 This is the second video in the series and it is about What is ancient Greek? What kind of languages it? What's its history? ancient Greek like Latin and the modern romance languages and English and German and all the other Germanic languages and Polish and Russian and all the other Slavic languages is an Indo-European language they Whether you choose to believe the Indo-European hypothesis or not It makes for a very simple explanation for why these languages are also very very similar Ancient Greek is one branch of the Indo-European family and There were several dialects and it developed over a Good deal of time so that it's not all the same thing when someone says they're learning ancient Greek There's probably one of three things that they're learning One is the Greek of the Iliad in the Odyssey. It's called epic Greek, and it's an older form of Greek It's the oldest Written form of Greek that we have in a substantial literature. There's an older form of Greek But it doesn't have a substantial literature and it's really for specialized scholars the Iliad in the Odyssey are the first group grouping of literature that Ordinary people like you or I might go and learn the second is called Attic Greek and there was a great flowering of literature and architecture and art in the 5th century BC That's when the Parthenon went up. That's when Plato and Aristophanes and all the things that we think of as the great Greek Philosophers and drama like Oedipus Rex and Antigone and all of that stuff. That's part of that Attic Greek To a degree. I'm over simplifying because there's other there were other dialects of ancient Greek But the one that most people think of when you say ancient Greek is this one this middle Attic Greek when There's a big flowering of well of everything And that's the Greek that I taught myself over the summer And then the third one is Quinae Greek and that's the later Greek it's later. It's what the New Testament is written in It's what other authors like Plutarch and Well, there's a lot of Quinae Greek written in this world. So it's a very valuable thing to learn and each of those three kinds of Greek are a little bit different from each other because naturally The language changed over time Which one is the right one to learn? whichever one you're interested in reading and I say reading because I'm assuming that most of us aren't going to learn ancient Greek to speak it even though I'm one of the guilty people in Learning a dead language and then speaking it as if it were just another language. I I know Latin Pretty well, and I'd say I'm a reasonable speaker of Latin I wouldn't say I'm an expert because I know too many people who are better than I am but I'm a reasonable speaker of Latin I get by But for Greek most people and there certainly are people who can't speak Greek I've seen it a Christof Rico Speaks Greek ancient Greek that is commendably But most people don't So you're probably gonna learn it to read it and there are one of three choices the epic Greek of the elite in the Odyssey the attic Greek of Plato and Drama and philosophy and the like and then the Quinae Greek of the New Testament you're gonna learn one of those three and When you learn one it's easy enough to pick up another one after you've really got The first one mastered some people say you've got to learn epic first because the it all develops from there And that's that's a defensible point, but I Think the materials for learning attic Greek are better. So that's what I did for myself A lot of people learn Quinae to read the New Testament. It's easy enough to learn attic and then shift over into Quinae But that said you're gonna make a pick between one of those three and then after the Three kinds of Greek I described Greek went on being spoken and is today spoken in Greece of all places As a modern spoken language and it's a continuous development from the ancient language the ancient languages themselves well languages the ancient language of Greece ancient Greek was spoken over a wider part of the world than just what we consider to be modern Greeks it would have been spoken in What today is Turkey known back then as Asia Minor would have been spoken in such large Greek cities as Ephesus and Others around the coast the Greeks were traders and they were all up and down the Mediterranean Alexandria Egypt was a Greek city. So Greek was spread rather far and wide over the ancient world through the Mediterranean and Not just confined to modern Greece as More or less modern Greek is today. So that's the situation with where ancient Greek was spoken three dialects that most people are going to learn or Have materials for learning the epic Greek of the Iliad and the Odyssey attic Greek philosophy and drama and Quite a Greek of the New Testament It doesn't matter what you pick pick one learn it and have fun