Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T12:27:06.199Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Notes on the Language of Vita Aesopi G*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Extract

This version of the life of Aesop is known only from the one manuscript, which had belonged earlier to the library of a monastery near Frascati, from which it disappeared with no mention of it after 1789 till it was rediscovered in the Pierpont Morgan collection in 1929. It was published in 1952 by B.E. Perry at the University of Illinois Press (Urbana) in his fine Aesopica I, 35-77, with much other material, including a full account of the manuscripts of the other version of the life, W.

MS. G is from the end of the tenth century. Perry thinks that the original goes back to the first century A.D. and reflects the strong interest in popular versions of Aesop’s life in Egypt at this period. It has a pronounced Egyptian colouring, Isis playing a prominent part in the naive and bawdy story, with a strong opposition to Apollo. Four papyrus fragments similar to G have been found (see Perry, op. cit. 1), and various Eastern versions of part of the story are known. The manuscript has many koine features that agree with Perry’s dating, and the language can often be usefully illustrated from the modern Demotic. Features that are more likely to be errors of tradition in the manuscript are mainly unimportant late spellings.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The following bibliography, short titles and abbreviations are used in the text:

Andriotis, N.P., Ετυμολογικό Αεξικο τής Κοινής Νεοελληνικής2 (Salónica 1967)Google Scholar

Andriotis, N.P., Lexikon der Archaismen in neugriechischen Dialekten (Vienna 1974)Google Scholar

Bauer, W., Wôrterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments 4 (Berlin 1952)Google Scholar

Blass-Debrunner = Blass F.-Debrunner A., Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch

Chantraine, Noms = Chantraine, P., La formation desnoms en grec anden (Paris 1933, reprinted 1968)Google Scholar

Charitonidis, Ch., review article on Perry’s Aesopica in Πλατών 4 (1952), 101–14.Google Scholar

Hatzidakis, G., Einleitung in die neugriechische Grammatik (Leipzig 1892)Google Scholar

Hatzidakis, G., MNE = Μεσαιωνικά και Νέα Ελληνικά 1.2 (Athens 1905–07)Google Scholar

Hostetter, W.H., A Linguistic Survey of the Vulgar Greek Life of Aesop (Diss.University of Illinois 1955)Google Scholar

Mandilaras, B.G., The Verb in the Greek Non-literary Papyri(Athens 1973)Google Scholar

MNE see Hatzidakis.

Papademetriou, I., - Th., Κριτικά, γλωσσικά καί ερμηνευτικά εις την περ'ι Αίσωπου Μυθιστορίαν, Πλατών 21 (1969), 251–69Google Scholar and Αθηνά LXX 73–74 (1972–3), 231–44.

Papadopulos, A.A., Α.Α., Γραμματική των βορείων Ιδιωμάτων της νέας Ελληνικής γλώσσης (Athens 1927)Google Scholar

Preisigke, F., Wôrterbuch der griechischen Papyrusurkunden (Berlin 1924–44)(completed by E. Kiessling)Google Scholar

Soph(ocles), Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine periods (New York 1887)

Suppl. = Supplement to Liddell-Scott-Jones (Oxford 1968)

Ancient references are abbreviated as in LSJ

Cappadocian words are cited mainly from Dawkins, R.M., Modern Greek in Asia Minor (Cambridge 1916)Google Scholar

Pontic from Papadopulos, A.A., Ιστορικόν Λεξικό ν (Athens1958–61)Google Scholar

Tsakonian from Deffner, M., Λεξικόν (Athens 1923)Google Scholar