ELEMENTARY GREEK
GREK 1001-1
M-F 8:40-9:30
Prescott 120
ELEMENTARY GREEK
The sounds of the Greek alphabet
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Some basic principles about the ancient Greek
alphabet:
• Greeks spelled words the way they
pronounced them
• If they changed the pronunciation of a
word, they changed the spelling to match.
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• Consider the verb “record” (reCORD) and
the noun “record” (RECord), which are
spelled alike but pronounced differently in
English.
• In Greek, such words would be spelled
according to their pronunciations: “rikórd”
and “rékerd”
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Imagine these examples in English:
• If anyone pronounced “going” as “gonna,”
they would spell it “gonna.”
• Homophones like “but” and “butt” would
both be spelled “but,” even though they
have different meanings.
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Therefore, the surest and most straightforward
way to become comfortable reading and
writing Greek is to sound out the words and
match the sounds to the letters on the page.
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This also means that speakers in different
regions spelled their own dialects
differently. Less common dialects thus
require specialized knowledge, but most
Greek literature is written in one of a few
common and very similar dialects.
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• The most important dialect is “Attic,”
spoken in ancient Athens.
– “Classical” Greek usually refers to Attic Greek.
Most classical texts are written in Attic.
• Koine (Greek for “common”) was a generic
form of Attic Greek used in many places,
including the text of the New Testament.
– The Greek we learn in this class teaches you to
read both Attic and Koine Greek.
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• “Homeric” or “Epic” is the older dialect
used for the Iliad, Odyssey and related
poems.
• Similar to Attic is the “Ionic” dialect, used
by the historian Herodotus, the doctor
Hippocrates, and some other authors.
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• There were many less common dialects in
antiquity (and there are many dialects of
Modern Greek).
• Modern Greek, also called “Demotic” (“the
people’s”), differs from ancient Greek
primarily in the shift in the sound of several
letters and a number of new words in the
language.
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• Modern Greek and Classical Greek are the
same language, but with more than two
thousand years of linguistic and historical
change. It is similar to the difference
between modern English and that of
Shakespeare, Chaucer, or the King James
Bible. Much is different but much is the
same.
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VOWELS Greek has roughly the same five
vowels as English:
• α “ah”
• ε “eh”
• ι “ih”
• ο “o”
• υ “u”
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Short
• α “ah”
• ε “eh”
• ι “ih”
• ο “o”
• υ “u”
Long
• η “ay” or ᾱ “aah”
• η “ay”
• ῑ “ee”
• ω “oh”
• ῡ “οοh”
Like English, Greek has short and long versions of its vowels.
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Speakers of ancient Greek, especially Attic,
did not like to say two vowel sounds in a
row.
Consequently, if two vowels come together,
they tended to
– merge them into one (called a “diphthong,”
Greek for “double sound”)
– or contract them.
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• A vowel + ι or υ forms a diphthong.
• α, ε and ο contract with each other (in Attic
Greek, and so also in koine).
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A vowel + ι forms a diphthong:
• α + ι = αι “eye”
– ᾱ + ι = ᾱι “aah” usually written ᾳ
• ε + ι = ει ”ay”
– η + ι = ηι ”ay” usually written ῃ
• ο + ι = οι ”oy”
– ω + ι = ωι ”oh” usually written ῳ
• υ + ι = υι ”wee”
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A vowel + υ forms a diphthong:
• α + υ = αυ “ow!”
• ε + υ = ευ ”eu”
• ο + υ = ου ”oo”
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α, ε and ο + α contract:
•α+α=ᾱ
•ε+α=η
•ο+α=ω
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α, ε and ο + ε contract:
•α+ε=ᾱ
• ε + ε = ει
• ο + ε = ου
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α, ε and ο + ο contract:
•α+ο=ω
• ε + ο = ου
• ο + ο = ου
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CONSONANTS Greek consonants are built
around just three basic sounds:
Labial
Dental
Palatal
π
τ
κ
p
t
k
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CONSONANTS Add a vocal sound and you get a
new set, called “voiced”:
Labial
Dental
Palatal
πp
τt
κ k = unvoiced
βb
δd
γ g = voiced
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CONSONANTS Add the “h” sound and you get a
new set, called “aspirated”:
Labial
Dental
Palatal
πp
τt
κ k = unvoiced
βb
δd
γ g = voiced
φ ph
θ th
χ kh = aspirated
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The Trouble with Sigma Greek is strange
when it comes to pronouncing and writing
words with the “s” sound:
• You never write πσ, βσ or φσ. Instead you write
ψ.
• τ, δ and θ disappear before a σ.
• You never write κσ, γσ or χσ. Instead you write
ξ.
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CONSONANTS
Labial
Dental
πp
τt
βb
δd
φ ph
θ th
ψ ps
σs
Palatal
κ k = unvoiced
γ g = voiced
χ kh = aspirated
ξ ks = + σ
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CONSONANTS
Labial
Dental
πp
τt
βb
δd
φ ph
θ th
ψ ps
σs
μm
νn
Palatal
κ k = unvoiced
γ g = voiced
χ kh = aspirated
ξ ks = + σ
γκ, γγ, γχ, γξ ng
= nasals
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The leftover consonants are:
• ζ (instead of writing σδ)
• the liquids:
–λl
–ρr
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When foreigners started learning Greek in antiquity,
Greek scholars developed additional symbols to
help non-Greeks understand the language.
Modern printed editions, following medieval
manuscripts, use the following:
• breathings
• accents
• punctuation
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BREATHINGS Ancient Greek does not use
a separate letter for the ‘h’ sound. As we
saw earlier, Greek has the aspirated
consonants φ, θ, and χ to indicate this
sound.
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BREATHINGS
If a word begins with aspiration but not
with one of these consonants, however, the
aspirated consonants are no help, so Greek
uses two symbols to indicate aspiration or
lack of it.
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BREATHINGS
• ’  no aspiration: ὀ = “o” (“smooth” breathing)
• ‘  aspiration: ὁ = “ho” (“rough” breathing)
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BREATHINGS Words beginning with ρ or υ
always have a rough breathing:
• ῥο = rho
– ῥυθμος = rhythmos (“rhythm”)
• ὑπερ hyper “above” ( English “hyper”)
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BREATHINGS Sometimes only a breathing
marks the difference between words. For
example:
• αὐτον = “him”
αὐτην = “her”
• αὑτον = “himself” αὑτην = “herself”
Notice that if the word begins with a diphthong,
the breathing appears over the second letter.
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ACCENTS Greek displays three types of
accent marks:
• / “acute”
• \ “grave”
• ˆ “circumflex”
Ancient Greeks knew how to accent words.
They wrote accents to help non-Greeks learn the language.
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ACCENTS Accents appear only over vowels
(second letter over diphthongs). Normally a
word bears only one accent, and only on
one of its last three syllables:
• ultima = last syllable of a word
• penult = next to last syllable of a word
• antepenult = third to last syllable of a word
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ACCENTS
Ancient Greek scholars say the accented vowel had a rising
tone and so marked it with a line rising from left-to-right: /
(acute accent).
• All other vowels had a falling tone, but this was mostly not
marked. When it was marked, a line falling left-to-right
was used: \ (grave accent).
• If an accent on a word was not pronounced for some
reason, the syllable which was normally accented shows a
grave accent (\) instead. For example, a final accented
syllable before another word was typically not accented:
τιμή but τιμὴ δέ.
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ACCENTS
Accenting short vowel sounds
• The vowels ᾰ, ε, ῐ, ο, and ῠ are short.
• When accented, the acute accent appears above
these vowels: ά, έ, ί, ό, and ύ.
• The diphthongs (combinations) –αι and –οι are
considered short for purposes of accent, but only at
the end of a word. The accent appears over the ι:
ναί, ἐμοί
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ACCENTS
Accenting long vowel sounds
• The vowels ᾱ, η, ῑ, ω, and ῡ are long.
• Long vowels are, as their name suggests, long, in fact
double-length, vowel sounds:
ᾱ = αα, η = εε, ῑ = ιι, ω = οο, and ῡ = υυ
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ACCENTS
Accenting long vowel sounds
• If the first part of this sound bears the accent, then the whole
vowel has a rising tone (/) then a falling tone (\), so it is marked
^ (circumflex) over the vowel.
άὰ = ᾶ, έὲ = ῆ, ίὶ = ῖ, όὸ = ῶ, ύὺ = ῦ
• If the second part of the sound bears the accent, then the whole
vowel sound has a falling tone (\) then a rising tone (/). The
falling tone, as usual, is not written.
ὰά = ά, ὲέ = ή, ὶί = ί, ὸό = ώ, ὺύ = ύ
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ACCENTS
Accenting long vowel sounds
• When the second of two consecutive vowels is an ι or υ, the
pair is a diphthong. The same rules for marking an acute (/) or
circumflex (^) apply as for long vowels, and the accent is
always written over the second vowel:
• άὶ = αῖ
έὶ = εῖ
όὶ = οῖ
ύὶ = υῖ
• ὰί = αί
ὲί = εί
ὸί = οί
ὺί = υί
• άὺ = αῦ έὺ = εῦ
όὺ = οῦ
• ὰύ = αύ ὲύ = εύ
ὸύ = ού
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ACCENTS
Accenting long vowel sounds
• In Attic and Koine Greek, the vowels α, ε and ο contract when
they meet. The same rules for marking an acute (/) or
circumflex (^) apply as for long vowels and diphthongs:
• ά+ὲ=ᾶ ά+ὸ=ῶ
ὰ+έ=ά
ὰ+ό=ώ
• έ + ὰ = ῆ έ + ὸ = οῦ
ὲ+ά=ή
ὲ + ό = ού
• ό + ὰ = ῶ ό + ὲ = οῦ
ὸ+ά=ώ
ὸ + έ = ού
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Most words in Greek have “recessive” accent
= the accent wants to “recede” back (“left”) to the
antepenult.
• The length of the vowel in the ultima determines
how far back the accent can recede.
• If the ultima is short, the accent recedes to the
antepenult: κωλύομεν
accent on antepenult
short ultima
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Most words in Greek have “recessive” accent
= the accent wants to “recede” back (“left”) to the
antepenult.
• The accent can appear as part of the circumflex
accent.
• If the ultima is short, the accent recedes to the
antepenult: κόὸλον  κῶλον
accent on antepenult
short ultima
accent
short ultima
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Most words in Greek have “recessive” accent
= the accent wants to “recede” back (“left”) to the
antepenult.
• The length of the vowel in the the ultima
determines how far back the accent can recede.
• If the ultima is long (= two shorts), the accent
recedes only to the penult:
κωλυόμεεν  κωλυόμην
accent on penult long ultima
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Most words in Greek have “recessive” accent
= the accent wants to “recede” back (“left”) to the
antepenult.
• If the ultima is long, the accent can recede only to
the penult.
• In this scenario, the accent can appear only as an
acute: κὸόλου  κώλου
accent long ultima
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The chart of general restrictions on accents
(Shelmerdine p.3):
Some words do not
have recessive
accent.
We will study these
as we proceed
through the class.
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PUNCTUATION Greek uses four marks of
punctuation:
•
•
•
•
full stop . (period)
half stop · (colon; Greek for “limb”; ~ semi-colon)
pause , (comma; Greek for “stamp mark”)
question mark ;
Quotation marks: strictly speaking, a capital
letter marks the beginning of a direct quote,
but often modern texts add quotation marks
for clarity.
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Finally, to return to our first observation, that
Greek spells words the way they sound, a note
about elision:
• If a Greek elided or contracted words when he
spoke, he wrote them in contracted form.
• In formal English, we write only uncontracted
forms (“stop and go” instead of “stop ‘n’ go” etc),
regardless of how we pronounce them. Formal
Greek writing, however, shows the contractions.
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An example of elision:
μετὰ ἐμοῦ = with me
remember, saying two vowels together is bad,
so most of the time, this phrase is elided to:
μετ’ ἐμοῦ = wit’ me
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for tomorrow (Thursday, August 25, 2005):
• Quiz: write out the charts of (1) long and
short vowels (2) consonants
• Prepare Exercises 1-3 in Shelmerdine
Chapter 1 (pp. 4-5)