An Introduction to Greek

By Henry Lamar Crosby and John Nevin Schaeffer

Generations of students have discovered the enduring pleasures of ancient Greek with this classic text. Supplemented by exercises, readings, and review lessons, it presents concise but thorough coverage of grammatical forms and syntax. Students advance from the simple fundamentals of the alphabet and declensions to the complexities of conditional sentences, and they acquire a Greek vocabulary of more than 600 basic words.
Each chapter begins with a Greek motto, offering insights into classical attitudes and values. Reading selections include the works of Plato, Herodotus, and Homer as well as excerpts from ancient playwrights and the New Testament. More than 120 illustrations depict images of Greek culture related to archaeology, history, and literature. This comprehensive introduction also features Greek-to-English and English-to-Greek glossaries, a complete grammatical appendix, and supplemental information on word formation and etymology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: May 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9780486123462

Book preview

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INTRODUCTION

We are all Greeks. Our lairs, our literature, our religion, our artt have their root in Greece.¹

If some magic carpet could whisk us back two thousand years or more to ancient Athens, how surprised we should be to see those early Greeks finding their chief delight, just as we do, in sports, fraternities, the theater, music, art, and literature !

In any of the city’s playgrounds we should find keen-eyed young men running, jumping, boxing, wrestling, throwing the discus and the javelin with as much zest as ourselves, and perhaps with more skill. Here they sought diversion after the business of the day. Here they trained for the great Olympic Games. An Olympic victor was welcomed home with all the enthusiasm and festivity that attends the winning of a World Series, and his fame was even more enduring.

THE DISCOBOLUS

" one man no man."

If our visit to Athens coincided with either of the two great dramatic festivals, we should find the whole city holding holiday. The great Dionysiac Theater seated about 17,000 spectators, and it was thronged all day long for the duration of the theater season. Here were performed some of the finest tragedies and comedies the world has ever known. But plays were not confined to Athens. Wherever Greeks were wont to congregate, they built theaters, even at Epidaurus, which was no town at all, but only a sanatorium.

Music was not only inseparably bound up with drama, it accompanied everything a Greek might do. As a schoolboy, he studied singing and the lyre. As a man, he honored his gods with song and dance. He sang at the banquet board, about the camp fire, or when about to charge the foe.

The arts of architecture, sculpture, and painting were no less honored. Even in their ruins, his public buildings and statues are the inspiration and the despair of modern artists. If his home was humble in comparison and but meagerly equipped when measured by present standards, it was because he found his keenest pleasure in public life. What furnishings he had were beautifully made and tastefully adorned.

" nothing too much, was the rule of life, which kept him from the vulgarity of the barbarians" all about him, as well as from their extravagances in art.

If he did not devote much time to reading, it was because of his love of the open air. He took the keenest delight in literature, but it was a literature intended to be heard rather than to be read in private. The Greek seems to have invented nearly every form of composition and in none has he been surpassed. The roll of the immortals in the field of literature includes Homer in epic; Sappho and Alcæus in lyric; in drama the great triad, Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; Herodotus, the Father of History; Demosthenes, whose name is synonymous with eloquence; Plato and Aristotle in philosophy and science.

THE THEATER AT EPIDAURUS

This is generally regarded as the most beautiful Greek theater now extant.

The Study of Greek. Not everybody finds it convenient to visit Greece and to admire with his own eyes the visible remnants of Greek art. Too often we must get what we can from photographs or from the imitations all about us. But those of us who wish a first-hand acquaintance with what the Greeks thought and said may find our magic carpet in the study of the language. Translations are but a poor substitute at best and nowhere more disappointing than in the case of poetry, in which the Greek most excelled.

Greek and English. The best Greek is marked by a sense of proportion, by a striving for just the right word to convey the thought, and by a simplicity and directness of expression. With these qualities of good style we shall become familiar. More than that, we shall learn the fundamental meaning of a host of words that otherwise would seem strange and forbidding in the technical terminology of many fields of interest — in art, in science, in politics, and in the church. A distinguished scientist states that " In an experience of more than forty years as a teacher of medical students I easily distinguish among my auditors those who know Greek and those who do not, especially when I use scientific terms, such as ‘toxicogenic bacillus’ or a ‘pathognomonic symptom’ I see the eyes of the former fill with the light of comprehension, while those of the latter are closed in ignorance and mystification."¹

I. The Greek Alphabet, English a-b-c’s, is not the smallest item in our indebtedness to Greece. It was adopted by the Romans from their Greek neighbors at Cumæ, west of Naples, and handed on, with but slight modifications, to general European use.

THE GREEK ALPHABET

¹,²,³

Note that (a

(b) Gamma is always hard. Before κ, γ or χ it is pronounced ng

(d) Consonants are commonly classified as follows:

Mutes: 1. labial —π, β, ϕ; 2. guttural or palatal — κ, γ, χ;3. dental or lingual —τ, δ, θ.

Liquids: λ, μ, ν, ρ.

Sibilant: or, s. Double Consonants: ζ, ξ, ψ.

(e) The following table will be found useful for reference.

In this table the mutes are grouped horizontally into classes (cognates) according to the organ of speech most prominent in their production, and vertically into orders (coordinates) according to the amount of force involved in their utterance. The significance of this grouping will become manifest in the study of inflection, each group having distinctive habits.

II. Diphthongs represent the union of two vowels in one syllable. The second vowel is always either ι or υ.

When a long vowel combines with iota, it forms an improper diphthong, the iota no longer affecting the sound. If the vowel to which it is attached is a capital, the iota is placed on the same line; otherwise it is placed beneath the letter to which it belongs and is called iota subscript:

III. Breathings, (a) The Athenians originally employed H as in English. When they adopted the Ionic alphabet, in which H was eta, it became necessary to invent a new symbol to take its place. That symbol (‘) is called the rough breathing. Words beginning with a vowel or diphthong without the h-sound receive the smooth breathing (’).

(c) Words beginning with rho (ρ) have the rough breathing.

(d) The rough breathing originally accompanied ϕ, χ and θ, which are therefore called the rough forms of π, β; κ, γ: and τ, δ, respectively. See above I, e.

(e) When in inflection a voiced or voiceless labial or palatal¹ immediately precedes the aspirate θ of the ending, it is roughened to its corresponding aspirate.

IV. Syllables, (a) Every Greek word has as many syllables as it has vowels or diphthongs. There are no silent letters other than iota subscript.

(b) The final syllable is called ultima; the syllable preceding the ultima is called penult; the syllable preceding the penult is called antepenult.

V. Accent, are regarded as short in determining accent.

(b) There are three accents — acute (´), grave (µ), and circumflex They do not affect the pronunciation, but they obey very strict laws and are at times the sole means of distinguishing between words otherwise identical in appearance:

The acute may stand only on one of the last three syllables of a word, the circumflex only on one of the last two, and the grave only on the last.

Cyrus, of Cyrus.

(e) An accented antepenult takes the acute; but it must not have an accent if the last syllable is long by nature or ends in ξ or ψ:

(f) An accented penult takes the circumflex if it is long by nature and the last syllable is short; otherwise, the acute :

(g

(hbeautiful river.

(i) A proclitic the man.

(j) An enclitic (Latin hominesque). Enclitics are treated more fully in § 95.

VI. Inflection: Greek is a highly inflected language. It has three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), three numbers (singular, dual¹, and plural), and three declensions (called from their steins the α-declension, the ο-declension, and the consonant declension).

The Greek verb has three voices (active, middle, and passive), four moods (indicative, subjunctive, optative, and imperative) and seven tenses (present, imperfect, future, aorist, perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect¹). The present, future, perfect, and future perfect are called the primary tenses; the imperfect, aorist, and pluperfect are called the secondary tenses. The tenses are also divided into classes or systems according to their stems. Each system is composed of the tenses which have a common stem.

THE PLUNGE POOL AT DELPHI

This bath is a part of the equipment of the ancient gymnasium. (For a picture of the gymnasium, see Page 295.)

EXERCISES

(a) Pronounce the Greek words of §§ I -II, stressing each syllable that bears an accent; then write in English letters.

(b) Write in Greek letters: nemesis,¹ asbestos,¹ chaos,² rhododendron,¹ hydrophobia,² diplōma,¹,³ zōnē,² Dēmosthenēs,² Oriōn,² Xerxēs,² Iōniā.²

(c) Accent the penult:

TO KATA IΩANNHN AΓiON EYAΓΓEΛION

THE HOLY GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and…

The picture at the top of the page shows the opening lines of the gospel according to St. John, from a manuscript written 800 years ago. There are some variations from the letter forms you will study, for handwriting changes very rapidly. The same lines are given in modern Greek type directly below. These are followed by the King James Translation.

---

Shelley

¹ Victor C. Vaughan, Dean of the Medical School, University of Michigan, as reported in Value of the Classics, Page 59.

¹ For centuries only capital letters were used by the Greeks. Although the small letters that later came into use are less like the Latin-English, we can easily trace their development from the capitals. The difference between the two types is no greater than that between capitals and small letters in English.

² The words used as illustrations represent as faithfully as is possible in English the best usage of modern scholars.

³ Compare English zed.

¹ A dental before another dental always becomes σ.

¹ Common only in poetry.

¹ Rare.

¹ Acute on antepenult.

² Acute on penult.

³ A long mark, macron, over ō or ē indicates that the Greek has ω or η; otherwise, o and e are ο and ϵ.

EAGER TO GO

LESSON I

DECLENSION OF O-STEMS

— In the beginning was the word.¹

1. Declensions. There are three declensions in Greek, instead of five as in Latin. To these, because of their general uniformity, the o-stems serve as a good introduction.

2. O-Stem Masculines. Nouns of the o-declension whose nominatives end in -ος are usually masculine.

²³

3. Accents. in the genitive and dative of both numbers.

(6) An acute on the ultima changes to a grave (´) when a word follows without intervening punctuation:

4. Cases. The endings of a noun tell its case and use.

(a) The nominative is the case of the subject:

(6) The genitive suggests relations like those expressed with of in English. It frequently denotes possession :

(c) The dative suggests relations like those with to or for in English. It frequently denotes the indirect object :

(d) The accusative is the direct object of a transitive verb :

5. The Article, (a) Like English, and unlike Latin, Greek has a definite article. This agrees with its noun in gender, number, and case. It often serves as a posses sive pronoun, as my, your, his, are proclitic (page xxvii).

(b) Greek has no indefinite article. Many nouns having no definite article require a or an in translation:

6. VOCABULARY

⁴, ⁵

7. EXERCISES

(a) What use of the noun do the heavy

Reviews for An Introduction to Greek

[alexthehunn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This Greek primer seems like a useful and workable method of bringing young scholars and the Greek language together. I can not fully speak to its effectiveness since I have not used it to any degree nor do I personally have enough knowedge of Greek to evaluate it otherwise. But judging from my Latin, French and German intro books, this one seems very much in the mainstream.