>"start with the Greeks" >not studying/being

I'm not a burger so I don't have to start at the absolute source.

>>9678531
Yeah I just think it's stupid that the people on this board always talk about this meme of "starting with the Greeks" but don't ever read it in anything but translation.

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>>9678546
>he thinks translating is difficult

>>9678546
Wait, are you seriously asking the OP question, no meme?
Fucking kek
There are so few surviving texts, it's pointless to learn Greek if you aren't going to be a professor, or a translator.
You start there because they are important. They were read and are alluded to by most great authors through history. Read by most great authors through history, in translation.

>>9678548
Translation inherently loses meaning though. Nobody here who claims "to have read Homer" can be said really to have read him if they're just doing it through the lens of either some poet who's not a classicist or a classicist who's not a poet. The Iliad and Odyssey have a transcendental beauty that cannot be fully captured in translation.

>>9678559
Well it's bullshit to act as though one has an actual acquaintance with a civilization like the Greeks if one doesn't learn the language. You can't get a real cultural understanding of a people without learning their language.

>>9678562
Can you read Greek?
>through the lens of either some poet who's not a classicist or a classicist who's not a poet.
Why would you assume that is the case?
>Translation inherently loses meaning though
There is no reason a translation can't be even better than an original. Not saying it will always or even usually be, but it can be.
>>9678567
Ok. But I never said anything about that, senpai.

>>9678571
Not yet. I'm learning it right now, because I want to be able to read Homer without the adulterant of someone else's interpretation. I just think it's silly how people will go on about "starting with the Greeks" without really reading anything in Greek.

>>9678590
Well good luck anon, hopefully it's worth it. Though I think you will find more value in the ambitious act of learning the language, than you will in actually reading the works.
But I'm far to lazy for that, and will never truly know.

>>9678562
That's the reason I didn't read Homer yet, translation of poems always is cringe worthy. The beauty of poetry always tie into the musical flow of the language. Reading philosophical works like Plato and Aristotle is slightly bearable because they're just essays which more concern about the meaning, that's somewhat translatable.

>>9678527
Wasn't it Heidegger who said that German is a worthy substitute to Greek or something like that? That's my defense t. Herman

>>9678600
Thanks, if you ever get up the energy to do any learning, classical languages like Greek and Latin really have a lot of value for reading other texts too, in the sense that you develop a lot of knowledge of English too through learning etymologies of words etc.
>>9678608
I haven't heard that quote, but I can't think that that's really true; my main frame of reference for this is my reading of the Aeneid; I have read from it in Latin and its language is so much more powerful and lucid in the original than any translation. So I imagine Homer is the same in that its poeticism is fully inarticulable in any language other than the original
>>9678604
With stuff like prose I think that's much more articulable in translation than poetic sentiments like that of Homer. Definitely though something is lost no matter what in translation.

>>9678562
You are aware that Homer never wrote anything and the Iliad and Odyssey are free transcriptions (aka intralinguistic translations) done by other people right? You're never going to read the original Homer, and that's the point.

>>9678643
Well yeah I know there's little historical basis for Homer as a person. When I say Homer I mean the texts we do have of the Iliad and Odyssey.

OP you're coming across as a bit of a LARPer here desu. Would you or anyone be any closer to understanding the Russian soul of the classics if all you did was learn Russian on duolingo? The guy with cultural awareness and understanding reading translations is infinitely better off than the guy with high proficiency in the language who is clueless and uneducated about the mentality and culture of the people. And since we have virtually no means of cultural immersion in Ancient Greece except larping scenes from Homer and Herodotus which amounts to nothing, learning the language won't get anyone any closer to any real appreciation beyond placebo effect by pretending to be Greek, i.e. larp. But then again maybe the meme really is just a meme. And maybe you find beauty in the language itself which is great but if that was all there was to it you wouldn't have started this thread.

>>9678704
What do you mean here by larp? Surely there's no better way to understand something like Homer than by trying to recreate the mindset of its intended audience?

Italianfag here, highly proficient in Latin and thinking about learning ancient Greek. What are the main differences from Latin? Is it harder?

>>9678901
Similar in the way grammar works (declinations), different but easy to learn alphabet. I say go for it. I studied some ancient Greek in HS and what we did when beginning was translating Aesop's fables. Get a good dictionary. I wouldn't say it's harder but obviously you will find Latin more similar to Italian.

>>9678567
You don't start with the greeks to learn about their culture, to do that you major in Ancient Greek Studies. You start with the greek literature because of its influence on the world, and to understand the motives. But most writers which read the greeks, did not speak greek. And for fucks sake, there is nothing wrong with translations from ancient languages which do not even have any practical use.

>>9678913
Thanks my anon, I'll start studying it soon.