What's the level of mutual intelligibility/transferrenc between ancient/modern Greek?

[fomalhaut]

any at all? I'm reading Xenophon's Anabasis and have been reading some other Greek works (the normal Sophistries) and i'm finding myself inspired to start learning Ancient Greek.

I know it's completely independant in the Indo-European family with only some Latin loanwords and the typical Indo commonalities (Mater/Pater and probably Mord) but is there ANY transferrence to Modern Greek? I am fine with learning Latin as 1) it's a rich tradition in akademia 2) great transferrence to other languages 3) I feel it can come back as a standard second language despite its short lull as such

BUT

ancient Greek has none of those qualities, it's just for reading ancient Greek and that's it!

any Hellenes or learners have advice?
what books? resources?


I hope I don't start a pronunciation battle to end all

[Arjos]

IIRC modern greek uses a lot more the letter "iota", and also is quite different...
Is like italian and latin I think, few words remained, but isn't the same...

[Geticus]

I am not qualified to comment on similarities of ancient and modern Greek, but ancient Greek has many similarities to Latin. Dionysios of Halicarnassos, a Greek historian in the Julio-Claudian era, spent many years living in Italy researching the Roman world and he basically viewed Latin as a version of Greek with some incorrect pronunciation habits. I find this plausible since many words in the two languages are etymologically related, i.e. Latin vis (force) Greek bia (force), Latin animus (spirit) Greek anemos (wind), latin videre/video (see) Greek idein/oida (see). You just got to study the two in some detail to start noticing all the interrelations. Historically I am primarily a Latinist, but there is great irony in Roman history since 1) some of the best historians of Roman matters were Greeks writing in Greek, e.g. Dionysios of Halicarnassos, Plutarch, Polybios, and Procopios and 2) the Roman imperium ultimately collapsed in the west and was sustained by Greek speaking east Romans for another thousand years. So if you really want to study the Roman thing in depth you will end up reading a lot of Greek authors. To study Roman history only based on Latin authors is inferior, just compare Livy's history of the regal era and early Republic with Dionysios' history of the same-- Dionysios goes into greater depth and length and to my mind is the better historian overall.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Not really.

[vartan]

I am not qualified to comment on similarities of ancient and modern Greek, but ancient Greek has many similarities to Latin. Dionysios of Halicarnassos, a Greek historian in the Julio-Claudian era, spent many years living in Italy researching the Roman world and he basically viewed Latin as a version of Greek with some incorrect pronunciation habits. I find this plausible since many words in the two languages are etymologically related, i.e. Latin vis (force) Greek bia (force), Latin animus (spirit) Greek anemos (wind), latin videre/video (see) Greek idein/oida (see). You just got to study the two in some detail to start noticing all the interrelations. Historically I am primarily a Latinist, but there is great irony in Roman history since 1) some of the best historians of Roman matters were Greeks writing in Greek, e.g. Dionysios of Halicarnassos, Plutarch, Polybios, and Procopios and 2) the Roman imperium ultimately collapsed in the west and was sustained by Greek speaking east Romans for another thousand years. So if you really want to study the Roman thing in depth you will end up reading a lot of Greek authors. To study Roman history only based on Latin authors is inferior, just compare Livy's history of the regal era and early Republic with Dionysios' history of the same-- Dionysios goes into greater depth and length and to my mind is the better historian overall.

The above post: Ancient Latin was a dialect of ancient Greek.

Linguists: Ancient Latin was one language, Greek another.

[fomalhaut]

Geticus i personally believe those similarities to be from Indo European nature, rather than them being from the same sub family.

[Mulceber]

My understanding is that Ancient Greek is to Modern Greek as Latin is to Italian. Lots of related words, but not really mutually intelligible. -M

[Geticus]

The above post: Ancient Latin was a dialect of ancient Greek.

Linguists: Ancient Latin was one language, Greek another.

Do you really think you speak for all linguists?
Cicero remarked in one of his books about how many Greek words were used in Rome during the early Republic.
Pronunciation habits change through a process called sound change. If you studied Greek and Latin in some depth (I have) then you would notice how many shared radicals exist in both languages. I really don't need your facile cutdowns, either.

[Mulceber]

Do you really think you speak for all linguists?
Cicero remarked in one of his books about how many Greek words were used in Rome during the early Republic.
Pronunciation habits change through a process called sound change. If you studied Greek and Latin in some depth (I have) then you would notice how many shared radicals exist in both languages. I really don't need your facile cutdowns, either.

Cicero was not a linguist. He knew multiple languages, but you don't have the study of linguistics until 19th/20th century, afaik. Latin and Ancient Greek are related, yes, but the one is not a dialect of the other - this is especially true when you remember that one of the qualifications to be a dialect is mutual intelligibility - ie. if Greek speakers can't understand Latin just by listening to it, it isn't a dialect of Greek. -M

[athanaric]

I am not qualified to comment on similarities of ancient and modern Greek, but ancient Greek has many similarities to Latin. [...]

And both have many similarities to Modern, Middle and Ancient Persian. And Sanskrit. That only proves that they are all Indo-European languages though, belonging to different branches. Greek is a branch of its own (together with some other, now extinct, dialects) and not an Italic language.

[Geticus]

And both have many similarities to Modern, Middle and Ancient Persian. And Sanskrit. That only proves that they are all Indo-European languages though, belonging to different branches. Greek is a branch of its own (together with some other, now extinct, dialects) and not an Italic language.

The question I am addressing is whether the aboriginal Latins were fundamentally Greek, which was Dionysios of Halicarnassos' main thesis in his history. I find it plausible. And since Dionysios clearly cited Cato the Elder's Origines as one of his key sources, and since I consider Cato the Elder to be one of the greatest Roman intellectuals and historians of Roman/Latin origins, I am reluctant to dismiss Dionysios' thesis.

If we are to retain some open mindedness towards Dionysios' thesis, as representative of Cato, then we might consider that the prisci Latini of old were fundamentally of old Hellenic stock, the core of the Latin tongue based on pre-classical Hellenic speech, later on modified through in melting pot culture of Rome, achieving its canonical form under the early Empire, only to basically give way back to late Classical Greek after the fall of Rome.

[vartan]

The question I am addressing is whether the aboriginal Latins were fundamentally Greek, which was Dionysios of Halicarnassos' main thesis in his history.

Aboriginal refers to indigenous. How can a Latin inhabitant be aboriginal if he or she is Greek? Do you mean to say that the Latins were originally Greek colonists? Just to be clear, you are referring to people of Latium, not Etruscans or any other peoples of the Italian peninsula, correct?

Regarding previous comment, I don't need to speak for every single linguist that ever lived. It's just the common consensus. Like some mentioned before me, Latin and Greek are shown to be part of the same language family but different enough to justify their being classified as separate languages and not a case in which Latin developed from Greek or where Latin was a dialect of Greek.