Coulter H. George - How Dead Languages Work

Languages, especially dead ones, are an endless source of intellectual delight, and my first debt of gratitude is to the many outstanding teachers Ive had the immense good fortune to study with over the years. Collectively, they have advocated for Greek, Latin, and all the rest of the languages I cover in this book in a kaleidoscopic variety of ways. While Harvey Yunis and James Clackson were particularly instrumental in giving me the intellectual tools to work with Greek and Latin, I would here especially like to record my gratitude to my Sanskrit teacher, the late Douglas Mitchell, who never ceased in his own inimitable manner to underline the importance of viewing every linguistic expression as possessed of its own unique value. I have learned much from all of them and, indeed, from the rich secondary literature in the fieldalthough I have preferred in what follows to give pride of place to the languages themselves rather than scholarly debates about controversial points, and so have been sparing with footnotes.

The opportunities provided by my home institution, the University of Virginia, were also crucial in seeing this project through. For several years I taught an introductory seminar for first-year undergraduates here, in which we looked at texts in seven different ancient and medieval languages over the course of the semester: I am grateful to my students for their willingness to serve as guinea pigs for much of the material in this book. The universitys generous Sesqui Leave (201617) freed up the time for actually writing much of the manuscript. And I especially continue to treasure the wonderful community of classicists here. For the many evenings of good cheer theyve provided, particular thanks go to the Wednesday Night Bachelorsincluding those who have moved away from Charlottesville and are much missed. Within their number, Tony Woodman deserves special credit for reading through the entire manuscript and saving me from one appallingly egregious Tacitean blunder, as does Elizabeth Meyer, whose unfailing thoughtfulness in her giving of gifts helped inspire me to write a book for non-specialists in the first place.

I am grateful to Oxford University Press for their work in seeing the book through production: Charlotte Loveridge, Georgie Leighton, Jenny King, Luca Prez, and Michael Janes have all been very helpful along the way. Both Joshua Katz and an anonymous reader for the press read through the whole book and offered invaluable corrections and suggestions. Hilary Bouxsein also improved the book immeasurably with her consistently perspicacious advice on multiple drafts as well as her general good spirits: I only hope that the words that follow are not only but downright . Finally, I would like to thank two other people, who, if indirectly and unknowingly, also played a role in the books genesis. My grandmothers, Miriam Young and Lila Gene George, to whom I owe my appreciation of good food, fine music, and countless else besides, always showed unflagging interest in my linguistic pursuits, no matter how arcane they became. While they are no longer with us, it is in no small part thanks to them that its been so important to me to explain to a wider audience what it is that I find so deeply fascinating about these languages.

Coulter H. George

Charlottesville