Number 11

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

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2.

Έχουσι βουλας πολλας, δε εισιν κακας.

3.

Βουλαι έστιν φιλαι ψυχή θεαον καλαον γαρ έστιν καλαι.
 

Glabrigausapes

Philistine

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Milwaukee
Έχουσι βουλας πολλας, δε εισιν κακας.
Good, but 'but' is ἀλλά.
ἔχουσι βουλὰς πολλάς, ἀλλὰ κακάς (They have many plans, but bad). If you wanted to use εἰσι, then κακός would be nom. plural. (i.e. 'they are bad').
Βουλαι έστιν φιλαι ψυχή θεαον καλαον γαρ έστιν καλαι.
This one needs work. ἐστι must be plural, ψυχή dative, and you seem to have gen plural for 'of the beautiful goddess' (singular).
Remember that forms described as 'nu-moveable', such as ἐστι(ν), typically only have the -ν when they are:
a) followed by a word beginning with a vowel
b) final in an utterance/line
 

Iáson

Cívis Illústris

  • Civis Illustris

Are the good plans dear to the souls of the goddesses?
I can’t really type in Greek for the yet...so forgive me for this first weird transliteration but:

1. Esti boulai kalai filai psychais Theaon?

(Is εστι βοθλαι καλαι φιλαι ψυχαις θεαων right?)
I don't have much practice with translation into Ancient Greek ... I suppose it would be better if some real expert answered that ...
I've also noticed that the text you had was some kind of dialect ... it wasn't Attic school Greek. So take my comments with some caution ...

'Are the good plans dear to the souls of the goddesses?'

- A yes/no-question is introduced by 'ar(a)'
- the verb needs to be in the plural
- you need to translate the direct articles
- I suppose theaon exists somehow (like thalassaon), but the regular Attic genitive plural would be theon.
- the genitive attribute (ton theon) needs to be locked in

So I would say ...
'ar' eisin hai kalai boylai philai tais ton theon psychais;' ~
αρ' εισιν αι καλαι βουλαι φιλαι ταις των θε(α)ων ψυχαις;

I left out the diacritics because I'm unsure about the accents (especially the ones around eisi).


ἆρά εἰσιν αἱ καλαὶ βουλαὶ φίλαι ταῖς τῶν θεῶν ψῡχαῖς;

This is fine for Attic.
- You don't need ἆρα for a y/n question, any more than you need -ne or utrum in Latin.
- Equally you don't need εἰσιν, strictly speaking. It needs to be pl., because so is the subject (the only exception to this is neuter plurals, but βουλαὶ is fem. pl. - if you'd used something like τεχνήματα it would be a different matter).
- Alternative phrasings are possible - καλαὶ and τῶν θεῶν are attributive, so they must be preceded by the article, but this could be done by repeating the article (αἱ βουλαὶ αἱ καλαί, ταῖς ψῡχαῖς ταῖς τῶν θεῶν).
- Accent: the base forms of the words involved are ἆρα, ειμί, φίλος, καλός, βουλή, θεᾱ́, ψῡχή, which you can find out by looking at most dictionaries. The usual rule is that verbs are accented recessively (as far back as possible according to the law of limitation) whereas nouns keep the accent on the same syllable as the nominative as far as this is possible according to the law of limitation. But:
-- 'All gen. and dat. of oxytone (acute on last syllable) 1st/2nd decl. words are perispomenon (circumflex on last syllable)' - hence θεῶν, ψῡχαῖς, ταῖς, τῶν.
-- Acute accents on a word followed by another word that isn't an enclitic become grave - hence καλαὶ, βουλαὶ
-- εἰσιν, when used as a copula, is enclitic (as is the whole present indic. of ειμί) and so has no accent, but 'throws it back' onto the last syllable of ἆρα.

As for typing in Greek - do you have the polytonic keyboard setting? It does take some getting used to.

Sorry for that! I know that Attic is the norm...the first kind of Greek I studied was Attic, I believe. But this is a study of Homeric Greek, so I’m learning it without any articles and the Epic declensions.
Hmm. The problem is that Homeric Greek is not really a dialect. It is a form of traditional diction which combines dialect borrowings, archaisms and artificial forms to produce dactylic hexameter. Thus it is not really meaningful to learn it in separation from the hexameter and the traditional phrasing thereof: otherwise you learn a sort of artificial construct that no-one has ever really spoken or used.

In Homeric Greek - well, I guess one has to think of the proper position of such phrases in the hexameter, by collecting lines that use the relevant words, eg.:

... Θέτιδος δ᾿ ἐξήνυσε βουλάς,
“ὢ πόποι, ἦ δὴ πάγχυ μάχης ἐπὶ μήδεα κείρει
πολλὰς δ᾿ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν
ἐσκέδασ᾿ ὀξὺς Ἄρης, ψυχαὶ δ᾿ Ἄϊδόσδε κατῆλθον·
καλὴ Καστιάνειρα δέμας ἐικυῖα θεῇσι.
οἵ τε θεαῖσ’ ἀγάασθε παρ’ ἀνδράσιν εὐνάζεσθαι
τῷ δέ κε νικήσαντι φίλη κεκλήσῃ ἄκοιτις.
οὕτω δὴ οἶκόνδε φίλην ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν
Ὣς εἰπὼν ἀλόχοιο φίλης ἐν χερσὶν ἔθηκε
ἐκ δ᾿ ἐγέλασσε πατήρ τε φίλος καὶ πότνια μήτηρ·
“δεῦρο πάροιθ᾿ ἐλθοῦσα, φίλον τέκος, ἵζευ ἐμεῖο,
καλὸν ἀείδοντες παιήονα κοῦροι Ἀχαιῶν

But even this isn't quite enough, because one has to think not just of fitting words to metre but using the traditional phrasing and formulae, economy and expansion, etc.. Which I'm not going to attempt tonight.
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

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I know that Homeric Greek isn’t really one dialect, but it was the best looking book I found online.
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

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Location:
Gæmleflodland
ἆρά εἰσιν αἱ καλαὶ βουλαὶ φίλαι ταῖς τῶν θεῶν ψῡχαῖς;

This is fine for Attic.
- You don't need ἆρα for a y/n question, any more than you need -ne or utrum in Latin.
- Equally you don't need εἰσιν, strictly speaking. It needs to be pl., because so is the subject (the only exception to this is neuter plurals, but βουλαὶ is fem. pl. - if you'd used something like τεχνήματα it would be a different matter).
- Alternative phrasings are possible - καλαὶ and τῶν θεῶν are attributive, so they must be preceded by the article, but this could be done by repeating the article (αἱ βουλαὶ αἱ καλαί, ταῖς ψῡχαῖς ταῖς τῶν θεῶν).
- Accent: the base forms of the words involved are ἆρα, ειμί, φίλος, καλός, βουλή, θεᾱ́, ψῡχή, which you can find out by looking at most dictionaries. The usual rule is that verbs are accented recessively (as far back as possible according to the law of limitation) whereas nouns keep the accent on the same syllable as the nominative as far as this is possible according to the law of limitation. But:
-- 'All gen. and dat. of oxytone (acute on last syllable) 1st/2nd decl. words are perispomenon (circumflex on last syllable)' - hence θεῶν, ψῡχαῖς, ταῖς, τῶν.
-- Acute accents on a word followed by another word that isn't an enclitic become grave - hence καλαὶ, βουλαὶ
-- εἰσιν, when used as a copula, is enclitic (as is the whole present indic. of ειμί) and so has no accent, but 'throws it back' onto the last syllable of ἆρα.

Hmm. The problem is that Homeric Greek is not really a dialect. It is a form of traditional diction which combines dialect borrowings, archaisms and artificial forms to produce dactylic hexameter. Thus it is not really meaningful to learn it in separation from the hexameter and the traditional phrasing thereof: otherwise you learn a sort of artificial construct that no-one has ever really spoken or used.

In Homeric Greek - well, I guess one has to think of the proper position of such phrases in the hexameter, by collecting lines that use the relevant words, eg.:

... Θέτιδος δ᾿ ἐξήνυσε βουλάς...
Good, but 'but' is ἀλλά.
ἔχουσι βουλὰς πολλάς, ἀλλὰ κακάς (They have many plans, but bad). If you wanted to use εἰσι, then κακός would be nom. plural. (i.e. 'they are bad').

This one needs work. ἐστι must be plural, ψυχή dative, and you seem to have gen plural for 'of the beautiful goddess' (singular).
Remember that forms described as 'nu-moveable', such as ἐστι(ν), typically only have the -ν when they are:
a) followed by a word beginning with a vowel
b) final in an utterance/line

Thank you for all this.

I don’t have the keyboard now but the poly tonic option is on the computer I use.
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

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The book didn’t give αλλα, I didn’t know that was an option.
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

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Location:
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Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

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Location:
Gæmleflodland
So I was actually right in being simple.
 
B

Bitmap

Guest

He didn't use minuscules, either, so you should have written it all in capslock.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
He didn't use minuscules, either, so you should have written it all in capslock.
If the Greeks were anything like the Romans, I guess he didn't use punctuation or spaces either?
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

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Yeah, as a scripta continua.
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

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Location:
Gæmleflodland
But it doesn’t matter. I mean, the Romans didn’t really use macrons. It’s obviously meant to help students out on specific sounds.


(Also I keep typing έστι for εισι but that’s just a careless mistake, I understand which is which. After I studied Hittite έστι looks like it should mean something else :/)
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

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4. Θέα καλή ουκ ην εν Κιλλη.

5. Εισι πολλαι πυραι επι Θάλασση εν πατρη καλη.
 
B

Bitmap

Guest

In 4), 'of the sea is missing'
I don't know why you put the accents on some words, but not on others, but it would have to be θεὰ καλὴ

5) seems right to me ... at least as far as your Homerian prose fantasy language goes. If you put an accent on thalasse, it should be on the other a ... and while you're about it, you might as well put in the iota subscriptum: θαλάσσῃ
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

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Sorry. The accents come from autocorrect. I’m just using Modern Greek keyboards at the moment,
 
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