What variety of Ancient Greek do people usually learn? How many varieties are there?
Thursday, September 9th, 2010 at
3:40 am
What variety of Ancient Greek should I learn and why?
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Tagged with: ancient greek
Filed under: Greek Language
In High School we learn Ionian and Attic.
i guess Attic will be best for you.
There are four main dialects in Ancient Greek literature: Attic, Ionic, Doric and the contrived dialect of Homeric Greek. It is likely that you will begin by learning Attic; it follows the grammar rules much more closely than the other dialects, which are full of far more variations away from what you will find in a grammar book. In addition, being the language of Athens, the vast majority of extant literature is written in Attic. Homeric Greek is likely to be the next you encounter, as it is used exclusively in the epic poems attributed to Homer (hence the name). As for the other two, Herodotus is the main Ionic author among a few of note (including Arrian and Hippocrates), while Archimedes is the only Ionic writer of real note. Once you have a reasonable knowledge of Attic, the other dialects are fairly easy to pick up, though quite annoying to begin with.