Lesson 9.4 · Reading
The limits of Biblang
Where Biblang and the Greek do not line up exactly, and what to do about it.
You can read Biblang and never go on to the Greek alphabet, and get real, lasting use out of it. What that asks in return is that you know where Biblang and the Greek do not line up exactly. None of what follows is a reason to read less — all of it is a reason to keep the Greek line switched on underneath.
1. It is sometimes more definite than the Greek
This is the one that matters most. A Greek form is often ambiguous: the same letters can be two different things, and a printed Greek text simply leaves that standing for the reader to weigh. Biblang cannot. It is built from an analysis that has already chosen, and it spells that choice as plainly as it spells everything else — so a decision somebody made arrives looking like a fact.
| Greek | could be either | Biblang has to pick |
|---|---|---|
| αὐτοῦ | his (masculine) or its (neuter) | autou / auteu |
| λύεται | he looses himself, or he is loosed | luetō / luitō |
| λύετε | ye loose, or loose! | luavō / luavōr |
| ἀγαπᾷ | he loves, or you are loved | agapatō / agapisō |
Most of the time the choice is uncontroversial and the context settles it anyway. Occasionally it is exactly the question an interpreter is asking — and there the Biblang word will not tell you that a question was ever there. If a reading matters to you, look at the Greek line under the verse: the ambiguity is visible there, and nowhere else.
2. It is sometimes less definite than the Greek
- Accents and breathings are not written. Greek
tells τίς "who?" from
τις "someone" by an accent alone, and
Biblang writes both
tinos. (Worth knowing: the earliest manuscripts had no accents either — they are a later help, not part of what was written.) - A few dictionary doublets are spelled alike on
purpose. Where a lexicon lists one word under two
headwords — μέγας and
μείζων, "great" and "greater" — Biblang
treats it as the one word it is, and builds the comparative
regularly:
megos,megoteros.
3. Where Greek is ambiguous, Biblang often keeps it that way
The system does not invent distinctions the Greek does not make.
Greek neuters use one form for the subject and the object
(πνεῦμα is both), and Biblang does the same:
pneumem is doing-it, done-to and spoken-to together.
Where Greek merges, Biblang merges.
4. What is simply not here
- The alphabet. Reading Greek letters is a separate skill, and you will want it if you go on.
- Textual variants. The text follows one edition and carries no apparatus, so where manuscripts differ you are reading the editors' choice without being told a choice was made.
- Sound. Rhyme, alliteration and puns that work in Greek letters may not survive a respelling.
- Full definitions. The gloss in the word panel is one English word for a word with a range. It is a prompt, not a definition — for weight, use a lexicon.
The habit that covers all of it
Read in Biblang; keep the Greek line on; when a word or a reading matters, drop your eye to the Greek and look. That one habit turns every limit on this page into something you can see for yourself.