126 NW Canal Street Suite 100 Seattle WA 98107
Phone 206.325.4109 info@sealang.org
“The classes are a perfect combination of being both very educational and
absolutely delightful and entertaining. I leave each night with more energy than when I entered.”
— Katherine Koerner, student of French
Like Latin, Sanskrit and Gothic, Ancient Greek is one of the oldest
representatives of the Indo-European family of languages, and knowledge
of it is indispensable for the work of historical and comparative
linguists. Unlike Latin, however, which was the dialect of a single
region, Ancient Greek comprised a far-flung group of related dialects
that covered an area extending from mainland Greece over the Aegean
islands and down the eastern seaboard of Ionia (modern Turkey). In
early times, each region produced its own distinctive literature:
the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer originated in Ionia,
the lyric poetry of Sappho was penned on the Aegean island of Lesbos,
and Athens was home to a host of great writers including Aeschylus,
Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Thucydides and Demosthenes; a desire
for unmediated experience of this brilliant body of literature continues
to be the primary motive for the study of Ancient Greek.
With the conquests of Alexander the Great (died 323 BC), Greek came
to be spoken throughout the whole of the eastern Mediterranean world.
The koiné - or 'common' - dialect of Greek that emerged
over this wide also spread through the Western Roman Empire Greek was
adopted by the Romans as a language learning and culture. As the lingua
franca of the Mediterranean world, Greek was a natural vehicle
for nascent Christianity, whose scriptures were recorded in the
koiné. Unlike Latin, Greek never became sufficiently well
established to propagate itself in daughter languages. With the collapse
of Roman political authority in Spain, Gaul and Italy, it ceased to
be spoken in the western Mediterranean; knowledge of Greek was largely
lost in Western Europe. After the fall the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman
Turks in , the range of the language was effectively confined to mainland
Greece: Modern Greek is its sole descendant.
Like Latin, Sanskrit and Gothic, Ancient Greek is one of the oldest
representatives of the Indo-European family of languages, and knowledge
of it is indispensable for the work of historical and comparative
linguists. Unlike Latin, however, which was the dialect of a single
region, Ancient Greek comprised a far-flung group of related dialects
that covered an area extending from mainland Greece over the Aegean
islands and down the eastern seaboard of Ionia (modern Turkey). In
early times, each region produced its own distinctive literature:
the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer originated in Ionia,
the lyric poetry of Sappho was penned on the Aegean island of Lesbos,
and Athens was home to a host of great writers including Aeschylus,
Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Thucydides and Demosthenes; a desire
for unmediated experience of this brilliant body of literature continues
to be the primary motive for the study of Ancient Greek.