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Course 5 · Lesson 3.1

The Greek alphabet, accents and breathing marks

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 5 outline

Module 1: What the Languages Are and What This Course Can Do

  1. The languages of the Bible: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek
  2. What an introduction can and cannot do: no fluency, and why
  3. Biblical Hebrew in brief: history, script and sound
  4. Koine Greek in brief: history, script and sound

Module 2: Hebrew Fundamentals

  1. The Hebrew alphabet, reading right to left, and the vowel points
  2. Roots, nouns, gender, number and the construct chain
  3. Hebrew verbs: perfect, imperfect and the seven stems in outline
  4. A core Hebrew vocabulary and how to learn it

Module 3: Greek Fundamentals

  1. The Greek alphabet, accents and breathing marks
  2. Nouns, cases and the definite article
  3. Greek verbs: tense, aspect, voice and mood in outline
  4. A core Greek vocabulary and how to learn it

Module 4: The Texts: Masoretic, Septuagint and New Testament Manuscripts

  1. The Masoretic Text and the codices that preserve it
  2. The Septuagint and where translators consult it
  3. Greek New Testament manuscripts and printed editions
  4. How variants are recorded in footnotes and critical editions

Module 5: How Translations Are Made

  1. Formal and dynamic equivalence, and the middle positions
  2. Who translates: committees, churches and traditions of translation
  3. Hard cases: idioms, word play, gender and untranslatable words
  4. Reading a translation’s preface to learn its principles

Module 6: Tools for the Reader

  1. Interlinear Bibles: what they show and what they hide
  2. Lexicons and concordances: how to read an entry
  3. How to do a word study, step by step
  4. Common word study errors and how to avoid them

Module 7: Evaluating Translation Differences

  1. Locating the Hebrew or Greek words behind a verse
  2. Types of translation differences: text, grammar, word meaning and style
  3. A worked example from the Old Testament
  4. A worked example from the New Testament
  5. Knowing your limits, and when to ask a specialist

All courses

Program / Course 5: Biblical Languages / Lesson 3.1

What you will learn

  • Name the twenty four letters of the Greek alphabet in order and give a sound for each.
  • Recognize vowels, diphthongs and the final form of sigma.
  • Explain what breathing marks and accents are and why they are late additions.
  • Sound out a simple Greek word slowly, while knowing that this is not fluent reading.

The big idea

The Greek alphabet has twenty four letters, with seven vowels, and unlike Hebrew it writes vowels as full letters. Words in printed editions carry breathing marks, which show whether a word starting with a vowel has an h sound, and accents, which originally marked pitch. These marks were added to the text after the New Testament period. A student who learns the letters can sound out words and look them up. This is a first step in tool use and does not equal reading Greek.

Key terms

Diphthong
Two vowel letters that make one syllable, such as ai, ei and ou.
Smooth breathing
A mark like a small comma over an initial vowel, meaning no h sound.
Rough breathing
A mark like a reversed comma over an initial vowel or rho, meaning an h sound before it.
Accent
A mark over a vowel. There are three kinds in polytonic Greek: acute, grave and circumflex. They originally showed pitch and later stress.
Iota subscript
A small iota written under a vowel. It is not pronounced in most schemes but distinguishes certain forms.
Final sigma
The shape of the letter sigma at the end of a word, which looks like a small curved s.
Polytonic
Using the full set of accents and breathing marks, as in editions of the Greek New Testament.

Background

The Greek alphabet came from the Phoenician alphabet, with some letters changed to stand for vowels. Hebrew and Aramaic have consonants only, so the Greeks were the first to give vowels their own letters in a wide use. The Greek alphabet in turn gave rise to the Latin alphabet, which is why many Greek letters look familiar. Others, such as gamma, delta and sigma, are used in mathematics and science.

This lesson uses the English names of the letters and gives sounds in English letters. A student should write each letter many times to fix its shape. Most modern books about New Testament Greek give a table of capital and small letters, and the student can find one that matches the pronunciation system chosen for the course.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The letters in order

The letters are alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota, kappa, lambda, mu, nu, xi, omicron, pi, rho, sigma, tau, upsilon, phi, chi, psi and omega. Each has a capital and a small form. Editions of the Greek New Testament differ in how they use capital letters, and the oldest manuscripts used only capitals.

Alpha, beta, gamma and delta correspond to a, b, g and d. Zeta is z, kappa is k, lambda is l, mu is m, nu is n, pi is p, rho is r, sigma is s, and tau is t. Theta is a th sound, phi is ph or f, chi is a throat sound like ch in loch, xi is ks, and psi is ps. Gamma before another gamma, kappa, xi or chi is pronounced as ng, so the word angelos, messenger, is written with two gammas but not two g sounds.

Step 2: Vowels and diphthongs

There are seven vowels. Alpha, iota and upsilon can be long or short. Epsilon and omicron are always short. Eta and omega are always long. The pairs epsilon and eta, and omicron and omega, are the short and long forms of e and o. The Greek words for these, epsilon meaning bare e and omicron meaning little o, indicate this.

A diphthong is two vowels pronounced as one syllable. The common diphthongs are ai, ei, oi, ui, au, eu and ou. In the Erasmian system ai sounds like ai in aisle, ei like ei in eight, oi like oi in oil, au like ow in how, and ou like oo in boot. In the modern Greek system several of these sound like simple vowels. The details depend on the system chosen.

Step 3: Breathing marks

Every Greek word that begins with a vowel or a diphthong carries a breathing mark. The smooth breathing, like a small comma, shows that the word has no h sound. The rough breathing, like a reversed comma, shows that the word begins with an h sound. The article ho, the, has a rough breathing and is said ho. The word ei, if, has a smooth breathing and is said ei. Words that begin with rho always have a rough breathing, and appear in English words like rhetoric.

These marks were not part of the early writing. They came into use gradually, and the oldest manuscripts do not have them. They have been added by editors on the basis of the tradition of reading.

Step 4: Accents

The accents are the acute, a small rising mark, the grave, a falling mark, and the circumflex, a mark shaped like a small hat. In ancient times they showed pitch changes, the rise or fall of the voice. Over time the language changed from a pitch accent to a stress accent, and the marks now indicate which syllable is stressed.

Accents were introduced by scholars of the Hellenistic period to help readers of classical texts, and they became common in Christian manuscripts much later. The authors of the New Testament did not write them. Accents rarely change the meaning of a verse, but in a few places they distinguish forms of a word, and a student should know that they are an editorial layer.

Step 5: Practice

Take the word logos. Its letters are lambda, omicron, gamma, omicron, sigma, and the final sigma has the shape of a small s at the end. It is said lo gos, with the stress on the first syllable. Take agape. The letters are alpha, gamma, alpha, pi, eta. It is said agapay in the Erasmian system, with the stress on the second syllable. Take pneuma, with a silent p in English words like pneumonia but in Greek the p is sounded. Learn to say these slowly and to find each letter.

  1. Can I say the names of all twenty four letters in order?
  2. Which letters do I confuse, and how can I tell them apart?
  3. Which vowels are always short, and which are always long?
  4. Does the word I am looking at start with a smooth or a rough breathing?
  5. Are the accents in my Greek text in the oldest manuscripts?
  6. Which pronunciation system am I using, and what does it do with the diphthongs?

Examples

The word for word

The word logos is spelled lambda, omicron, gamma, omicron, sigma. Its beginning gives the English suffix ology, as in biology, which means a study or an account. A reader can see in the letters the beginning of many English words.

Breathing and meaning

The feminine article he, meaning the, and the word e, meaning or, are distinguished only by their breathing marks and accents. For a beginner, noticing the marks prevents a mistaken look up in a lexicon.

Looking up a word by its letters

A learner meets the word pistis in an interlinear and wants to know more. Because she can read the letters, pi, iota, sigma, tau, iota, sigma, she can find it in an alphabetical list in a lexicon, under pi, and read the entry. Without the letters, she would depend on a number.

Different perspectives

Orthodox

Greek Orthodox Christians read Greek in the liturgy and use the modern Greek pronunciation. Many Orthodox are accustomed to hearing the New Testament chanted in Greek, and they regard this pronunciation as the living continuation of the church’s language.

Catholic

Catholic scholars use all the main pronunciation systems in the classroom, and Eastern Catholic churches use Greek in their liturgy. Western Catholic readers usually meet Greek through scholarly study and critical editions.

Protestant

Protestant seminaries commonly teach the Erasmian pronunciation, which is easier for English speakers to learn, though some programs teach a pronunciation closer to modern Greek. The choice is a matter of teaching convenience.

Scholarly

Scholars agree that the accents and breathing marks were added later and that pronunciation changed over time. They disagree on how best to reconstruct first century Greek sounds, and each system is regarded as a tool.

Why it matters

Knowing the letters allows a student to find a word in a lexicon or a concordance, to follow a discussion that quotes Greek, and to notice when an editor has added marks. The skill is basic, but it moves the student from depending on numbers to depending on the words themselves.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Greek letters are just symbols for sounds with no history.

Correction: The letters came from the Phoenician alphabet and are the ancestors of the Latin and other alphabets. They are used in the New Testament to write the words of an ordinary language.

Misunderstanding: The accents and breathing marks come from the apostles.

Correction: They were added by scribes and editors, long after the books were written.

Misunderstanding: The Erasmian pronunciation is how Paul spoke.

Correction: It is a teaching convention. Scholars reconstruct the ancient sounds by other methods, and no system can be certain.

Misunderstanding: Learning the alphabet means I can read the Greek New Testament.

Correction: It means that a student can sound out words and look them up. Understanding requires vocabulary and grammar.

Knowledge check

How many letters does the Greek alphabet have, and how are vowels written?

It has twenty four letters. Unlike Hebrew, Greek writes vowels as full letters: alpha, epsilon, eta, iota, omicron, upsilon and omega. Eta and omega are always long, epsilon and omicron always short, and alpha, iota and upsilon can be either, which makes Greek spelling a fairly clear guide to sound.

What are the two breathing marks, and what do they show?

The smooth breathing shows that a word beginning with a vowel has no h sound. The rough breathing shows an h sound before the vowel, and every word beginning with rho has one. They were added by editors and do not appear in the oldest manuscripts.

What were accents originally, and who added them to the text?

They originally marked pitch, the rise and fall of the voice, and later came to mark stress. Hellenistic scholars devised them to help readers of classical texts, and they came into Christian manuscripts much later. The authors of the New Testament did not write them.

Why might different students pronounce the same Greek word differently?

There are several teaching systems. The Erasmian system gives each vowel and diphthong a distinct sound, while the modern Greek system lets several sound alike. Scholars also propose reconstructions of first century speech. None is certain, so the written text stays the same, and only the sound changes.

Think it through

  1. How does knowing the letters change the way you look at a Greek word in a book?
  2. Why might you prefer to learn the pronunciation of a living church, or a school system?
  3. What editorial marks does the English Bible you use add to its text?
  4. What would you tell a friend who said that learning the alphabet is enough?

Independent assignment

Copy and sound out

In your own notebook, write 300 to 400 words. Write the Greek alphabet in capital and small letters, with the name and sound of each. Copy out John 1:1 from a Greek New Testament or reliable reference, slowly, and write the sound of each word beneath it. Note which words carry breathing marks and accents. Write a paragraph about the letters that were hardest, and list how you will practice. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study