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!)


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Day 2 | Vowels

Back from work; it's Friday night and here I pick up where I left off for Day 2 of this Greek endeavour.  As promised today will be devoted to breaking down the 24 letters to more manageable chunks.  The natural subset exists in the Greek alphabet as it does in the English between consonants and vowels and it is the latter which will be explored today.  As mentioned in the last post there are multiple letters that are used for the same sounds, making the sequence more complicated than necessary.  Nevertheless, the 5 vowels we use here in merry lil' England are in close parallel with whats in Greece: the A, E, I , O and U which deviates with an "oo" rather than "u".  To my ears the sounds of the vowels are as follows:

α (alpha) sounds like apple             

ε (epsilon) αι (alpha-iota) sounds like exit

η (eta) ι (iota) υ (upsilon) ει (epsilon-iota) οι (omicron-iota) sounds like integer

ο (omicron) ω (omega) sounds like open

ου (omicron-upsilon) sounds like hook

Looks simple, right?  Well, not quite.  We can't just stick these vowel babies into any old word in any old place.  They come with their own rules and stipulations which need conforming to if you don't want to come across all novice-like.  So here is my limited understanding of these such policies:

the "A" is simply alpha α (just the one, good start) so there is no confusion what to use.  For example the word for love is agapi αγαπι (aww!).  

the "E" gets a little more complicated.  There is a single epsilon ε and a combined set alpha-iota αι which both sound as "e".  They use ε in all words except for the mysterious 'reflexive verbs' (things you do to yourself, such as "I eat" or "I wakeup") in which case you use αι.  For example, "I sleep" will be keemame κοιμαμαι with the ai at the end.

the "I" is the most confusing out of the 5 and is more than likely to be learnt from intuition than from reading textbooks, but nevertheless, lets have a crack.  

Eta η is used on feminine words (all those that did French at GCSE will remember this unhelpful nuance; learning the gender as well as the name of things!).  So for example "life" is of the female persuasion and is therefore known in Greek with an eta stuck comfortably to the end: zoe ζοη. 

Upsilon υ is - yes, you guessed it - for the big butch masculine words (although adjectives not nouns).  So for the commonly used term "many" is poly πολυ.  "very cold" would be πολυ κρυ.

Iota ι are for the neutral words.  Typical example is "child" which can obviously be male or female.  The Child "Pedhee" would use the "ee" variant Iota:  παιδι.

Epsilon-Iota ει should be used for conjugating verbs.  That is, stringing verbs (run, walk and sleep etc) with the primary actor (I, they, you or he etc) which are third person.  For instance: "he writes" would be αντοσ γραφει and "you write" would be εσυ γραφεισ.

Omicron-Iota οι is the last "ee" variant and can be an actual word in itself (the "the") when the noun is plural and not neutral (stay with me...).  So say we want to shout loudly "the ducks" (which is plural and female) we would say ee papyes οι παπιεσ.

the "O" is a lot simpler.  There is a more formal explanation in the text books but it seems to me that the de-facto rule is that if there is an "o" at the end  of a word, use an Omicron o; for example egg in Greek is avgho αuγο.  Omega (the last letter of the alphabet)  is usually kept for the verbs; the doing words: "play" for instance is pezo or παιζω.

the "U" represents the last of the vowels and isn't a U at all, but an "oo" sound.  The nicest way to exemplify this is to reach for the ooranos or ουρανοσ (if you hadn't guessed, the sky).

Well that was a challenge.  It's important to remember that all this will come with intuition and don't be disheartened if you find this a struggle to start with (well, this is what I've been told at this early stage of the journey at least).  The next post will be a gloss over the consonants, but please feel free to post a comment on the section below to help open up the floor to discussion and debate (I am expecting mistakes so please feel free to bring me up to score where needed). 

Time for some αλκοολ!


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Day 1 | Introduction, Alphabet

This blog is dedicated to my story in learning the Greek language.  Here will be notes, scribbles and anecdotes in the pursuit of becoming fluent (with a Cypriot twang!) in this Indo-European dialect (see, we're already learning).  I invite help and advice from those equipped to teach the lingo as well as questions from individuals enduring their own journey.  There is nothing more solitary than a student head-down in a text book learning something esoteric as a new language, so a more collaborative process will help me and hopefully cajole others in getting "there" quicker (with some fun on the way).  Therefore, feel free to email, post comments and share your own experiences. 

So, to get the ball rolling as well as for reference, there is no better time to bring up the Alphabet (that hieroglyphic assortment of sticks we use to make words).  Below you'll see 24 cryptic letters with the pronunciation below which the Greeks have as their consonants and vowels.  I'm reliably informed that in the modern Hellenic language the sound "e" occurs more frequently than is necessary to the extent that the powers that be (the speak police I think they're called) are discussing truncating the alphabet.  Epsilon-Iota, Omicron-Iota, Iota, Eta and Upsilon all sound like the "e" in the English language (not a good start, but at least we're tidying up). 

So there's the first tentative steps (an indecipherable string of letters that are in some cases redundant).  In the next piece I'll look at how these letters sound orally before I embark on the juicy task of making words (some of them clean).  As I go into the Alphabet in detail next time please feel free to share your tips and tricks in remembering or articulating them pesky little letters.  Enjoy!



Written by JuiceSoup.com