Chrestomathy

A Chrestomathy (Greek χρηστομαθία to χρηστός - Christos. " Useful" and μανθάνω - mantháno μαθεῖν with the Inf Aor - Mathein: "learn" ) is a compilation of texts or text extracts from literary works for educational purposes.

This didactic aspect, an anthology differs when the word is understood, of an anthology. The term comes from classical antiquity. Texts were marked with reading of teachers with the letter χ (chi ) for Chrestos as useful works for students. The term Chrestomathia occurs in the 5th century AD in two respectively obtained as a fragment works of the Greek philosopher Proclus in appearance: Chrestomathia grammatica and Chrestomathia poetica.

Often used in an anthology -scale text collections for learning languages ​​, the texts are arranged progressively according to their foreign language difficulty. In addition to the foreign languages ​​but are also chrestomathies the areas of economy, education, or philosophy, and also curiosities like an Aztec anthology has been compiled.

Examples of some important chrestomathies

• Silvestre de Sacy: Chrestomathie Arabe. 3 vols, Paris 1806
• Alexandre Vinet: Chrestomathie française ou choix de morceaux Tires of meilleurs écrivains français. Lausanne 1829
• Bernhard Dorn: A chrestomathy of the Pushtu or Afghan language. St. Petersburg 1847
• Caspar Decurtins (ed.): Romansh Chrestomathy. 12 volumes and a supplementary volume, Erlangen from 1896 to 1919 ( in facsimile with registers, in 15 volumes, new ed. Octopus from the publisher or from the Società Retorumantscha, Chur 1982-1986)
• Henri Sensine: Chrestomathie Francaise du XIXème siècle. Lausanne 1901
• Bruno Lewin: Japanese anthology. From the Nara period to the Edo period. 2 vols, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1965.
• Frido Mětšk: Chrestomatija dolnoserbskego pismowstwa [ anthology of Lower Sorbian literature ]. 3 volumes, Volk und Wissen, Berlin in 1956 and 1957; 2nd edition: Domowina, Budyšyn 1982