Is this text a fairy tale in Classical Greek? Would it be understood by a Greek living during
those times as easily as one that his elders might tell him? The answer is probably no. Several
problems arise when you try to write something new in a dead language. The biggest problem
is that the language is dead. It has no native speakers anymore and survives only in texts or
recordings. Classical Greek is such a language. Although a descendant survives (Modern Greek),
Classical Greek is a dead language. It is well documented, but we lack the linguistic intuition
and feedback that only a native speaker can give us. Many texts written in it survive on a broad
range of subjects such as history, philosophy etc. However, these texts were copied again and
again during the Hellenistic, Middle Ages and so on, and sometimes they were “corrected” by
the scholars copying them. There is an abundance of inscriptions that we can use to understand
what the original language looked like.
When writing in a foreign language (and Classical Greek is a foreign language for everyone
learning it) one will face without doubt linguistic transfer phenomena. This is a phenomenon,
in which the learner of a language “transfers” from his or her native language a phrase or a
structure in the FL. I tried to be as close to the texts as possible, with phrases and verbs attested
to some of the texts that survive. However, I am sure that there are some transfer phenomena
in the story. However, I will quote Professor Ghi’lad Zuckermann, an expert in Revival Linguistics,
who said that it’s better to have a dead language revived in a form that is not the exact original,
than not having it at all. An example that inspired me was a website with news written in Classical
Greek by Professor Juan Coderch. I hope that this text will inspire learners of Classical Greek to
create their own texts, immersing themselves in the language and creating in it. I do not want
to see the language revived, but I think it will make studying and learning it more fun and more
enjoyable.