"Showcasing the significance of ancient Greek during the Erasmus exchange"

 

 "Showcasing the significance of ancient Greek during the Erasmus exchange"

 

By Anna Kontopoulou

March 2025

On the 24-28 of March 2025, our school had the exciting opportunity to host four teachers from the Spanish school IES Padre Moret Irubide, which is located in Pamplona. During their stay, they were able to attend classes of most subjects in our school. One of the lessons they attended was Ancient Greek, in which, after listening to information about what students in the first year of High-school learn and about the historian
Xenofon, a very valid question appeared in their mind.

"Why are Greeks learning ancient Greek in school since the spoken language in Greece is modern Greek?" It is completely understandable and somewhat expected for this question to be formed, as the dominance of modern Greek nowadays has downgraded the importance of ancient Greek. So, as soon as that question was apposed, we started explaining the numerous reasons why its important to learn ancient Greek.

First and foremost, we mentioned that ancient Greek is not only the foundation of the Greek civilisation but also the foundation of most of the cultures globally. In other words, ancient Greek is our cultural and historical heritage, so it would be considered ungratefulness to just throw it away. It is our ancestors’ language, so it automatically is our language as well. It also is the language of classical texts from
philosophers like Plato and Aristotle and historians like Herodotus and Xenophon. So, it is only normal we believe it to be a connective bond to this rich intellectual and cultural heritage.

Apart from that, we announced to those teachers that ancient Greek has many benefits in developing language skills. It genuinely helps to ameliorate linguistic abilities as it is a language consisted of complex grammar structures and vocabulary. And we also made sure to say that the study of ancient Greek provides a person a solid beginning for learning other languages such as Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, and German. And obviously modern Greek, because it is actually an evolution of ancient Greek with some noticeable changes in its grammar and vocabulary. So, by studying the ancient version of our language, we gain insight into our language's evolution.

Lastly, we expressed another benefit of ancient Greek, which was evidently stated as the most important of all. Ancient Greek represents our country's National Identity and when learning it, a connection is fostered to our nation's roots. We all claimed that it reminds us of who we are and where we came from and that it lets us feel proud and recognize our true selves as well. And that what matters! Not forgetting about our roots, our past and our heritage because that is what makes us who we are.

Soon though, another question was immediately formed. "Is it difficult for Greek students to learn ancient Greek? How much time does an average student spend on this subject and what do students find the most
challenging part of this learning path? ". In those questions a direct answer couldn't be given because each student had a completely different opinion formed regarding this topic. Some believed that ancient Greek is
the most useless lesson and it is extremely hard to learn it, while others claimed that it is a lovely lesson and it is very easy and costs no time to learn it, and others supported it is a normal lesson in terms of difficulty but it is a bit meaningless since they don't use it in their everyday life.

The opinions differ a lot from each other, but we were able to give the teachers an approximate reply. We declared to say that even if the ancient Greek language is not really utilized in the students' everyday lives, it has some difficulties when learning it and some parts where learning it seems like a piece of cake. A few examples were given for both parts of learning this language. For instance, most students agreed that the tough part was grammar and syntax, while the easiest was translating texts and figuring out how words are connected by their roots (eg.ναῦς-> ναύτης).

When it was unfortunately time for that lesson to end, after all questions were answered and multiple students had presented a small fact about the ancient Greek language and about how the lesson unfolds, we
all had something last in our mind to say. We all wanted to remind everyone that "Ancient Greek is the bridge that connects past with present and it also is the voice of our souls in the future!"