<font face="Arial" color="#0099ff">Introductory Lesson to Ancient Greek</font>

Introductory Lesson to Ancient Greek

Author: * Tanaquil Sergius - 3 Posts on this thread out of 1,426 Posts sitewide.
Date: Jun 6, 2005 - 09:30

LESSON I INTRODUCTORY LESSON: INTRODUCTION EXERCISES TO INTRODUCTORY LESSON

1.The Greek Alphabet

The Greek alphabet has 24 letters. Different letters are used for capitals and small letters.

name of letter capital letter small letter pronunciation

alpha A a a

beta B b b

gamma G g g (like in English "good")

delta D d d

epsilon E e e (short)

dzeta Z z dz (originally probably: zd)

eta H h e (like in French "bete")

theta Q q th (like in English "Tom")

iota I i i

kappa K k k

labda L l l

mu M m m

nu N n n

ksi X x ks (or: x)

omikron O o o (short)

pi P p p

rho P r r

sigma S s,V s

tau T t t

upsilon U u u

phi F f ph (like in English "power")

chi C c ch, kh (like in English "chorus")

psi Y y ps

omega W w o (like in English "morning")

Before g,k ,x, the g is pronounced as "ng" like in "anger".

q, f, c are usually pronounced as "t, f and ch (a sharp g-sound).

V is usually written at the end of a word (like this:basiV).

For more elaborate information about the pronunciation of Greek letters, see this entry by Philotas Alexandros

2. Vowels and Diphthongs

The Ancient Greek language has short and long vowels:

e and o are short;

a, i, u are short or long (this depends on their position in a word: they short when followed by one consonant or long when followed by two consonants or when they are part of a diphthong).

h, w are long.

Ancient Greek has the following diphthongs:

a. with short vowel:

diphthong pronunciation

ai ay

ei ey

oi oy

au ow (like in "now")

eu euw (a bit like in "few")

ou ouw ( a bit like in "low")

b. with long vowel:

a with iota written underneath (iota subscriptum)=aay

h with iota written underneath (iota subscriptum)=ehy

hu ehw

w with iota written underneath (iota subscriptum)=ooy (like "toy", but then with long erected "o").

When a vowel is long, the iota which accompanies it sometimes is written underneath ("iota subscriptum").

3. Spiritus

A vowel or diphthong at the beginning of a word bears the sign of a "high comma" bent inward or outward. The inward bent high comma is called "spiritus asper" and this comma has a pronounciation, namely the "h" sound. The outward bent comma is called "spiritus lenis" and this comma has no pronunciation.

The spiritus is normally placed in writing like this: when the beginning word in a sentence starts with a capital vowel, the spiritus is placed in front of the capital vowel, unless this capital vowel is part of a diphthong. In that case, the spiritus is placed over the second vowel in the diphthong. If a word begins with a small vowel, the spiritus is placed over the vowel. If a word begins with a small lettered diphthong, the spiritus is written over the second vowel of the dipthong. The letter r is usually written with a spiritus asper (i.e. and inward bent comma) over it.

examples of the use of the spiritus lenis and the spiritus asper

4. Reading signs

The reading signs in the writing of Ancient Greek (i.e. in the common printed texts of Greek) are the same as our modern reading signs, except for two:

In Ancient (and modern!) Greek, a question mark is written and printed like this: ; (in fact, our question mark has developed out of this sign), and the "double dot" (i.e. :) is written and printed as a high noted dot.

The 'high noted dot' (written and used in texts without the brackets).

5. Accents

On almost all ancient Greek words you will find accents. Originally, these accents, though never written in ancient age texts, but usually written in late antiquity and medieval copies, denounced melodial differences in pronunciation. This means that Ancient Greek knew differences in melodial pronunciation of words, next to word stress. Because the way to pronounce these melodial differences is not completely clear and in fact is lost nowadays, accents are mostly seen nowadays as word stresses. In modern Greek texts of until the 1980's, these accents are also used as means of word stress.

In Ancient Greek, there are three accents:

1. the ACUTUS, which denounced a climbing melodial tone, looking like the accent aigu in French.

2. the GRAVIS, which denounced an absent tone, looking like the accent grave in French.

3. the CIRCUMFLEXUS, which denounced a climbing and falling tone, looking like this: ~

Accents are always placed over vowels. An accent ACUTUS can be placed on the last syllable of a word, or the syllable before the last or two syllables before the last. It can only be placed on the syllable right before the last of the closing vowel is a short one. An accent CIRCUMFLEXUS is placed on the last syllable of a word or on the syllable before the last. It can only be placed on the syllable before the last one if the closing vowel is a short one. An accent ACUTUS on the last syllable becomes an accent GRAVIS if it is immediately followed by an accented word or a reading sign (except for a low or high dot).

From top to bottom: acutus, circumflexus and gravis.

Accents can also help sometimes to determine the correct meaning of two words which look exactly the same without the accents. This will be explained more elaborately later.

The Greek word 'tis' written in various ways: top-with accent, meaning: 'who?', bottom-without accent, meaning: 'someone'.

N.B.: Mostly, there is no need to write accents or to learn which accent is being used where. Only in cases where the same word could mean a different thing when an accent is used, the accent will be necessary to write or to be noticed in reading and translating. This, of course, will be noted within the course and the reading, writing and transaltion exercises.

Greek examples have been taken from this source:

Mekking, T. & Oranje, H., Een Nieuwe Basis, Cursus Grieks voor Beginners, Amsterdam, 2001.