A TREASURE TROVE OF ANCIENT EUROPEAN LANGUAGES
We have all heard of Ancient Greek and Latin. But there are numerous other ancient European languages with their own fascinating histories and often extensive literatures. From Norse sagas to the stories of Cyril and Methodius and the conversion of the Armenian king around 300AD, this course will give you a rare taste of what is out there from both a linguistic and literary perspective. It is a chance for some to connect with their own particular European heritage.
Course Outline / Languages covered:
Linear B / Mycenean Greek. This is the language of Greece as it was between 1400 and 1200 BC, hundreds of years before Homer and Classical Greek. It had its own pictographic style alphabet and was used for maintaining palace records. It would have been the language used by the Greeks standing before the walls of Troy.
Oscan / Umbrian. Latin was not the only language to be spoken in ancient Italy. Pompeii was within the Oscan speaking area ( indeed ‘pompe’ was Oscan for Latin ‘quinque’ five, ie the five districts). Apart from Etruscan, these languages were for the most part all related to Latin and continued to be spoken until the 1st century BC. We look at some extraordinary legal and religious texts in Oscan and Umbrian.
Hittite. Spoken in what is now Turkey, this is the oldest recorded Indo-European language with texts dating from 1600 – 1200BC. It uses a cuneiform alphabet and has very ancient features not found in other Indo-European languages. The texts are quite varied, including instructions for rituals, treaties, decrees, royal letters, a sizeable law code as well as myths, omens and medical texts.
Old Norse. The language of ancient Scandinavia and Iceland has a very rich literature. There is praise poetry, histories and of course sagas, one of which we will look at
Old Irish /Ancient Gaulish. The latter shows a certain resemblance to Latin, but Old Irish had undergone a radical transformation which made it quite possibly the most difficult of all the ancient Indo-European languages. Full of irregularities, it is clearly a language in transition, and many of the irregularities would be sorted out in subsequent periods. Again it has a very rich literature. We look at The Cattle Raid of Cualnge and The Story of MacDa Tho’s Pig.
Tocharian A /B. The most eastern of the Indo-European languages, documents in two related languages, A and B, were discovered in recent times in the Tarim Basin of western China. They date mostly from the 6th to 8th century AD, but most scholars believe Tocharian split off from Proto-Indo-European very early, probably after Hittite. Most of the literature is Buddhist, but we look at a poem to death, a love poem, and the Story of the Mechanical Girl.
Old Church Slavonic. This is the oldest recorded Slavic language. It was used by Slavic missionaries to make Christian literature (including the Bible) available to the people of the Balkans from the 9th century. We look at an extract from the Life of Constantine, one of those missionaries.
Classical Armenian. This intriguing language evolved in eastern Turkey, where there was a mixture of many peoples and languages. It has a small core Indo-European vocabulary, but the rest results from borrowings. Even this core vocabulary has undergone bizarre sound changes which often make it all but unrecognisable. We look at a pagan text: The Birth of Vahagn (a god), and the story of the conversion of the Armenian king to Christianity from one of the histories
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this course, learners will
- be able to appreciate the distinctive character of a number of Indo-European languages of different branches and see how they are linked to the proto-language.
- be aware of the wide range of literature to be found in these languages for further study.
Ten two hour classes. Please enquire regarding price.
THIS COURSE IS REGULARLY TAUGHT IN AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND.