Introduction
Often Ancient Greek can seem intimidating to learn because of the confusing and alien letters that jump out at you when you first look at it. However, when taking slowly and especially with background knowledge of Latin, Ancient Greek can be broken apart and simplified. Arguably, the two most important things to learn are the alphabet and the definite article. When considering a degree in classics, Greek is essential because there are so many words that cannot be translated, which have such a beautiful meaning that if you don't know the language, you would lose. It is part of the classical world and one could argue vital in a full appreciation of classics as a subject, not only as a fun and challenging language but as a gateway to the most influential pieces of literature in the world, the Iliad and the Odyssey.
The alphabet
Greek has 24 letters, and they each have an upper case and lower case. There is the letter, the name of the letter and its pronunciation. For example, Αα is the letter alpha and it is pronounced 'a' as in 'apple'. Here is the full Greek alphabet:
The Definite Article
The definite article is simply the grammatical term for 'the' but in Greek, it is used slightly differently. Firstly there are three genders (like the ones in Latin; masculine, feminine and neuter) and singular and plural, and all cases. HOWEVER, Greek does NOT have the ablative case, and usually, the dative is used where the ablative would be in Latin. The definite article is in front of all nouns, including proper nouns and abstract nouns but simply not translated into English where it doesn't make sense.
Singular Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative ὁ ή τό
Accusative τόν τήν τό
Genitive τοῦ τῆς τοῦ
Dative τῷ τῇ τῷ
Vocative ὦ ὦ ὦ
Plural Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative οἱ αἱ τά
Accusative τούς τᾱς τά
Genitive τῶν τῶν τῶν
Dative τοῖς ταῖς τοῖς
Vocative ὦ ὦ ὦ
Conclusion
It is difficult to stress how important these are to learn; without the alphabet you have no hope of continuing with Greek, and the definite article makes your life so much easier because it tells you the role of the word in the sentence, but also most of the noun declensions and adjective declensions are very similar and so it makes them a lot easier to learn.
Until next time,
Zoe and Viola
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