One needs to invest a lot of time to learn Ancient Greek. Here one has written several lessons for ancient and modern languages and one can compare how many lessons are needed for each. Of course it is only for a vague impression as there are different reasons for learning a language and many other factors that affect the number. However there is another site which has also more than double lessons for Ancient Greek as to Latin, that written by Germans as well.
Greeks themselves would love to be able to even speak ancient Greek, but probably don't think they can make it. Even at the time were illiteracy was widespread, people would try to catch phrases from the mass and they would try to understand them and use them.
At the time of the Christianisation of the Roman Empire, clerics tried to impress other people by their knowledge of ancient Greek, after prohibing Hellenes from teaching. During the Byzantine era it was allowed to read a few ancient Greek authors in order to speak well, but it wasn't allowed to think over it, especially over philosophy. Some scholars say that there were no more than about hundred people, who could read and write Attic Greek at the time of the Byzantine Empire.
So a most ineffective type of teaching has been developed, trying to focus only on the linguistics of the texts. After the Greek Independence one had to make a decision about the formal languages and as the Greek dialects were satisfying for the everyday use of common people, but not for a state or the intellectuals, one decided to have a language, which was a compromise between the dialects of Peloponnese and the Attic the scholars were using. So there was always less need to have people to be able to communicate in Ancient Greek.
Then came the millenarianistic political ideologies, where ancient Greek was a language of the past. However as it has prestige and everybody would like to be able to speak and write it, millenarians have the fear that people might be able to achieve this goal. Then they could start reading the texts and understanding them and that would lead to the pragmatic way of thinking of the Hellenes and abandon the messianic of today.
Greeks themselves would love to be able to even speak ancient Greek, but probably don't think they can make it. Even at the time were illiteracy was widespread, people would try to catch phrases from the mass and they would try to understand them and use them.
At the time of the Christianisation of the Roman Empire, clerics tried to impress other people by their knowledge of ancient Greek, after prohibing Hellenes from teaching. During the Byzantine era it was allowed to read a few ancient Greek authors in order to speak well, but it wasn't allowed to think over it, especially over philosophy. Some scholars say that there were no more than about hundred people, who could read and write Attic Greek at the time of the Byzantine Empire.
So a most ineffective type of teaching has been developed, trying to focus only on the linguistics of the texts. After the Greek Independence one had to make a decision about the formal languages and as the Greek dialects were satisfying for the everyday use of common people, but not for a state or the intellectuals, one decided to have a language, which was a compromise between the dialects of Peloponnese and the Attic the scholars were using. So there was always less need to have people to be able to communicate in Ancient Greek.
Then came the millenarianistic political ideologies, where ancient Greek was a language of the past. However as it has prestige and everybody would like to be able to speak and write it, millenarians have the fear that people might be able to achieve this goal. Then they could start reading the texts and understanding them and that would lead to the pragmatic way of thinking of the Hellenes and abandon the messianic of today.
