Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speaker (Longman Linguistics Library) [Paperback]

Geoffrey C. Horrocks (Author), G. Horrocks (Author)

Book Description

Series: Longman Linguistics Library | Publication Date: June 1997

The outstanding intellectual achievements of the Greeks

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book is a sure-footed trek over the entire trajectory of the Greek language. It is a precious resource for experts and non-experts alike." Times Literary Supplement "an illuminating and absorbing book, which enlarges our understanding of the history of Greek in all its phrases from Mycenaean to Modern" The Anglo-Hellenic Review "It has clearly been a labour of love, and one reason for buying it if there were no others (which it should be clear there are in abundance) would be to share his obvious pleasure in the phenomena he describes." Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company (June 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0582307090
• ISBN-13: 978-0582307094
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,128,181 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Definitive Treatment, January 12, 2005

By 

George Athas (Sydney, NSW, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speaker (Longman Linguistics Library) (Paperback)

Horrocks has obviously put in an enormous amount of work for this book, and the result is a superbly masterful history of the Greek language and the people who have spoken it. Horrocks presents a mammoth topic in very accessible form, showing how Greek history has impacted upon the Greek language for the last 3500 years.

One of the best features of Horrocks' work is the frequent examples he gives, enabling the reader to get a practical handle on the abstract developments discussed.

This book is a must for anyone seriously interested in Greek of any type, be it the Classics, the New Testament, or Modern Greek. Even people with a beginner's level of any kind of Greek will find it easy to use, because of the book's easy and enjoyable presentation. Even those interested purely in Greek history will find it an excellent tool.

It will be very hard to top this work for its scholarship and accessibility. The publishers should think seriously about a reprint. You will not regret owning this book.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars By Far the Best History of Greek, July 31, 2001

By 

Cinna the Poet (Zeeusche Uytkyk, Svalbard) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speakers (Longman Linguistics Library) (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful book and I recommend it to any classicist or linguist, professional or amateur. For many readers this book would be a bit thick, but for anyone familiar with basic linguistics and with a great interest in Greek, this book will be exciting, revelatory, and hard to put down.

Dr. Horrocks goes chronologically and for each stage discusses briefly (cursorily) the literary trends and historical events that make up the milieu of the writings in question. Then he details changes and patterns in morphology, syntax, and phonology, and then--best of all--he gives a characteristic example (a paragraph or so) of the kind of Greek he's discussing, with a transliteration (which changes throughout the book as the pronunciation is thought to have changed) and an English translation. This allows students of mostly Attic Greek to read bits from everything from Linear B to today's newspapers.

I've lived in Greece for about two years years so far, studied mediaeval Greek at Oxford and, before that, ancient Greek at BYU. I used this book in undergraduate linguistics classes and have recommended it to many other students. Among other things, it's also excellent for showing the silliness of classicist pedantry!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The most up to date history of the language all the way from Homer to the late 20th century, March 26, 2008

By 

Christopher Culver - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speaker (Longman Linguistics Library) (Paperback)

Geoffrey Horrocks' GREEK: A History of the Language and its Speakers is the first English-language overview of the entire span of Greek history (Homer to contemporary Modern Greek) based on the recent integration of sociolinguistics and historical linguistics. That means that the history of Greek is not any single variety being replaced by another single variety, but rather a constant flow of registers and conscious attempts to reform the language back to this or that classical style. Abundant selections from both literary Greek and personal correspondence show these different and ceaselessly evolving styles.

I was a bit disappointed that, unlike in the recent Blackwell History of the Latin Language that he wrote with James Clackson, Horrocks does not begin with Proto-Indo-European. Indeed, even Proto-Greek gets little attention, and the history really chooses the Ionic style of Homer as the beginning of the Greek language as it has lasted up until today.

The work requires knowledge of at least Classical Greek--I can't imagine the reader getting anything out of it otherwise. Each passage is, however, glossed word-for-word, with phonetic transcription. By doing this Horrocks shows the changing pronunciation of Greek through time even though the Greek script often remains the same.

My only experience with Greek is reading Classics as an undergraduate. I've always been intrigued by the modern language, which is always hyped as so much close to the classical language than the Romance languages are to Latin, and Horrock's presentation of the grammatical and lexical changes that produced contemporary spoken Greek were entertaining reading. However, Horrocks presents everything in a theoretical fashion, and people with training in Classical Greek who want to quickly achieve actual spoken proficiency in the modern language should look to: Kavoukopoulos, F., Omatos, O., Stavrianopulu, P., Alonso, J., Madariaga, E. _Griego Moderno para Filólogos Clásicos_. Dos volúmenes, dos cassettes y CD. Universidad de Creta - Universidad del País Vasco. Ed. Nefeli. Atenas, 1999. Pp. (Volumen I, pp. 331. Volumen II, pp. 275).