HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREEK LANGUAGE

This lecture course is part of the Bachelor's Degree Programme in Literature (corso di laurea in Lettere), curriculum 'Scienze dell'antichità'. It allows students to acquire the basic notions concerning the evolution of ancient Greek roughly from the time of Mycenaean texts (2nd millennium BC) to the 5th century BC. The course provides an introduction to the history of ancient Greek and of its dialects and literary languages. The first part of the course focuses on the methodologies of Greek linguistics and dialectology. The second part pivots around the language of archaic and classical literary genres. The aims of the course are: to provide the basis for the knowledge of the historical evolution of Greek and of the relationship between its dialects and literary languages; to teach the methodologies and tools through which students can acquire this knowledge. In this academic year the course will achieve these aims by analyzing Greek literary texts with a linguistic methodology and commenting on the similarities and differences between literary languageand the local dialects.

By attending this course students will be able to:
- KNOW the historical evolution of Greek, from the 2nd millennium to the Classical age, in the light of historical and geographical factors, and with a particular focus on the relationship between literary languages and local dialects;
- KNOW the principale Greek literary languages;
- LEARN how to read and parse the hexameter, the elegiac couplet and the Sapphic stanza;
- UNDERSTAND from a theoretical and methodological point of view the main issues of Greek historical linguistics;
- IDENTIFY and USE the main bibliographical and digital tools pertaining to the field of Greek linguistics.

Compulsory:
- adequate knowledge of ancient Greek, certified (through high school diploma or university exams)
- knowledge of Italian

Desirable:
Students may wish to attend the lectures of Letteratura greca I and Greek epigraphy first (although this is not a compulsory prerequisite).

The course offers an outline of the most important issues concerning Greek historical linguistics and dialectology, with a focus on the Greek local dialects and literary languages.
The main phonological and morphological features of archaic and classical Greek will be illustrated through texts. This year the course pivots around an anthology of ten texts which are representative of the main literary languages of Greek:
1) Hom. Il. 22.344-366: language of epic
2) Hom. Od. 4. 136-167: language of epic
3) The inscription on the 'Cup of Nestor' (CEG 454): language of epigram (Ionic area)
4) The inscription on the oinochoe del Dipylon (CEG 432): language of epigram (Attic area)
5) Tyrtaeus, fr. 4 West: language of elegy
6) Sappho, fr. 16 Voigt: language of Aeolic lyric
7) Alcmane, ‘Great Partheneion' (fr. 1 Davies): language of choral lyric
8) The funerary epigram of Menecrates (CEG 143): language of epigram (Doric area)
9) a passage from Attic tragedy or comedy (TBA according to the students' interests)
10) an Attic inscription
All texts will be integrally translated and commented upon during lectures. The commentary will also touch upon metre, although this is not the focus of the course: students are kindly invited to take up the Laboratorio di metrica e traduzione (Prof. Camerotto, 1st semester) for a thorough introduction to Greek metre.

A) Elements of Greek historical linguistics: from Mycenaean to the Classical age:

The first two and the fourth chapters of A. C. Cassio (ed.), Storia delle lingue letterarie greche, Milan, Mondadori 2016, second edition (i.e. (Stirpi, gruppi dialettali e lingue letterarie, pp. 3-31; La fonologia del greco e le sue radici indoeuropee, pp. 32-72; IV: Alfabeti locali, testi arcaici, edizioni ellenistiche, pp. 107-129.).
This may be replaced with S. Colvin, A historical Greek reader, Oxford, OUP, 2007 by students who cannot read Italian.

B) Texts
Handouts with texts will be provided during lectures
Almost all of them are translated and analysed in the handbooks by Cassio and Colvin cited above.
Each of the ten texts will be translated and analysed during classes as well.


C) OTHER (NOT COMPULSORY) SUGGESTED READING

Outlines of the history of the Greek language:

A. Meillet, Lineamenti di storia della lingua greca, trad. it. Torino, Einaudi, 1981 (seconda edizione).
O. Hoffmann-A. Debrunner-A. Scherer, Storia della lingua greca, trad. it. Napoli, Macchiaroli, 1969;
L.R. Palmer, The Greek Language, London, Faber, 1980.
Phonology:
M. Lejeune, Phonétique historique du mycénien et du grec ancien, Paris, Klincksieck, 1972

Morphology:
P. Chantraine, Morphologie historique du grec, Paris, Klincksieck, 1961.

Historical linguistics:
H. Rix, Historische Grammatik des Griechischen. Laut- und Formenlehre, Darmstadt 1992 (second edition).
O. Szemerényi, Introduzione alla linguistica indoeuropea, a c. di G. Boccali-V. Brugnatelli-M. Negri, Milano, Unicopli, 1985.


Dialectology:
Y. Duhoux, Introduzione alla dialettologia greca antica, trad. it. Bari, Levante, 1986.
C. D. Buck, The Greek dialects, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1955.
S. Colvin, A historical Greek reader, Oxford, OUP, 2007

Historical and literary commentaries on the Iliad:

The first part of the exam will concern the topics addressed in the introductory part of the course and in the three chapters of Cassio’s handbook (compulsory reading). The second part will consist in an examination on one or two of the set texts, which students will be asked to read aloud, translate and comment upon.

Lectures. The first lectures will consist in an introduction to Greek linguistics and its methodology. They will be followed by lectures addressing the translation of and linguistic commentary on the exts described above. Some additional activities, which students may find useful for consolidating linguistic notions, will be available through the Moodle platform.

Italian

ESERCITAZIONI DI LETTERATURA GRECA
Those who attend the Greek Literature and History of the Greek Language courses may take advantage of the classes called ESERCITAZIONI DI LETTERATURA GRECA taught by Prof. Camerotto, which focus on Greek metre and translation strategies (2 CFU for the course).

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