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Start giftingHow Dead Languages Work
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Learn moreThis volume celebrates six such languages—Ancient Greek, Latin, Old English, Sanskrit, Old Irish, and Biblical Hebrew—by first introducing listeners to their most distinctive features, then showing how these linguistic traits play out in short excerpts from actual ancient texts. It explores, for instance, how Homer's Greek shows signs of oral composition, how Horace achieves striking poetic effects through interlaced word order in his Latin, and how the poet of Beowulf attains remarkable intensity of expression through the resources of Old English. But these are languages that have shared connections as well. Listeners will see how the Sanskrit of the Rig Veda uses words that come from roots found also in English, how turns of phrase characteristic of the Hebrew Bible found their way into English, and that even as unusual a language as Old Irish still builds on common Indo-European linguistic patterns.
Very few people have the opportunity to learn these languages, and they can often seem mysterious and inaccessible: drawing on a lucid and engaging writing style and with the aid of clear English translations throughout, this book aims to give all listeners, whether scholars, students, or interested novices, an aesthetic appreciation of just how rich and varied they are.
Coulter H. George is a professor of classics at the University of Virginia. The author of Expressions of Agency in Ancient Greek and Expressions of Time in Ancient Greek, he has also taught at Rice University and was a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge.
James Cameron Stewart trained at Hull University and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Some theater highlights of his thirty-six-year career include Frank-n-Furter (The Rocky Horror Show), Thenadier (Les Miserables), the poet Philip Larkin in Larkin with Women (Best Actor nominee, MEN Awards 2005), and originating the part of Hamish in Sir Alan Ayckbourn's Things We Do for Love. In 2008 he published his grandfather's World War I memoirs and toured his one-man show based on them from 2008 to 2011. His television/film credits include Outlander, Jericho, Flying Blind, Golden Years, Emmerdale, London's Burning, Eastenders, Coronation Street, Holby City, and Taggart. He often appears on Radio 4, and is a regular presenter on the weekly The Economist podcast. James loves recording audiobooks and is delighted to have had the opportunity to narrate such a variety of magnificent authors, from Seneca through Max Hastings and Antony Beevor, to superlative fiction by J. M. Coetzee, Michael Dibdin, Stuart MacBride, and more. James's upbringing alternated between the Home Counties and the Isle of Skye. In addition to being an actor, he is a nutritional therapist, a keen sailor, and is at his happiest when flying his hot-air balloon.
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