>Given that some of the examples cited were New Testament texts, which
>according to tradition, were >written by native speakers of Aramaic, one
>would expect some elements of AA to creep into their >usage of Greek. I
>don't know enough about Greek to comment but I would like to hear from
>those >who do.
I didn't bother commenting the first time round, because the debate seemed a
dead duck, but since you ask, and since my PhD is in New Testament Greek,
here goes:
New Testament Greek (and the Greek of the Septuagint, a translation of
the Old Testament 300 years earlier) both show ineradicable and deep
influence from both Aramaic and Hebrew (through the sacred scriptures, if
not through the actual language). This affects word order and sentence
patterns primarily, although there is also influence on use of prepositions,
tenses, and cases. Loan words occur, but mostly only for objects specific
to a Hebraic culture.
New Testament Greek is very similar to the Greek we find in the papyri of
the same period - but crucially for this debate, these papyri lack the
strong flavour of Aramaic that we find in the new Testament.
Now what does this mean?
It means that one form of Greek, in one region and at one period, was
influenced by Semitic. Later Greek does not develop out of NT Greek, but
out of the basic koine, which we find in the papyri, and out of the literary
koine which we find in the Hellenistic writers, who show no sign of Semitic
influence. (Later Greek is also heavily influenced by Attic, a form of
Greek long before the Semitic influence is attested in the New Testament)
Aquilagrande's claims that "Greek" in general was influenced by Semitic is
silly.
His claim that "The influence is seen allready in classical greek" cannot
be proved by examples from New Testament Greek 500 years later.
His claim that "Greek and the IE languages around the Mediterranean Sea are
strongly influences by the afro-asiatic languages in their structure" is
also absurd.
His claim that "The influence upon Latin is seen fully by the development of
the romance languages" is patently illogical.
A few loan words do not make "strong influences in structure".
Peter