I try to keep up to date on what books relevant to Ancient Greek linguistics are being published, but I keep falling behind because of unexpected family crises. Still, here some of of the books from the end of 2021 that stood out to me. And there’s more coming in 2022 that is worth paying attention to and I hope to highlight much of it in the next few days.

Particularly notable to me are:

• Jacob N. Cerone & Matthew C. Fisher’s Daily Readings: 365 Readings in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin
• Anna Bonifazi, Annemieke Drummen, Mark de Kreij’s Participles in Ancient Greek Discourse, which is available online at the Center for Hellenic Studies, but it is really nice to see it in print as well.

I am also pleased to see the efforts of the CREWS Project bearing fruit in its research endeavors—and there is more on the way.

If you think I’ve missed anything important from the second half of 2021, please drop a comment here on or social media.

Early Greek Alphabetic Writing: A Linguistic Approach (Amazon US)

By Natalia Elvira Astoreca

Despite the flourishing of epichoric studies on the Archaic Greek scripts in the 1960s, embodied by archaeologists Lilian Hamilton Jeffery and Margherita Guarducci, most scholarship on early alphabetic writing in Greece has focused on questions around the origin of ‘the Greek alphabet’ instead of acknowledging the diversity of alphabetic systems that emerged in Geometric and Archaic times. The present book proposes to bring back the epichoric approach by focusing on the different ways in which the earliest epigraphic evidence represents the spoken Greek dialects. However, instead of continuing the palaeographic methodology of previous studies, this analysis follows the latest trends in grapholinguistics, more specifically the methodology of comparative graphematics.

By examining the grapheme-phoneme relationships across Greek-speaking regions, it is possible to recognize that diversity and to draw connections with neighboring contemporaneous alphabets, such as those for Phrygian, Eteocretan and Etruscan. This work, carried out within the Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) project, aims to contribute towards the conceptualization of the so-called epichoric scripts as independent alphabets, as well as their framing within the ecology of ancient Mediterranean writing systems.

About the Author

Natalia Elvira Astoreca developed her PhD thesis as a member of the CREWS Project. Before coming to the University of Cambridge, she studied at Leiden University and the Autonomous University of Madrid. Her research is focused on the interactions between language and script, especially in the case of early alphabetic writing in the Aegean and Mediterranean seas.

Product details

• Publisher:‎ Oxbow Books (September 17, 2021)
• Language:‎ English
• Hardcover:‎ 160 pages
• ISBN-10:‎ 1789257433
• ISBN-13:‎ 978-1789257434
• Item Weight:‎ 1.25 pounds
• Dimensions:‎ 6.75 x 0.55 x 9.5 inches

Particles in Ancient Greek Discourse: Exploring Particle Use across Genres (Amazon US)

By Anna Bonifazi, Annemieke Drummen, Mark de Kreij

From 2010 to 2014, the Classics Department at the University of Heidelberg set out to trace over two millennia of research on Greek particles within and beyond ancient Greek. Particles in Ancient Greek Discourse builds on this scholarship and analyzes particle use across five genres: epic, lyric, tragedy, comedy, and historiography. This is the print edition of the existing digital edition

About the Authors

Anna Bonifazi is Professor of Discourse Studies in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Cologne.

Annemieke Drummen is an adjunct lecturer in Ancient Greek at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.

Mark de Kreij is Veni Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in Ancient Greek at Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Product details

• Publisher:‎ Center for Hellenic Studies (October 19, 2021)
• Language:‎ English
• Paperback:‎ 976 pages
• ISBN-10:‎ 0674271297
• ISBN-13:‎ 978-0674271296
• Item Weight:‎ 3.21 pounds
• Dimensions:‎ 6 x 2.5 x 8.75 inches

Daily Scriptures: 365 Readings in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin (Amazon US)

By Jacob N. Cerone & Matthew C. Fisher

Pastors, students, and scholars not in the midst of language coursework often find it difficult to maintain their knowledge of biblical languages like Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. For those looking to do so in a meaningful but manageable way, this devotional offers 365 short daily readings, pairing an Old Testament passage in Hebrew and Greek with a corresponding New Testament passage in Greek and Latin. Lexical notes in English are included as a way of facilitating a comfortable reading experience that will build one’s confidence and ability in reading the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, the Greek New Testament, and the Latin Vulgate.

About the Authors

Jacob N. Cerone is a doctoral candidate at the Friedrich-Alexander Universität at Erlangen-Nuremburg, Germany, and coeditor of The Apostolic Fathers Greek Reader.

Matthew C. Fisher is lecturer in biblical studies and theology at St. Petersburg Christian University, Russia.

Product details

• Publisher:‎ Eerdmans (November 2, 2021)
• Language:‎ English
• Hardcover:‎ 406 pages
• ISBN-10:‎ 0802878938
• ISBN-13:‎ 978-0802878939
• Item Weight:‎ 1.3 pounds
• Dimensions:‎ 6 x 1 x 8.75 inches

The Reflexes of Syllabic Liquids in Ancient Greek Linguistic Prehistory of the Greek Dialects and Homeric Kunstsprache (Amazon US)

By Lucien van Beek

Reflexes of syllabic liquids play an important yet controversial role in Greek dialect classification and the analysis of Homeric formulas. This book tackles the entire evidence afresh and elaborates a ground-breaking new scenario of language change in the epic tradition.

About the Author

Lucien van Beek, Ph.D. (2013), Leiden University, is Assistant Professor at Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. He has assisted in Beekes’ Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Brill, 2010) and published extensively on Ancient Greek and Indo-European linguistics, etymology, and lexicography.

Product details

• Publisher:‎ Brill (November 11, 2021)
• Language:‎ English
• Hardcover:‎ 586 pages
• ISBN-10:‎ 9004469737
• ISBN-13:‎ 978-9004469730
• Item Weight:‎ 24.2 pounds
• Dimensions:‎ 6.25 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches

The Adnominal Genitive in the Pauline Corpus (Amazon US)

Usage of the adnominal genitive (one or more genitive substantives in relationship to a head noun) is one of most ambiguous aspects of the Greek language of the New Testament, and thus the source of contentious debate among exegetes. This study finds a way forward in the understanding of the genitive case by examining concatenations of single and multiple genitives, testing methods on the Pauline corpus as a representative sample of adnominal genitive usage in the whole New Testament. The results are offered with a set of rules that are vital in assisting the interpreter in clarifying these often difficult expressions. This book offers fresh insight especially where genitives appear in concatenation, and examines the syntactical configurations of genitive constructions with a view to untangling their semantics.

About the Author

Ghassan Elia Khalaf (1945-2018) was Professor and President at the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary (ABTS) in Beirut for many years. He earned his BA from ABTS and his MA and PhD from Evangelische Theologische Faculteit in Leuven, Belguim. Dr. Khalaf has written the Arabic-Greek New Testament Concordance (1979) and Basics of the Art of Preaching (2010) in addition to writing and editing over a dozen books and articles.

J. William Johnston is Associate Professor of NT Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, Houston. His research interests focus mainly on the application of Greek grammar and syntax to exegesis. His monograph, The Use of Πᾶς in the New Testament, appeared in the Studies in Biblical Greek series.

Product details

• Publisher:‎ Peter Lang (December 13, 2021)
• Language:‎ English
• Hardcover:‎ 244 pages
• ISBN-10:‎ 1433168863
• ISBN-13:‎ 978-1433168864
• Item Weight:‎ 15.8 ounces
• Dimensions:‎ 5.91 x 0.63 x 8.86 inches