The genesis of grammatical discipline: the influence of writing

Abstract

This paper aims at showing how the writing was more valued than the oral speech during the creation of grammatical discipline, grammatike tékhne, in the hellenic period, and how this hierarchical relationship between these two aspects of language is still present in our modernity so far. While, in the first moment, the greek scholars were focused on the creation of greek thought, they were, in the next one, interested in preserving the literary patterns of the hellenic period. Thus, they dedicated their attention only to literary works by authors Greeks, especially Homer, in order to establish the pattern of the authentic greek language and to prevent it from barbaric corruptions, originated from the contact with several foreign cultures. As a conclusion, it is remarkable that the traditional western grammar has still been an echo of that early hellenic grammar, through the ars grammatica by the latin grammarians.