Did (The) Homer Use The Article? ️ Epic Greek!

AHHHH Knowlage!!!

"Certain people" raging over improper pronunciation of the Homeric Epics in 3...2...1...

I wonder if Archilocos was using the article more or less frequently then Hesiod.

I got inspired to learn Latin from you Luke! I'm 15, and needed a hobby so I started studying Latin, and have actually found a tutor!

Can you talk about the salty article?
Where was στήτη (from splitting of διαστήτην, a word in one of those passages) included in a reference work? It's one of the ghost words mentioned in Wikipedia.

Very interesting! Akkadian also does not have the definite article. Its word for "this" is just alpha (A). All the Mediterranean texts on stone prior to about 500 BCE are in a form of alphabetic Akkadian not using inner vowels. So Homer and Hesiod represent a time of transition from Akkadian to Greek writing and so must date about 500 BCE, later than often assumed. So called Etruscan is actually a form of alphabetic Akkadian so Latin continued to follow the earlier Akkadian example.

Does the article occur in the earlier Mycenean Greek from Linear B texts?

May I ask why you never reference Mycenaean Greek? Is it because most Mycenaean texts are inventories and not literature?

I really like the videos about Homeric\Archaic greek, thank you! Would be interesting to have one dedicated solely to the prononciation of the name of various characters and gods at the time!

Why is Clint's image used for if you are into that sort of thing? Is a colab coming?

you have talennt in video making

Homer: Look, Marge, I composed the two most important foundational works of Western Literature!
Marge: Homey, the Iliad and Odyssey are likely an oral composition that moved through numerous Greek speaking groups, and part of the evidence for that is the lack of the definite article.
Homer: o D'oh!

I wonder if Japanese would one day develop a definite article, maybe like a こ、そ、あ or something of that shape

That's so interesting! Have you ever thought of creating your own editorial with all these ancient texts worked on by your expertise? Publishing an Illiad edition with the vowel lenght and the digamma in it. Or any integral version of a latin text with all the (so needed) macrons in it. That would be a great addition to the community, besides the huge amount you've given already.:) Thanks for the hard work!

I would love to hear you talk more about homeric greek! What it sounded like, how it's similar/different from later varieties of greek, all that good stuff! Also maybe videos about mycenaean greek and digamma later down the road?

Homer, the poet who seldom left his house, was called "blind" because he never saw much of the world by himself and hardly any of the stuff he was talking about. He likely spent a lifetime collecting press articles and stitching them together into some narrative.

Not all Romance languages derive their definite articles from ille, illa. Sardinian uses So and Sa, which come from ipse, ipsa, "the same".

Interesting. I barely know any Greek, but I find it strange to see theta pronounced as an aspirated 't'. When did that change?

Oporto real name is Porto. That O is the Portuguese definete masculine article. O Porto

O porto do Porto.
The port of the Port.


In modern Portuguese we can and almost always use definite articles in front of names and proper nouns.

So most often, all Greek poets, heroes, gods, politicians and tyrants will have articles in front

I was reading about Linear B and apparently it does not have articles. John Chadwick, an associate of Michael Ventris in showing Linear B to be early Greek, noted that articles are not fully developed in Homer so it was not surprising they seemed to be absent in Linear B.

Both ancient and modern Greek use the article "the". The Odyssey, the Homer, the Athena, the Athens = H Αθήνα, etc. Modern Greek inherited the following elements from ancient Greek 1) Article before names 2) most of the vocabulary 3) most of Grammar and Syntax even though some modifications apply... 4) most of ancient pronunciation, especially the consonants which are almost identical throughout the ages and 5) etymology and meaning of words... In other words, Ancient Greek is not a dead language.

Αγαπητέ, ο δρόμος προς την σοφία, θα έρθει μέσα από την μελέτη του "έτοιμου" των λέξεων.
Νομίζω πως είναι το επόμενο σου στάδιο.

I love your videos!

Slavic languages, except Bulgarian, have no articles.

One thing I can remember from when I was five or six years old was that I asked my mother what the word 'the' means which I had noticed was so frequent in English texts. She replied that we don't have a word for that, and it really puzzled me that such a common word didn't have a translation. It just seemed impossible.

I find it interesting that "the" Italian words for the come from the Latin for "that". Fun fact, the German word for "the" in the nuter case is "das", which is related to the English word "that"

Generally, even though poetry and drama in particular are more loosey-goosey with grammar than other forms of literature, Homer’s use in particular is I think more often seen as irregular. And because of this, it’s often attributed to the age of his texts, and the nature of developing language conventions that weren’t fully formed yet (especially owing to the fact that Homer’s Greek doesn’t generally fit one particular dialect continuum.)

Thank you for your videos, Luke. Have you considered creating readings of classical Greek authors with translations? This content would be very useful.

Very nice! Thanks Luke.

So fantastic personal story. I am very new to Latin and have been listening to the conversational playlist.
Every Good Friday my family watches passion of the Christ. If you don’t know it’s completely in a different language. I had thought it was ALL in Aramaic. But suddenly I realize “Wait I recognize those words” and as it turns out, the Roman’s are all speaking Latin with each other, and I had NO idea.

What’s even cooler, is that there is a scene where Pilate is talking to Jesus in Aramaic, and Jesus responds ***in Latin***… AND I CAUGHT IT. It was so cool to be able to notice a subtle thing that ONLY Latin (or Aramaic) speakers could catch.

Love how some parts of this video are just little shitposts

It literally upsets me…
Ok…we get it.we modern Greeks read different than the ancient ones the written words.
But what gives you the right to put the stress on χοίρος on the όμικρον sayin χΟιρος when the darn thing (περισπωμένη) is over the γιώτα. Why why why, I am dying to know.

It made me wonder how many "types" of Antient Greek you know. Do you know all the three you mantined ?

Very interesting that this doesn’t just show up in Indo-European languages, but the very same thing happens in Ancient Egyptian as well. Due to the longevity of the language, you can clearly see an evolution from no definite article, to using a demonstrative in a sense somewhat between English “the” and “this/that”, and finally becoming weakened to a proper definite article.

Yes, please do a video about Homeric greek. 😁

Let’s not forget the fact that the Homeric poems were re-copied (the oldest case we know of) in the 5th c. BC in Athens. Therefore it’s rather difficult to know what the originals looked like.

I'm from a special Region in Germany and we need the article For persons😂😂😂 " the Susan" 😅

Farsi has no definite article. I believe that articles in Russian are absent or rare.

Omg is that a Clint's Reptiles reference

Just curious man, how many languages can you speak?

Just a thought: might this have been a regional thing in homeric times? So texts might be similar old but from different parts of Greece

personally i dislike articles

More on archaic Greek would be to see how were the declensions prior to classic era and to reconstruct some lost cases like ABLATIVE and LOCATIVE. There is something on wiki.

Nice video