GREEK, LATIN, AND INDO-EUROPEAN
IN AMERICAN LANGUAGE
OF GOVERNMENT, LITERATURE, LAW, AND LIFE
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Greek and Latin are the sources of approximately 60% of the words we use every day and
a much higher percentage of the words we use when talking about literature, government,
history, law, science, medicine, and many other subjects we teach. Each of these words has itself
an interesting history from its original use to what we take it to mean today. We offer this
workshop as an introduction to Greek and Latin and to an exploration of some of the familiar
words, phrases, quotes, and abbreviations derived from them, concentrating especially on
terminology of literature, government, and history. It will be an opportunity to understand better
the words and terminology we use with one another and in our teaching every day.
For the Greek, we will learn the alphabet, will read aloud and together the opening lines
of the Homer’s Iliad and Sophocles’ Antigone, and will look at some interesting words such as
“democracy,” “metaphor,” and “pedagogy” and how they have developed over time.
For the Latin, we will talk about some common Latin and Latin-derived words, phrases,
and abbreviations and their original Roman contexts, as, e.g. (“exempli gratia”), the “ambit” of
ambition, Caesar as czar, the censure of the census; “carpe diem,” “veni, vidi, vici,” and many
more examples.
Greek and Latin are both descendants of Proto-Indo-European (PIE), a language spoken
in the late Neolithic by illiterate shepherds and farmers in the steppes of Russia, and which
spawned the Germanic, Celtic, Slavic, Indian, and Iranian languages as well. PIE is the distant
ancestor of English, too, and is ultimately responsible for well over 90% of our vocabulary. We
will explore how linguists have reconstructed PIE and why, as English speakers, we should know
about it.
The workshop will conclude with “Stump the Professors,” where the participants can
offer up some of their favorite words to see if the Professors can identify their origins!
Instructors:
Coulter H. George, Associate Professor of Classics
Jon D. Mikalson, W.R. Kenan Professor of Classics
John F. Miller, Arthur F. and Marian W. Stocker Professor of Classics
Program
8:30-9:00 - registration and coffee
9:00-11:00 - Greek alphabet, some Greek words (in Greek), and reading Homer=s Odyssey and
Sophocles= Antigone (in Greek, of course)
11:00-11:15 - coffee break
11:15-12:30 - Some familiar words, phrases, and abbreviations from Latin and what they mean
now and what they meant to the Romans
12:30-1:30 - lunch
1:30-2:30 -
Indo-European , what it is, how we know about it, and why it is important
2:30 -3:15 -
Stump the professors. Toss out favorite words and phrases and see if professors
know what they Areally@ mean.
3:30
valete, and *solvôs hste !!!