Attic Greek vs. Biblical Hebrew

[SirPepper]

I am required to take introductory Greek, Latin, or Hebrew for my major in history (ancient track). Latin conflicts with a required class for my biology major, so that's out. Can anyone compare Greek and Hebrew? I am particularly interested in difficulty and the level of proficiency possible by the end of the year, since I may only take one or two years of either.

Greek seems very interesting to me, but so does Akkadian, which I need Hebrew in order to take.

Apologies if this isn't the right forum, but I figured most people in religion would've taken both languages.

Edited July 5, 2011 by SirPepper

[Mathētēs]

Relative difficulty seems to be based on which was learned later or which is used less often. I don't think that either language is intrinsically more difficult than the other, although they are different. The primary challenges with both Greek and Hebrew concern the verbal systems. In Greek you must learn many paradigms, in Hebrew there are less paradigms to memorize but probably more irregularities. At the end of one year of study, you would know the basic grammar of either language. The second year would be necessary for more advanced syntax, exegesis, and additional vocabulary. I don't think you would necessarily be farther along with either language after a year of study. It would probably be best to base your decision on what texts and topics interest you the most. Greek may also help you in the sciences since many scientific words come from Greek, as is also true of Latin.

Edited July 5, 2011 by Mathētēs

[sacklunch]

I have about 4 years of Greek and only a year of Hebrew (biblical). I found Hebrew to be much easier than Greek. Of course, this could be because of my training in Greek helped me understand concepts that may overlap?

Ask your adviser which language would be more beneficial to your future goals. I do feel that Greek takes longer, perhaps because of the much larger extant literature (thus large variety), or perhaps because I started with it.

good luck

[SirPepper]

Thanks so much!

[triforme]

When I was an undergrad, there was a fairly substantial group of us in both Greek and Hebrew. When we talked about this question, we discovered that those of us who had preferred algebra in high school had had better luck with Greek, while those who preferred geometry had taken to Hebrew faster.

Now, granted, n= about 15 here, but it makes sense to me -- in Hebrew letters are dropping in and out, and the whole structure's built around 3-letter roots that morph and change in (fairly) predictable ways, while Greek is more rigidly mathematical in how words shift through the paradigm.