Hermeneumata

The Hermeneumata (Greek: Ἑρμηνεύματα; also known as the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana) are anonymous instructional manuals written in the Third century to teach the Greek language to Latin-speaking people in the Roman Empire, and to teach Latin to Greek-speakers. The word Hermeneumata means "translation" or "interpretation".

Contents

The Hermeneumata consist of two glossaries, one organized alphabetically and the other thematically. The thematic glossary contains about 30,000 words, including the names of gods, constellations, temples, holidays, clothing, colors, birds, and trees, as well as military, judicial and financial terms. It does not include vocabulary relating to death or illness. Words are sometimes presented alongside two or three different translated equivalents.^[1]

A series of dialogues (known as the "colloquia") follow the dictionary, which use juvenile language to tell the story of a day in the life of a pupil and his master. There are eight sections: Waking up, school, work, social life, lunch, homework, bathing, dinner, and going to bed.^[1]

The pedagogy is based on the immediate comprehension of extremely simple phrases, most often limited to a subject, verb and complement. There are no grammatical explanations: Conjugations are simply enumerated by way of disconnected sentences which present a variation on a grammatical theme (e.g. pronoun substitution, verb tense).

Example:

Πρῶτον ἀσπάζομαι τὸν διδάσκαλον, ὃς ἐμὲ ἀντησπάσατο. χαῖρε διδάσκαλε. χαίρετε συμμαθηταί. μαθηταί. συμμαθηταί, τόπον ἐμοὶ δότε ἐμόν. βάθρον. ὑποπόδιον. δίφρος. σύναγέ σε.

Primum saluto magistrum, qui me resalutavit. ave magister. avete condiscipuli. discipuli. condiscipuli, locum mihi date meum. scamnum. scamellum. sella. densa te.

[First I greet the master, who greets me in turn. Hello, master. Hello, schoolmates. Students. Schoolmates, give me my place. The bench. The little bench. The chair. Gather around.]

History

The Hermeneumata were discovered in an archive of manuscripts from the Middle Ages,^[2] preceded by ^[3] a manuscript attributed to Dositheus Magister. For this reason, they are often known as the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana, although there is not sufficient evidence to attribute them to Dositheus.^[4]

References

1. (Gayraud 2010, p. 37)
2. (Gayraud 2010, p. 36)
3. (Boucherie 1868, p. 271)
4. (Boucherie 1868, pp. 271–272)

Bibliography

• Boucherie (1868). "Étude sur les Hermèneumata du Ms. 306 de la bibliothèque de l'École de Médecine de Montpellier". Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres: 270–277.
• Gayraud, Michel (2010). "L'apprentissage du grec et du latin dans l'empire romain d'après un manuscrit de la Bibliothèque Universitaire de Montpellier" (PDF). Séance publique du 1er février 2010 (Académie des Sciences et Lettres de Montpellier).

External links

• The text of the Hermeneumata via Bibliothéca Augustana