Learn Greek

Why learn Modern Greek?

Greece is an amazing country: a fusion of west and east, of ancient and modern; a beautiful, exciting, disparate land with an extraordinary, 4000-year history of civilisation, philosophy, mythology, oppression, bloodshed, resistance and creativity.

Although Greece is currently a fairly quiet player on the world stage, it is remarkable how much the nation has contributed, over the centuries, to world culture. Among a huge number of other achievements, the Greeks invented democracy, developed a great many of the mathematical theorems we still use today, created a form of tragic drama that is still popular today and founded the Olympic Games.

Language is another significant area where the ancient Greeks left a lasting legacy. For a start, the Roman alphabet we use in English was derived, indirectly, from the Greek. And then there are all the thousands of English words with Greek origins. The word alphabet itself, of course, comes from the names of the first two Greek letters, alpha and beta. (Actually it's vita in Greek).

If you are not familiar with the Greek alphabet, you may feel it would be hard for you to learn it. In fact, in our experience, people can usually grasp it in only a few weeks. Some of the letters are confusing because they are the same shape as the Latin ones we use in English but correspond to a different sound - they take some practice. Others are just like ours and the rest are new shapes. Have a look and see what you think.

Greek character	Its name	Its sound
Αα	alpha	a, as in father
Ββ	vita	v, as in vase
Γγ	gama	somewhere between gh and y
Δδ	thelta	th, as in then
Εε	epsilon	e, as in egg
Ζζ	zita	z, as in zoo
Ηη	ita	ee, as in feet
Θθ	thita	th, as in think
Ιι	iota	ee, as in feet
Κκ	kappa	k, as in kettle
Λλ	lamtha	l, as in last
Μμ	mi	m, as in mother
Νν	ni	n, as in nut
Ξξ	ksi	x, as in box
Οο	omikron	o, as in not
Ππ	pi	p, as in pie
Ρρ	ro	rolled r
Σσ (ς at the end of a word)	sigma	s, as in sky
Ττ	taf	t, as in tall
Υυ	ipsilon	ee, as in feet
Φφ	fi	f, as in fish
Χχ	hi	kh, as in Scottish loch
Ψψ	psi	ps, as in tops
Ωω	omega	o, as in not

As far as the Greek language is concerned, although its alphabet is the same as it was in Classical times, there have been changes in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. For historical reasons, in 1976 the form known as Demotikí - Modern Greek - was adopted as the official national language.

Modern Greek is similar to Ancient Greek and still uses the majority of the words that have come into English from the ancient language. There are exceptions - the modern word for water, for example, is not hydro but neró - but a vast amount of the vocabulary an English person would recognise is the same in Modern Greek as it was in Ancient Greek.

It might be putting it too strongly to suggest that knowledge of English will help you to guess the meaning of Greek words, although this can be true. However, it is certainly the case that once you have learnt what a Greek word means it very often makes sense and is easy to remember.

For example:

φιλος (filos) means friend, ανθρωπος (anthropos) means man or person, σοφια (sofia) means wisdom

When we look at the English words philanthropy and philosophy, everything fits into place.

Similarly:

φωνη (foni) means sound, πολυ (poly) means much or many, κακος (kakos) means bad

… which we can see in polyphonic, and cacophony.

The Greek letter vita (β) generally became b as it moved into English but, taking that into account, we can easily learn φοβος (fovos), which means fear, and also βιος (vios), which means life (in the sense of life story) - particularly once we know that γραφω (grafo) means I write.

There are many, many more instances like these. So you see, Greek is actually not that difficult, is it?!