Ancient Greek

Korrin B.

December 12, 2008 - 9:34 PM

Studying abroad last spring in Greece had an immensely profound effect on me. When I returned to the United States, I was very worried that I would just wake up one day and forget the trip ever happened. My first few weeks back were tough. Every day that passed made my experience fade a little further into the horizon. I thought about how I had watched the island that I had lived on for almost six months of my life slowly fade into the hazy horizon as my ferryboat began my journey back home. I couldn't let this amazing chapter of my life just disappear into the haze. I was determined to stay connected with Greek culture as much as possible.

One way I did this was by signing up to take the ancient Greek language course offered at the UO. The first day of class was amazing. It felt so good to be talking about Greece again. My roommate in Greece was also in the class, which was great. We were able to relive the magical memories that had shaped our spring. Looking back at it though, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Two weeks in and I swear we were expected to have memorized about fifteen sets of six different verb endings and know when to use them and what they meant. I was suppose to be able to hear "present indicative active" and just be able to shout out, "w, eis, ei, omen, ete, ousi, principal part one, present tense stem, paideuw, I am educating or I educate habitually." I had never realized how complex and intense learning an ancient language was. I was using this to fulfill my language requirement as well, so the thought of doing this five days a week for the next two years of my life became quite daunting. This wasn't even a language I could really speak with anyone. It was very different from Modern Greek. Most of what we focused on in class was being able to read it, not speak it.

However, during one of the weeks, our professor had us turn to a page in our textbook so that we could take a little break from all of the intense grammar lessons. On the page was a section of the Book of John written in the original ancient Greek. It was absolutely fascinating. There I was, able to read and understand a passage from John in the original Greek! We talked about how it had been mistranslated into Latin and then into English. I was so interested and excited about this that after class, I went and dropped my minor in Business Administration and added a minor in Ancient Greek.

Ancient Greek was my last final of the term. I spent all Tuesday studying for it. At 10am I was at Sweet Life Patisserie, with a twelve-ounce chai and a slice of their famous Chocolate Orgasm Cake, translating sentence after sentence from ancient Greek to English. At around 1pm, I went home and changed to go to work and went through another chapter before I had to leave. After work at 5:30pm, I went to the Fifth Street Market and sat at a table in the food court with a plateful of delicious fettuccini alfredo, meanwhile cramming verb endings and conditional sentence forms into my head. I got home around 9pm and looked through flashcards for another hour before I fell asleep.

Ancient Greek is a challenging course. However, it is easy to get kind of nerdy about the subject. Due to this, I know I can make it through and survive all of the intense grammar. It is fascinating. Despite having some rough patches throughout the term, I ended up with a final grade of an A- in the course. I was ecstatic. I can't wait to take on GRK 102 winter term. It's an incredible subject and best of all, it keeps me thinking about Greece and how it changed my life forever.