More than a lexicon, the Greek vocabulary de Joëlle Bertrand returns to the ambition of philologists of XIXe century and traces the parentage of ancient Greek to our language and our civilization.
It is more than a Greek lexicon or a simple vade-mecum that Joëlle Bertrand, professor in preparatory class at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand offers here to future Hellenists. Finding the ambition of philologists of XIXe century, it undertook to retrace the path which, from the Greek word to the French expression, traces a filiation between the two civilizations ; From horizon to rhythm, from cosmetics (coming from Kovsmoj: the set itself from the preparation of the dead) to secularism (from Laovj the crowd). The exercise not only requires in-depth knowledge of the techniques and nuances of the language but also an encyclopedic knowledge of its uses. J. Bertrand thus unfolds for us the Greek universe in the richness of its nuances, comparing the words of our language which result from it. As before her had shown in learned studies today forgotten, Ernest Renan, Michel Bréal or Salomon Reinach, we realize that the place of Greek in our language is more important than we thought.
However, we find in the fact of going “ From the word to the idea Much more than a simple lesson in linguistics. First of all, the affirmation that an adequate expression offers a more accomplished vision of the world and thus marks from its imprint the place that the man claims to occupy, a profession of faith concerning the benefits of teaching could be said. Above all, there is a second dimension of the Greek language, that which opens the paths of a culture that already defended in their work published in 2004 by Editions du Cerf Pierre Judet de la Combe and Heinz Wismann. The work published by Joëlle Bertrand, by resonating the great voices of Antiquity, allows us to enter into a living relationship with Greek culture. Greek is not only what it was for several centuries, a language of communication. It’s a “ language of culture “In the sense that he would oppose” service languages What are an English or a basic Spaniard.
Thus the sum of work and the knowledge gathered here, by placing the very object of our curiosity at a distance, make us feel, at the same time as its importance, the difficulty and the length of the learning. By fighting the feeling of immediacy that today dominates our relationship to things, and to teaching in the first place, Joëlle Bertrand encourages us to take a critical look at the civilizations passed at the same time as on ourselves. This is the richest of lessons.