Seeing this vocabulary list this morning was like opening the bedroom curtains and seeing blue skies! I have used similar in both learning and teaching Greek. Hopefully, learning by rote will always be a part of language learning.
I’d love a copy of this list to brush up my vocabulary, if possible.
I think I know less than half of these words... (I guess my problem is that for decades I have basically only read philosophical Greek, where the words for "poplar" and "chariot rail" don't typically appear.)
I didn't know about a dozen from the whole list (this is one of 12 pages), and would have had to be reminded of several more. It is an amazingly good list for literature, but I take your point about philosophy (though I wonder whether 'chariot rail' might be used by Parmenides as well as Homer), As for poplar...that might be rather a speculative translation of 'aigipuros', which was some kind of tree but perhaps not that!
I wonder if my lovely mum had to learn lists like this. She did Greek and Latin at school in the 50's and then at university. I still have all her schoolbooks and massive old Greek and Latin dictionaries.
I was at school in the early 70s and though we learned a lot of vocab we never had anything like this. I think it must have died down by 1960, though of course massive old dictionaries and lexica were standard equipment for classicists even in the 80s and 90s.
Yes! In the late 80s and early 90s I routinely sat at a library table with five or six massive dictionaries and condordances at hand, plus a German-English dictionary for translating some of the dictionaries… Now all of those books have been scanned and are searchable as a single database, with all of the relevant entries appearing together. That happened after I left the field, but it brings me a sense of joy, that something so amazingly useful exists now.
May I ask you a question out of context? One of those who were called "Christian Horace" was Poland's (Maciej) Kazimierz Sarbiewski, allegedly made "poeta laureatus" by the pope Urban VIII. I wonder if Neo-Latin poetry (e.g. of XVII century) is or can be a subject of interest for classicists like Professor Armand D"Angour. Have you ever heard of Sarbiewski before?
Hey there, if I could, I’d like to posit an inquiry for these materials in among the others here. I wish ancient languages were taught this way still commonly.
The best were construing with excellent comprehension but not with ‘fluency’.
I know (and knew) quite a few of the best of that era. Greek was the object of knowledge, but not for reading or speaking as people like Rouse would have wished - and as we now aspire to attempt at Jesus College Oxford.
In my state school the Classics dept's textbook collection included set of intermediate Liddel & Scott, before the books were comprehensively binned along with the subject and its wonderful teachers (one a great lover and learner of Horace, by the way). A copy of the lexicon had been used by a lad a couple of years my senior in which every quotation he encountered was ticked. Before leaving school he must have read an extensive selection of "canonical" Greek texts, but clearly not read fluently, or he would not have been consulting a lexicon!
Going through texts working out (relatively quickly) why they mean what they mean, rather than reading them with understanding as one would a modern language that one knows.
Well, I never knew that is what people meant by construing. I always assumed it meant being able to parse every word and identify every construction sufficiently to obtain a near-perfect mark in a translation exam. OED is not helpful on this point.
I encountered the word before I knew much Latin or Greek, in the works of Frank Richards. Billy Bunter and his classmates in the Remove are often commanded to construe by Quelch
They are going to be checked by David Butterfield and will be available on request!
Seeing this vocabulary list this morning was like opening the bedroom curtains and seeing blue skies! I have used similar in both learning and teaching Greek. Hopefully, learning by rote will always be a part of language learning.
I’d love a copy of this list to brush up my vocabulary, if possible.
Give us a couple of weeks…
I think I know less than half of these words... (I guess my problem is that for decades I have basically only read philosophical Greek, where the words for "poplar" and "chariot rail" don't typically appear.)
I didn't know about a dozen from the whole list (this is one of 12 pages), and would have had to be reminded of several more. It is an amazingly good list for literature, but I take your point about philosophy (though I wonder whether 'chariot rail' might be used by Parmenides as well as Homer), As for poplar...that might be rather a speculative translation of 'aigipuros', which was some kind of tree but perhaps not that!
Yes, a list for readers of philosophical Greek would definitely not omit words like ἀπόδειξις, κ.τ.λ.!
Also an important word in Herodotus!
Indeed - though in Herodotus' Ionic dialect, it's ἀπόδεξις...
You would have one grateful follower if we were able to get a copy of the whole list. My Homeric vocab is okay but I need brushing up the tragedians.
Now just get it into a text format and write a script to turn it all into an Anki deck! Another great technology tool to enhance classics studies
I wonder if my lovely mum had to learn lists like this. She did Greek and Latin at school in the 50's and then at university. I still have all her schoolbooks and massive old Greek and Latin dictionaries.
I was at school in the early 70s and though we learned a lot of vocab we never had anything like this. I think it must have died down by 1960, though of course massive old dictionaries and lexica were standard equipment for classicists even in the 80s and 90s.
Yes! In the late 80s and early 90s I routinely sat at a library table with five or six massive dictionaries and condordances at hand, plus a German-English dictionary for translating some of the dictionaries… Now all of those books have been scanned and are searchable as a single database, with all of the relevant entries appearing together. That happened after I left the field, but it brings me a sense of joy, that something so amazingly useful exists now.
This is wonderful. I took a year of Ancient Greek not too long ago, and reading this list, reminds me I need to get back to it!
Thanks
May I ask you a question out of context? One of those who were called "Christian Horace" was Poland's (Maciej) Kazimierz Sarbiewski, allegedly made "poeta laureatus" by the pope Urban VIII. I wonder if Neo-Latin poetry (e.g. of XVII century) is or can be a subject of interest for classicists like Professor Armand D"Angour. Have you ever heard of Sarbiewski before?
Thank you for your kind attention.
Yours sincerely,
JKiii
Yes! Very interested in his work and I want to write something about him. Like me, a lover of Horace.
Are the pages accessible to mortals? Thanks, kind sir
Hey there, if I could, I’d like to posit an inquiry for these materials in among the others here. I wish ancient languages were taught this way still commonly.
You can download it here: https://antigonejournal.com/2025/03/ancient-greek-vocabulary-list/
This was after the era of Rouse’s influence, so to what extent were the boys reading fluently by this stage?
The best were construing with excellent comprehension but not with ‘fluency’.
I know (and knew) quite a few of the best of that era. Greek was the object of knowledge, but not for reading or speaking as people like Rouse would have wished - and as we now aspire to attempt at Jesus College Oxford.
In my state school the Classics dept's textbook collection included set of intermediate Liddel & Scott, before the books were comprehensively binned along with the subject and its wonderful teachers (one a great lover and learner of Horace, by the way). A copy of the lexicon had been used by a lad a couple of years my senior in which every quotation he encountered was ticked. Before leaving school he must have read an extensive selection of "canonical" Greek texts, but clearly not read fluently, or he would not have been consulting a lexicon!
What does ‘construing’ mean in this context? I’ve read it in Rouse as well.
Going through texts working out (relatively quickly) why they mean what they mean, rather than reading them with understanding as one would a modern language that one knows.
Well, I never knew that is what people meant by construing. I always assumed it meant being able to parse every word and identify every construction sufficiently to obtain a near-perfect mark in a translation exam. OED is not helpful on this point.
I encountered the word before I knew much Latin or Greek, in the works of Frank Richards. Billy Bunter and his classmates in the Remove are often commanded to construe by Quelch
Ah Billy Bunter...I certainly also read that before I was ever asked to construe myself. And it came as no surprise when that happened.
Not sure if you can get BBC Sounds where you are, but today's Private Passions on BBC Radio 3 is a conversation with Edith Hall. Well worth a listen.