Μαθαίνοντας Ελληνικά - Μια Αναρρίχηση

in progress

Greek (Modern Greek: Ελληνικά, [eliniˈka]; Ancient Greek: Ἑλληνική) is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records.

Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems.¹

The title, Μαθαίνοντας Ελληνικά - Μια Αναρρίχηση, means Learning Greek - A Climb. Of course, "Greek" here refers specifically to modern Greek.

The end of the Medieval Greek period and the beginning of Modern Greek is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary.²

The continued updating of this page is a long-term project, one that may span several years on my learning journey.

Some relevant and useful resources I access, in Chinese or English, are as follows:

• 初级现代希腊语 (Elementary Modern Greek)³
• 零起点希腊语语法轻松学 (Easy Greek Grammar for Beginners)⁴
• 拉丁语和希腊语 (Latin and Greek)⁵
• Greek and English Proverbs⁶
• Modern Greek Conjugation in all tenses | Conjugate Modern Greek verbs
• some (electronic or paper-based) Greek dictionaries

Part 1

Alphabet and Pronunciation of Letters

There are 24 letters in the Greek alphabet. The letter σ appears only at the beginning or in the middle of a word, while the letter ς is used at the end of a word exclusively.

Throughout antiquity, Greek had only a single UPPERCASE form of each letter. It was written without diacritics and with little punctuation. By the 9th century, Byzantine scribes had begun to employ the lowercase form, which they derived from the cursive styles of the uppercase letters.⁷

Combined Pronunciation and Diacritics

Someone might notice that, for common vowel pronunciations, there are several Greek letters pronounced [i], but none pronounced [u]. Additionally, there are

• The combination ου is pronounced [u].
• The combination ει and οι are pronounced [i].
• The combination αι is pronounced [e].
• The combination αυ is pronounced [af] or [av], and the combination ευ is pronounced [ef] or [ev], depending on the following sound. If the combination appears at the end of the word or is followed by one of the letters κ, π, τ, ξ, φ, θ, σ, χ, or ψ, it is pronounced as [af] and [ef], respectively. Otherwise, if the following letter is a vowel or one of β, γ, δ, ζ, λ, μ, ν, or ρ, it is pronounced as [av] and [ev], respectively.

by vowels and

• The combination γγ and γκ are pronounced [g]. At the beginning of a word, only γκ can be used.
• The combination μπ is pronounced [b] or [mb].
• The combination ντ is pronounced [d] or [nd].
• The combination τζ is pronounced [dz].
• The combination τσ is pronounced [ts].

by consonants.

Moreover, the pronunciation of double consonants (ββ, κκ, λλ, μμ, νν, ππ, ρρ, σσ, ττ) sound the same as their single consonants while the only exception is γγ.

In Modern Greek phonology, the simplified monotonic (compared to the polytonic system) orthography uses only two diacritical marks: the single accent (or tonos) (´) and the diaeresis (¨).

• The single accent is placed over a vowel (e.g., ά) or the second vowel of a combined pronunciation (e.g., ού) to indicate stress in a word.
• The diaeresis appears on the letters ι and υ (i.e., ϊ and ϋ) to show that a pair of vowel letters is pronounced separately, breaking a potential diphthong.

The diaeresis may combine with the accent (e.g., αΐ).

Part 2

Essential Communication Expressions

Basic Words

Part 3

Grammar

Part 4

Expanded Vocabulary by Topic