Day 3 | Consonants

As hinted in the last post, today will be devoted to the other portion of the Alphabet: the consonants.  These represent the sounds which are of "complete or partial closure of the vocal tract" (thanks Wikipedia) opposed to the vowels which are open.  In Greek there are 17 of these "closed noises" but like the vowels these get extended when we add combinations to the letter soup.  All of these are shown below:

β     veeta     "v"     βιβλιο (vivlio = book)

γ     ghama     "y"     γατα (yata = cat)    

δ     dhelta     "th"     δρόμος (thromos = road)

θ     theeta     "th"     θαρρος (tharos = courage)

ζ     zeeta     "z"     ουζο (oozo = yum!)

κ     kappa     "k"     καλοσ (kalos = good)    

λ     lamdha     "l"     λεμονι (lemonee = lemon, obviously)

μ     mee     "m"     μιλι (mili = mile)

ξ     ksee     "ks"     ξυδι (kseedhi = vinegar)

π     pee     "p"     πολυ (poly = many)

ρ     pee     "ro"     ρολοι (roloi = watch)

σ     sigma     "s"     συγνώμη (signomi = sorry)

τ     taf     "t"     τι (ti = what)

φ     fee     "f"     φιδι (fidi = snake - my word of the week!)

χ     khee     "ch"     χερι (kheeri = hand)

ψ     psee     "ps"     ψυχολογία (psychologia = psychology)

There are some sounds you'll notice that occur in English but not in the list above, hence the need for them blasted extensions again:

μπ     "b"     μπάλα (bala = ball)

ντ     "d"     ντόμινο (domino = domino)

τζ     "j"     τζατζίκι (tzatziki, more like a bee "zzz" than j!)

γκ     "g"     γκρί (gri = grey)

γγ     (very rare other than the name Evangelia, forget it)

So 17 turns into 21ish.  OK, just to round off, lets look at the other complication with the use of the "two dots" ¨ (diaresis...ya) and the "tic" ´ (pitch accent) which you can see on some words.  These two features have an impact on the last post on vowels, where two letters can be put together to make new sounds.  

For example, where we put the letters α and ι in to αι to make the "eh" sound instead of its component letters "ah" and "ee" (read Day 2 if this makes no sense), it can be seperated again if it looks like this with a tic: άι.  Because of this it not longer reads "eh" by combination but seperated as "ah ee".  Lets see this in action.  Picture a fairy and give it its greek name νεράιδα.  To say this out loud you would say Neraeetha (to my ears at least).  If we spelt it as νεραιδα (without the tic) however it would sound like Neretha.

Then comes the two dotted diaresis ¨, which would have the same effect.  Whilst the tic is used for tone and pitch the dotted line seems to have only one purpose, which is to split up the combination.  Again, to tease this out, say we have the Greek word απλοϊκος we would pronounce this as aploeekos (there is no combination effect on the οι that would normally sound as "ee").  Should that be spelt (incorrectly) as απλοικος then it would read as apleekos.  Fittingly, this απλοϊκος means in English simple (irony never ceases).  

Hope this was interesting for the reader.  Again, let me know how you feel this coming is across and leave your comments below to let me know I'm not the only one going through this adventure/torture!  Next post I'll be making some words (hell yeah!)


Written by JuiceSoup.com