Thursday, May 26, 2011

Reading the Greek alphabet

On Tuesday we became familiar with the letters of the Greek alphabet; today we will learn how to move between the Greek alphabet and the English alphabet. This is called transliteration; in Latin it means "moving a letter across." Here are the Greek letters and their English equivalents:

Αα Ββ Γγ Δδ Εε Ζζ Ηη        Θθ   Ιι   Κκ   Λλ Μμ
A    B   G   D   E   Z   (long a/e)  TH   I    K     L    M  

Νν Ξξ Οο Ππ Ρρ Σσ Ττ Υυ Φφ  Χχ    Ψψ  Ωω
N   X   O   P     R   S   T    U   PH  CH   PS(long o)

You will notice that some letters, like the letter c, are missing from this alphabet altogether, and some letters, like θ (ΤΗ), do not exist in the English alphabet. The Greek alphabet is one of the earliest alphabets in existence, and it went on being refined and reorganized as it became the English alphabet. To remind yourself how the letters are pronounced, you may want to review the videos I recommended to you on Tuesday.

For practice working with the alphabet, determine how these words would be written in English: Σωκρατησ
λογοσ
θρονοσ

Answers and the words' meaning are in the comments section.

Next up: simple sentences Pin It

1 comment:

Korinna said...

Socrates- Greek philosopher
logos - "word"
thronos - "seat, chair" (basis of the English word throne)