Greek Study

Materials

• Fisch study guide, Units 1-3 PDF
• The Aion study guide, Units 1-20 PDF
• SomaLibrary Drills! - quiz yourself with our short drills
• kosmossociety.org videos

Study Notes

Here's the Ancient Greek alphabet (Alpha Beta, right?)

Hard Breath - (vowel | diphthong) starts word use

• ( curve above ἑ - “hey” hard breath
• ) curve above ἐ - “ey” soft breath

Accent vocal pitch + slight stress
Can only appear on 1 of 3 last syllables in a word

• / ramp above ά - up
• \ ramp above ὰ - down
• ~ curve above ᾶ - up down

Long or short vowel

• _ above ᾱ - long
• α - short
• Long : α ah, η ay, ι ee, ω ou
• Short : α uh, ε eh, ι ay, υ oo
• Long : all diphthongs

Can combine

• )/ - ἄ soft and accent
• (/ - ἅ hard breathing and accent
• _/ - ᾱ́ accented and long

Diphthongs (acc/brth mark goes over 2nd char)
αι - eye
ει - ay
οι - oy
υι - wih
αυ - ow
ευ - eh oo
ηυ - ay oo
ου - οο

short ι after vowel (ι is not pronounced!)

• Subscript (for lowercase)
  • ᾳ - α with dot under - ay
  • ῃ - η with long feet
  • ῳ - ω with a dot under
  • Needs a breathing mark ) or (
• Adscript (for uppercase)
  • Αι
  • Ηι
  • Ωι
  • Needs a breathing mark ) or (

γ Gamma combines (first γ becomes 'n' sound)

• γγ - ng - anger - ἄγγελος
• γκ - nk - banker - αγκυρα
• γξ - nx - sphinx - σφίγξ
• γχ - nkh- lunkhead - ὀξύρρυγχος

-----+ Hard, soft, aspirated
labial - π, β, φ
dental - τ, δ, θ
palatal - κ, γ, χ

Double consonants
Ψ - πς, βς, φς (Labial + ς)
ζ - δz (Dental + z)
ξ - κς, γς, χς (Palatal + ς)

Hansen Greek is unaspirated
This is aspirated pronunciation with hard breath (:

• π with hard breath ( - φ (ph)
• τ with hard breath ( - θ (th)
• κ with hard breath ( - χ (ckh)

This is unaspirated

• π (p)
• τ (t)
• κ (k)

fricatives - φ (f), θ (th), χ (ckh)
Notice the labial, dental, palatal?

Punctuation

• Comma and Period ,. Same as English
• Colon and Semicolon · Dot
• Question mark ; English semicolon
• Quotation marks “ rarely used if ever

Capitalization

• Proper name
• First word of paragraph
• Not first word of sentence

Ultima - [n-1] last char
Penultima - [n-2] 2nd to last char
Antepenult - [n-3] 3rd to last char

Rules for accents / \ and ~

• / - acute
  • [n-1] - allowed when there’s a pause .,·
    • Otherwise use \ with no pause - [n-2] - allowed if not long followed by short
    • short short - [n-3] - allowed when [n-1] is short
    • long short - \ - grave
  • [n-1] - allowed
    • Replaces / when no pause - ~ - circumflex
  • [n-1] - allowed over long vowels
  • [n-2] - allowed over long vowels
    • required when accented+(long | dipthong) followed by short
    • forbidden when [n-1] is (long | dipthong) - 3 syllables recessive
  • [n-1] is
    • short? / on [n-3]
    • (long | diphthong)? / on [n-2] - 2 syllables recessive
  • Must be on [n-2], last two are
    • short (any) ? - /
    • (long | diphthong) short - ~
    • (long | diphthong) (long | diphthong) - /

Recessive accent

• when on farthest syllable back allowed by rules
• most verb forms are recessive
• Verb: stop: )/επανσα

Persistent

• when accent stays on the same (vowel | dipthong) between all forms of word
• Persistent on most nouns, βιβλίων and learned with vocab
• May change if rules require it

Nouns

[Dr Hillman discusses noun cases]

Nouns Gender - Masculine, Feminine, Neuter

Nouns Number - singular, plural, dual

Noun Case - puts the noun in one of a possible number of relations to the rest of the words in the sentence.

• nominative
  • subject (i am sick)
  • naming (that is a couch)
• genitive
  • depends (building of glass)
  • motion (away from)
• dative
• accusative
• vocative

(1) NOMINATIVE: subject, predicate nominative, naming things
(2) GENITIVE: of; away from/out of
(3) DATIVE: to for; by with; in/at
(4) ACCUSATIVE: direct object, motion toward, or length of space or time
(5) VOCATIVE: shows that a noun is being addressed directly

Noun structure

• stem - dictionary meaning
• ending - number and case (inflection)

Noun Inflection

• declension (noun is declined)

Verb Inflection

• conjugation (verb is conjugated)

1st declension nouns (feminine)

2nd declension nouns

Definite article (The) - Declension

Vocab

ἡ ζεως - hey Zeus - (the Zeus)
χριω
χριος
ἡ χριστος - the christ

See Also

• Materials are at the top of this page