DOI: https://d0i.0rg/10.4312/keria.22.2.119-139 Jerneja Kavčič, Brian D. Joseph, Christopher Brown Teaching Modern Greek to Classicists: Taking Advantage of Continuity 1. INTRODUCTION It is undeniable that Modern Greek is in some way a continuation of Ancient Greek of some 2500 years earlier. Admittedly, there is controversy among linguists, Hellenists, and Greeks themselves as to the extent of "continuity" of the Greek language across time and even what the notion of continuity could mean and does mean in practical terms. For instance, is Greek one language across all its history, as Browning (1983: vii) claims, or not, as Hamp (2003: 67) counters? Nonetheless, whatever continuity might mean in the case of Greek, it is clear that there is an overwhelming presence of Ancient Greek vocabulary in the modern language, so that there is a bidirectional relationship between ancient and modern forms of the language. That is, given a particular Ancient Greek word, it is possible to predict what it should look like in Modern Greek, assuming it continues into the modern language; similarly, with a given Modern Greek word, it is possible to determine the Ancient Greek form or forms that are possible starting points for the modern form. Our position, taken up without ideology or politics behind it, is that the recognition of this shared vocabulary and this bidirectionality of the relationship between modern and ancient forms can be a tool for introducing Classicists to the modern language, and for allowing the student of Modern Greek to gain a foothold in the study of Ancient Greek. This issue has some significance in the United States at least, and maybe elsewhere, since there is often a large gulf between classicists and Neo-Hellenists and thus between the study of Ancient Greek and Modern Greek. This is so even though many Modern Greek language and studies programs are housed within Classics departments. But this issue also has interest and significance for Greeks today, 120 Jerneja Kavčič, Brian D. Joseph, Christopher Brown again without reference to ideology or politics, for it encourages one to think about the extent of Ancient Greek in the modern language. In a certain sense, it is the linguistic analogue to the presence of antiquities in modern cities; it is as inescapable a fact about Modern Greek as the Acropolis is an inescapable fact about the skyline of Athens. In taking this position, we recognize that there are various intellectual precedents to our view. The value of Modern Greek for the student of the ancient language is affirmed by the many classicists who have studied the modern language and benefitted from the bidirectionality referred to above.1 Moreover, it was a favorite theme of Albert Thumb, Nicholas Bachtin, George Thomson, and Robert Browning, among other distinguished classicists. The enthusiasm of such scholars for the modern language was in a general way a reaction against skepticism that some classicists have held towards Modern Greek; Friedrich Nietzsche, for instance, said the following about linguistic decline: "It was subtle of God to speak Greek, and to speak it so poorly." Indeed, the ideology of decline is a part of the history of the study and characterization of the Greek language from the Hellenistic period and the Roman Atticist movement right up to the emergence of katharevousa in the 19th century and the resulting diglossia throughout most of the 20th century; for instance, Adamantios Korais, the 18th- and 19th-century leading Greek intellectual, considered the absence of an infinitive in Modern Greek to be "the most frightful vulgarity of our language", and Jakob Phillip Fallmerayer, the 19th-century German historian, said that "Eine Sprache ohne Infinitiv ist nicht viel besser als ein menschlicher Körper ohne Hand". By contrast, George Derwent Thomson, a key 20th century English classicist, remarking on the views of a colleague who said "I started once to learn some Modern Greek, but when I found they use the genitive instead of the dative, I felt affronted and had to give it up," had the following reaction: "This is only an extreme case of that disdain for reality which has done so much to lower the prestige of classical studies."2 Accordingly, continuing along the path of such scholars as Thumb, Bachtin, Thomson, and Browning, we outline here a program by which the ancient language can be used as a stepping stone for the learning of Modern Greek, thereby introducing Modern Greek to classicists. 1 We three authors are evidence, living proof as it were, of this affirmation, as we all started in Hellenic studies via the ancient language. 2 See Fallmerayer (1845: 451), Triantafyllidis (1938: 452), Thomson (1951), Joseph (1985: 90), Mack-ridge (2009: 118). Teaching Modern Greek to Classicists: Taking Advantage of Continuity 121 2. MODERN GREEK FOR CLASSICISTS: A PROGRAMMATIC VIEW We believe that it is possible to introduce Modern Greek to classicists in a way that is based on exploiting Ancient Greek as much as possible. Thus, in introducing classicists to the modern language, we start with words that can be used without explaining any pronunciation rules concerning Modern Greek spelling or any differences in meaning of these words and thus, without needing to adjust for all the changes in phonology, morphology, and semantics that have occurred between Ancient and Modern Greek. These words can be referred to as carry-overs (or "matches" or "matching forms"), and recognizing them allows for an easy and relatively "painless" transition for the classics student from Ancient Greek into Modern Greek. An example of how Modern Greek can be introduced into teaching of the Ancient language is the dialogue below—the content is certainly less than compelling, as it is constrained by the scope of the carry-overs, and the phonological matches are, at least under some interpretations, not exact. In addition, some of the words in the dialogue would require different use of diacritical marks if written according to the Modern Greek orthography, so that it needs to be written in capital letters. Nonetheless, it is a starting point: (1) A: HENE! MONOZ; TO ONOMA ZOY; Foreigner! Alone? Your name? B: AAEHANAPOZ. TO ONOMA ZOY; Alexander. Your name? A: OYPANIA. nOY MENETE, AAEHANAPE; Ourania. Where do you stay, Alexander? B: nPOZ ZAAAMINA. Towards Salamina. A: TI niNETE; What do you drink? B: MEAI. Honey. The last line of the dialogue can be modified with alternative answers such as the following: (2) B: NEKTAP./nOAAA nOTA. Nectar./Many drinks. 122 Jerneja Kavčič, Brian D. Joseph, Christopher Brown Furthermore, there are loanwards which could be used in an introductory lesson to Modern Greek as well, without additional explanations of their meaning and pronunciation. These loanwords can be read correctly even with the knowledge of the Ancient Greek alphabet and are likely to be understood by classicists due to the similarities these words show with words in familiar modern languages of Europe.3 Therefore, the last line in passage (1) can be replaced with one of the following answers: (3) B: KOKA KOAA./TZAI./ZOKOAATA. Coca cola./Tea./Chocolate. Additional examples of dialogues consisting of words that can be understood by classicists on the basis of their language skill in Ancient Greek are given in passages (4)-(6): (4) A: TI NEA; What is new? B: EnEZE NEKPOZ. He fell dead (= He died). (5) A: EnEZEZ; You fell? B: MAAIZTA. Yes, indeed. (6) A: nOY EnEZEZ; Where did you fall? B: KATQ. Down. Of these passages, (1) in particular contains words that are usually taught in Ancient Greek classes and whose Modern Greek meaning and pronunciation show no significant difference with respect to their ancient Greek origins, e.g., the verb forms MENETE and niNETE and the noun forms MEAI, ONOMA and HENE. Therefore, such words are likely to be recognized by classicists even when used in Modern Greek spoken discourse. Passages (2)-(6), however, also use some readily recognizable verbs, e.g. EnEZEZ/EnEZE, but also introduce 3 We realize of course that classicists need not be familiar with modern Western European languages, but in practical terms, it is more likely than not that they will be. Teaching Modern Greek to Classicists: Taking Advantage of Continuity 123 words that may be readily recognizable by classicists even though they do not have phonological and semantic matches in Modern Greek. The word ^aXtata, used in passage (5), has a different meaning in Modern Greek from that in the ancient language (AG 'most' vs. MG 'yes indeed'), but (roughly) the same pronunciation in Ancient and in Modern Greek. Furthermore, the word Katw 'down' in passage (6) has the same written form in Ancient and in Modern Greek and is therefore likely to be recognized by students of the ancient language, even though its pronunciation in Ancient Greek was different from that in the modern language in terms of the length of the final vowel w (AG [o], MG [o]). These examples show that it is possible to find Ancient Greek words with semantic and phonological matches in the modern language (i.e., the carryovers)—and to arrange them into plausible Modern Greek clauses and even dialogues; such words are not very frequent and in composing plausible Modern Greek clauses and dialogues from the stock of common Ancient/Modern Greek vocabulary, it is difficult to avoid Modern Greek words that display various semantic and phonological differences with regard to their ancient Greek counterparts, as is the case with the words ^dXiata and Katw. Furthermore, some ancient words that might be useful in the dialogues such as above (e.g., uSwp 'water', oivo; 'wine') are not used at all in Modern Greek (or are rare, archaic forms) and thus are not useful in this context. Moreover, some Modern Greek words originating from the ancient language are unlikely to be recognized and understood by classicists; for instance, Modern Greek words for water (vepo) and wine (Kpaai).4 And finally, while some loanwords may be understood by classicists, as suggested in passage (3), this is clearly not always the case; for instance, it is unlikely that using the word tainoupo 'raki' in passage (1) would be effective. Therefore, differences between Ancient and Modern Greek have to be introduced at an early stage of teaching Modern Greek to classicists well— as is expected given that Ancient and Modern Greek are two distinct stages of the language—and this phase cannot come much later than the original phase, which focuses on similarities between Modern Greek and its ancient predecessor. Nevertheless, our approach shows classicists that by learning the ancient language, they have also learned some Modern Greek as well. This ought, therefore, to shed a different light for them on the relation between the two phases of the language. Furthermore, our program differs from previous approaches to teaching Modern Greek to classicists (e.g., Laiou 2011, Kavagia 2009, Kolokouris 2020). None of these textbooks appear to be aware that such similarities between Ancient and Modern Greek exist and can provide a basis for teaching Modern Greek to classicists. 4 The former word originates from earlier vr|pov (AG veapov) modifying an understood uSwp, thus 'fresh water', and the latter from Kpaai; 'mixture'; LKN, s.vv. vepo and Kpaai. 124 Jerneja Kavčič, Brian D. Joseph, Christopher Brown In what follows we further explain basic concepts of our approach to teaching Modern Greek to classicists, and provide statistical data in support of it. 3. BASIC CONCEPTS Many of the basic concepts associated with this approach, although introduced in previous sections, require further discussion and exemplification. We address these concepts in the subsections that follow. 3.1 Carry-overs The concept of carry-overs goes back to Joseph (2009: 369), who observed that some words have remained "more or less intact over the years"; examples including avs^oq 'wind' and aWoq 'other. This concept contrasts with views that no Ancient Greek words are preserved in the modern language without having undergone significant phonological and/or morphological change (cf. Pappas and Moers 2011: 212), a defensible position, given that the realization of accent has changed in almost all words (see below), but one we do not fully embrace.5 Carry-overs are only those Ancient Greek words that that are preserved in Modern Greek and do not contain sounds that underwent significant phonological change; a listing of the sounds that have changed is given in (7), with an indication of their ancient pronunciation where appropriate: 6 (7) - long vowels - short u [u] - (long and short) diphthongs - voiced stops p [b], 5 [d], y [g] - (voiceless) aspirated stops 9 [th], x [kh], ^ [ph] - the aspirate [h] - double (geminate) consonants - the consonant p [r] 5 See also Wilson, Pappas, and Moers (2019: 598-599), Petrounias (1998: xxii), Manolessou (2013). 6 For an overview of phonological developments, see, for instance, Horrocks (2010: 160-163). The consonant p is not usually mentioned among the consonants that underwent significant phonological change. See, however, the discussion in Allen (1974: 39), which speaks against the equivalence of this consonant in Ancient and in Modern Greek. Teaching Modern Greek to Classicists: Taking Advantage of Continuity 125 Furthermore, these are words that did not undergo morphological reshaping, as was the case with feminine and masculine nouns of the 3rd declension (e.g., puXa^ vs. MG ^uXaKaq), with the present stem of many verb (e.g., AG ^avGavw vs. MG ^aGaivw; AG n\r|P°w vs. MG n\r|p^vw).7 As to the meaning, carry-overs must have the same meaning in Ancient and in Modern Greek. In this respect we follow etymologies of LKN (Ab^iko Tyq Koiv/q NeoeXXyviK/q) and thus, the proposal of Petrounias (2010: 315), who has suggested that these etymologies can be a basis for identifying words that "are equivalent" in Ancient and in Modern Greek. Words with the same meaning in Ancient and in Modern Greek are represented in etymologies of LKN without explicit references to their meaning in Ancient and Modern Greek (see Petrounias 1998: xxii). An example is the etymology of the Modern Greek verb aiaGavo^ai, which shows that the verb originates from the corresponding verb (with the written form aiaGavo^ai) in the ancient language: (8) [Xoy. < apx. aladavo^ai] [learn. < AG aladavo^ai] In addition to suggesting that there is no significant difference in meaning between this verb in Ancient and in Modern Greek, this etymology also indicates that, rather than being directly inherited from Ancient Greek, the verb originates from the learned tradition (X07.) or katharevousa. This is the origin of a significant part of Modern Greek words with the Ancient Greek origin (cf. Petrounias 1998: xxii, Joseph 2009: 369). It is therefore worth stressing that the term carry-over can be misleading inasmuch it may seem to imply that the words fulfilling the aforementioned phonological and semantic criteria were inherited directly from Ancient Greek. Thus, a different terminology seems appropriate. We use the (admittedly somewhat cumbersome) term homopho-nographoseme as a synonymous, but more neutral term than carry-overs, in reference to words that have (roughly) the same meaning, pronunciation and the written form in Ancient and in Modern Greek regardless of whether they have entered Modern Greek from the learned tradition or were inherited directly from the ancient language. In determining homophonographosemes, one also needs to take into account the change of the accent from pitch to stress. An accented word, even if fulfilling all the aforementioned criteria cannot be a true carry-over because of the different nature of the accent in Ancient and in Modern Greek. There is the possibility that unaccented words (proclitics or enclitics) are legitimate carry-overs, an example being the Modern Greek preposition ev 'in'. This word belongs to the Modern Greek learned vocabulary and cannot be taken as true 7 See also Joseph (2009: 369). 126 Jerneja Kavčič, Brian D. Joseph, Christopher Brown carry-over in the sense of a word inherited from Ancient Greek—as noted, the term homophonographoseme is much more appropriate in such cases. It is, however, one of the lemmas in LKN and is therefore a part of the Modern Greek lexicon. Furthermore, it consists of phonemes that do not seem to have undergone any significant change; at least, they are not usually mentioned among such phonemes.8 It also needs to be mentioned that the pronunciation of the vowel £ may not have been the same in Ancient Greek as it is today. According to Allen (1974: 60), this vowel was in Classical Greek "rather like" the vowel e in English pet, whereas Modern Greek £ (also ai) is "anything rather than more open than the vowel of English pet". According to Sturtevant (1940: 33, 47), however, £ was a rather close vowel. This is because £ + £ contracts to £i [e:] rather than n [£:], and £i [e:] is also the result of the secondary lengthening of £. If £ was an open-mid vowel, as is the case in Modern Greek, one would expect the result of all these processes to be n rather than £i. Therefore, if one follows Allen (loc. cit.), unaccented words such as the preposition ev are true carry-overs, even if adopted from the learned tradition. This is not the case, however, if one follows Sturtevant (loc. cit.). Another potential class of true carryovers are words that are regularly accented with the grave accent—provided that they also fulfill the rest of the aforementioned phonological and semantic criteria. According to one interpretation, this accent mark represents the lack of the accent because in an earlier orthographic system, it was used to mark any unaccented syllable (Allen 1974: 115, Tsantsanoglou 2001: 988-989). If this is the case, then a Modern Greek word that may have an exact match in the ancient language is the plural form of the definite article ta, as it is typically accented in Ancient Greek texts with the grave accent and is unaccented in Modern Greek. This means that owing to the loss of the pitch accent, no Ancient Greek word would have its exact phonological and semantic match in the modern language, with a few potential exceptions. Nonetheless, with regard to accent, the concept of carry-overs proves to be useful in practical, pedagogical terms, precisely the focus of the present study (whatever the theoretical interest of such carry-overs might be). This is because, according to Allen (1974: 136), the Ancient Greek accent is typically rendered with stress (not the pitch of the ancient accentuation) in pedagogical practice, and this is the case "even in countries where the native language has a tonal system of accentuation (as e.g. in Yugoslavia and Norway)."9 In other words, the change in the nature of 8 See also footnote 6. 9 For the same view, see Petrounias (2001: 954). Allen's view is oversimplified because it assumes one native language in the former Yugoslavia. It is correct, however, in the respect that in the former Yugoslavia, the tonal accent was not adopted in pronunciation of Ancient Greek. For instance, this was never the case in Slovenia, although some Slovenian dialects retain the pitch accent—which could in principle, for such speakers, make it possible to adopt this accent type in pronunciation of Ancient Greek. Teaching Modern Greek to Classicists: Taking Advantage of Continuity 127 the accent does not mean that words with semantic and phonological matches in Modern Greek (i.e., carry-overs) are not a part of the vocabulary learned in Ancient Greek classes. Moreover, in any case, such words will be readily recognizable in their written form. As a result of these considerations, one needs to distinguish between different classes of carry-overs, representing different degrees of strictness regarding adherence to the criteria: 1. Potential examples of carry-overs (homophonographosemes) in the strictest sense, i.e. Ancient Greek words with phonological and semantic matches in Modern Greek. These are words consisting only of sounds that appear not to have changed, and are written with the consonant letters k, X, v, n, a, t, ty, without any doubling, as well as with vowels a and 1 (or a/i), unless the latter two letters represent long vowels (e.g., Ta). Furthermore, these words are unaccented in both Ancient and Modern Greek. 2. Accented carry-overs, consisting of the same sounds as true carry-overs. The Ancient and the Modern Greek words differ in terms of the nature of the accent. In pronouncing the accent, however, teaching practice is much closer to Modern than to Ancient Greek. Therefore, when learned in a typical Ancient Greek class, these words appear to have direct phonological and semantic matches in Modern Greek. Examples include Ti 'what', KaTa 'against/according to', ^ia 'one' (f./sg.), KaKa 'bad' (n./pl.). 3. Accented carry-overs, including those containing the vowels s/ai [e] and o [o]. These words belong to the class of the accented carry-overs if one adopts the view that these two vowels had in Ancient Greek roughly the same pronunciation as in the modern language. This view is adopted by Allen (1974: 60) but not by Sturtevant (1940: 33, 47). As already mentioned, the latter argues against the equivalence of the Ancient and Modern Greek s based on contraction and lengthening facts. His arguments against the view that the pronunciation of o was roughly the same in Ancient Greek and in the modern language have a similar basis, due to the contraction of o+o to ou not w, and the secondary lengthening of o to ou rather than w; if there was no significant difference between the pronunciation of o in Ancient and in Modern Greek, w would be the expected outcome in each case in Ancient Greek. If one nonetheless follows Allen (1974: 60), the number of carry-overs is significantly increased, and would contain words such as the following: - nouns ^sXi, avs^oq, noXs^oq, ovo^a, vo^oq - adjectives/numerals KaKoq, a^ioq, niaToq, vsoq, evaToq - inflected verb forms nivsTs, ^¿vsts, ensas, enivs, etc. 128 Jerneja Kavčič, Brian D. Joseph, Christopher Brown 3.2 Ethnohomophonographosemes If it is assumed that apart from the pronunciation of the accent, Ancient Greek is pronounced in modern teaching practice in its authentic form, the pronunciation of all classes of carry-overs that were discussed in the previous section roughly corresponds to their Modern Greek pronunciation. This, however, is a significant oversimplification. Although the teaching of Ancient Greek in many countries follows the Erasmian pronunciation, in actuality there are several varieties of the Erasmian pronunciation that show the impact of the phonology of native modern languages and of various, sometimes wrong, perceptions of the authentic Ancient Greek pronunciation (Allen 1974: 125-144, Petrounias 2001: 952). Therefore, the discussion of carry-overs needs to take into account their potential interaction with the traditions of the pronunciation of Ancient Greek and thus with potential effects on the teaching of Modern Greek to classicists. In some cases this can mean that the pronunciation of an Ancient Greek word is closer to its pronunciation in Modern Greek in its ancient form. An example is words containing the letters 9 and x or the digraph ou, which are pronounced in many traditions according to their Modern Greek pronunciation, namely [f], [h] and [u] (Petrounias 2001: 952). As a result, the pronunciation of some words may be much closer to Modern than to Ancient Greek. An example is the word 9ÎX0Ç. If 9 is pronounced as [f] and if ou is pronounced as [u], the Erasmian pronunciation of 9ÎX0Ç, as well as some of its inflected forms (9ÎX0U, 91X2, 9ÎX0UÇ) corresponds to Modern Greek (namely, [filos], [filu], [file], [filus]) much more closely than to the authentic ancient Greek pronunciation ([philos], [philo], [phile], [philos]). We call these words ethnohomophonographosemes. Other aspects of the Erasmian pronunciation can also have significantly different effects on teaching Modern Greek to classicists. For example, there is the so-called Henninian pronunciation, in which Ancient Greek words are pronounced according to the Latin accentuation rules (see Allen 1974: 135-136, Petrounias 2001: 954). The word avGpœnoç in this tradition is accentuated on the penultimate syllable and corresponds to neither Ancient nor Modern Greek accentuation. This pronunciation is used in the Netherlands, in South Africa, in Great Britain and in the Commonwealth (Allen, loc. cit.).10 This also means that effects of national traditions of the Erasmian pronunciation on teaching Modern Greek to classicists need to be examined for each of these traditions separately. This issue lies beyond the scope of the present paper and is a subject of a larger project we aim at conducting. The effects 10 It is interesting to observe that the Henninian pronunciation is reflected also in earlier Slovenian literature (namely, in a poem of France Prešeren), which indicates that this pronunciation used to be much more widespread (in the 19th century) than is the case nowadays (Grošelj 1970-1971). Teaching Modern Greek to Classicists: Taking Advantage of Continuity 129 of one of the varieties of the Erasmian pronunciation on teaching of Modern Greek are further discussed below in §4. 3.3 False friends As was shown in passage (5), some words display phonological properties of carry-overs but have a different meaning in Ancient Greek from that in Modern Greek. We use the term "false friends" for these words. An example is the word ^dXiata, which means 'most' in Ancient Greek and 'yes, indeed' in the modern language. Another term for words with phonological properties of carry-overs but with a different meaning in Modern Greek from that in the ancient language is homophonograph. Furthermore, we use the term false friends for words that have the same written form in Ancient and Modern Greek but different pronunciation and meaning. These words can also be called homographs. The same as in the case of carry-overs, our analysis is based on the etymologies of LKN; therefore, false friends are words that have, according to these etymologies, a different meaning in Ancient Greek from that seen in Modern Greek (cf. Petrounias 1998: xxii); this is the case also with the verb naiSsuw (AG [paideuo] 'bring up, teach', MG [peSevo] 'pester'): (9) [apx. naiSevw 'avaxps^a>, SKnaiSeuw' (r an^£P. arm. ^°v.)j [AG naiSevu) 'bring up, educate' (MG meaning Medieval)] Examples of both types offalse friends are given in Table 1. These words show that knowledge of Ancient Greek can cause misunderstanding (or, interference errors) in Modern Greek. Consider, for instance, a passage such as that in (10): (10) H xpansZa eivai nXouaia. The bank is rich. In this case, in teaching Modern Greek to classicists, it would need to be stressed that the word tpansZa in Modern Greek means 'bank' rather than 'table', as was the case in Ancient Greek, and that the verb form eivai is in Modern Greek a finite form (namely the 3rd person singular or plural of the verb 'to be'), rather than the present infinitive of this verb, as was the case in the ancient language.11 11 For further details of our approach to teaching Modern Greek to classicists, as well as for additional materials, see the website Greek Ancient and Modern: A resource for teaching and study of the Greek language in all its phases, https://u.osu.edu/greek/. 130 Jerneja Kavčič, Brian D. Joseph, Christopher Brown Table 1: Ancient-Modern Greek false friends Ancient GREEK Modern Meaning Pronunciation Lower case letters CAPITAL LETTERS Lower case letters Pronunciation Meaning foreigner [barbaros] BAPBAPOZ ßapßapoc; [varvaros] barbarian marry [gamö] ya^ü TAMO ya^œ [yamo] f*** private [idios] ïôioç IAIOZ iôioç [iôios] the same to be a slave [döleüö] AOYAEYO ôouXeûœ [ôulévo] work assembly [ekklêsia] eKKX^aia EKKAHZIA eKKXr|aia [eklisia] church the right moment [kairos] KAIPOZ Kaipoç [keros] weather, time beautiful KAAOZ KaXoç [kalos] good girl [kore] KOPH Kopri [kori] daughter power KPATOZ KpàToç [kratos] state possession [ktéma] KTrj^a KTHMA KTf|^a [ktima] estate more [mällon] ^aXXov MAAAON ^àXXov [malon] probably most MAAETA ^aXiaTa [malista] indeed bring up [paideuö] nAIAEYn naiôeûœ [peôévo] pester denouncer [sykophantes] ZYKOOANTHZ auKO