An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach

Dr. Luschnig has tackled a rough task: write an Ancient Greek textbook for beginners. On the whole, I think she succeeds admirably well. What appealed to me most of all with this textbook was the early and frequent inclusion of ancient writers in the translation exercises; "cookbook Greek" is kept to an excellent minimum. The student is started right off with the first principle part and all principle parts are included well. She gives the subjunctive and optative little and late attention for such important forms in Ancient Greek and her mini-dictionary index should not be relied upon for translation. These complaints aside, the industrious student should be well equipped in a year of study to begin translating Aristotle and Plato.Aesthetics: A very attractive textbook. The Greek text is gorgeous and a pleasure to read, even when you're cursing it when a word stumps you. Important terms are in bold font for easy recognition, as are vocabulary words, etc.Durability: The softbound cover is fairly resistant, but don't expect miracles if your study habits abuse books. The spine will crease if you repeatedly fully open the spread, and if you are careless, the cover will crinkle and bend. If you are careful, you will be adequately rewarded. The pages stay in the volume and the textbook should last quite a few years. However, study volumes as a rule get abused, and this one does not respond well to wear. Buy it in hardcover or be very careful.Size: A good size for a textbook. Wide enough so it stays open without too much trouble (I laid a smallish book bridging it to the table to keep it open) and not too clunky, probably because Luschnig gives you the bare-bones needed to read/translate Ancient Greek.Price: Almost unbeatable for a new Ancient Greek textbook. Comparable textbooks are almost twice this much on occasion.All told, a quality textbook for the beginning Greek student. It will give you the information necessary to read Greek, provided you don't beat on it too hard (its greatest fault) along the way.

This is an excellent introductory grammar to Ancient Greek. Professor Luschnig does an excellent job of presenting the material and I think that it is the best one out there. One of my UT-Austin degrees is in Ancient Greek and This was my college freshman Greek grammar. I highly recommend it.

It arrived safely and fast, also is not damaged in a way that would be impossible to read.

This book is good but there seem to be no answers for the exercises. For example, I completed Exercise C: Accents in the introduction but can't find the answers to know if I did them right. Are there answers to later exercises somewhere in the book?

This is a really good language textbook. The explanations are clear, the notes are interesting, there are plenty of good exercises, and the online supporting materials are very good. Definitely a thumbs up!

Very useful in learning the basics of greek grammar, great preparation for going on to study Plato, enjoyable to read.

Great for different dialects of Ancient Greek

I bought this book of the emerita professor of classics at the university of Idaho not only to revise my knowledge of Greek, but also in search of evidence in favour of the comparative method of philology. I counsel the self-learning reader to buy this book after Betts and before Jones. The only problem that I found here is with the solutions of the exercises of the third edition which are not in the website [...]. Deborah Mitchell, collaborator of professor Luschnig, should update the website. On the whole, I was enough satisfied with this book of XIV chapters.For a week I had food for thought, to use a healthy metaphor, leaving for the future the exercise of the lessons VII-IX e XI-XIV, at the moment not important for me. Chapter X (Comparison) was the most important chapter for me. This is in line with my view of comparison as a cognitive activity based on ascertainment of similarities and differences on a single property. But in this first-year-university textbook the comparatives of equality and minority are not illustrated.What about the comparative method? I found three applications by professor Luschnig in which she uses the word cognate (that is similarity coming from a common source) in contrast to loan (borrowed term):a) ßoulέuω (Greek) - volo (Latin) - wollen (German) - will (English; p. 24);b) λευκός/ή/όv (Greek) - lux (Latin) (p. 120; light);c) oίvoς (Greek) - vinum (Latin) (wine; p. 61)I found two similarities only between Latin and Germanic languages: vagare-wagen (German and Dutch), tango-taka (touch in English). In these cases the Greek lemma is different. And this root is non present. The Greek called the sun ''''' and the day ''é'a. But the roots dies and sol are both present (diésis, s'los, mass, particularly of iron). So in the Lezioni americane given at Harvard in 1984 Calvino is wrong when he finds a similarity between our adjective vago and the present participle wandering (Lezioni americane, p. 59). Of course, I don't neeed lessons of classical and Germanic philology. I am not a professor or a lecturer at universities.The common ancestor of the previous comparisons is the proto-European. Really, I have never found reconstruction of this language spoken by the ancestors of Celts, Germans, Greeks, Romans and other European peoples, among which on the basis of recent genetic research there are not the Sardinians. On the island I live in the Italian land of Gallura. At the moment genetic research tells us that these peoples are and were enough related and that they came from a place in Eastern Europe between the Ural mountains and the Black sea recently identified (see New York times, June 10 2015; Wikipedia, entry Yamna culture). At the moment there is not evidence of a linguistic relationship with the Uralic languages, spoken by genetically European peoples, with the exception of two Asian tribes. I ask myself whether the word Indo-European (p. 15) is still useful. There are similarities with Indo-Persian languages; but no evidence of a common "proto-Indo-European" ancestor. Are they loans? (see my review of Vedic Aryans by Rajaram in Amazon com).Starting from the vocabulary of this book, I found three other possible applications of the comparative method:d) έλπις (Greek) - help (English) - helpen (Dutch) - hilfe (German) - hjelp (Old Norse);e) καλέω (Greek) - call (English) - kalla (Old Norse, the language more similar to proto-Germanic);f) kρáτος (Greek) - kracht (Dutch) - kraft (German).These are lexical applications of the method. But also semantic applications are possible. The word '''os means both conversation, language and computation in Greek (p. 36). The same is true for the Old Norse word tala. The Dutch kept this proto-Germanic root (taal, language). I don't know scientific evidence about the localization in the brain of the logical-mathematical abilities. Following outstanding biologists, intelligence is innate. We have a potential which may be acquired through education. And they found many instances of cognitive skills, if not of intelligence, in animals philogenetically near to us. Since the second half of the XIX century we know the localization in the dominant left hemisphere of the brain, which manages the right side of the body, of the areas responsible for speaking and reading (Broca and Wernicke, the names of the neurologists who made these discoveries). I don't know recent scientific research about the localization of logical-mathematical skills. Broca's and Wernicke's areas are probably involved. This philological evidence is interesting since both in Greek and in Old Norse logical-mathematical reasoning and linguistic reasoning are connected. Of course, the right hemisphere has some important functions too.Roberto Fideli ([...])