The goal of this book is to enable the student to read ancient Greek without the use of a dictionary or translation, and to read as fluently as one could read in French or Spanish. For educational purposes, ancient Greek is treated as a living language in this text. Polis applies teaching methods commonly used for modern language acquisition to ancient Greek: total oral immersion, total physical response (TPR), gradual complexity of dialogs and stories, and gradual grammatical progression. Whether used by a self-taught individual or by an instructor with a group of students, this first level book submerges the student within the language. The audio files that are available to download from the Polis website will help the student internalize grammatical forms and vocabulary. As only Greek is heard by students, they are unable to rely on an intermediary language and are compelled to employ the new skills they have acquired through this text. Polis teaches Koine Greek, the dialect of Hellenistic literature from Alexander the Great till the end of Antiquity and in which most ancient Greek texts were written. The first edition of the Polis method has been published in French (Editions du Cerf, 2009), Italian (Edizioni San Paolo, 2010) and German (Helmut Buske, 2011). The English edition of Polis fully revises the first edition and expands its original twelve chapters to twenty. This first volume comprises the introduction, the foreword and the 20 chapters of the method.

Polis: Speaking Ancient Greek as a Living Language, Level One, Student's Volume

Reference

Rico, Christophe

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Polis Institute Press

The goal of this book is to enable the student to read ancient Greek without the use of a dictionary or translation, and to read as fluently as one could read in French or Spanish. For educational purposes, ancient Greek is treated as a living language in this text. Polis applies teaching methods commonly used for modern language acquisition to ancient Greek: total oral immersion, total physical response (TPR), gradual complexity of dialogs and stories, and gradual grammatical progression. Whether used by a self-taught individual or by an instructor with a group of students, this first level book submerges the student within the language. The audio files that are available to download from the Polis website will help the student internalize grammatical forms and vocabulary. As only Greek is heard by students, they are unable to rely on an intermediary language and are compelled to employ the new skills they have acquired through this text. Polis teaches Koine Greek, the dialect of Hellenistic literature from Alexander the Great till the end of Antiquity and in which most ancient Greek texts were written. The first edition of the Polis method has been published in French (Editions du Cerf, 2009), Italian (Edizioni San Paolo, 2010) and German (Helmut Buske, 2011). The English edition of Polis fully revises the first edition and expands its original twelve chapters to twenty. This volume is intended for self-taught readers. It comprises a handbook of grammar with the grammatical lexicon, declensions and conjugations studied in the first volume, the keys to all the exercises, a list of differences between Attic and Koine dialects, and all text translations.

Polis: Speaking Ancient Greek As A Living Language, Level One, Teacher's Volume.

The goal of this book is to enable the student to read ancient Greek without the use of a dictionary or translation, and to read as fluently as one could read in French or Spanish. For educational purposes, ancient Greek is treated as a living language in this text. Polis applies teaching methods commonly used for modern language acquisition to ancient Greek: total oral immersion, total physical response (TPR), gradual complexity of dialogs and stories, and gradual grammatical progression. Whether used by a self-taught individual or by an instructor with a group of students, this second level book submerges the student within the language. Polis teaches Koine Greek, the dialect of Hellenistic literature from Alexander the Great till the end of Antiquity and in which most ancient Greek texts were written. This second volume (draft) continues and expands the grammatical topics covered in Polis: Speaking Ancient Greek as a Living Language, Level One.

Polis: Speaking Ancient Greek as a Living Language, Level Two (Part Two), Student's Volume (Ancient Greek Edition)

Christophe Rico

This book is an ancient Greek adaptation of the classic fairy tale Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm and was designed to help beginner level students acquire new vocabulary easily without having to rely on a translation or a dictionary. By using a familiar story with illustrations that depict common objects and actions, the reader can infer the meaning of new words and therefore expand their knowledge of ancient Greek as a living language.\nWe are confident that the story of Hansel and Gretel now made available in ancient Greek for the first time will inspire students to broaden their vocabulary while increasing their reading proficiency.\nThis book is the result of the authors' years of experience teaching ancient languages at Polis - The Jerusalem Institute of Languages and Humanities, an academic institution founded in 2011 by an international group of scholars. The goal of the Polis Institute is the renewal of the Humanities -especially literature, philosophy, history, and geography of the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East- through the study of different cultural aspects and in particular the revival of the languages that are at the foundation of Western civilization.

Hansel and Gretel in Ancient Greek

Children's Books

Hill, Stephen

Fairy Tales, Folk Tales & Myths

The goal of Forum is to enable students to speak Latin as a living language. Studies have shown that unless one speaks, reading fluency becomes difficult to attain. Because it teaches students to speak Latin, Forum prepares them to read without the use of dictionary or translation, and to read as fluently as one might read in any modern language.
Forum applies to Latin the teaching methods commonly used for modern language acquisition: total oral immersion, total physical response (TPR), role-playing games, gradual complexity of dialogues and stories, and gradual grammatical progression.
Whether used by students on their own or by an instructor with a group, this first-level book submerges the student within the language. The audio files that are available for free download on the Polis Institute website will help the student to internalize grammatical forms and vocabulary. As only the Latin language is heard by the students using these files, they are unable to rely on an intermediary language and are thus compelled to employ the new skills they have acquired through this text.
Forum teaches Classical Latin in the broadest sense. The classical period includes the golden age of Latin literature (1st c. BC – 1st c. AD) as well as the Imperial Latin from the Nerva-Antonine dynasty (96-192 AD) and the Severan dynasty (193-235 AD). This period has the advantage of being an intermediate between pre-Classical Latin and Late Latin (3rd c.-6th c. AD). Even authors from the 4th or 5th centuries AD such as St. Augustine of Hippo or St. Jerome, albeit writing in a slightly different language than the classical one, took the golden age of Latin literature as a reference. Studying Classical Latin (in the broad sense) allows us to easily read the most interesting Latin texts of Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Forum: Lectiones Latinitatis Vivae: Speaking Latin As A Living Language (Latin Edition)

Morassut, Stéphane

Daniel, Blanchard

How can one's first steps in Coptic become easier? How could one learn that language without hurdles? Is it possible to find enjoyment in learning an ancient language? This book attempts to address these questions. It is the result of many long years of research, reflection, workshops, classes, and dialogues with students, language teachers, illustrators, and designers. 
ⲞⲨⲀⲒ, ⲤⲚⲀⲨ, ϢⲞⲘⲦ draws on a new technique for language acquisition developed at the Polis Institute of Jerusalem, the Living Sequential Expression (LSE), which was inspired by two ideas of François Gouin: The influence of sequentiality into the learning process, and the need to express basic human experience through the language we learn. 
This is why most of the pages of ⲞⲨⲀⲒ, ⲤⲚⲀⲨ, ϢⲞⲘⲦ show sequences of actions to be heard and seen, to then be enacted and retold by the learner. These sequences respect the inner structure and dynamics of the target language. By doing so, the process of internalizing a language will thus be all the more swift and efficient as language features are acquired according to an overall natural sequence, given that specific pragmatic features naturally precede others. This is what the pragmatic progression of ⲞⲨⲀⲒ, ⲤⲚⲀⲨ, ϢⲞⲘⲦ intends to reflect.

ⲞⲨⲀⲒ, ⲤⲚⲀⲨ, ϢⲞⲘⲦ: ⲞⲨϪⲰⲘ ⲚⲤⲀϪⲒ ⲚⲘⲈⲦⲢⲘⲚⲬⲎⲘⲒ: One, Two, Three: Practice Book in Spoken Coptic

Ⲣⲓⲕⲱ, Xⲣⲓⲥⲧⲟⲫⲟⲣⲟⲥ

Created and developed by the Ptolemaic kings, the Library of Alexandria was regarded as the world’s main center of scholarship from the 3rd century BC until at least the reign of Cleopatra (48–30 BC). The dream to establish a gigantic library that could assemble all known texts of the Hellenistic period, the outstanding achievements of the scholars who worked inside its walls, and, finally, the mysteries surrounding its disappearance, have bestowed an almost mythic status on this monumental library.
Where was the Royal Library exactly located? What kind of texts were kept in that library? To what extent did the Library of Alexandria become a meeting point for different languages and cultures? Should we distinguish between the Museum and the Library from an institutional point of view? Were the book collections housed in separate buildings? What caused the destruction of those collections and how much was lost? Why do some ancient authors remain silent about the Library’s disappearance?
 Polis—The Jerusalem Institute of Languages and Humanities held an international conference to seek answers to these question. The 2015 conference on the Library of Alexandria gathered historians, archaeologists, and linguists, as well as specialists on the Septuagint and on Greek literature. This book presents the proceedings of the interdisciplinary conference.

The Library of Alexandria: A Cultural Crossroads of the Ancient World (Polis Institute Conference Proceedings)

History

Ancient Civilizations

How can one's first steps in Latin become easier? How could one learn that language without hurdles? Is it possible to find enjoyment in learning an ancient language? This book attempts to address these questions. It is the result of many long years of research, reflection, workshops, classes, and dialogues with students, language teachers, illustrators, and designers. 
Unus, Duo, Tres draws on a new technique for language acquisition developed at the Polis Institute of Jerusalem, the Living Sequential Expression (LSE), which was inspired by two ideas of François Gouin: The influence of sequentiality into the learning process, and the need to express basic human experience through the language we learn. 
This is why most of the pages of Unus, Duo, Tres show sequences of actions to be heard and seen, to then be enacted and retold by the learner. These sequences respect the inner structure and dynamics of the target language. By doing so, the process of internalizing a language becomes swifter and more efficient as language features are acquired according to an overall natural sequence, given that specific pragmatic features naturally precede others. This is what the pragmatic progression of Unus, Duo, Tres intends to reflect.

Unus, Duo, Tres: Latine loquamur per scaenas et imagines / One, Two, Three: Visual and Sequential Spoken Latin. (Latin Edition)

Three ancient languages have molded the history of Western Europe: Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. The two first are the original languages of the sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity, the religions that have most deeply influenced Western Europe through time and space. Greek and Latin have been grounded institutionally in many Western Europe educational systems for a large part of the last 2200 years. All three languages have played important roles in developing every field of study from literature and history to science and philosophy. 
To what extent has each of these three languages been taught in a living way since Antiquity? Are those who use Biblical Hebrew, ancient Greek, or Latin immersion in their classes innovating or rather resuming a tradition? What kind of techniques were applied in the past for teaching each of these languages? What methods should be applied today in this instruction? What can the history of ancient language pedagogy teach us about how we learn? What could be the consequences of this (re)new(ed) way of teaching among students of our day? 
Prefaced by Rémi Brague, this book contains 18 scholarly articles (16 in English, 2 in Latin) which are accompanied by transcriptions of the lively discussions that followed most of them.

Transmitting a Heritage: The Teaching of Ancient Languages from Antiquity to the 21st Century

Europe

ⲞⲨⲀⲒ, ⲤⲚⲀⲨ, ϢⲞⲘⲦ: ⲘⲈⲦⲢⲈⲘⲚⲬⲎⲘⲒ ϨⲰⲤ ⲞⲨⲀⲤⲠⲒ ⲈⲤⲞⲚϦ: One, Two, Three: Speaking Coptic as a Living Language

Speransky, Nina

Harel, Haleli

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