Prior to using Attikos, I have never before felt compelled to review any sort of app. I must say that Attikos is a truly stellar app, and I imagine Ancient Greek readers at all levels would find it as amazingly useful as I do.
The thing is, I’ve purchased all the Ancient Greek Ipad apps…LOL, yep, I did. Some are quite useful, but for my purposes they’re mainly useful as a quick reference, or when I’m on the go. I never - ever - thought I’d spend any appreciable time on them. (I’ve always been resolutely non-digital and have a 2,000 book library, half of which is composed of Ancient Greek & Latin Classics: texts, commentaries, lexicons/dictionaries, grammars etc.)
However, the advantages of reading classical authors via Attikos on the Ipad are becoming too obvious for me to ignore; indeed, I am finding (much to my surprise and even chagrin!), that I am spending more and more time reading via Attikos, and less and less time with my hardcopy texts.
Why? Well, for example, while I’m fairly proficient in, say, Homeric/Epic Greek, I often encounter words with which I am unfamiliar, or are being used in different ways. Normally, I have many large and heavy books around me when I’m reading (the LSJ is truly massive), and am often flipping through one of those lexicons to find a word.
In Attikos, on the other hand, I simply click on a word I’m not sure about, and not only do I see basic morphological information about the word, but I am also able to click right through to the entire entries by the LSJ, the Middle Liddle, Autenrieth, etc. These are PRICELESS resources to have at your fingertips; it’s difficult to exaggerate how useful this is. Moreover, these lexicons are otherwise completely unobtrusive; for what is in front of you is a completely uncluttered text, which is lovely.
As a great Classicist has said, except for when one is intensely studying a particular topic, there is very little value in the drudgery of incessantly flipping through lexicons, particularly when your are trying read as fluently as possible. The primary benefit, however, isn’t really that it makes reading easier per se (in a sense, it does do that - and, of course, this does pose some inherent dangers to the unwary student), but rather that the immediate availability of such a depth of lexicographical information allows a reader to read more deeply into the text.
In short, Attikos marries ancient texts to the almost overwhelming wealth of digital resources now at our disposal (thanks in large part to Perseus!), and in so doing makes a very old and precious world that much more accessible and enjoyable.
I love it! Thanks!
Show less
Beakbake
Bernard14
Monsieur Micawber
Spawn of Pazuzu
