Customer Reviews

Greek Grammar

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is an excellent reference book! It has passed the test of heavy usage, and it has outlasted many academic fads.

Smyth does a thorough yet concise job on the known varieties of written Greek usage from the Homeric epics up to the beginning of the Hellenistic period .

Smyth does not cover Hellenistic (Koiné) Greek as much, especially not for texts that have Semitic or Egyptian "flavors:" the Septuagint, New Testament and Egyptian Greek papyri. For real grammars on those, look up these authors: Wallace, Dana, Mantey, Robertson, Blass, Debrunner, Funk, Conybeare, Stock and Zerwick.

Some writers in the centuries between the reigns of Augustus and Constantine, and the Byzantines afterward, tried to "return" to Classical Attic usage in writing, with mixed results. When reading them, use both Smyth and a Hellenistic/Koiné grammar together, carefully.

Smyth is the only grammar for ancient Greek worth buying (besides the advanced treatments of specialized topics like Goodwin on the moods and tenses and Denniston on the particles). Unlike Latin, where the field of grammars is much wider, Smyth is the only English grammar of ancient Greek comprehensive enough to warrant any attention from Hellenists. Goodwin and Gulick's volume is too sparse in comparison (but note they cover prosody and Smyth does not) while Kaegi's is a step below theirs in depth. Ideally all intermediate level Greek students will begin to use this text as a reference grammar. Very reasonably priced for the wealth of information it contains. The book itself is also durable and will endure years of constant thumbing.

Not for the beginner (or the fainthearted!) this nevertheless is a nonpareil of a reference for Greek grammar. While a book with chapter titles like "The Antecedent Of Relative Clauses" isn't going to hit the Barnes & Noble front window any day soon, those engaged in the lifetime study of Greek would do better to refer to this than to Goodwin, except perhaps for information on moods. There is an excellent overview of variation in dialects, and the examples given are well-chosen and helpful. I see I am the first to write a review for Mr Smythe -- now, gods, stand up for grammars!

One of my students bought the paperback of this edition (copyright 2010, Benediction Classics). There is a serious problem with it. This is a reprint of the _first_ edition of Smyth, copyright 1905. The _standard_ edition, and the one that every Greek commentary in the world will refer to, is a later edition (copyright 1920, revised by Gordon Messing in 1956). You might think that this would not matter, but it does: not only is the pagination different, but the reference numbers have all changed in the later, standard edition. So my poor student reads in his commentary that a concept is explained at Smyth paragraph 256, goes there and discovers that _his_ paragraph 256 has nothing to do with that grammatical problem.

My guess is that the publisher of this book found a copy of the first edition, realized that the copyright had run out, and slapped together a cheap reprint. It's not worth your $29. Buy the later edition from Harvard U. Press, and you'll be on the same page as the rest of the Greek-reading world.

I am sad to say that I never bought this Grammar during my four years of studying Classics while in college. If I had been smart and actually bought this when I started I could have saved myself a lot of time and prevented a lot of headaches. Now I know that Smythe is old, and some of his approaches are outdated, but that does not mean his grammar book is still effective. His work on both prepositions and moods of verbs are the best I have found and have helped me tremendously. There are some scholars who have surpassed Smythe's work in other areas of Greek grammar and syntax, but as far as a basic and comprehensive grammar goes, Smythe is still the best for your both your wallet and your studies.

Since most of you are probably required to buy this for class like me, this review may not be the most useful. But anyone thinking of buying this should know that it has every possible bit of information about Ancient Greek--and every tidbit, every little comment, is numbered. This means the student ends up reading a chapter, say, on verb stems, and reading numbers 1024 to 1112. Since the data is so organized, you'd think it's an easy reference, but no. If you're looking for something specific, it'll take some wading through numbers and symbols. Whatever you want is definitely in there--it just might take some time to find it.

Like Kirk Ormand, I first learned of this fraudulent publication when I saw it in the hands of my Greek students. Those who had the genuine Smyth were able to find the passages I referred to; those with this fraudulent version were confused. When I inspected a copy I discovered precisely what Prof. Ormand did: that it is not Smyth's "Greek Grammar" at all, but Smyth's earlier and much shorter "Greek Grammar for Schools and Colleges." As Prof. Ormand points out, this not only causes confusion in class, but it will also result in bafflement when one follows references to "Smyth" in standard school editions of Greek texts (e.g. James Helm's popular edition of Plato's "Apology"), only to discover that the section numbers in the Benediction edition are totally different.

But the reason I am writing this review is not only to heartily second Prof. Ormand, but also to protest several levels of fraud here. First, there is the fraud being perpetrated by Benediction Classics---I shall henceforth think of them as Malediction Classics. As you can see from the photo, the front cover simply states "Greek Grammar. Herbert Weir Smyth"---with no hint that this is not the Smyth "Greek Grammar" one should be getting. But it gets worse. If you inspect the copyright page, you will find...precisely nothing. Indeed, nowhere in the entire Malediction edition is there the slightest hint that this is not, in fact, Smyth's "Greek Grammar" as we have come to know and love it. This strongly suggests intentional deception.

But the next levels of fraudulence are the work of Amazon, I'm sorry to say---though perhaps not fully intentional fraudulence. First, there is the fact that if you enter "Herbert Weir Smyth Greek Grammar" this "Benediction" edition is the first thing to pop up. So it's perfectly natural for a student to click on that first and go no further. Next, there is the fact that if you click on the "Look inside" feature, it will be pages from the *real* Smyth that greet you. True, there is a little note that comes up indicating that this preview is derived from the hardback (Harvard Univ. Press) edition, but how many potential buyers will be aware that what they will get if they order the book is very different from what they are seeing on the "Look inside" feature? They are forgivably apt to assume that they are just getting a paperback reprint of the hardback that the preview shows them.

Then there is the fact that nearly all of the reviews (with the sterling exception of Prof. Ormand's) are in fact reviews of the genuine Smyth. For example, look at the feature that gives you the "most useful positive review" contrasted with the "most useful critical review." The critical review is Ormand's; the positive review is by someone who was the proud owner of the real Smyth. Amazon has a long-standing habit of attaching reviews of one edition to the entry on a very different edition. This is especially annoying in the case of translations. If you look up a particular translation of a work, Amazon will shower you with customer reviews by people praising or criticizing various *other* translations. (Often, in fact, it is quite impossible to be sure just which translation a review is citing.) This also happens when one is looking at editions and commentaries---see my customer comment on Kenneth Quinn's edition of Horace's "Odes." The Amazon entry on this useful Latin text with commentary merrily cites a slew of reviews of a *translation* of Horace's "Odes." No amount of complaining about this nonsense seems to make the slightest dent on Amazon's Olympian practices.

This is an excellent Greek grammar, but only for the
advanced! Except for Koine Greek, you will find about
everything there.

I read Kirk Ormand's review of the paperback edition being an early edition, not the standard one. But I thought I was safe because (1) I bought the hardcover, and (2) I viewed the "Look Inside" pages at the top of the listing and they showed the later edition. But I received the 1915 edition, not the Gordon Messing revised edition of 1956. I'm sure Kirk is correct in his review: another publisher got hold of the earlier edition and has reprinted it cheaply, and for some reason Amazon thinks it is the later edition. Beware.

If you want the standard edition, DO NOT buy the Benediction Classics' one, by the reasons presented by the other readers, as you can see above.

But it is important to know that Amazon currently sells both the editon revised by Gordon Messing (the standard) and the one published by Benediction Classics (2010). However, if you type "smyth greek grammar" only, you will not be redirected to Messing's edition. So, I suggest that you type "smyth gordon messing", and then you will find the only edition of Smyth's grammar that is worthwhile to buy.