Learn the writing system
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| Maria: All About Greek lesson 2. Learning the Greek Writing System |
| Maria: Hey, everyone, welcome back. Today Iro and I are going to expound on something very close to Greek hearts. |
| Iro: Yes! The fantastic alphabet! |
| Maria: Greek has one of the oldest writing systems in the world today. The form we know today has been used continuously since the Greek Dark Ages. |
| Iro: Yes, there are examples of written Greek dating from 1200 B.C.! And that's only the current alphabet. |
| Maria: Yes, the Greek alphabet is in fact much older, isn't it! |
| Iro: Yes, most specialists believe that the Phoenician alphabet was adopted for Greek during the early eighth century B.C. The earliest known fragmentary Greek inscriptions date from this time, 770–750 B.C., and they match Phoenician letter forms from around 800–750 B.C. |
| Maria: The oldest substantial texts known today are the Dipylon inscription and the text on the so-called Cup of Nestor, both dated to the late eighth century BC. |
| Iro: It's really amazing how they've been preserved. |
| Maria: Yes, and the development and spread of the language to other countries is also amazing! |
| Iro: Indeed! In the Classical period of Greek history, the script was used in two varieties, Western Greek and Eastern Greek. They were different in the way of writing a few symbols. The Eastern alphabet developed into classical Greek and Byzantine. Later, the Cyrillic, Gothic, and Coptic alphabets were worked out on the basis of the Greek alphabet, and so were the Armenian and the Georgian scripts. |
| Maria: Wow! I had no idea! |
| Iro: Yes, the Roman alphabet used for Western European languages, the Cyrillic alphabet used for Eastern European languages, and even the Scandinavian Runic alphabet are all directly descended from the Greek alphabet, so it certainly was the parent of all modern European alphabets. |
| Maria: Wow, that's a lot of history! |
| Iro: True. And there is more! |
| Maria: Maybe you should skip the history bit and get into, you know, how the Greek alphabet developed instead… |
| Iro: Hmm…maybe you're right. We Greeks do like to talk a lot about our history |
| Maria: I'm fully aware of that… |
| Iro: I’m now going to say the Greek Alphabet: |
| Α α Álfa |
| Β β Víta |
| Γ γ Gámma |
| Δ δ Délta |
| Ε ε Épsilon |
| Ζ ζ Zíta |
| Η η Ítta |
| Θ θ Thíta |
| Ι ι Gióta |
| Κ κ Káppa |
| Λ λ Lámda |
| Μ μ Mi |
| Ν ν Ni |
| Ξ ξ Xi |
| Ο ο Ómikron |
| Π π Pi |
| Ρ ρ Ro |
| Σ σ ς Sígma |
| Τ τ Tay |
| Υ υ Ýpsilon |
| Φ φ Fi |
| Χ χ Chi |
| Ψ ψ Psi |
| Ω ω Oméga |
| Maria: Ahem…okay, so what else is so amazing about the Greek alphabet? |
| Iro: Well, one of the most important developments, which has formed many alphabets we know today, is the vowel system! |
| Maria: The vowel system, eh. I wonder how modern languages would sound without them… "My nm s Mra"…I'm not even going to try. |
| Iro: Good work, Maria...what I'm trying to say is that because the language was very difficult to pronounce and read, the Greeks introduced vowels! |
| Maria: Yes, and thanks to that, I can actually say "My name is Maria" without biting my tongue! |
| Iro: The Greek alphabet divided the letters into two categories, consonants and vowels, where the consonant letters always had to be accompanied by vowels to create a pronounceable unit. |
| Maria: Yeah, and there were some sounds that couldn't be produced with a consonant plus a vowel, so they introduced the two-letter consonants, right? |
| Iro: They sure did! Sounds such as [d] or [b] needed a separate compilation of two consonants. |
| Maria: It all sounds so complicated. My brain is hurting... |
| Iro: You're not the only one! But this is what's so great about the Greek language; it's very profound but very logical once you know it! |
| Maria: Yeah, at the end of the day, the Greek alphabet does only consist of twenty-four letters, right? |
| Iro: That's right, and if you know those twenty-four, you can produce any Greek sound! |
| Maria: Still seems like a lot though. |
| Iro: Yeah…but hey, think how great it will be when you can read philosophy and know the meaning without having to look it up. |
| Maria: I guess it will save me a lot of time, huh? |
| Iro: Or the biggest motivator of all for learning the Greek alphabet - being able to order food. |
| Maria: Yes, but then there is always the look-at-other-people's-dishes-and-point method. |
| Iro: Okay, I can see we have to make it more enticing for everyone. |
| Maria: Yes, tell us some hints to make it easy! Lie to us if you have to! |
| Iro: Well, like most menus out there, Greek menus are also divided into sections…appetizers, meat dishes, fish dishes, desserts, and so forth. |
| Maria: So learning the basic words for these will make your order a lot easier! |
| Iro: Sure! And being a tourist ordering in Greek, there is a big chance you'll get something on the house! |
| Maria: That's great. Suddenly the alphabet isn’t sounding too bad. |
| Iro: The alphabet must be good; after all, both the Romans and the Vikings used it at one point. |
| Maria: Before we finish, I think there is one thing we quickly need to mention about writing question marks in Greek. |
| Iro: Yes, in English you have a question mark, "?," to indicate that it is a question. However, in Greek we use what you would call a semicolon. |
| Maria: I was very confused at first when there were semicolons everywhere! |
| Iro: Well, no more confusion. They are the Greek question mark. |
| Maria: And on that note, let's wrap up this lesson about the Greek alphabet. There was a lot of information, but it should provide you with a basic understanding of the language. |
| Iro: Yes, and remember, the Greek alphabet is not as hard as you might think. |
| Maria: And a lot of people really enjoy learning it. Learn the Greek alphabet with us here at GreekCPod101.com. |
| Iro: Thank you for listening! |
| Maria: Bye! |
| Iro: Geia sas! |
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