(Part 2) Top products from r/AncientGreek

For learning Ancient Greek (as an autodidact), start by signing up for The Great Courses Plus and take the Ancient Greek course, taught by Hans-Friedrich Meuller:

Greek 101: Learning an Ancient Language | The Great Courses Plus

You can sign up for a free trial on The Great Courses, for just long enough to complete the Greek course. But I think it’s totally worth paying for ALL of the content.

I recommend downloading the guidebook and doing ALL of the homework. Copy and paste the exercises into a Word doc and type out the answers/translations. Take the course as many times as you can for mastery.

I’ve created a couple of free courses on Memrise for Ancient Greek verbs that (I hope) people may find helpful. I use (my best attempt at) Modern Greek pronunciation. Audio can be disabled by anyone who has a problem with that. My Memrise account (Diachronix) has some other Modern Greek courses.

Paradigms of Ancient Greek Verbs

Principal Parts of Ancient Greek verbs

Professor Al Duncan produced an excellent series of Ancient Greek videos (on Youtube: Learn Attic Greek with Al Duncan - YouTube), which follows along the exercises in chapters 1–10 and 30–34 of Cynthia Shelmerdine’s Introduction to Greek.

That textbook is a bit error-prone, but it’s still pretty good for beginners. I recommend using it to follow along in Professor Duncan’s videos, at least until they cut off at chapter 10. But you’re on your own between chapters 11 and 29. Again, I recommend typing out ALL of the exercises.

The Athenaze Book 1 and Athenaze Book 2 are good self-study resources for intermediate learners, with a lot of excellent reading material. I also have a Memrise course for the vocabulary in these texbooks.

Athenaze: Book 1

Athenaze: Book 2

Leonard Muellner (Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies at Brandeis University) has a Youtube series on Ancient Greek: Learn Ancient Greek, with Prof. Leonard Muellner - YouTube

Unfortunately the audio throughout most of this series is terrible. But if you manage to listen closely (and not fall asleep), it’s quite edifying. Meullner is a genius. The course follows along the Greek: An Intensive Course textbook by Hansen & Quinn. You could try getting that textbook and following along, but I would recommend this last. I just can’t imagine most people having the patience for it. And I’ve heard mixed reviews on Hansen & Quinn, which professor Meullner criticizes ad nauseam throughout his videos.

Another resource I really like is the online version of ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΙΚΗ ΤΗΣ ΑΡΧΑΙΑΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗΣ by ΟΙΚΟΝΟΜΟΥ. You can turn the audio in the bottom right and a robot reads it out-loud. It’s helpful to learn the grammatical terminology in Greek and, if you can manage reading demotic Greek, you can experience the way the Greeks approach Ancient Greek (and observe the notable differences). They have interesting grammatical category distinctions that we don’t have in the West, many of which are quite handy. But this textbook doesn’t have any engaging reading material, aside from bland descriptions of the language. So it’s not for everyone.

Most other learning material I could recommend is mentioned in the various links above. But here are some key items for building a collection of self-study material:

*Geoffrey Horrocks’ “Greek - A History of the Language and Its Speakers” (MUST READ)

Plato: A Transitional Reader

Kaegi’s Greek Grammar

Smyth’s Greek Grammar

Plato Apology

Homeric Greek - A Book for Beginners

Rouse’s Greek Boy - A Reader

Basics of Biblical Greek

A Graded Reader of Biblical Greek

Geoffrey Steadman’s Ancient Greek reader SERIES

The short answer is yes, it's possible.

But the problem you'll run up against is the lack of adequate resources. First, you'll want Eleanor Dickey's Ancient Greek Scholarship, with its dictionary of grammatical terms and summary of the ancient grammarians. (Start with Dionysius Thrax if you want to try the original.) This is the work referenced by Annis on the document you found at scholiastae.org. You could also try to get a copy of Emiliano Caruso's Vocabolario monolingue di greco antico (but see the discussion at Textkit). Caruso is a decent start, but we have nothing as high quality as, e.g., LSJ in ancient Greek (nothing like Forcellini for Latin).

Probably the easiest way to try to keep Greek in Greek is to purchase materials such as Christophe Rico's Polis textbook, written entirely in Koine Greek. Rico's book will gradually introduce you to Greek grammatical terms. Also have a look at Randall Buth's Living Koine materials (though I don't know if he presents grammar explicitly).

Ultimately, the best thing to do is, if you can, to attend an immersion course taught by a competent speaker of ancient Greek. The Polis Institute offers such courses year-round (in Jerusalem) and during the summer (in Jerusalem, Rome, Boston, and elsewhere); the Paideia Institute offers one in August in Greece. Once you have a couple years of Greek down, you could attend something like the Σύνοδος ἑλληνική offered this year for the first time in Kentucky.

If none of those is possible, the Paideia Institute also has some online classes taught in ancient Greek.

In sum: it is entirely possible to study ancient Greek mostly in Greek. It will be slower in some ways than if you used mostly or exclusively English (vel sim.) as your medium, but it will offer the benefits you've already experienced. And the better you get at Greek, the easier it will become. You'll be able to start using resources like Gaza's Attic prose paraphrase of the Iliad and the ancient Greek scholia to many Greek texts, and so on.

If you're reviewing something you learned a while ago, brushing up on fundamentals, might I recommend using Mastronarde's intro to Attic Greek? You can pick it up for under $10.


As I mentioned in a previous thread:

I came into second year Attic with shaky Greek. I was supposed to be reading Xenophon - a good place to start, by the way, with straightforward Attic syntax, and a good learning edition - but I'd come into second year Attic with some problems, namely:

• Greek learned through a shaky and unsystematic book the classics dept. was trying out - they'd liked it because it had good readings, but realized too late into it that a lot of the grammar was done very poorly
  
  
• I had mono during one of the semesters, and though I made it through ok, I didn't have it down firmly.
  
  My prof recommended Mastronarde, in her words "the best second intro Greek book." It has some negative reviews on Amazon, for being "like a firehose" for someone just starting out; it probably is. But for someone who already has some grasp of Greek, it's almost miraculously lucid and systematic. My Greek improved exponentially from studying it: I've got Smyth's grammar for detailed specific questions of study, but when I want to just brush up my Greek, that's where I go. You can skim some of the earlier chapters, and start digging in more deeply once you get to some of the tougher stuff: subjunctive, optative. And it's got guidance on what you should prioritize learning.
  
  A classics scholar's review if you want more info.

nobody ever mentions this one but i love Betts and Henry's Teach Yourself Ancient Greek. it's what i learned with.

it's great for self-study (i have not used Athenaze but have heard that it is lacking in many grammatical explanations, and frequently shows you incomplete paradigms), but you really have to pay attention. high information density.

the exercises are great, although there is no english-to-greek composition, which would have been nice.

Most editions of the NT don't include Loeb-style facing Greek and English texts. The most popular editions include Greek-only with an apparatus, footnotes, and dictionary. A Reader's Greek NT (amazon link below) has the best footnotes for the best price (mostly just uncommon words). There's also an interlinear lexicon available, if you want the extra help. It speeds up ease of reading, with common words listed by book and chapter, but you may not need it (link below).

As far as dialect goes, most people find Attic easier than Koine. The exception is that some vocabulary is context-driven, with meanings which are specific to the NT, Septuagint, or both (which is where Kubo is useful). Sometimes, authors use Hebrew expressions translated literally into Greek. I would start with John, and I John (and Mark is probably too easy), if you want to get a grasp of the style. Move into Luke/Acts if you want something that more resembles Attic style narrative (i.e. harder). Hebrews also resembles Attic grammar in some ways, but contains more Hebraisms.

If you are stuck on Greek/English interlinears in the Loeb style, you might want to consider reading Flavius Josephus (available in Loeb). His works on the History of the Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities use an Attic/Koine mix that might be more useful than trying to slog through new NT vocabulary. The Apostolic Fathers, which are post-NT Christian authors, are also available in Loeb, and they have similar themes and vocabulary to NT.

Ultimately, I would not recommend reading the NT unless your goal is to read the NT. If you want to get better at reading Attic, go read something written by native Athenians (Xenophon, Plato, etc.).

Links:

Reader's NT: https://www.amazon.com/Readers-Greek-New-Testament-Third/dp/0310516803/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1542997817&sr=8-5&keywords=greek+new+testament

Sakae Kubo: https://www.amazon.com/Readers-Greek-English-Testament-Zondervan-Reference/dp/0310269202/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542998398&sr=8-1&keywords=sake+kubo

Josephus (War I-III): https://www.amazon.com/Josephus-Classical-Library-English-Ancient/dp/0674992237/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1542999070&sr=1-3&keywords=loeb+flavius+josephus

Apostolic Fathers I: https://www.amazon.com/Apostolic-Fathers-Vol-Ignatius-Classical/dp/0674996070

This is a nicely annotated compendium that teaches the history of Ancient Greek through reading. You will find a huge assortment of dialects and genres represented:

https://www.amazon.com/Historical-Greek-Reader-Mycenaean-Koine/dp/0199226601

Combine with an historical grammar and you should be good to go. This is a recent introduction by a great scholar:

https://www.amazon.de/Historische-Grammatik-Griechischen-Laut-Formenlehre/dp/3534206819

Anything by Pierre Chantraine is highly recommended if you can read french. Both his treatment of Homeric, his historical grammar and his dictionary.

Another good dictionary to consult for individual glosses is the one by the late Robert Beekes. It's not perfect but very accessible:

https://brill.com/view/title/17726?lang=en

I would recommend you to consult Fortson and Ringe if you have little previous experience with diachronic linguistics. Ringe for methodological questions and Fortson for Proto-Indoeuropean. Proto-Greek contains many morphological archaisms inherited from Proto-Indoeuropean. You can focus on inner greek developments, but not everything you encounter can be analyzed in a meaningful way within Greek, so it's good to know where to look if the greek data is insufficient:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/historical-linguistics/6722029555C7DB845251785673A48B4C

https://www.amazon.com/Indo-European-Language-Culture-Benjamin-Fortson/dp/1405188960

If you want an in depth introduction to Ancient Greek dialects for students at graduate level and above this tome by Gary Miller should come in handy along with Buck's classic work on the subject, but it's not necessary if you only want to brush up on the fundamentals:

https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Greek-Dialects-Early-Authors/dp/1614514933

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-greek-dialects-9781853995569/

I'm an autodidact. I bought three volumes of the JACT Cambridge Reading Greek:

Grammary, Vocabulary and Exercises

Text

An indipendent guide

You can buy them on Amazon.

If you don't mind older texts, you could get free ebooks from here https://www.textkit.com/greek_grammar.php

E.g, https://www.textkit.com/learn/ID/159/author_id/75/

or https://www.textkit.com/learn/ID/136/author_id/39/

Make sure you get the key to the exercises. Work methodically through the books without cutting corners. Feel free to ask for help here.

​

EDIT

Added Amazon links.

Very brief but accessible: http://aoidoi.org/articles/

Possibly useful but out of date: https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Dialects-Bcp-Advanced-Language/dp/1853995568

Not exclusively Aeolic but recent: https://www.amazon.com/Historical-Greek-Reader-Mycenaean-Koine/dp/0199226598/

Blümel, Wolfgang. 1982. Die aiolischen Dialekte: Phonologie und Morphologie der inschriftlichen Texte aus generativer Sicht.

Hodot, René. 1990. Le dialecte Éolien d’Asie: La langue des inscriptions, VIIe s. a.C.–IVe s. p.C. Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations.

Hooker, J. T. 1977. The language and text of the Lesbian poets. Innsbruck, Austria: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck.

And an actual lexicon: Rodríguez Somolinos, Helena. 1998. El léxico de los poetas lesbios. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.

Chase and Phillips is pretty decent (though definitely reflects the period when it was written):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0674616006/ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&condition=all

Hansen and Quinn is also good:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0823216632/ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&condition=all

I’ve taught with H&Q and used C&P as a supplement when I started to learn Greek.

How about the church fathers, or even the Septuagint? They would probably be easier reading than Homer. You could get a reader such as this one: https://www.amazon.com/Patristic-Greek-Reader-Rodney-Whitacre/dp/080104801X

If you really want Ancient Greek then Xenephon's Anabasis is an easy one to start with.

Some reading for you:

Yun Lee Too (ed.), Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity -- An edited volume with several essays that will be of interest to you.

Robert Kaster, The Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity -- The period described is a bit later than what most people think of as "ancient Greece," but a lot of it still applies.

Finally, Plato discusses education, particularly in the Republic. Quintilian's Institutes of Oratory, though from a Roman perspective, are also useful for understanding ancient education.

It will depend a bit on what exactly you’re going to be reading. Theocritus is a common choice for these classes, and there I'd suggest getting hold of either Richard Hunter’s Theocritus: A Selection or Kenneth Dover’s Theocritus: Selected Poems and working through the introductory sections on language and dialect. Dover offers a bit more help with vocabulary and grammar, Hunter is the more intelligent interpreter (in my opinion). I’d doubt you’ll be reading Callimachus with undergraduates. Apollonius of Rhodes might be an option, though; Hunter has a commentary on book 3 in the same series as his Theocritus, so that might be worth taking a look at.

Assuming biblical Hebrew, there is nothing quite the same. But this is close: Handbook of Biblical Hebrew: An Inductive Approach Based on the Hebrew Text of Esther. Short lessons based on Esther using an inductive style.

[Menahem Mansoor, Biblical Hebrew: Step by Step Volume. 1 & 2]
(http://www.amazon.com/Biblical-Hebrew-Step/dp/0801060419/), the second volume is a semi-inductive study of passages in Genesis.

I used both profitably to review Hebrew after a few years away from the language.

This is the one I've used since my high school Greek teacher gifted it to me as a graduation present: https://www.amazon.cn/gp/aw/d/0199102074/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1466520001&sr=8-2&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=Liddell+and+Scott&dpPl=1&dpID=41%2BGlgWe1SL&ref=plSrch

Pffff... you're stepping into the most heated debate of Greek scholarship. Before reading the specialised bibliography I recommend these three articles:

1. McNeal, Richard A. (1975). Hellenist and Erasmian. Glotta, 53(1/2), 81-101.
   
2. Dillon, Matthew. (2001). The Erasmian Pronunciation of Ancient Greek: A New Perspective. The Classical World, 94(4), 323-334. doi:10.2307/4352587
   
3. Vernon Kooy. Thomas Jefferson’s Argument Concerning the Pronunciation of Ancient Greek.
   
   Having read that the four books you MUST consult are:
   
   
4. Anastassios-Fivos Christidis' A History of Ancient Greek
   
5. Geoffrey Horrocks' Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers
   
6. Devine & Stephen's The Prosody of Greek Speech
   
7. Allen's Vox Graeca

I found it here. I have been making it a goal to write something about every surname of Athena. So far this one as had the least amount of information. All I have found so far is that it was a surname for Athena used at Cyzicus.
http://www.amazon.com/Women-Classical-Mythology-Biographical-Dictionary/dp/0195079779/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413676034&sr=1-1&keywords=9780195079777