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This chapter discusses the linguistic theory and practice of the chief proponent of language reform at the time, Adamantios Korais (1748-1833). The origins of Korais' linguistic theory are traced to the work of 18th-century theorists, particularly Condillac. His proposals for the reform of the Modern Greek language are analysed in terms of the following: his worship of ancient Greek perfection; his defence of Modern Greek against the aspersions cast on it by the archaists; and his ‘correction’ of Modern Greek according to the morphological rules of Ancient Greek. The chapter ends with an assessment of Korais' contribution to the language question and an account of the impact of Korais' ideas on later developments. The assessment is broadly negative, because Korais lent his enormous prestige to the already existing habit of mixing the modern language with grammatical features of the ancient, thereby encouraging later Greeks to use yet more ancient features in their writing.

This chapter discusses an investigation of deponent verbs that bear the middle/passive morphology of the Greek language and take an object in the accusative case. It attempts to determine whether there exist any systematic factors from the areas of syntax and semantics that influence the presence of deponent verbs throughout the history of the Greek language. It is concluded that deponent verbs require an independent theoretical explanation, which is drawn from the properties of morphology.

This chapter scrutinises intralingual translation in the wider context of interlingual translation, while focusing specifically on the translation of ancient Greek texts into modern Greek. In the process, it sheds light on certain problems and dilemmas that interlingual translation has bequeathed to intralingual translation, both on a theoretical and a practical level, such as: a) the degree of translatability of classical texts; b) the conventional distinctions between scholarly, word-for-word translations and freer, literary ones; and c) the dilemma between a ‘retrospectively’ linguistic and stylistic translation, and a synchronic translation. The chapter also attempts to sketch, classify, and comment upon the long history of intralingual translation from Greek antiquity to the present day, and to discuss in detail the ideologically motivated comparisons of and conflicts between ancient and modern Greek with particular reference to intralinguistic translations. It draws attention to and exemplifies certain positive and certain negative or problematic aspects of intralingual translation, as the latter has been and is still practised in the educational, academic, and public space of modern Greece.

This chapter undertakes a provisional reassessment, first, of Polybius' Greek against nine syntactic/stylistic features, comparing his usage with that of both classical and later Hellenistic historians; and, secondly, of the influence of Latin on his Greek syntax and vocabulary. It suggests on the strength of examples and case studies a series of working hypotheses for further investigation, including the following: that Polybius' use of (near)synonyms is less haphazard than is often supposed; that his similes and metaphors contain further evidence of his natural fondness for everyday language; and that, notwithstanding the last, he may occasionally use syntax or vocabulary to allude to a famous predecessor historian.

This chapter contrasts La Chanson de Roland's successful canonization as France's national epic with the Byzantine epic Digenes Akrites, which seemed destined to serve the same function for Modern Greece when it was rediscovered in 1868. However, Digenes’ manuscript problems became embroiled in contentious and crippling debates between demoticists and purists. The epic suffered further from Henri Grégoire's erudite but naive attempt to ground it in historical fact and from his failure to link the poem to the current political climate. By contrast, Gaston Paris, France's pre‐eminent late nineteenth‐century medievalist, secured Roland's spot at the head of the French literary canon by appealing to nationalist sentiment and establishing a powerful analogy between the France of the poetic Charlemagne and the nineteenth‐century French nation. A close examination of each scholar's methods reveals the cultural and intellectual climate necessary to produce a national epic.

This chapter examines the chronological range of Greco-Roman history and the nature of the main narrative sources. The discussion begins about 1200 BCE, with the end of the Bronze Age palace culture, conventionally called Mycenaean. The destruction of the palace centres – at Knossos, Mycenae, Pylos, and Thebes – was responsible for preserving the ‘Linear B’ tablets, which form the earliest evidence for the Greek language. By the sixth century, Greek city-states were established widely round the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. This is the time of what is sometimes called ‘the Greek miracle’, the origin of philosophy and science as well as historiography. The chapter draws attention to three archaeological discoveries and the way their evidential value has been assessed: a gold mask, discovered in 1876 in the first of the ‘shaft graves’ at Mycenae, the so-called tomb of Agamemnon; an artefact discovered in 1977 by the Dutch archaeological team excavating the temple of Matuta at the Latin town of Satricum; and a gold bulb, or locket, discovered in 1794.

Not the study of antiquity in isolation but the ideal of a seamless unity of classicism and Christianity is what made Johannes Reuchlin's humanist perspective compelling to the scholars and students of his time. Although well-known as the founder of Christian Hebrew studies, Reuchlin also emerges as a harbinger of the recovery of Greek language, literature, early Christian writings, and biblical philology. This chapter defines Renaissance humanism (the studia humanitatis) and traces Reuchlin's contributions to the movement, in particular, to the evolution of Christian humanism. His contributions to early printing and the career of Philipp Melanchthon are also assessed.

The priest and teacher Neofytos Doukas (c.1760–1845) was one of the chief proponents of linguistic archaism in modern Greece. A romantic religious nationalist, he believed that the Greeks (i.e. the Orthodox Christians who recognized the Patriarch of Constantinople as their religious leader) should learn to speak Ancient Greek as their natural language. This chapter analyses the ideological presuppositions behind Doukas’ rhetoric (with its mixture of pagan Greek, Jewish, and Christian references) within the context of the Greek language question and nation-building, and against the background of attitudes to the Ancient Greek language adopted by other leading contemporaneous Greek intellectuals. The chapter also compares and contrasts Doukas’ failed attempt to revive Ancient Greek as a spoken language with the successful revival of Hebrew in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

This chapter looks at how text-analysis tools can be used for literary analysis, and what is needed to make these new modes of scholarship happen. It also attempts to cut through the criticism of literary computing to survey a number of projects and methodologies. It investigates methodologies which have helped to throw new light on and to derive new knowledge about works of literature, drawing attention to pitfalls and problems. Many of these projects are based on concordance and word-count applications, but computers can help to study sound patterns in verse and the structure of some kinds of dramatic works.

This chapter develops the idea that discerning and defining the character of the language is the ultimate goal of Humboldt's research. All comparative studies had to be based upon comparing their characters. The thrust of this ethnolinguistic adventure still proves inviting and fruitful. But the author demonstrates that this aspect also turns out to be the weak point in Humboldt's project. The great linguist manages to achieve a profound insight into the grammatical working of multiple languages, and he understands the importance and the specific nature of the way many foreign authors are using and transforming the character of their languages. Nevertheless, the author shows that Humboldt does fall into clichés, in attributing to the language the qualities of individual authors.

This chapter bridges the gap between the iconographical studies and the hoped-for historical conclusions by examining those aspects of the monument that can not just show the identity and ideas of the patron, but also the social and intellectual milieu in which that patron lived and sought to communicate with his fellow men. Two very different but equally suggestive paintings are explored. The chapter addresses the linguistic environment and other comparable structures. Study of Quṣayr 'Amra's use of texts and labels in the Arabic and Greek languages offers hope of a more explicit approach to the problem of cultural contextualization. The chapter moves on beyond the venues of contextualization suggested by the frescoes and the texts inscribed upon them, to consider the problem from the perspective of the whole site. The typical Syrian or Jordanian qaQuṣr served primarily as the residence of a prosperous man, and his family, retainers, and fighters.

The University of Athens played a decisive role in forming the modern Greek conception of Greek antiquity and the way it was perceived by the general public. This chapter attempts to explore the multi-faceted dominance of antiquity within the university by contrast with the two other significant periods of the Greek ancestral narrative (Byzantine and modern). In particular, it focuses on two important factors relating to the Greek sense of national identity: the formation of a national history and the Greek language question. Seen as an integral part of the 3,000-year continuum of the Greek nation, the very notion of Greek antiquity was expanded chronologically in the university curriculum and subjected to various methodological approaches in the interests of promoting the aspirations of the nation through the shaping of the Humanities in Greece.

Eugenios Voulgaris, whose Greek translation of Virgil’s epic is the subject of this chapter, is another example of how translation was used for cultural ideology. Voulgaris, who was invited by Catherine the Great of Russia to serve as archbishop of Cherson and Slaviansk, translated the Aeneid into Homeric Greek. This odd translation also had a pronounced pedagogical mission for an intended audience that was not Russian, but rather belonged to the Greek diaspora. Furthermore, as Papaioannou shows, Voulgaris’s strange undertaking was closely intertwined with Catherine’s political and cultural aspirations: her ‘Greek Project’, which aimed at projecting Russia both as a Western military power in the likeness of Rome and as the heir to Greek Orthodox Byzantium.

Until the end of the fourth century BCE the impact of Greek culture in Asia Minor was limited. Lykians, Karians, and Lydians offered alternatives to Hellenism and preserved their own languages until the end of the fourth century BCE. However, by 250 BCE these Anatolian languages ceased to be used in public or private documents, and polis organization became normative. After the overthrow of the Persian Empire the autonomy of Greek cities became the highest political objective. Greek civic decrees in the early Hellenistic period emphasized that democratic legitimacy depended on quorate citizen votes, the Greek language became the only medium for official public communication, and the native populations maintained their identity and independence by adopting polis organization. Between 400 and 250 BCE these populations did not merely absorb Greek cultural influence but underwent the encompassing experience of becoming Greek.