammar ( tÃ©khnÄ grammatikÃ©) is attributed to him but many scholars today doubt that the work really belongs solely to him due to the difference between the technical approach of most of the work and the more literary approach (similar to the 2nd century's alexandrian tradition) of the first few sections. it concerns itself primarily with a morphological description of greek, lacking any treatment of syntax. the work was translated into armenian and syriac in the early christian era. thrax defines grammar at the beginning of the tÃ©khnÄ as "the practical knowledge of the general usages of poets and prose writers." thus dionysius thrax, like contemporary alexandrian scholars who edited attic greek and homeric texts, was concerned with facilitating the teaching of classic greek literature to an audience who spoke koine greek.there are extensive scholia to the techne, which have been edited by a. hilgard in 1901: scholia in dionysii thracis artem grammaticam, recensuit et apparatum criticum indicesque adiecit alfredus hilgard, lipsiae: in aedibus b.g. teubneri 1901. the collections of scholia are the following: prolegomena vossiana (p.1); commentarius melampodis seu diomedis (p. 10); commentarius heliodori (p. 67); scholiorum collectio vaticana (p. 106); scholiorum collectio marciana (p. 292); scholiorum collectio londinensis (p. 442); commentariolus byzantinus (pp. 565â586). ==notes==  ==references== * dionysius thrax, art of grammar * the tekhne grammatike of dionysius thrax translated into english by j. alan kemp (historiographia linguistica 13:2/3, 1986, pp.&nbsp;343â363). * robins, r. h. a short history of linguistics (indiana up, 1967). (isbn 0-253-35210-x) * robins, r. h. the technÄ grammatikÄ of dionysius thrax in historical perspective. in p. swiggers, w. van hoecke (eds.), mots et parties du discours. leuven: leuven university press, 1987. * vincenzo di benedetto, "at the origins of greek grammar," glotta 68 (1990): 19â39. * vivien law, ineke sluiter (eds.), dionysius thrax and the techne grammatike mÃ¼nster: nodus publikationen, 1995. * j. lallot, la grammaire de denys le thrace, paris: cnrs Ãditions, 1998 (2e Ã©diti
170_BC_births 90_BC_deaths Ancient_Greek_grammarians Ancient_Thracian_Greeks Koine_Greek Linguists_from_Greece Thracians