teaching & learning

Mar 30, 2026 ∞

Legentibus: A Review

Thus begins the second of the lengthy reviews which I promised last week without asking whether anyone wanted to read them. This will perhaps be a slightly shorter review, because it is easy to say: yes, I recommend this resource. Four and a half stars: room of room for improvement, and yet still far and away the most effective Latin resource that I have ever used.

What makes Legentibus so great? The answer is pretty simple: it’s usable. I was able to use it. I kept using it. Between the Legentibus Beginner Immersion Course and the handful of additional beginner texts outside the course, I managed to read 101,457 words (~36 hours) in slightly less than four months. That is easily the most Latin I have read since undergrad. I think I read a little more than that during my three semesters of Latin literature in undergrad–I’m pretty sure–I’m sure I was supposed to–but possibly not very much more. I emphatically confess that I did not read that Latin well; it would be more accurate to say that I Loeb’d it than read it. Alas for the G-T experience. Someday I’m going to go back and read a bunch of that stuff for real.

For now, though, I’m just going to keep reading Legentibus (or I will, after I knock out the two CLC books that I own but have never read). I’m going to see if I can make it through all the intermediate books/courses (easier with the app to estimate the total time than the wordcount, ~25 hours) by the beginning of summer. Getting through the advanced books by autumn is probably a little ambitious, but maybe I can get somewhat close.

Because it is so unusual, please allow me to underscore for the reader that I am actually confident that I will keep reading on Legentibus. The readings get harder, sure, but they also get more rewarding. I’ve been meaning to read Pugio Bruti for years; I’m now at the point where I can read it comfortably. An r/latin comment led me to glance at the beginning of Imitatio Christi; I plan to hold off on it until the vocabulary is more comfortable, but it’s not unreadable now. This is pretty exciting, to have Latin texts that I want to read within my grasp or very near to it. It is also pretty exciting to have finally finished reading Familia Rōmāna for the very first time. I have never had this kind of confidence in my own Latin reading ability before, in my entire life. I have never had so much confidence that I am actually going to keep reading Latin.

A few high points from Legentibus: the stories written by the Legentibus team are all good, and some of them are outstanding. For its length, Auda is easily the best and most rereadable narrative that I’ve ever seen for a beginning Latin student. At some point I will probably return to Victor Frans' Stories in easy Latin, Daniel Pettersson’s Fabulae Faciles, and Auda, to see what I can learn about writing compelling stories with sheltered vocabulary. The public domain stories narrated were not all equally compelling–some of them, such as Reynolds' De Stellis et Tellure, were downright dull–but the Latīnitās seemed in my view to be satisfactory, so I just sighed and read them anyway.

Another high point was the narration. I don’t often go in for English audiobooks, because it’s just too hard for me to pay attention to them. Audiobooks typically turn into this tedious endless cycle of realizing that I zoned out, then skipping back thirty seconds, then zoning out again before I’ve hit the sentences I missed, and so on. It’s just not very fun, as a way to experience a book. (I do the same thing when I’m reading a physical book, for what it’s worth, but it’s much easier to navigate going back to reread a paragraph or two, than it is to recapture whatever you missed of an audiobook. Or a conversation, for that matter!)

But the narration (mostly by Pettersson, but also Frans, Amelie Rosengren, Marina Garanin, and Diane Warne Anderson) increased my enjoyment of the story more than I expected. It’s hard for me to decide whether the narration was most impactful when it was particularly excellent per se (such as Pettersson’s on Auda, when his by-now extensive experience is applied to an obvious labor of love), or when the story was just a little bit weak (here I think not only of Pettersson on FR, but also of Garanin on Chickering & Hoadley’s somewhat uneven Beginners' Latin Stories). It is admittedly possible to guess whether Pettersson recorded a story earlier or later in the process, based on the amount of elision and confidence/skill in his Latin reading. In some ways that was encouraging to see, that we can all continue growing in our abilities, and that one does not have to be perfect to start doing worthwhile things.

The narration was also very good for me…because I tend to avoid listening to Latin. I know that I ought to be listening to lots of Latin and not just reading it, but I don’t really like the process very much at all: too overwhelming, too many words I don’t remember or don’t understand in the moment, either so slow and simple that it’s boring or so fast and complicated that I feel hopeless. So far, I have yet to listen to a Latin story on the app without following along with the text. I think however that at some point in the next few months I will give it a shot, with one of the easy stories I have already read and liked the most.

Another positive point: the illustrations. Illustrations can and should be an important part of the reader’s experience of a book, just like the narrator. I have encountered a fair number of ancient language books whose illustrations I don’t particularly care for, stylistically, though I don’t know enough about art to know whether my tastes are “right” or “wrong”, or whether I’m missing hidden virtues in certain books' artwork. I will not mention which books those are, since I nevertheless admire very much that people are still paying illustrators for books that are never going to make a lot of money; there are far too many people just using AI art in their Latin & Greek books. Amelie Rosengren’s drawings are however illustrations that I enjoy looking at. Presumably the reason the original Ørberg illustrations aren’t used for FR involves copyright law and licensing, but I prefer Rosengren’s anyway. (I also happen to prefer inset illustrations to marginal ones, at least in a language-learning context.) There are not really as many illustrations as there would ideally be for beginners, but references have been made to increasing their number. In the meantime, I appreciate that the existing Legentibus artwork has stylistic coherence and charm.

Finally, being able to look up words with two taps on my Kindle (which I still do fairly often) is probably a functionality I could learn to implement with a different Latin app. However, it is nice for a Luddite like me not to have to worry about something like that.

If I like Legentibus so much, why is this not a five-star review?

There are still some items that the team can continue to improve. First of all, and most important–I would be very interested in hearing how well the app has worked for a true Latin beginner, and not just for someone who only ever really learned how to decipher (and that a long time ago). I suspect that it would be a very difficult process, the success of which depends mainly on the student’s inherent linguistic abilities and/or their ability to tolerate delayed gratification. I think, for example, that it would have been extraordinarily difficult–maybe not possible–for me to have learned Latin from scratch using Legentibus. Okay, probably not impossible. But making Legentibus work for a beginner means repeating the readings pretty often; for a good student with a large L1 vocabulary full of helpful cognates, I’m guessing 3-4 repetitions of each text. I would not be surprised if a large number of beginners needed more on the order of 6-7 repetitions of each text to get really comfortable with their grammatical features and their vocabulary. That amount of required rereading is not a small order of difficulty for a student, I think–it is exactly what I have never been able to do with Familia Rōmāna–and it is the area in which I think Legentibus has the most room for improvement.

Again, please reach out if you think I’m wrong! If you learned Latin from scratch with Legentibus and you weren’t tired of the beginner immersion course long before it ended, I’d love to hear about your process. If you are struggling and you’re looking for more free beginner reading material, check out the level 1 difficulty stories on Fabulae Faciles, the Fabellae Latīnae, and/or the early volumes in the Cambridge Latin Course.

I do think they’re a little bit hamstrung by having chosen FR as the core text for the beginner course. When one of their authors sits down to write or adapt a new story, I assume they start with a list of the vocabulary used up to that point in the beginner course and/or FR. Unfortunately, the sequencing of vocabulary is not one of FR’s selling points. Discounting the grammatical vocabulary–since the “Grammatica Latīna” sections are heavily de-emphasized by the app and the pēnsa don’t appear–it is still normal to see about 35 new words per chapter and not unknown to see 88. (Yes, 88 new words in a single chapter! That’s capitulum XXXIV, so it’s not as though you’re going to see them again in this book.) It is simply not a terribly well-chosen list for beginners. My dream is that someday Carla Hurt & co. would come up with a Medulla list of, say:

500 or fewer words, not 1000
roughly in order
that are key for communicating basic concepts
with an early emphasis on key verbs à la the Quaint Quinque, Elite Octō or Sweet Sēdecim
that are good for telling short/simple stories (fewer “here are a bunch of animal names/body parts”, unless those nouns are used to dramatic effect in a story)
perhaps even with a focus on the vocabulary of some highly-accessible and culturally important authentic text.

Those are the basic goals of my Ancient Greek 101 list, which I pulled from when drafting my own introductory graded reader. The goal was to work from the vocabulary of three different beginner-ish texts to create a graded reader with a particular focus on the vocabulary of the Gospel of John. The draft is stalled out at around 6,000 words while I finish my PhD (and while Seumas Macdonald revises his LGPSI), but someday I hope very much to return to an improved version of that 101 list and my Εἰσαγωγή.

And until someone comes up with a much better Medulla list (which, pace Hurt, is in my opinion going to require ditching a commitment to any particular textbook–they’re just not that compatible in terms of vocabulary), the Legentibus team will presumably keep trying to come up with a sufficient volume of compelling content that sticks roughly to the vocabulary sequence of FR. I wonder very much how that awkward FR list is going to shape future chapters of Auda, which introduces new vocabulary at a perfectly acceptable rate and is (again) the most compelling beginner Latin text I’ve ever read. Will the Legentibus team ever shift the centre of vocabulary towards Auda, rather than continuing to try and fit new texts in with the FR sequence? I hope they consider it. If I was ever trying to work on a Medulla list, I would absolutely make Auda one of my core Latin 101 texts.

In terms of the interface: my UX is not 100% flawless. I don’t know if this is because I am running the app on a Kindle Fire (which required sideloading the Google Play store), or because the app actually has a bug that makes the navigation quite laggy. However, the convenience and comfort of having Legentibus on an e-reader are far too great for me to ever complain very much about eg slow loading, or the fact that your total number of words read won’t show up until you’ve exited and restarted the app. I have seen the odd complaint about the Latin dictionaries the app uses; I don’t know that they’re great, but they haven’t bothered me at my current level. I mention these things mainly so that the user will not be surprised or disappointed if the app doesn’t run flawlessly. I can’t speak to the desktop versions until there’s one for Linux :)

To reiterate in conclusion: as a remedial student, subscribing to Legentibus is the single best decision I’ve ever made for my Latin, and I’m pleased to be supporting Pettersson’s continued excellent work on Auda and other easy Latin stories. I still think this is a very steep curve for true beginners, but unlike with other introductions to Latin, not an impossible one. If you’re willing to reread/re-listen to texts a few times, then this app can get you from square one to reading real Latin pretty comfortably.

I’ll try and post another review once I finish the intermediate texts in the app. In the meantime, fēlīciter legātis!

Mar 26, 2026 ∞

Ørberg's Familia Rōmāna and its discontents

As promised, here are some thoughts (this time in English!) about volume I, Familia Rōmāna, of Hans Ørberg’s famous Lingua Latīna Per Sē Illūstrata. FR is an astonishingly ambitious attempt at three very different goals.

Ørberg’s aims in FR

First, more thoroughly than any Latin textbook I know of, FR aims to gradually teach not only Latin vocabulary but also Latin morphology and syntax, both implicitly and explicitly in Latin. Thus, a given feature of the language (i.e., imperfect indicative) is not presented at all until chapter 19, which contains something like 90 instances of imperfect verbs (active, passive, esse, in various persons and numbers) contrasted with the familiar present tense forms; then, in the “Grammatica Latīna” section of ch.19, we read in Latin about “Verbī tempora, praesēns et praeteritum”. Finally, the three pēnsa at the end of the chapter allow the reader to practice producing correct Latin in three different ways: two short paragraphs of an inflectional cloze exercise, two paragraphs of a cloze exercise focused on the new vocabulary in the chapter, and a number of short comprehension check questions (e.g., “Cūr Aemilia Iūlium nōn amābat?").

Second, the actual narrative content of FR has some vaguely didactic intention of immersing readers in the world of imperial Rome. In this respect, reading FR is a profoundly conventional experience, familiar to readers of many other introductory Greek & Latin readers. This book follows some of the doings of the wealthy couple Iulius and Aemilia, their three young children, Aemilia’s brother in Germania, and a handful of their slaves & tenants over the course of a few days. Theoretically, the reader learns some things from FR about the “typical lives” of classical Latin speakers.

Third, as a fictional narrative, FR is intended (one ought to infer) as a form of entertainment. The characters in the book kiss, tease, run away, fight, break bones, moralize, flee (presumed) pirates, write letters, drink, recite poetry and myths, and more. We are, I presume, supposed to be emotionally engaged in this: nōnne estis oblectātī?

As I said: remarkably ambitious. Without further dithering, I offer my assessment of whether or not the whole thing really works…for me, no. Not really.

What I think is most successful in FR is the morphosyntactic instruction. At about 36,000 words long, this volume alone is not a remotely large enough quantity of input to absorb all of the Latin grammar presented–especially not the features presented late in the book–but it’s not a bad start. Many of the grammar introductions are quite well done. Are they good enough for self-teaching without L1 explanations? Eh, maybe, if this isn’t really your first exposure to Latin, or if you already know a very similar language. (The grammatical explanations are useless if you don’t know corresponding cognates in some other language.) And if you’ve got a knack for picking up grammar quickly. If none of those things are true for a student, then they’re going to need other resources just to understand what’s up with the Latin grammar.

But then again, that’s going to be true for even the most talented analysts of foreign languages picking up this book as a Latin introduction, for one simple reason: vocabulary. The idea that beginning Latin students can acquire more than 1,700 Latin words from a 36,000-word text is, quite frankly, not sane. Even if you add in all of the accompanying materials (of which I accessed only Colloquia Persōnārum), you’re still trying to learn some 2,400 Latin words from an 87,000-word narrative. This is still much less than a tenth of the input most students need to acquire more than 2,000 words of a foreign language from reading.

There is of course a classic remedy suggested by FR devotees: just read it again! Read it all ten times, or twenty, or however long it takes you to internalize everything!

And my problem with the remedy is that, to be quite honest, I didn’t really like reading Familia Rōmāna once.

I have owned a copy of FR since my first year of graduate school, which began in 2018. I have even taught a few of the early chapters of FR, back in my middle school Latin teacher days. I, with my two and a half degrees in Classics, who have read (well, translated, anyway) Vergil and Cicero and Caesar and Plautus, have been trying to read this book for almost a decade. I have started it many times over the years, and I have started it many ways. Read it and do the pēnsa. Read it and skip the pēnsa. Read every chapter three times. Read it, always starting from the beginning and seeing how far you can comfortably get, then doing the same thing again the next day. Read it and copy out the text by hand. Read it and type out the text. Read the book out loud. Listen to audio recordings of the book.

None of that worked. The only thing that actually worked for me was to pick up a Black Friday subscription to Legentibus, and to make my laborious way through FR interspersed with things I actually did more or less enjoy reading. In conclusion, the key to reading Ørberg was to read many more things that aren’t Ørberg.

Why is this text so unsuccessful?

I carped a lot about the difficulty of the vocabulary in FR, but that’s not the real reason this particular book is so difficult to implement as an introduction to Latin. I haven’t yet done any analysis of ways vocabulary is introduced in the other Legentibus stories (how many new words on average in a chapter/section of equivalent size, for example; how often are those new words repeated within their first story; how much are they repeated in later stories), but I am not convinced that it’s very different from FR. My unscientific impression of the Legentibus beginner stories (by Daniel Pettersson, Amelie Rosengrin, Victor Frans, et al.) is that the truly new reader of Latin will still find the vocabulary experience to be too much like a firehose. I don’t love that texts still need to be reread (if I had to guess) something like four or five times for a genuine beginner to really get a good grip on the vocabulary.

But these texts are at least able to be reread, because they are–get this–communicating something. When I read them, I get something out of them. Most of them are narratives rather than pure descriptions; many of them are only slightly familiar to me or even new (hello, Gesta Danorum!). The content of the Latin always meets at least one of the implicit goals of FR’s content, i.e., either to teach something about the world of Latin speakers, or to entertain. And not a single one of those texts completely fails on the grounds of both information and entertainment.

The actual semantic content of FR, on the other hand, quite often fails to either instruct or to entertain. Is it too harsh to say that it usually achieves neither? Maybe it is a little harsh. Maybe it is also true. There are just not going to be a lot of readers who are so totally ignorant of Roman society that they actually learn something about it from reading this book. They’re not going to learn that slavery existed in the Roman empire, because they already knew that–and a few of the things they pick up about slavery from FR are going to be more or less inaccurate. They’re not going to learn how the human body works (ch. 11), because they already know that “humans see with their eyes and hear with their ears”. They know that “sheep eat grass”, and that “grass is found in a field” (ch. 9). They probably don’t know how the Roman calendar worked (ch. 13) or that per Donatus both adjectives and nouns are categorized as nōmina and participia count as their own species within the Romans' deceptively equivalent eight principle parts of speech (ch. 35)…but I hear that most students dislike those chapters and are therefore unlikely to read them again for the pure joy of knowledge presented without any charm, humanity, or life to distract them. Personally, I would rather put up with the ides & nones than have to read (in a language I don’t understand, and with negligibly more charm, humanity, or life to distract me) that shepherds eat bread and sheep eat grass.

It’s odd to me that FR is so remarkably deficient in both interest and charm, because Ørberg is demonstrably capable of accomplishing both, sometimes even at the same time. I absolutely prefer the faithless lovers leaping out of windows in CP to Aemilia talking about how beautiful her peristylum is (a passage that provoked one of my first notes in Latin about FR, in which I noted the similarity to Daisy weeping over Gatsby’s shirts–not a positive reflection on the text). The high point of the effort for me is Diodorus’s conversation in the taverna about De Rerum Natura while (unbeknownst to him) his house burns down. Great success! We have here a story that engages the beginning Latin student with actual Roman philosophy & literature in a meaningful conversation between believable characters, while a compelling drama is playing out. Why didn’t Ørberg do more of that in FR, and less of Iulius being “severe but not inhumane”?–also not a characterization, by the way, which I found easy to assent to.

To sum up, Ørberg only demonstrates the capacity for dark humor. He’s at his best with the tragedy and the peril (such as Aemilius’s letter recounting the recent battle and the death of his friend, ch.33). The fight between the schoolboys Ørberg pulls off, because he doesn’t really try to pretend that this is anything other than a wretched little affair of the type that children struggle not to periodically inflict on themselves and on those around them. He doesn’t ask us to pretend that Marcus isn’t acting like a little monster. The most aggravating parts of the book are the scenes which the author suggests we should interpret as comic, where we’re supposed to be unbothered by brutality, injustice, and manipulation. Ørberg would have been much more successful as a storyteller, I think, if he had been willing to tell more stories that left the reader sad, disturbed, or uncomfortable. I don’t know whether he just doesn’t have the knack for telling stories about noble humans, or whether it’s that the day-to-day lives of the Roman elite and their dependents are simply too difficult to spin that way.

What we should take away from FR: Quidnam commūnicāmus?

Grammar-translation aficionados aren’t going to be reading a review of FR, so here I address only teachers who share some of my pedagogical principles. Those of us who follow some kind of “communicative approach” have a question we should always, always, always be able to answer about our usage of Latin: what exactly are we communicating here? In FR, Ørberg is mostly not attempting to communicate anything, except how Latin works. Much of Familia Rōmāna isn’t really a story or a lesson at all; it’s just a story-shaped veil thrown over an extended example of how Latin could hypothetically work. The basic element of disingenuity there is, to me, essentially off-putting. I don’t want to read something that the author and I are both trying to pretend is a story, when in fact it is not a story at all. I don’t want to pretend that Ørberg is teaching me how eyes work, when in fact he has nothing to communicate with me except (again) how Latin works. For all that FR appears to be indispensable to communicative Latin teachers, it will always be a fundamentally frustrating tool for that purpose. What does Ørberg communicate to the reader, most of the time? An empty, language-covered box in which meaning is supposed to be found–but isn’t.

So for those who are trying to write “an LLPSI for language X”, I offer this rule of thumb. If you’re writing something that your students would legitimately never read if it weren’t in the target language–a text that is fundamentally empty of communicative purpose, and therefore also devoid of communicative value–don’t. If your text doesn’t offer something intrinsic to students–some fact, some engagement, some characters with the freedom to display a spark of real humanity, some real charm in the manner of telling–stop there. You are capable of offering students more than a simulacrum of a story. If you want students to invest emotionally, then entertain. If you want to tell them something, then tell them something they might not already know. And if you are going to offer information that only a Martian wouldn’t already possess, then for goodness' sake, write a frame narrative about first contact and commit to it, if you are going to ask a human being to spend time with your text. If you can’t imagine a context in which your readers might actually be pleased to receive your content, your so-called communicative approach is going to fail.

And when it comes to your rate of new vocabulary, do consider chopping Ørberg’s rate down by three-fourths. As Mr Ma teaches us, when it comes to intractable problems, Coupez la difficulté en quatre.

Conclusion: FR’s best use case

For my money, the most effective use to which FR can be put is not in trying to teach students how to read Latin, but in teaching them how to write it. This book is very far from being the worst way to learn how to write simple Latin correctly. It’s not the best way, either, because the best way involves an extremely well-read teacher who can identify what’s un-Latinish about your Latin and tell you how to fix it–preferably with lots of examples from authentic texts. But I think the cloze & short-answer exercises in the book are a basically effective method of allowing students to practice writing Latin with more or less ease and confidence. If you have a teacher, or if you don’t mind making thousands of mistakes, or if you love nothing more than spending hours with a dictionary and Logeion, well, great. But if you want to practice writing simple okay-ish Latin and there’s no one to teach you, then I would emphatically recommend a copy of FR over a book that gives you a lot of L1 sentences and asks you to translate them into Latin. Translation is a different skill from composition, although it does depend on the ability to compose. The way that elegant translation works is so non-mechanical that a book alone can’t really teach you to do it well from scratch. Either you start with some very odd-sounding English that was written for the purpose of being translated into Latin, or you translate into some very bad Latin indeed; in neither case is an answer key going to be of enough help.

So if you’ve been reading Latin for a year or two and you just want to get a bit of practice in producing the language correctly, FR is the first tool I’d recommend. Ørberg remains an eminent Latinist, although in this particular volume he doesn’t really have anything to say. Get a copy of FR, work through the pēnsa, write down your thoughts about the capitula and the colloquia and so on…and then one day you can try to write something that is actually worth reading.

Feb 18, 2026 ∞

Why write bad Latin?

Anyone who is capable of reading the Latin on this blog will be able to make the same observation of its quality: it is not very good Latin. Apart from a few outright errors, the Latinitas is so low, that reading it is largely a waste of time for those learning Latin. Readers will therefore be relieved to hear that I am not writing in Latin for the sake of producing material for Latin students to read.

Instead, the purpose of the previous Latin post, as with the similar short journal entries I have been writing privately for a couple of weeks, is to have a way of roughly assessing how the attempted revival of my Latin skills is going. Since taking advantage of the most recent Legentibus Black Friday deal, I’ve read slightly less than 70,000 words of Latin on the app. This is obviously not an enormous amount of Latin, in the scale of language learning. For me, however, that number is an enormous success–I don’t think I’ve read that much Latin in a similar time frame since undergrad. This has been just barely enough material for me to notice, one day in January, that I really had become a little more comfortable reading Latin.

That’s one of the hard things about language learning: nothing lasting happens fast. The real progress–the kind that doesn’t evaporate after a week or two off–can’t be tracked very well over the short term. I like the ways that the Legentibus setup reminds me of how much I’ve read, and of how far I’ve come. That’s been somewhat useful as motivation. I refuse, however, to set up any goals or track any kind of streak in the app. That sort of thing tends to depress me, by shoving my inevitable failure in my face. It’s also fairly artificial. I would much rather track the actual fact of my learning, than whether or not I showed up to learn precisely when I promised a computer program that I would.

Unfortunately, assessing language learning is really pretty tricky. I’ve been persuaded by the notion that assessing meaningful production is the least worthless way of trying to keep track of language learning. My rule of thumb with communicative SLA strategies is always, would I do this activity in English? And in the case of my silly little notes about Legentibus, the answer is actually yes. The PhD did finally teach me the value of reading notes. I wouldn’t mind at all being able to look back on a record of what I read, when I read it, and what I thought about it. If I can write that record in Latin–even if the Latin itself is pretty poor–then that is not a meaningless activity to perform in the language. And I’d like to think that progress in acquiring Latin may be a little less nebulous in the act of writing than it is in reading.

Involving some kind of production in my Latin revival may also be useful in acquisition. I don’t really understand the technical usage of the word ‘noticing’ among SLA researchers (who don’t all seem to agree that the phenomenon described is particularly real or important in acquisition, for what that’s worth). It does seem to be the case, however, that the act of writing forces me to ask questions about communicating in Latin that reading often doesn’t. It also forces me to review sentence constructions that I haven’t seen in a while, since the grammar remains pretty sheltered (almost no use of the subjunctive, for example) in the easy material on Legentibus.

But why post bad Latin?

Why not bury it in a dark cave, where it belongs? Why publish it?

I’ve been astonished to see just how many Zoomers' resilience in handling assignments is just as bad or even worse than my own was. The number of them who just don’t seem psychologically equipped to handle the stresses thereof appears to be enormous. Today is not the day to get into the strengths or weaknesses in The Anxious Generation-style descriptions of the phenomenon. Today, I simply acknowledge what all language teachers know: that the kids these days–bless them–have quite a high chance of going into a mental tailspin or simply cheating their way through assessments (thanks so much for your help with the latter, ChatGPT). Not all of the causes for that are under our control, but some of the solutions may be. We need to be thinking very seriously about both the purpose and practice of our assessments. The costs of pointless or ill-conceived attempts at evaluating acquisition are simply too high to ignore.

I admit that the other side of this knife is that I am atrocious at keeping up with students' busywork. I’m also pretty bad at keeping up with the important stuff. It’s vital for me to know the difference between the two. If I can be sure that I’m giving feedback to students in a way that really helps them, it’ll be easier for me to get it done. If I know that I’m only grading their tests because The Man expects me to grade their tests…I’d rather find a better way to spend my finite time and rather deficient attention.

It’s possible that the particular comments I have to make about the available readings on Legentibus (or on LLPSI) may be of interest to Latin teachers or learners. But even if those comments are basically somewhat insipid, I still think it’s interesting to put the theory of ‘routine, meaningful production is the least-worst way to evaluate language acquisition’ to a public test. This sort of little pedagogical experiment is (obviously) the sort of thing that interests me, but it seemed possible that it might interest other teachers who are trying to figure out how to make assessments more useful and more meaningful for their students. Maybe I’m not the only one who’s curious to see what my writing will look like after the next 70,000 words on Legentibus.

Furthermore, although I am not possessed of a particularly strong desire to teach Latin again, it’s entirely possible that I will find myself doing so. Should such an opportunity arise, I would much prefer to do the job with large quantities of spoken Latin. It’s a little embarrassing to be putting large quantities of bad Latin onto the internet, but I’m sure it will come in handy if I ever find myself with the need to speak the language.

And as a casual perusal of this site will reveal, I’m also taking the opportunity to dump poor Ancient Greek reading notes on the internet–although we sadly have no τοῖς ἀναγιγνώσκουσιν equivalent. The Ancient Greek notes are for a similar purpose, except that I care much more about developing a decent Greek style someday than a Latin one: I have (you’ll be shocked to learn) strong feelings about the dearth of AG reading material that’s accessible to real beginners, and one of my hobbies is trying to amend that lack. If you spot something offensive in either my Latin or (especially) my Greek, there’s no need to be shy about pointing it out.

Nov 11, 2022 ∞

Μοῖρα: The Session(s) Zero

Finally, here's the introduction to the Fate Core rules, lightly adapted and containing some beginner-friendly Ancient Greek!

The philosophy of the game emphasizes collaboration between players and the game master (GM), so even in English it's standard to start with a session zero. In this session zero, the players and GM discuss the setting for the game, what sort of thematic issues they're interested in playing out, who their characters are, and how their characters are connected to one another (which is sometimes called the Phase Trio). I can't imagine getting through half of that in a single 50-minute class period, so I've divided the session zero into a few fundamental questions.

First, what sort of story do we want to play (ποῖον μῦθον βούλεσθε)?

After introducing the new vocabulary through picture or movie talks, I would pose the following questions in Greek, supported by lots and lots of illustrating slides:

ποῖα πρόσωπα βούλεσθε; (what sort of characters do you want?)

ἆρα πάντα τὰ πρόσωπα ἄνθρωποι (ἢ ἡμίθεοι, κένταυροι, νύμφαι, καὶ τὰ λοιπά…) (are they all human, or demigods, centaurs, nymphs, etc?)
ἆρα τὰ πρόσωπα κρείσσονα τῶν ἀνθρώπων; (are the characters stronger than human beings?)
ἆρα τὰ πρόσωπα Ἑλληνικὰ ἢ ξενικά; (are the characters Greek or foreigners?)
ἆρα τὰ πρόσωπα βασιλεῖς ἢ δοῦλοι; (are the characters kings or slaves?)

ποίους θεοὺς βούλεσθε; (what sort of gods do you want?)

ἆρα οἱ θεοί εἰσιν ἀληθεῖς; (are the gods real [in the story]?)
ἆρα οἱ θεοί εἰσιν ἐγγὺς τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἢ πόρρω; (are the gods near or far from human beings?)
ἆρα οἱ θεοί εἰσιν Ἑλληνικοὶ ἢ ξενικοί; (are the gods Greek or foreign?)

My only rule for the setting is that it has to be one in which it makes sense for their characters to be speaking ancient Greek. If students want to play as demigod heroes inspired by Homer (or Rick Riordan), that's fine. If they want to play as non-superpowered mythical heroes--also fine. They could be native to mainland Greece, or they can be foreigners who've learned Greek. I presented the idea of social class in its extremes--kings or slaves--mainly to get students thinking and talking about what kind of lives they are interested in playing out.

I'd try and use a lot of Greek during this conversation, but I really do need to know what their expectations/interests are regarding the supernatural in the story. I would not expect students to respond (or indeed, discuss amongst themselves) in Greek.

New vocabulary based on my list, as it stands:

βούλομαι [Herm.]
ποῖος [Moira/TPR]
ὁ μῦθος [Kat.]
τὸ πρόσωπον [LGPSI 3]
κρείσσων [Moira]
βασιλεύς [Herm.]
ξενικός [Moira]
θεός [Herm., Kat.]
ἀληθής [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
ἐγγύς [LGPSI 6]
πόρρω [LGPSI 6, Kat.]

Second, I need to know when and where students want the game to be set (πότε καὶ ποῦ γίγνεται ὁ μῦθος;)

Again, the only real rule (in my book, anyway) is that it has to be a setting in which people spoke ancient Greek. I would be surprised if students have a good understanding of how widely Greek was spoken, so this seems like a good point to give them a very quick (English) crash course in the geographical and chronological range of the language. The purpose of this session is to choose a time and place in which our story will occur, so descriptions of different eras are mainly going to be framed in terms of suggestions of what kind of storylines would be a natural fit.

πότε γίγνεται ὁ ἡμέτερος μῦθος; ἐν τινί αἰῶνι γίγνεται ὁ ἡμέτερος μῦθος; (when does our story happen; in what age/era?)

ποῦ γίγνεται ὁ ἡμέτερος μῦθος; (where does our story happen, in Greece or far from/outside of Greece?)

ἐν Ἑλλάδι ἢ πόρρω/ἔξω Ἑλλάδος;

ἐν ποῖοις τόποις γίγνεται ὁ μῦθος; (in what sort of places does our story happen?)

…ἐν μακροῖς τόποις ἢ μῑκροῖς; (large or small)
…ἐν πόλει ἢ τοῖς ἀγροῖς; (city or countryside)
…ἐν πόλεσι πολλαὶς ἢ μιᾷ πόλει; (lots of cities or one city)
…ἐν νήσοις ἢ ὕλαις ἢ ὄρη ἢ σπηλαίοις; (islands, forests, mountains, caves?)

Again, lots and lots of pictures, lots of examples of where different well-known Greek narratives occur, lots of examples of well-known historical episodes. The geographical settings will be somewhat restricted by the vocabulary list; still, it's good to know what students are interested in, and therefore where the campaign(s) might spend the most time.

It would of course be less work to just tell players when and where the story is set, but I think that students are far more likely to get engaged if, e.g., they've expressed some collective interest in the Hellenistic era and then they tune in next week for an adventure set in Alexandria or Rhodes. Or, if they're all about 300 and they want to have a story that involves the Persian wars. If what gets them really excited about learning Greek is the early years of the Byzantine empire, then I will find a way to turn Procopius into a Fate campaign.

New vocabulary needed:

πότε…; [Kat.]
γίγνομαι [Herm., Kat.]
ἡμέτερος [Kat.]
ἐν (if not earlier)
αἰῶν [Moira]
ἔξω (?) [LGPSI 5]
ὁ τόπος [LGPSI 1, Kat.]
ὁ ἀγρός [LGPSI 5]
ἡ ὕ-λη [Moira]
τὸ ὄρος [Herm.]

Third is a character generation (char gen) session (τίς εἶ σύ, καὶ τίνες ἐστὲ ὑμεῖς;)

Fate doesn't do the same complicated character sheets as D&D, for example; instead, it distills the essence of each player character (PC) into five Aspects that players get to choose--well, choose by negotiating with the GM. Each Aspect should be short (~3-5 words) and communicate something important about what that character is, does, or has; ideally, an Aspect is something that might be good/helpful in some situations and bad/a hindrance in others. I think the best Greek work to communicate the idea conveyed by Aspect in the Fate game is στοιχεῖον (but let me know, as usual, if you think there's a better way of expressing the essential elements of a character). I've combined Fate's Phase Trio mechanic with the Aspects, because I think that's the best way to ensure that the characters really are connected in ways that are useful to me as GM. More coordinated input from students on the story theoretically means less prep work for me!

τὸ πρῶτον στοιχεῖον

I'm making the first element of the character into what Fate calls the 'high concept' Aspect, the thing that most succinctly expresses the core of who that character is. Hercules' high concept Aspect, for example, might be 'mighty son of Zeus'. Odysseus' could be 'clever protege of Athena', or perhaps 'wily king of Ithaca'--whichever you think is more central to his identity. Atalanta could be 'speedy huntress raised by bears'. Is Medea's identity better captured by 'magic-wielding princess of Colchis', or 'Helios' witchy granddaughter'? Discuss! Students should have been thinking about who their characters would be since the last class, when a time & place were decided.

τὸ δεύτερον στοιχεῖον

Fate refers to the second Aspect as a character's 'trouble'; it has some (though not complete) overlap with ἁμαρτίᾱ. It should be the Aspect of your character that nearly always gets you into, well, trouble. Is Hercules' trouble that Hera hates him, or is it that he has a short temper? Is Medea's trouble that she likes Jason? A trouble could be a character flaw, a weakness, an enemy/rival…you name it. Every character gets one.

τὸ τρίτον στοιχεῖον: τόλμημα τι νεόν σον

Or in English, what's a recent adventure your character has been on? What was their last incident/escapade? Hopefully players figure out something more about their characters' personality as they decide this Aspect. Given how condensed campaigns will have to be to fit into the classroom, a GM might want to draw on this Aspect in some characters when laying out the plot.

τὸ τέταρτον στοιχεῖον: πῶς σὐ οἶσθα ἄλλον τι πρόσωπον;

Or in English, how do you know one of the other characters? Could be a relative, enemy, ξένος, rival, coworker, student of the same teacher, former neighbour, whatever. You could assign which characters have to have a connection, or you can let students choose. Again, this Aspect should clarify who characters are and give GMs something to work with in their storytelling.

τὸ πέμπτον στοιχεῖον: πῶς σὺ οἶσθα καὶ ἄλλον πρόσωπον;

Yep, just repeat step 4: how does your character know someone else in the group? Same rules apply as above.

I reckon that negotiating the five στοιχεῖα for each student/character, providing lots of examples from movies/TV/books for them to think about what drives characters in fiction, would take longer than one class period. Consequently, I'd just start in the process one day, and the next day I'd finish up and then discuss how the Fate rules incorporate Aspects into the mechanics of the game, i.e., by Invoking or Compelling them (which I would probably merge in the classroom). The short version (and you should really go read or watch an example of a longer version) is that I, the narrator/teacher/GM, can Invoke/Compel an Aspect of someone's character by making it a part of the story, usually in a way that makes their situation more difficult or complicated. If the player accepts the Invoke, they receive a Fate token (ψῆφος μοίρᾱς) from me, and the story carries on with that complication. If the player is unwilling to accept that consequence of the Aspect, they can reject the offer; they receive no Fate token, and the story carries on without that complication. For example, Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride carries the Aspect of 'dedicated to becoming the greatest swordsman'. After climbing the Cliffs of Insanity, Vizzini tells Inigo to kill the Man in Black. At this point, Fate invokes Inigo's Aspect of 'dedicated to becoming the greatest swordsman', and he (disadvantageously) assists the Man in Black by throwing him a rope--because he needs to test his skill with the blade against the stranger.

An Aspect of Harry Potter's might be 'abused orphan hates bullies': the Dursleys were horrible to Harry, so he refuses to stand by while someone else is bullying them. When Draco Malfoy steals Neville Longbottom's Remembrall, he Invokes Harry's hatred of bullies--and Harry has to do something stupid and rule-breaking in order to rescue Neville's possession.

As stated above, the GM can Invoke/Compel an Aspect of someone's character. (Would I phrase this in Greek as ἀναγκάζω/ἐπικλῶ τὴν μοῖράν σου, παρέχω στοιχεῖόν τι τῆς μοίρᾱς σου, or something else? Still undecided--but whatever it is, the offered plot twist would always be followed by ἆρα βούλῃ δέχεσθαι;) For the price of a Fate token, other players can however also suggest an Invoke/Compel of another player's Aspect to the GM. If the GM approves of the proposed plot twist, they will offer it, with a Fate token, to the player whose Aspect is being Invoked. The affected player can accept or decline, but either way, the player who suggests the Invocation does not get their Fate token back.

Additionally, a player can Invoke one of their own Aspects (opportunity to distinguish the use of the active and middle voices, huzzah! ἐπικλοῦμαι!) in a way that is narratively advantageous; if the GM accepts the proposal, then the cost to the player is again one Fate token. Someone playing Hercules in a combat situation might, for example, Invoke 'mighty son of Zeus' in order to attempt some epic feat of strength; in the mechanics of the game, the player would normally add +2 to a relevant roll of the dice.

Yes, there are dice rolled in Fate--but I'll cover that another day. The conversion of Fate tokens into story developments described above is referred to as the 'Fate economy'. As you can see, turning down lots of disadvantageous Invokes/Compels restricts your ability to Invoke your character Aspects for your benefit later on, so think twice before rejecting someone else's narrative suggestion.

New vocabulary required:

ὑ-μεῖς [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
ἡμεῖς [Herm., Kat.]
τὸ στοιχεῖον [Moira]
τὸ τόλμημα [Moira]
οἶδα, οἶσθα, οἶδε [LGPSI 4, Kat.]
ἀναγκάζω/παρέχω (???) [Moira]
ἐπικλέω [Moira]
δέχομαι [Moira]

Apart from the rules for when and how to roll the dice, that's all the rules you need to play Fate. Tune in next time to learn how to Attack, Defend, Overcome, or Create an Advantage! While you wait (impatiently, no doubt) for my summary of the rest of the Fate mechanics, check out this teacher's blog about playing D&D in the Latin classroom.

As usual, chime in if you have thoughts or (heaven forfend) spot a misplaced accent in my Greek.

Nov 10, 2022 ∞

Technical Language and Hellenistic ἐξήγησις

In the last week, I have binged nearly 50 episodes of Tea with BVP, and something about the way that BVP himself uses the words 'exercise', 'activity', and 'task' set off some thoughts; a few of those thoughts began crystallizing when I reread my manifesto-like post on teaching historical languages. I included a footnote at the end of my twelve points, specifying that I was using the word 'acquire' (and indeed 'learn') the way that Krashen et al. do, to form a mental representation of a language, i.e. implicit knowledge of the language, rather than to gain explicit knowledge about the language. I reckon I could rephrase that footnote a bit more clearly. Still, what I got across--I hope--was that I was using the words 'acquire' and 'learn' in their technical sense, not the way that they usually are.

And that is what BVP does when it comes to 'exercise', 'activity', and 'task': he restricts the usage of those terms, beyond the normal English usage. The distinction between 'exercise' and 'activity' is not randomly created, because it draws on connotations and associations of the two words; that said, there are many contexts in which the two would function synonymously, or in which either would be an 'accurate' choice of word. In BVP's usage, however, the semantic range of 'exercise' and 'activity' does not overlap, not at all, because an 'activity' is a use of the language that involves communication, whereas an 'exercise' is a use of the language that does not involve communication. Nor do 'activity' and 'task' overlap in BVP's usage. A 'task' is a use of the language that involves communication to some purpose apart from the usage or acquisition of the language.

While intuition and connotations make it fairly easy to remember the distinctions BVP makes with these three words, they are not obvious ones. These three specific definitions are not accessible to English speakers, even native English speakers, unless they come into some kind of contact with second language acquisition researchers or foreign language teachers.

Even then, most contact with those who use these three ordinary words in the technical sense is unlikely to result in more English speakers acquiring these technical definitions, because these are all perfectly normal words. I doubt that any of the hosts of Tea with BVP entirely restricts their usage of these words to the above definitions. There's no way that they've all stopped using the many other definitions of the word 'exercise'; there's no way they don't talk about 'activity' unless they mean 'communicative use of the target language'; there's no way that they've given up the regular meanings of the word 'task'. Which means that even becoming drinking buddies with BVP isn't enough to acquire his technical definitions of any of these words. You'd have to come into contact with him (or anyone else who uses these words in their technical sense) within a relevant context, in order to acquire their technical meanings for yourself. In other words, we might tentatively define 'technical language' as 'the use of language with restricted definitions, within a restricted context'.

What does any of this have to do with my dissertation? Well, I've been thinking about the Greek word ἐξήγησις lately. I've been wondering whether ἐξήγησις counts as a genre of ancient Greek writing. In that sense, one might ask whether ἐξήγησις is a 'technical' word, or has a 'technical definition'. My impression--for which I should eventually come up with some concrete, presentable evidence--is that ἐξήγησις does have a restricted meaning. Sure, we gloss it as 'explanation', but when the word ἐξήγησις is used of an explanation, it comes with some pretty specific conventions and expectations.

That's just a hunch, that ἐξήγησις has a restricted meaning from the obvious one. It will take time to research and argue properly. It's pretty easy to answer the question of whether that postulated restricted definition is linked to a restricted context: yes. If we plug it into Logeion, we see that ἐξηγέομαι is a perfectly nice, normal Greek word--the 1,911th most common in the corpus--used with a variety of related meanings across a wide range of eras, places, and genres (the top listed authors are Galen, Epictetus, Herodotus, Andocides, and Aeschylus). ἐξήγησις, on the other hand? Only the 4, 578th most common word in the corpus, and with a list of top authors far more concentrated in time and genre: Polybius, Galen, Diogenes Laertius, Pausanias, and Flavius Josephus. And indeed, following from that restricted context is an extremely short list of glosses in the LSJ--'statement, narrative', or 'explanation, interpretation'.

There's more work to do another time, and more to be said about why I care that ἐξήγησις acts like a technical word (the short version is that I'm a little obsessed with Hipparchus). For now, though, I feel comfortable suggesting that there's a there there, when it comes to ἐξήγησις as a genre with conventions and expectations worth exploring further.

Nov 10, 2022 ∞

Ancient Greek 101 Vocabulary--Now in a Logical Sequence!

My thesis is stressing me out a bit, so it may actually be some time before I take the time to make my Μοῖρα rules look presentable. This week, however, I've chosen to de-stress by sequencing the remainder of my Greek 101 vocabulary list. I think it would be nice to introduce, on average, 7-8 words per class, reserving about two weeks free of any vocabulary-specific goals. One could distribute those vocabulary 'zero days' however one wished, without planning them out--a sick day here, a review day there, a party at the end of the class. I know I'd be a much better teacher if I gave myself permission to slow down when it was obvious students needed it, without feeling guilt or pressure for not hitting certain benchmarks. That's the main reason I haven't broken these μαθήματα down into weeks: I don't want to get stuck trying to fit into an inflexible schedule.

Once you remove some of the low-frequency words (now italicized) from Ἑρμῆς Πάντα Κλεπτει and take into account the fact that the vocabulary for the first day is atypical (names, greetings, roll call, and the alphabet = 27 Greek words, more or less), things average out close to how I'd like them to. Still, it might be more realistic for me to try and trim a few words off the list of words I expect students to acquire, and to accept that I'll be consistently glossing a handful of these.

As I continue working on some stories, I'm sure I'll tweak the order of this list; the bold text indicates words I'm already sure I'll want earlier in the semester. It turns out that it's hard to tell a story without conjunctions or adverbs! I haven't yet used ἀρέσκει + dative in any of my drafts, but it seems like a good idea to introduce all of the 'super seven' verbs early in the semester. And am I really going to wait till the last month of class to ask a bunch of college students if they're tired?

How I plan to use this list

As explained elsewhere, I want to be able to teach an Ancient Greek course in which practically all of the time a student might spend on grammar exercises, vocabulary flashcards, or verb paradigms is swapped out for reading texts that they can understand 95-98% of, without too much reliance on glosses. My math suggests that, in a standard one-semester course, such a goal would ideally be attained by reading 40,000-50,000 words of Greek that are composed as much as possible from a vocabulary in the 300-400 word range. Additionally, these 300-400 words should be ones likely to prove useful in their later reading.

I'll therefore be relying on some version of this list while I'm writing short stories and Mad Libs-like sketches for Μοῖρα sessions. Check back from time to time to see whether I make any progress on this!

How you could use this list

However you like, obviously. But if you think that a reading-intensive Greek course with limited vocabulary sounds like something you'd use, consider writing additional Greek texts that would fit roughly into a sequence of Lingua Graeca Per Se Illustrata 1-3, Ἑρμῆς Πάντα Κλέπτει, LGPSI 4-6, and ὁ Κατάσκοπος. If roleplaying games in class don't sound like something you'd ever do in class, feel free to ignore the words bracketed [Moira]. Similarly, if you're never going to use Total Physical Response in the classroom, you can skip right past the words bracketed [TPR]; they're not going to appear in any of the three texts mentioned by other people.

Of course, you might be trying to teach Ancient Greek communicatively in quite a different context. If I were teaching at a seminary, for example, ideally I'd come up with a different list. I'd use tools like this one or this one to match the vocabulary of, say, the gospel of John against existing Koine readers (Mark Jeong's reader comes to mind, though so far I've only read reviews & the preview of it) to create a different 300-400 word list. If you do engage in such a project, please let me know--I'd be keen to follow along.

If you spot an error or omission, if you find this list useful, or if you have suggestions for improvements--again, please comment!

μάθημα α᾿.
1. χαῖρε/χαίρετε, χαίρω [LGPSI 3, Herm., Kat.]
2. τὸ ὄνομα [Herm., Kat.]
3. μοι [Herm.]
4. ἐστίν [LGPSI 1]
5. τί...; [Herm.]
6. σοι/ὑμῖν [Herm.]
7. ναί [LGPSI 3]
8. καί [LGPSI 1, Herm., Kat.]
9. ἆρα…; [LGPSI 1]
10. οὐχί/οὐκ/ού [LGPSI 1]
11. πάρεστιν [LGPSI 3, Herm., Kat.]
12. ἄπεστιν [Kat.]
13. ἤ [LGPSI 1]
14. πῶς ἔχω/ἔχεις/ἔχει;
15. καλῶς ἔχω/ἔχεις/ἔχει.
16. κακῶς ἔχω/ἔχεις/ἔχει.
17. ὦ… [LGPSI 3]
18. γράφω [Kat.]
19. τοῦτο [LGPSI 5]
20. τὸ γράμμα [LGPSI 1]
21. Ἑλληνικά [LGPSI 1]
22. ᾄδω [LGPSI 3, Herm.]
23. πάντες [Herm.]
24. εὖγε!
25. αἱ λέξεις [LGPSI 1]
26. νέαι [LGPSI 6]
27. ἔρρωσο/ἔρρωσθε!
μάθημα β᾿.
28. τίς/τίνες;
29. ἀνίσταμαι, ἀνάστηθι…[Moira/TPR]
30. καθίζομαι…[Moira/TPR]
31. βάδιζω, βάδιζε, βαδίζετε…[Herm., LGPSI 5]
32. πρός [Herm., LGPSI 5, Kat.]
33. τὴν θύρᾱν, τῆς θύρᾱς [LGPSI 5]
34. ἀπό [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
35. τρέχω…[Moira/TPR]
μάθημα γ᾿.
36. ἀνοίγω [LGPSI 4]
37. κλείω [Moira/TPR]
38. τὸ βιβλίον [Moira/TPR]
39. τύπτω [LGPSI 3]
40. ἡ/ὁ διδάσκαλος [Moira/TPR]
41. ἡ/ὁ μαθητής, αἱ/οἱ μαθηταί [Moira/TPR]
μάθημα δ᾿.
42. τίθημι [LGPSI 4]
43. ἡ δραχμή, τὴν δραχμήν [Kat.]
44. ἐπί [LGPSI 4]
45. ἡ τραπέζη [LGPSI 4]
46. ἐν [LGPSI 1]--also εἰς [Herm.], or is it too confusing to introduce both on same day?
47. δίδωμι [Herm., Kat.]
μάθημα ε᾿.
48. ὁ (γεωγραφικὸς) πίναξ/πινάκιον [TPR]
49. ποῦ [LGPSI 1]
50. ἐνθάδε [LGPSI 3]
51. δέ [LGPSI 1]
52. ποταμός [LGPSI 1]
53. νῆσος [LGPSI 1]
54. μέν [LGPSI 1]
55. μεγάλη [LGPSI 1]
56. μῑκρός [LGPSI 1]
57. μακρός [only for Moira/TPR...unless I missed it somewhere in one of the texts]
58. πόλις [LGPSI 1]
μάθημα Ϛ'.--LGPSI 1a
59. ἀλλά [LGPSI 1]
60. πολλαί [LGPSI 1]
61. ὀλίγοι [LGPSI 1]
62. τὸ πέλαγος [LGPSI 1]
63. ἡ ἀρχή [LGPSI 1]
64. ἐπαρχίᾱ [LGPSI 1]
μάθημα ζ᾿.
65. εἷς/μία/ἕν [LGPSI 1]
66. δύο [LGPSI 1]
67. ἀριθμός [LGPSI 1]
68. τρεῖς/τρία [LGPSI 1]
69. τέσσαρες/τέσσαρα [LGPSI 2]
70. πέντε [only Moira?]
71. ἕξ [only Moira?]
72. μείζων (ἤ) [LGPSI 6]
73. ἀριθμῶμεν [LGPSI 4]
74. πόσα/πόσοι; [LGPSI 2, Kat.]
μάθημα η᾿--LGPSI 1b.
75. χί-λια [LGPSI 1]
76. πρῶτον [LGPSI 1]
77. δεύτερον [LGPSI 1]
78. τρίτον [LGPSI 1]
79. ἑπτά [LGPSI 1]
80. ὀκτώ [Kat.]
81. ἔννεα [Moira]
82. δέκα [Kat.]
83. ἕνδεκα [Moira]
84. δώδεκα [Moira]
85. συλλαβή [LGPSI 1]
μάθημα θ'.
86. ὁ ἀνήρ [LGPSI 2]
87. ἄνθρωποι [LGPSI 6]
88. ἡ γυνή [LGPSI 2]
89. ὁ παῖς/παιδίον [LGPSI 2]
90. ἡ κόρη [LGPSI 2]
91. ὁ πατήρ [LGPSI 2]
92. ἡ μήτηρ [LGPSI 2]
93. ὁ υἱός [LGPSI 2]
94. ἡ θυγάτηρ [LGPSI 2]
95. ὁ ἀδελφός [Herm., LGPSI 5]
μάθημα ι'--LGPSI 2
96. δοῦλος/δούλη [LGPSI 2]
97. δεσπότης/δέσποινα [LGPSI 2]
98. ἡ οἰκίᾱ [LGPSI 2]
99. κύ-ριος [LGPSI 2]
100. οἰκεῖ [LGPSI 2]
101. οἴκαδε [Herm.]
102. οἴκοθεν [Herm.]
μάθημα ια'.
103. ἐμοῦ/μου [LGPSI 2]
104. σου/σοῦ [LGPSI 2
105. ἑκατόν (100) [LGPSI 2]
106. πεντήκοντα (50) [LGPSI 2]
107. εἴκοσι(ν) [Moira]
108. παίζωμεν! [LGPSI 5]
109. ἡ Τύχη [Moira]
110. βάλλω [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
111. ὁ κύβος [Moira]
112. νῑκάω [Herm., Kat.]
113. πολύ [LGPSI 3]
114. ἴσος [Moira]
μάθημα ιβ'. (what kind of game do you want to play?)
115. βούλομαι [Herm.]
116. ποῖος [Moira/TPR]
117. ὁ μῦθος [Kat.]
118. τὸ πρόσωπον [LGPSI 3]
119. κρείσσων [Moira]
120. βασιλεύς [Herm.]
121. ξενικός [Moira]
122. θεός [Herm., Kat.]
123. ἀληθής [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
124. ἐγγύς [LGPSI 6]
125. πόρρω [LGPSI 6, Kat.]
μάθημα ιγ'. (when and where should our game be set?)
126. πότε…; [Kat.]
127. γίγνομαι [Herm., Kat.]
128. ἡμέτερος [Kat.]
129. ἐν (if not earlier)
130. αἰῶν [Moira]
131. ἔξω (?) [LGPSI 5]
132. ὁ τόπος [LGPSI 1, Kat.]
133. ὁ ἀγρός [LGPSI 5]
134. ἡ ὕ-λη [Moira]
135. τὸ ὄρος [Herm.]
μάθημα ιδ'. (character generation and Invoke/Compel rules--will likely take two class periods)
136. ὑ-μεῖς [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
137. ἡμεῖς [Herm., Kat.]
138. τὸ στοιχεῖον [Moira]
139. τὸ τόλμημα [Moira]
140. οἶδα, οἶσθα, οἶδε [LGPSI 4, Kat.]
141. ἀναγκάζω or παρέχω [Moira]
142. ἐπικλέω [Moira]
143. δέχομαι [Moira]
μάθημα ιε'. (the Fate rules)
144. ποιέω [Herm., Kat.]
145. εἰ [Kat.]
146. προσβάλλω [Moira]
147. ἀμύ-νω [Moira]
148. ὑπερβάλλω [Moira]
149. ὠφελέομαι [Moira]
μάθημα ιϚ'.
150. δύναμαι [Herm., Kat.]
151. ἡ πῡραμίς [Moira]
152. ἡ κλῖμαξ [Moira]
153. ἡ πρᾶξις [Moira]
154. ὁ λόγος [Moira]
155. ἁμαρτάνω [Moira]
156. μετὰ [Herm., LGPSI 5, Kat.]
157. ἡ ἀριστείᾱ [Moira]
μάθημα 18-20ish--LGPSI 3
158. ἀγαθός [LGPSI 3]
159. ἀκούω - I hear [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
160. ἀποκρί-νεται [LGPSI 3]
161. αὐτός - he, it [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
162. γελάω [Herm., LGPSI 3]
163. δακρ-ὔει [LGPSI 3]
164. διὰ τί; [LGPSI 3]
165. ἔρχομαι - I go, come [Herm., LGPSI 3, Kat.]
166. ἐρωτάω - I ask [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
167. ἔτι [LGPSI 3]
168. καθεύδω - I rest, sleep [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
169. καὶ δὴ καί [LGPSI 3]
170. λέγω - I say [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
171. νῦν - now [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
172. ὁράω - I see [Herm., LGPSI 3, Kat.]
173. ὀργίζομαι - I get angry [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
174. ὀρθῶς [LGPSI 3]
175. ὅτι - that [Kat.], because [LGPSI 3]
176. οὐδέ - neither, nor [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
177. οὐδείς - no one [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
178. οὖν - and so, therefore [LGPSI 3, Herm., Kat.]
170. παίω - I strike [LGPSI 3]
180. πονηρός - wicked [LGPSI 3]
181. σῑγάω - I am silent [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
182. ὅς, ἥ, ὅ [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
μάθημα 21-23ish--HPK
183. ἀποκτείνω [Herm.]
184. βαρύς [Herm.]
185. τὸ βέλος [Herm.]
186. αἱ βόες [Herm.]
187. γάρ [Herm.]
188. διαλέγομαι [Herm.]
189. ἑαυτῆς [Herm.]
190. εἰς [Herm.]
191. ἐκ [Herm.]
192. ἐλαύνω [Herm.]
193. θαυμαστός [Herm.]
194. κλέπτω [Herm.]
195. λανθάνω [Herm.]
196. ἡ λύρᾱ [Herm.]
197. λυρίζω [Herm.]
198. ὁ μήν [Herm.]
199. ἡ νύξ [Herm.]
200. ἡ ἡμέρᾱ [Herm.]
201. τὸ ξίφος [Herm.]
202. ὅδε [Herm.]
203. οὔτε...οὔτε [Herm.]
204. τὸ παιδίον [Herm.]
205. πέρδομαι [Herm.]
206. πταίρω [Herm.]
207. ἡ πυράγρᾱ [Herm.]
208. ἡ ῥάβδος [Herm.]
209. τὸ σπήλαιον [Herm.]
210. τὸ τόξον [Herm.]
211. ἡ τρίαινα [Herm.]
212. ἡ χελώνη [Herm.]
213. τὸ χρῆμα [Herm.]
μάθημα 24-25ish--LGPSI 4
214. ἀμφορεύς - jar [LGPSI 4]
215. ἀποχωρέω [LGPSI 4]
216. ἀσπάζομαι [LGPSI 4]
217. βλέπω [LGPSI 4]
218. ἔνειμι - I am in [LGPSI 4, Kat.]
219. ἔπειτα [LGPSI 4]
220. κατηγορέω (accuse, denounce, speak against) [LGPSI 4]
221. κελεύω [LGPSI 4]
222. κενός [LGPSI 4]
223. μόνος - alone, only [LGPSI 4, Kat.]
224. οἶνος [LGPSI 4]
225. οἰνών (wine cellar) [LGPSI 4]
226. οὐδαμῶς - not at all [LGPSI 4, Kat.]
227. πάλιν - again, back [LGPSI 4, Kat.]
228. πλήρης [LGPSI 4]
229. ὁ σάκκος [LGPSI 4]
μάθημα 26-32ish--LGPSI 5
230. ἄγγελος - messenger [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
231. αἰσχρός [LGPSI 5]
232. ἅμα [LGPSI 5]
233. ἄνευ - without [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
234. ἀπέρχομαι - I go away [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
235. ἄστυ [LGPSI 5]
236. αὐλή [LGPSI 5]
237. οἱ γονεῖς (the parents) [LGPSI 5]
238. δεῦρο [LGPSI 5]
239. δήλως [LGPSI 5]
240. ἐκεῖνος - that [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
241. ἐπανέρχομαι [LGPSI 5]
242. ἑτέρᾱ [LGPSI 5]
243. ζητέω [LGPSI 5]
244. ἵππος - horse [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
245. καλός - good, fine, pretty [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
246. κῆπος (garden, orchard, plantation) [LGPSI 5]
247. κόπτω [LGPSI 5]
248. λαλέω [LGPSI 5]
249. ματαίως (in vain) [LGPSI 5]
250. ἡ ὁδός [LGPSI 5]
251. οἰκήματα [LGPSI 5]
252. οἴμοι [LGPSI 5]
253. ὀφθαλμὸν [LGPSI 5]
254. ὀχέομαι (rides) [LGPSI 5]
255. περί - around, about [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
256. περίστῡλον [LGPSI 5]
257. πολλάκις - many times, often [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
258. πορεύομαι [LGPSI 5]
259. προσέρχομαι [LGPSI 5]
260. σύν - with [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
261. σφαῖρα [LGPSI 5]
262. ὐπέρ +acc. [LGPSI 5]
263. φίλος - friend [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
μάθημα 33-34ish--LGPSI 6
264. ἄγω - I carry, lead [LGPSI 6, Kat.]
265. ἀρχαία [LGPSI 6]
266. ἡ θαλάσσης [LGPSI 6]
267. κεῖμαι [LGPSI 6]
268. μεταξύ (between) [LGPSI 6]
269. οὕτω(ς) - like this, like that [LGPSI 6, Kat.]
270. ποῖ [LGPSI 6]
271. πόθεν [LGPSI 6]
272. πρό - before, in front of [LGPSI 6, Kat.]
273. πύλαι [LGPSI 6]
274. τείχη [LGPSI 6]
275. φέρω - I carry, bring [LGPSI 6, Kat.]
276. ὡς - as, like, that, in [LGPSI 6, Kat.]
277. ὥσπερ [LGPSI 6]
μάθημα 35-42ish--Kat.
278. ἀγγέλλω - I announce, report [Kat.]
279. ἀγορά - market [Kat.]
280. ἀεί - always [Kat.]
281. ἀλλήλων - each other [Kat.]
282. ἄν - grammatical particle [Kat.]
283. ἀναγιγνώσκω - I read [Kat.]
284. ἀποθνῄσκω - I die [Kat.]
285. ἀπόλλυμι - I destroy [Kat.]
286. ἀρέσκω - I please [Kat.]
287. ἄρχω - I begin, rule [Kat.]
288. αὔριον - tomorrow [Kat.]
289. γιγνώσκω - I learn, recognize [Kat.]
290. δειπνέω - I have a meal [Kat.]
291. δεσμωτήριον - prison [Kat.]
292. δέω - I lack [Kat.]
293. δή - intensifier [Kat.]
294. διά - because of, through [Kat.]
295. διέρχομαι - I go through [Kat.]
296. διότι - because [Kat.]
297. διώκω - I chase [Kat.]
298. ἐάν - if [Kat.]
299. ἐάω - I allow [Kat.]
300. εἰκών - statue [Kat.]
301. ἐκκλησία - gathering, meeting [Kat.]
302. ἔμπορος - merchant [Kat.]
303. ἐννοέω - I consider [Kat.]
304. ἐξέρχομαι - I go out, come out [Kat.]
305. ἐπεί - when, since [Kat.]
306. ἐπιστολή - letter [Kat.]
307. ἔργον - work [Kat.]
308. ἔτος - year [Kat.]
309. εὖ - well [Kat.]
310. εὐθύς - immediately, suddenly [Kat.]
311. εὑρίσκω - I find [Kat.]
312. ἡγεμών - leader [Kat.]
313. ἤδη - already [Kat.]
314. ἥμισυς - half [Kat.]
315. θάνατος - death [Kat.]
316. ἵνα - in order to, so that [Kat.]
317. ἴσως - maybe [Kat.]
318. ἰχθύς - fish [Kat.]
319. καλέω - I call [Kat.]
320. κάλλιστος - best, prettiest [Kat.]
321. κάμνω - I am tired [Kat.]
322. καταβάλλω - I knock down [Kat.]
323. καταλαμβάνω - I seize, arrest [Kat.]
324. κατασκοπέω - I spy [Kat.]
325. κατάσκοπος - spy [Kat.]
326. κίνδυνος - danger [Kat.]
327. κλέπτης - thief [Kat.]
328. κόραξ - crow [Kat.]
329. κωμῳδία - comedy (type of play) [Kat.]
330. λιμήν - harbor [Kat.]
331. λούω - I wash [Kat.]
332. μάχη - battle [Kat.]
333. μάχομαι - I fight [Kat.]
334. μένω - I wait, remain [Kat.]
335. μῑσέω - I hate [Kat.]
336. μύρμηξ - ant [Kat.]
337. ἡ ναῦς - ship [Kat.]
338. νεκρός - corpse [Kat.]
339. νομίζω - I think [Kat.]
340. ξύλινος - wooden [Kat.]
341. οἶκος - house [Kat.]
342. οἰκτίρω - I pity [Kat.]
343. ὅπου - where [Kat.]
344. ὅστις - whoever, whatever [Kat.]
345. οὐδέποτε - never [Kat.]
346. παύω - I stop [Kat.]
347. πειράω - I try [Kat.]
348. ποιητής - poet [Kat.]
349. πόλεμος - war [Kat.]
350. ποτε - at some point [Kat.]
351. προφήτης - prophet [Kat.]
352. πτώχος - beggar [Kat.]
353. πωλέω - I sell [Kat.]
354. σῖτος - food [Kat.]
355. στρατιώτης - soldier [Kat.]
356. ταχέως - quickly [Kat.]
357. τοιοῦτος - this [Kat.]
358. τότε - then [Kat.]
359. φεύγω - I flee, escape [Kat.]
360. φημί - I say [Kat.]
361. φιλέω - I love [Kat.]
362. φοβέομαι - I fear [Kat.]
363. φύλαξ - guard [Kat.]
364. φυλάττω - I guard [Kat.]
365. χαλεπός - difficult [Kat.]
366. χρήσιμος - useful [Kat.]
367. ὠνέομαι - I buy [Kat.]

Nov 7, 2022 ∞

CI Curriculum for Ancient Greek: Zero to Hero!

Yes, I realize that ‘Zero to Hero’ is beyond the acceptable level of cheesiness in naming conventions for university courses. As this curriculum project is very much still in development, however, for now I am going to refer to it by whatever cheesy name I feel like. While ‘Zero to Hero’ is not exactly a sophisticated title, it communicates some key features of the way I aspire to teach Ancient Greek. First, by assuming that some students are starting from absolute scratch, with no previous Latin (or indeed, any other second language), and with no knowledge of the terminology of formal grammar. Second, by spending many hours of class time playing Μοῖρα, a D&D-like tabletop roleplaying game.

Well, I say ‘D&D-like’ because Dungeons and Dragons is the only TTRPG with which I expect the average person to be familiar. Μοῖρα is a slight simplification of the Fate Core system; if you know anything about Fate, you know that it’s actually radically different from any edition of D&D. The main advantages for me of the Fate system are that it is more narratively driven and involves less number-crunching. Using less math might widen the appeal for the average university student; it certainly makes the rules a lot easier for me to translate and explain. More important to me is the storytelling focus, which gives me a relatively straightforward formula for a gamified version of TPRS. I love the idea of using TPRS in the classroom, but the scope for subject matter feels overwhelmingly broad (how am I supposed to come up with that many ideas for vocabulary-sheltered stories?) and high pressure. If the stories fail to engage students–if they’re too repetitive, or not funny enough, or funny for twelve-year-olds but not for twenty-year-olds–then I’ve put in all that work for very little return.

And so I gravitate towards gamified storytelling. The structure of games is inherently somewhat repetitive, as a feature rather than a bug: the point of a game is to innovate within the rules, in order to create something satisfying or to entertain yourself (and your friends). I feel much more comfortable with my ability to create an interesting new environment (settings, NPCs, potential missions) for an existing game, than with my ability to create an interesting new story on my own. Part of the draw of the Fate system is meant to be the players' power to control aspects of the narration–which coincidentally means that the responsibility of telling a good story isn’t all on the teacher or GM. Players in a Fate game have much more control over what happens in a session than do students in a Storyasking lesson. If students want to tell the kind of silly story that TPRS is known for, then they can absolutely get invested in the game to make that happen. If a room full of undergraduates wished to produce a different kind of story, whether serious or melodramatic, then they too could negotiate their preferred tone and dynamic in the exact same way.

In theory–famous last words!–it wouldn’t be necessary for students to produce much speech in the target language. I reckon I’ll have to hold myself consciously to reasonable expectations for student output, i.e., one to two words in the L2 towards the beginning of the semester, and perhaps as much as four or five words at a time after sixteen weeks. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a hint of burnt rubber in the air, the first few times I take Μοῖρα out for a spin.

Sound interesting yet? I certainly hope so! I don’t imagine that students can learn Ancient Greek purely from playing an RPG; rather, I think that playing RPGs would be a relatively easy and effective way to provide engaging input during class. I don’t expect students to learn to speak anything beyond short phrases in Greek, nor do I particularly care what their spoken Greek sounds like. At the end of the day, the only one of the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) that we really need to engage with historical languages is reading. Speaking in Greek to a class is useful because allows me to provide input (necessary for acquisition) and students to negotiate meaning with me and with each other (certainly helpful for acquisition).

The only thing I particularly care about students doing outside of class meetings is reading. (Or listening to the same input, in the case of dyslexia or other significant learning differences.) At the time I’m writing this, October 2022, there are extraordinarily few Greek texts I’m aware of with sufficiently sheltered vocabulary for students to read (rather than decode) in their first semester. Over the past few months, I’ve compiled a list of about 350 Greek words from two CI-style novellas with heavily sheltered vocabulary and minimally sheltered grammar (Ἑρμῆς Πάντα Κλέπτει and ὁ Κατάσκοπος), as well as from the first six chapters of Seumas Macdonald’s Ørberg-inspired Lingua Graeca Per Se Illustrata. I haven’t checked recently how perfectly said list overlaps with Dickinson College Commentaries' Core 500 words, but it’s certainly close–rather closer, I would guess, than the first 350 vocabulary items in any existing Greek textbook. In addition to this list (alphabetized, at the end of this blog post), I’ve come up with the couple of dozen words I think absolutely necessary to explain and play Μοῖρα, again preferring whatever vocabulary is high-frequency in the extant Greek corpus. Altogether, those three texts (plus the handful of supporting texts which have been written so far for LGPSI) will give your student access to a little less than 13,000 words of Ancient Greek written input for the first semester.

That sounds great. Some unscientific back-of-the-napkin estimation suggests that Athenaze I contains perhaps ~~half~~ twice* that amount of Greek text, utilizing nearly four times as many different words (there are roughly 1300 in the Greek-English index at the back of the book). If we genuinely want our students to acquire by reading, and to learn to read well, 13,000 words of Greek text based on a 350-word vocabulary is moving in the right direction. Go us!

On the other hand…the rule of thumb for undergraduate courses is that you should expect to do roughly two hours' work outside of class for every contact hour, right? I think I’d spend the first two weeks teaching more dynamic vocabulary before handing them the first chapter of LGPSI, so we can divide those 13,000 words over the remaining fourteen weeks of a typical semester…and suddenly our 13,000 words don’t look like nearly enough. There’s no way that 900 words a week is enough input for university students to read, and no way they could spend six hours every week reading and re-reading those same 900 words without dying of boredom. (At least, I would have died of boredom.) Which means, we need an awful lot more Greek text for students to read, sticking pretty much to our core vocabulary list.

How many words do we need? There’s not a ton of easily accessible data out there on the link between total words read and language acquisition–if you know of some, please comment! But a glance at Lance Piantaggini’s blog suggests that high school students in their first year of a CI Latin program can comfortably read something like 45,000 words over the course of a school year. That, I think, is what we should be aiming for in the first semester of an undergraduate course that meets three times per week. If we expect students to acquire a language twice as fast in a university setting, then they deserve twice as much practice (and by practice, I mean input) as secondary students get. And that input should be as engaging and informative as we can make it.

This is obviously much too large a project for me to tackle alone, but I’ve made a small start. I’ve begun drafting a graded reader to fill in the gaps between Ἑρμῆς Πάντα Κλέπτει, ὁ Κατάσκοπος, and the first six chapters of LGPSI. (Why only the first six, you may ask? Purely because I’m not sure how well students could acquire more vocabulary.) Ordering the vocabulary and breaking it up roughly by class session is not a quick or easy task; I’d be thrilled to be done with that part of the project by Christmas. I do, however, have a draft of the vocabulary ordered for roughly the first six weeks, complete with incomplete lesson plans on PowerPoint. At some point I’ll get around to posting those first fifteen slideshows, to illustrate how I imagine I might try to get students into the first session of Μοῖρα. Said presentations are of course riddled with errors and incomplete–I have not yet gone to the trouble of making the slides I would use for Picture Talks, for example.

You might notice that I have failed to standardize the presentation of the following list: only some of the nouns have articles listed, not all of the verbs are 1st person singular, macrons combined with other diacritics are represented by a hyphen following the vowel, etc. I’ve also left on the handful of low-frequency words that show up in Ἑρμῆς Πάντα Κλέπτει, even though I don’t plan on requiring students to recall the words for, say, ‘trident’ or ‘tongs’. Obviously I don’t plan on targeting those words in the reader I’m writing; still, it seems preferable to know which words students would have seen before.

I reckon that’s more than enough for one blog post; I’ll share my PowerPoints introducing Μοῖρα another day. If you feel any of the work that I’m doing on Ancient Greek curriculum is useful, interesting, misguided, whatever–please get in touch! I would be particularly thrilled to collaborate with others on writing relevant Greek texts–my syntax and morphology are (I think) correct most of the time, if not error-free, but I’m well aware of how clunky my Greek is.

corrected 1 April 2026, with apologies to Messrs. Balme & Lowell

ἀγαθός [LGPSI 3]
ἄγᾱν -much, too much [Herm.]
ἄγγελος - messenger [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
ἀγγέλλω - I announce, report [Kat.]
ἀγορά - market [Kat.]
ἐκ τῶν ἀγρῶν [LGPSI 5]
ἄγω - I carry, lead [LGPSI 6, Kat.]
ᾄδω [Herm., LGPSI 3]
ὁ ἀδελφός [Herm., LGPSI 5]
ἀεί - always [Kat.]
αἰσχρός [LGPSI 5]
ἀκούω - I hear [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
ἀληθής - true [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
ἀληθῶς - truly [Kat.]
ἀλλά - but [Herm., LGPSI 1, Kat.]
ἀλλήλων - each other [Kat.]
ἄλλος - other [Kat.]
ἅμα [LGPSI 5]
ἀμφορεύς (jar) [LGPSI 4]
ἄν - grammatical particle [Kat.]
ἀναγιγνώσκω - I read [Kat.]
ἀναλαμβάνω [Herm.]
ἄνευ - without [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
ἀνήρ [LGPSI 2]
ἄνθρωπος - person [LGPSI 6, Kat.]
ἀνοίγω [LGPSI 4]
ἄπειμι - I am away [Kat.]
ἀπέρχομαι - I go away [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
ἀπό - (away) from [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
ἀποδίδωμι [Herm.]
ἀποθνῄσκω - I die [Kat.]
ἀποκρ’ῑνεται [LGPSI 3]
ἀποκτείνω - I kill [Herm., Kat.]
ἀπόλλυμι - I destroy [Kat.]
ἀποχωρέω [LGPSI 4]
ἆρα - marks a yes/no question [Herm., LGPSI 1, Kat.]
ἀρέσκω - I please [Kat.]
ἀριθμεῖ (verb) [LGPSI 4]
ὁ ἀριθμός [LGPSI 1]
ἀρχαία [LGPSI 6]
ἡ ἀρχή [LGPSI 1]
ἄρχω - I begin, rule [Kat.]
ἀσπάζου [LGPSI 4]
ἄστυ [LGPSI 5]
αὐλή [LGPSI 5]
αὔριον - tomorrow [Kat.]
αὐτός - he, it [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
βαδίζω [Herm., LGPSI 5]
βάλλω - I throw [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
βαρύς [Herm.]
ὁ βασιλεύς [Herm.]
τὸ βέλος [Herm.]
βλέπει [LGPSI 4]
αἱ / οἱ βόες [Herm.]
βούλομαι - I want [Herm., LGPSI 5, Kat.]
γάρ - because [Herm., LGPSI 4, Kat.]
γελάω [Herm., LGPSI 3]
γίγνομαι - I become, happen [Herm., Kat.]
γιγνώσκω - I learn, recognize [Kat.]
οἱ γονεῖς (the parents) [LGPSI 5]
τὸ γράμμα [LGPSI 1]
γράφω - I write [Kat.]
γυνή [LGPSI 2]
δακρ-ὔει [LGPSI 3]
δέ - and [Herm., LGPSI 1, Kat.]
δειπνέω - I have a meal [Kat.]
δέκα - ten [Kat.]
δεσμωτήριον - prison [Kat.]
δεσπότης/δέσποινα [LGPSI 2]
δεῦρο [LGPSI 5]
δεύτερον [LGPSI 1]
δέω - I lack [Kat.]
δή - intensifier [Kat.]
δήλως [LGPSI 5]
διά - because of, through [Kat.]
διὰ τί; [LGPSI 3]
διαλέγομαι [Herm.]
δίδωμι - I give [Herm., Kat.]
διέρχομαι - I go through [Kat.]
διότι - because [Kat.]
διώκω - I chase [Kat.]
δοῦλος/δούλη [LGPSI 2]
δραχμή - drachma [Kat.]
δύναμαι - I can [Herm., Kat.]
δύο - two [Herm., LGPSI 1, Kat.]
ἐάν - if [Kat.]
ἑαυτοῦ - his/her/its own [Herm., Kat.]
ἐάω - I allow [Kat.]
ἐγγύς [LGPSI 6]
ἐγώ - I [Herm., LGPSI 3, Kat.]
εἰ - if [Kat.]
εἰκών - statue [Kat.]
εἰμί - I am [Herm., LGPSI 1, Kat.]
εἰς - into, to, at [Herm., LGPSI 4, Kat.]
εἷς - one [LGPSI 1, Kat.]
εἰσέρχομαι - I enter, go in, come to [Kat.]
ἐκ - out of / ἐξ - out of [Herm., LGPSI 4, Kat.]
ἑκατόν (100) [LGPSI 2]
ἐκεῖνος - that [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
ἐκκλησία - gathering, meeting [Kat.]
ἐλαύνω [Herm.]
ἐμός - my [Herm., LGPSI 2, Kat.]
ἔμπορος - merchant [Kat.]
ἐν - in [Herm., LGPSI, Kat.]
ἔνειμι - I am in [LGPSI 4, Kat.]
ἐνθάδε [LGPSI 3]
ἐννέα [Kat.]
ἐννοέω - I consider [Kat.]
ἐξέρχομαι - I go out, come out [Kat.]
ἔξω +gen. [LGPSI 5]
ἐπανέρχονται [LGPSI 5]
ἐπαρχίᾱ (government of a district, provincia) [LGPSI 1]
ἐπεί - when, since [Kat.]
ἔπειτα [LGPSI 4]
ἐπί [LGPSI 4]
ἐπιστολή - letter [Kat.]
ἑπτά [LGPSI 1]
ἔργον - work [Kat.]
ἔρχομαι - I go, come [Herm., LGPSI 3, Kat.]
ἐρωτάω - I ask [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
ἑτέρᾱ [LGPSI 5]
ἔτι [LGPSI 3]
ἔτος - year [Kat.]
εὖ - well [Kat.]
εὐθύς - immediately, suddenly [Kat.]
εὑρίσκω - I find [Kat.]
ἔχω - I have [Herm., LGPSI 4, Kat.]
ζητεῖ [LGPSI 5]
ἤ - or [LGPSI 1, Kat.]
ἡγεμών - leader [Kat.]
ἤδη - already [Kat.]
ἡμεῖς - we [Herm., Kat.]
ἡ ἡμέρᾱ - day [Herm., Kat.]
ἡμέτερος - our [Kat.]
ἥμισυς - half [Kat.]
ἡ θαλάσσης [LGPSI 6]
θάνατος - death [Kat.]
θαυμαστος [Herm.]
θεός - god, goddess [Herm., Kat.]
θερμός [Herm.]
θυγάτηρ [LGPSI 2]
θύρᾱ [LGPSI 5]
ἵνα - in order to, so that [Kat.]
ἵππος - horse [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
ἴσως - maybe [Kat.]
ἰχθύς - fish [Kat.]
καθεύδω - I rest, sleep [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
καί - and [Herm., LGPSI 1, Kat.]
καὶ δὴ καί [LGPSI 3]
κακῶς [adj. LGPSI 5]
καλέω - I call [Kat.]
κάλλιστος - best, prettiest [Kat.]
καλός - good, fine, pretty [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
κάμνω - I am tired [Kat.]
καταβάλλω - I knock down [Kat.]
καταλαμβάνω - I seize, arrest [Kat.]
κατασκοπέω - I spy [Kat.]
κατάσκοπος - spy [Kat.]
κατηγορεῖ (accuse, denounce, speak against) [LGPSI 4]
κελεύει [LGPSI 4]
κεῖνται [LGPSI 6]
κενός [LGPSI 4]
ὁ κεραυνός [Herm.]
ὁ κεστός [Herm.]
κῆπος (garden, orchard, plantation) [LGPSI 5]
κίνδυνος - danger [Kat.]
κλέπτης - thief [Kat.]
κλέπτω [Herm.]
κόπτει [LGPSI 5]
κόραξ - crow [Kat.]
ἡ κόρη [LGPSI 2]
τὸ κτήμα [Herm.]
κ’ῡριος [LGPSI 2]
κωμῳδία - comedy (type of play) [Kat.]
λαλοῦσιν [LGPSI 5]
λαμβάνω - I take [Herm., LGPSI 4, Kat.]
λανθάνω - I escape the notice of [Herm., Kat.]
λέγω - I say [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
λέξις [LGPSI 1]
λιμήν - harbor [Kat.]
λούω - I wash [Kat.]
ἡ λύρᾱ [Herm.]
λυρίζω [Herm.]
ματαίως (in vain) [LGPSI 5]
μάχη - battle [Kat.]
μάχομαι - I fight [Kat.]
μεγάλη - big, great / μέγας - big, great [LGSPI 1, Kat.]
μείζων (ἤ) [LGPSI 6]
μέν - marks contrast [Herm., LGPSI 1, Kat.]
μένω - I wait, remain [Kat.]
μετά - after, with [Herm., LGPSI 5, Kat.]
μεταξύ (between) [LGPSI 6]
μή - not, in order that not [LGPSI 1, Kat.]
ὁ μήν [Herm.]
ἡ μήτηρ [Herm., LGPSI 2]
μῑκρός [LGPSI 1]
μῑσέω - I hate [Kat.]
μόνος - alone, only [LGPSI 4, Kat.]
μῦθος - story [Kat.]
μύρμηξ - ant [Kat.]
ναί [LGPSI 3]
ἡ ναῦς - ship [Kat.]
νέα [LGPSI 6]
νεκρός - corpse [Kat.]
νῆσος [LGPSI 1]
νῑκάω - I win, defeat [Herm., Kat.]
νομίζω - I think [Kat.]
νῦν - now [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
ἡ νύξ - night [Herm., Kat.]
τὸ ξίφος [Herm.]
ξύλινος - wooden [Kat.]
ἡ ὁδός [LGPSI 5]
οἶδα - I know [LGPSI 4, Kat.]
oἴκαδε [Herm.]
οἰκέω - I live (in) [Herm., LGPSI 2, Kat.]
οἰκήματα [LGPSI 5]
ἡ οἰκίᾱ [LGPSI 2]
oἴκοθεν [Herm.]
οἶκος - house [Kat.]
οἰκτίρω - I pity [Kat.]
οἴμοι [LGPSI 5]
οἶνος [LGPSI 4]
οἰνών (wine cellar) [LGPSI 4]
ὀκτώ - eight [Kat.]
ὀλίγος - little, few [LGPSI 1, Kat.]
ὄνομα - name [Herm., Kat.]
ὅπου - where [Kat.]
ὁράω - I see [Herm., LGPSI 3, Kat.]
ὀργίζομαι - I get angry [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
ὀρθῶς [LGPSI 3]
τὸ ὄρος [Herm.]
ὅστις - whoever, whatever [Kat.]
ὅτι - that [Kat.], because [LGPSI 3]
οὐ - not / οὐκ - not / οὐχ - not [Herm., LGPSI 1, Kat.]
οὐδαμῶς - not at all [LGPSI 4, Kat.]
οὐδέ - neither, nor [LGPSI 3, Kat.*]
οὐδείς - no one [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
οὐδέποτε - never [Kat.]
οὖν - and so, therefore [Herm., LGPSI 3, Kat.]
οὔτε…οὔτε [Herm., LGPSI 4]
οὕτω(ς) - like this, like that [LGPSI 6, Kat.]
ὀφθαλμὸν [LGPSI 5]
ὀχεῖται (rides) [LGPSI 5]
ἡ παιγνιά-; τὸ παίγνιον; [Herm.]
τὸ παιδίον [Herm.]
παίει [LGPSI 3]
παίζει [LGPSI 5]
παῖς [LGPSI 2]
παλαίω [Herm.]
πάλιν - again, back [LGPSI 4, Kat.]
πάρειμι - I am present [Herm., LGPSI 3, Kat.]
πᾶς - all, every / πᾶσα - all, every / πᾶν - all, every [Herm., Kat.]
ὁ πατήρ [Herm., LGPSI 2]
παύω - I stop [Kat.]
πειράω - I try [Kat.]
τὸ πέλαγος [LGPSI 1]
πέντε [LGPSI 1]
πεντήκοντα (50) [LGPSI 2]
πέρδομαι - fart [Herm.]
περί - around, about [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
περίστῡλον [LGPSI 5]
πλήρης [LGPSI 4]
ποῖ [LGPSI 6]
ποιέω - I make, do [Herm., Kat.]
ποιητής - poet [Kat.]
πόθεν [LGPSI 6]
πόλεμος - war [Kat.]
πόλις - city [LGPSI 1, Kat.]
πολλάκις - many times, often [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
πολλή - much, many / πολύ - much, many, (adv. [LGPSI 3]) very / πολύς - much many [LGPSI 1, Kat.]
πονηρός [LGPSI 3]
πορεύεται [LGPSI 5]
πόρρω - further [LGPSI 6, Kat.]
πόσος - how much, many? [LGPSI 2, Kat.]
ποταμός [LGPSI 1]
ποτε - at some point [Kat.]
πότε - when? [Kat.]
ποῦ [LGPSI 1]
πρό - before, in front of [LGPSI 6, Kat.]
πρός - towards, to [Herm., LGPSI 5, Kat.]
προσέλθε [LGPSI 5]
προσχωροῦσι(ν) [LGPSI 6]
πρόσωπα (faces, masks, characters, etc.) [LGPSI 3]
προφήτης - prophet [Kat.]
πρῶτος - first [LGPSI 1, Kat.]
πταίρω - sneeze [Herm.]
πτώχος - beggar [Kat.]
πύλαι [LGPSI 6]
ἡ πυράγρᾱ - tongs [Herm.]
πωλέω - I sell [Kat.]
πῶς - how? [Kat.]
ἡ ῥάβδος [Herm.]
ὁ σάκκος [LGPSI 4]
σῑγάω - I am silent [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
σῖτος - food [Kat.]
τὸ σκῆπτρον [Herm.]
σός - your (s.) [LGPSI 2, Kat.]
τὸ σπήλαιον [Herm.]
στρατιώτης - soldier [Kat.]
σύ - you (s.) [Herm., LGPSI 3, Kat.]
συλλαβή [LGPSI 1]
σύν - with [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
σφαῖρα [LGPSI 5]
ταχέως - quickly [Kat.]
τε - and [Herm.*, LGPSI 5, Kat.]
τείχη [LGPSI 6]
τέσσαρες/τέσσαρα [LGPSI 2]
τήμερον - today [Herm., LGSPI 5*(sigma), Kat.]
τίθημι [LGPSI 4]
τις - someone, something [Herm., LGPSI 5, Kat.]
τίς - who? what? [LGPSI 2, Kat.]
τοιοῦτος - this [Kat.]
τὸ τόξον [Herm.]
τόπος - place [LGPSI 1, Kat.]
τότε - then [Kat.]
ἡ τραπέζη [LGPSI 4]
τρεῖς/τρία [LGPSI 1]
ἡ τρίαινα - trident [Herm.]
τρίτον [LGPSI 1]
τύπτω [λγπσι 3]
ὁ υἱός [Herm., LGPSI 2]
ὑμεῖς - you (pl.) [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
ὐπέρ +ακκ. [LGPSI 5]
φέρω - I carry, bring [LGPSI 6, Kat.]
φεύγω - I flee, escape [Kat.]
φημι - I say [Kat.]
φιλέω - I love [Kat.]
φίλος - friend [LGPSI 5, Kat.]
φοβέομαι - I fear [Kat.]
φύλαξ - guard [Kat.]
φυλάττω - I guard [Kat.]
χαίρω - I am happy, (imp.) hello [Herm., LGPSI 3, Kat.]
χαλεπός - difficult [Kat.]
ἡ χελώνη [Herm.]
χί-λια (1,000) [LGPSI 1]
χρῆμα - thing, (pl.) money, possessions [Herm., Kat.]
χρήσιμος - useful [Kat.]
ὦ - marks an address to someone [Herm., Kat.]
ὠνέομαι - I buy [Kat.]
ὡς - as, like, that, in [LGPSI 6, Kat.]
ὥσπερ [LGPSI 6]
ὁ, ἡ, τό [Herm., Kat.]
ὅς, ἥ, ὅ [LGPSI 3, Kat.]
ὅδε, ἥδε, τόδε [Herm., Kat.]
οὗτος, αὗτη, τοῦτο [Herm., LGPSI 5, Kat.]

And here’s the additional vocabulary I (currently) think necessary to explain and play Μοῖρα as a class:

ὁ κύβος
ποῖος
κρείσσων
ξενικός
αἰῶν
τὸ στοιχεῖον
τὸ τόλμημα
ἀναγκάζω or παρέχω
ἐπικλέω
δέχομαι
προσβάλλω
ἀμύ-νω
ὑπερβάλλω
ὠφελέομαι
ἡ πῡραμίς
ἡ κλῖμαξ
ἡ πρᾶξις
ὁ λόγος
ἁμαρτάνω
ἴσος
ἡ ἀριστείᾱ

Nov 7, 2022 ∞

Some Thoughts on Teaching Historical Languages

As I've been working on an Ancient Greek curriculum project, I've come up with the following list of principles I'm trying to follow. Some of them are a little contentious; I'll try and return to this post some time to add footnotes that indicate where my ideas come from. Questions? Comments? Concerns? If so, please comment!

The primary goal of teaching historical languages is almost always to enable students to read authentic texts in the historical language.
Given the difficulty of acquiring* sufficient vocabulary to read goal texts in the target language, vocabulary acquisition should be strongly guided by the frequency of words in either the language as a whole--even, if possible, the frequency of words in the earliest authentic texts intended to be read.
Whether the study of those historical languages [as perhaps the most time-consuming aspect of studying the classics] is truly accessible to a vast majority of students, is likely to be a major factor in whether classics as a discipline flourishes during an age of change in higher education. This is true both from an ideological perspective, because accessibility is increasingly recognized as an issue of justice rather than talent; and from a pragmatic one, because a department that is effectively open to only a small percentage of students is unlikely to maintain its funding.
Research in second language acquisition and education suggests that the number of new words a student can acquire during one contact hour is, on average, 7 +/- 2. In one semester meeting three times a week for sixteen weeks, therefore, we should not expect students to acquire much more than 350 words. Given in addition the large number of inflections associated with most words in Greek and Latin, I do not think that it is realistic to expect that the average student is capable of retaining much more vocabulary than this.
Because classics programs are universally structured around the expectation that students will proceed from zero knowledge of the target language to reading complex authentic texts within two years or less--an expectation which would likely not be considered realistic in modern language departments--it is vital for our language curricula to be as efficient as possible.
Most time in and out of class should therefore be dedicated to the language-learning activities which have been shown to increase acquisition of the target language; conversely, we should not require students to dedicate significant time or effort to activities which have yet to be shown to increase acquisition of the target language.
As a corollary, teachers should not be required to dedicate significant time and effort to activities which have yet to be shown to increase acquisition of the target language.
Specifically at early stages of learning a language--which is to say, the first and perhaps the second semester--there is no indication in current research that the correction of students' production of the target language furthers their acquisition of the language. Teachers should therefore not be required to spend significant amounts of time or effort correcting students' production of the target language during the first semester or two, and students should not be expected to spend significant amounts of time or effort either making or reviewing those corrections.
There is--perhaps surprisingly--no conclusive research indicating that the explicit teaching of grammar affects students' acquisition of the target language one way or another. Consequently, explicit teaching of grammar should occupy a minority of students' and teachers' time.
Research does conclusively underscore the importance of comprehensible input in students' acquisition of the target language. Consequently, input in the target language, whether written or spoken, should occupy the majority of the students' time and effort in and out of class. Note that the implicit teaching of grammar is a core aspect of quality comprehensible input.
Because students are human beings--and because their level of genuine interest may affect the language acquisition process--that comprehensible input should be engaging--whether interesting, entertaining, or both--whenever practicable. Engaging content has the additional benefit of fostering interaction and camaraderie among classmates and between students and teachers. Such community is beneficial both for students as individuals and for departments as a whole.
Because historical languages--no less than any other language--provide a window into a foreign history and culture, and because students require some historical and cultural background in order to engage with ancient texts, that comprehensible input should provide, insofar as it is practicable, engagement with the world and the lives of those who spoke and wrote the target language.

*A note on vocabulary: I use the terminology of 'acquisition' rather than 'learning' consistently throughout, in order to imply that our goal is what Krashen et al. refer to as 'acquiring a language' rather than 'learning [about] a language'. I recognize that theirs is, at least originally, a peculiar distinction between the two words, and that the phrases 'learning a language' and 'acquiring a language' are entirely synonymous in most contexts.