Greek language - couple of simple questions

[~Anastasia~]

I'm interested in learning Greek for the purpose of hopefully being better able to study the Scriptures.

My questions (so far) are these -

Are the uppercase and lowercase alphabets used with rules similar to English, or is there something else about letter case to know?

And is there a great difference between modern Greek as it is spoken and the Scriptures? What I mean is, if I can meet people who speak Greek, will it be helpful to speak to them if I want to read Biblical Greek? And likewise, if I read Biblical Greek, will I be more able to speak to them? I understand the sounds are different from ancient to modern?

Thanks so much for any help.

 

[~Anastasia~]

OK, I have the alphabet pretty much down, and I know I am looking for classical Greek as far as pronunciation.

I have some good resources noted for when I am able to order some textbooks.

My question right now though - I can read the letters, but I realize that without knowing the proper sounds, I'm still stuck with transliterated words for vocabulary, and I'd rather be learning to read them with the Greek.

Are there any online audible pronunciation helps for classical Greek pronunciation? Just something I can hear so I know what it's supposed to sound like?

Online would be great, as I can't afford to buy things just yet.

Thanks if anyone knows of anything.

 

[pico]

Γεια σου, Κύλισσα! Hello, Kylissa! The pronunciation of ancient Greek changed between classical Athenian times of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE and the end of antiquity, and today, Greek is pronounced differently from the way it was in ancient times. But you can get some online tutorials from Donald Mastronarde, who has written an ancient Greek (Attic, not biblical) textbook:

Ancient Greek Tutorials

 

[~Anastasia~]

Γεια σου, Κύλισσα! Hello, Kylissa! The pronunciation of ancient Greek changed between classical Athenian times of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE and the end of antiquity, and today, Greek is pronounced differently from the way it was in ancient times. But you can get some online tutorials from Donald Mastronarde, who has written an ancient Greek (Attic, not biblical) textbook:

Ancient Greek Tutorials

Hello, Pico!

Thank you SO very much!

I will definitely check that out.

I look forward to continuing my studying.

 

[Annoula]

Koine greek has the same pronunciation with modern greek, so you won't have any problem with that.
I know it's an old thread but....

 

[~Anastasia~]

Koine greek has the same pronunciation with modern greek, so you won't have any problem with that.
I know it's an old thread but....

Thanks, Annoula!

I've been wondering about that. I have been told it's different but ...

Koine (I'm guessing that's what the Liturgy uses?) I get to see written and hear. I'm working on that.

Conversational - I can hear, but have yet to look things up and see how they are written. I think I'd learn faster if I did that. I know sometimes I get the words slightly wrong and it would probably be better if I saw them written.

But I can't hear a difference really between Koine and conversation. It may just be that I don't know which vowel combinations are being used in conversational, since I've never seen it written.

The cool thing is that I can pick out words here and there. I still can't follow a conversation, but sometimes I know what in general is being talked about. At least if it's the right topic, lol.

I really have not been diligent in studying, and I should have been. I still can't read fast enough to accurately get every sound when someone is reading aloud, but I can keep up and know where they are and get most of the sounds.

Little by little, I guess.

I really do want to learn. I'll be happy when I know which verses from the Psalms are being read between the lines of the hymns, since I can't understand that much yet.

And if I ever ever get to the point where I can read the Septuagint, that would be awesome.

 

[Annoula]

Koine Greek is the language used in the Divine Liturgy (in greek churches), so I assure you it's the same pronunciation. But to be honest not many greeks can understand the Liturgy, even myself, a native greek speaker. Koine is a different dialect than modern greek, and one should study in order to understand both.

Keep up the good work girl!!

 

[~Anastasia~]

Koine Greek is the language used in the Divine Liturgy (in greek churches), so I assure you it's the same pronunciation. But to be honest not many greeks can understand the Liturgy, even myself, a native greek speaker. Koine is a different dialect than modern greek, and one should study in order to understand both.

Keep up the good work girl!!

Different dialect - ok, thanks!

All I know is that everyone else seems to have the liturgy memorized, lol. So far I have almost all the songs memorized, and I know "what they say" in English, but I only know some of the actual word translations. I can tell the grammatical structure is somewhat different from English. I know the "instructions" from the priest, such as to pay attention, stand, and with power. And I know what he's praying for though only because I recognize some words, not because I actually understand all of it. But it's coming.

The conversation part is lagging because of course there are so many more words. Again, I mostly pick out words I know, though thanks to the phrases emphasized on the language tapes, I recognize some of the polite terms and basic inquiries.

I was told not to try to learn both at the same time, but resources on the Koine are harder to come by, and I have a lot of opportunity to listen to Greek conversations.

Ohhh - I have been wondering! Is the Septuagint written in a Koine then? I thought it was? Nearly everyone in my Church reads from a Greek Bible. I had thought it was the Septuagint. Maybe it's modern Greek. I'm really not sure!

 

[Annoula]

Different dialect - ok, thanks!

All I know is that everyone else seems to have the liturgy memorized, lol. So far I have almost all the songs memorized, and I know "what they say" in English, but I only know some of the actual word translations. I can tell the grammatical structure is somewhat different from English. I know the "instructions" from the priest, such as to pay attention, stand, and with power. And I know what he's praying for though only because I recognize some words, not because I actually understand all of it. But it's coming.

The conversation part is lagging because of course there are so many more words. Again, I mostly pick out words I know, though thanks to the phrases emphasized on the language tapes, I recognize some of the polite terms and basic inquiries.

I was told not to try to learn both at the same time, but resources on the Koine are harder to come by, and I have a lot of opportunity to listen to Greek conversations.

Ohhh - I have been wondering! Is the Septuagint written in a Koine then? I thought it was? Nearly everyone in my Church reads from a Greek Bible. I had thought it was the Septuagint. Maybe it's modern Greek. I'm really not sure!

Hi Kylissa,
Yes the Septuagint is in Koine Greek. Septuagint - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well, I don't know how your bible is. Mine has the Koine Greek on the left side of the page and the modern greek translation on the right side of the same page.
I suppose our Bibles are different.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Hi Kylissa,
Yes the Septuagint is in Koine Greek. Septuagint - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well, I don't know how your bible is. Mine has the Koine Greek on the left side of the page and the modern greek translation on the right side of the same page.
I suppose our Bibles are different.

I didn't realize that. Even better. I don't have one yet. I'm not good enough at Greek yet ( by a LONG shot) that it would do me any good. Nearly everyone at my Church uses one though. The cover is in Greek. I'll have to ask, but I'm guessing theirs might be like yours.

Someday hopefully I can make use of it. Koine Greek + modern would be perfect, and then I AM glad that I'm working to learn both!

Thanks again!

 

[pico]

Hello again, Kylissa, I'm not ethnically Greek but I've learned a good deal and have a lot of Greek friends. As Annoula said, the pronunciation of Koine as practiced in Greece is the same as the pronunciation of "modern" Greek. You'll find that in universities and seminaries outside of Greece, though, Koine is pronounced the way the individual professor thinks ancient Greek was pronounced. There are three main ways to pronounce ancient Greek:
1. the "Erasmian" pronunciation, going back to Erasmus in the w. European Renaissance;
2. the "restored" pronunciation
3. the way modern Greek is pronounced.

it gets complicated to explain the theory behind the "restored" pronunciation, but maybe the Mastronarde stuff I linked a while back will go into it.

For modern Greek, you may want to poke around these free online lessons from Radio Cyprus:

Learn Greek Online!

 

[~Anastasia~]

Hello again, Kylissa, I'm not ethnically Greek but I've learned a good deal and have a lot of Greek friends. As Annoula said, the pronunciation of Koine as practiced in Greece is the same as the pronunciation of "modern" Greek. You'll find that in universities and seminaries outside of Greece, though, Koine is pronounced the way the individual professor thinks ancient Greek was pronounced. There are three main ways to pronounce ancient Greek:
1. the "Erasmian" pronunciation, going back to Erasmus in the w. European Renaissance;
2. the "restored" pronunciation
3. the way modern Greek is pronounced.

it gets complicated to explain the theory behind the "restored" pronunciation, but maybe the Mastronarde stuff I linked a while back will go into it.

For modern Greek, you may want to poke around these free online lessons from Radio Cyprus:

Learn Greek Online!

Thanks very much!

I've heard not such good things about Erasmus wrt this, so I tend to avoid that. I'll check into this link as well, thank you very much. I've about exhausted the usefulness of what I've found and been using so far.

Thanks again!

 

[yonah_mishael]

Try pronouncing ἡμεῖς and ὑμεῖς in the modern pronunciation, and you will see that it would have been absurd for Koine to use the modern system.

η and υ were different in the Koine period.

υ sounded like οι, and both sounded like the German ü.

Most of the sounds in the Koine were the same as modern (β = v; ευ = ev; αυ = av; γι = yi; etc.), but it is not a one-for-one agreement with the modern pronunciation.

Randall Buth has given a great explanation of how Koine should be pronounced.

(All that said, I learned the Erasmian system in college and still use it. I cannot figure out how a Greek-speaker would have pronounced the -ευξ- [evx] combination in φεύξομαι. That seems unnatural to me, so I still say feh-ook-so-mai. There are many Koine combinations like these that I cannot get past if I were to convert to Buth's pronunciation.)

 

[~Anastasia~]

Try pronouncing ἡμεῖς and ὑμεῖς in the modern pronunciation, and you will see that it would have been absurd for Koine to use the modern system.

η and υ were different in the Koine period.

υ sounded like οι, and both sounded like the German ü.

Most of the sounds in the Koine were the same as modern (β = v; ευ = ev; αυ = av; γι = yi; etc.), but it is not a one-for-one agreement with the modern pronunciation.

Randall Buth has given a great explanation of how Koine should be pronounced.

(All that said, I learned the Erasmian system in college and still use it. I cannot figure out how a Greek-speaker would have pronounced the -ευξ- [evx] combination in φεύξομαι. That seems unnatural to me, so I still say feh-ook-so-mai. There are many Koine combinations like these that I cannot get past if I were to convert to Buth's pronunciation.)

Thank you for the post.

I know I need to pay more attention to pronunciation. I'm basically getting pronunciation from the liturgy (since that's what I need to hear) and working on vocabulary from written materials. Sometimes though it confuses me, because what I "hear" in the liturgy doesn't match what I expect to see written.

It is just absolutely going to be a LONG learning curve! And people are beginning to speak a little Greek to me at coffee hour as well (some don't speak English) and ... sometimes I understand, and sometimes I don't, LOL.

I'll take a look at that link, thank you.

 

[yonah_mishael]

As a result of this thread, I decided to put together a formal presentation of how I pronounce Greek. I've uploaded it to my website here:

Remarks on My Pronunciation of the Greek Alphabet (PDF)

 

[~Anastasia~]

As a result of this thread, I decided to put together a formal presentation of how I pronounce Greek. I've uploaded it to my website here:

Remarks on My Pronunciation of the Greek Alphabet (PDF)

Thank you! That is very easy to follow.

 

[prodromos]

Try pronouncing ἡμεῖς and ὑμεῖς in the modern pronunciation, and you will see that it would have been absurd for Koine to use the modern system.

English has many words which are spelled differently yet pronounced the same and we are still able to communicate the correct meaning verbally just fine. Context tells us which word is actually being used and it is no different with Greek

 

[Constantine_Orthodox]

Try pronouncing ἡμεῖς and ὑμεῖς in the modern pronunciation, and you will see that it would have been absurd for Koine to use the modern system.

English has many words which are spelled differently yet pronounced the same and we are still able to communicate the correct meaning verbally just fine. Context tells us which word is actually being used and it is no different with Greek

Regardless which system is right, for Kylissa, it would be best if she learned the modern pronunciation for the Koine Greek. The same is used in the DL and is the only one which is learned and understood by the Greeks.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Well, I actually have been working mostly on the words and phrases from the liturgy and the hymns, which yes, I know how to pronounce. I've added several pages of vocabulary, but it's true that in some cases I don't know how to reliably pronounce them. The diphthongs especially I am not quite clear on, and it does seem some letters are very nearly silent in some words.

I'm told by very many people that Father has outstanding pronunciation, so I'm ok with what I hear in the liturgy. The rest are essentially sight words for me.

But I needed more words so I could extend vocabulary and get better at reading. It's still an effort for me to read along in Greek, depending on how fast they are speaking. I am still slow, lol.

But yes, I decided to make sure the pronunciation I concentrate on is the same one in the liturgy. I do hear plenty of spoken Greek as well, but I still just pick out words here and there and can't follow a real conversation.

 

[buzuxi02]

A few years ago a greek television station interviewed a number of phanariotoi greeks. They definately spoke in a slight dialect not exactly how you would hear it spoken in Greece. It wasnt an accent but it sounded like it would have been from a different era.