How did Greek and Latin come to be the way they are, and what practical use is it to know a few things about this? This course will answer these and other questions by introducing you to the comparative linguistic study of these two languages. You will learn how to relate words and grammatical forms to one another historically and figure out how to reconstruct their common source(s); we will cover the basic tools of historical linguistic analysis, the prehistoric Indo-European background of Greek and Latin, and their relationships to other members of the Indo-European family like English; you will learn the important developments in phonology and morphology in the prehistories of Greek and Latin; and, if time permits, we will discuss the application of historical linguistic findings to matters of culture, such as the Indo-European background of Greek and Roman mythology, religion, kinship, and poetics.

Course Requirements:

Regular short homeworks to practice linguistic-analytic skills and develop familiarity with sound and morphological changes as well as specialized secondary literature; midterm; final exam or paper.

Intended Audience:

Intermediate knowledge of Greek and Latin assumed.

Class Format:

3 mtgs./wk., lecture