1
ALPHABET
GETTING STARTED
1.1. This is where it all begins. This chapter will introduce you to the alphabet and to some basic concepts as to how meaning is communicated in Greek. Not all languages are structured in the same way; the structure of Greek is quite different from English.
1.2. Until you learn the alphabet well, there is not much else that you can do. It is difficult to learn pronunciation from a book, so teachers will supplement this material to help you learn to pronounce the letters and words of the language. Their pronunciation should be followed even if it differs from what is given here, so that you can understand each other.
The Greek Alphabet
1.3. We will start with the alphabet. There are twenty-four letters, one of which has two forms. Just like English (but not like all languages), the Greek alphabet also has both uppercase and lowercase letters.[1]
α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ σ/ς τ υ φ χ ψ ω
Α Β Γ Δ Ε Ζ Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο Π Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω
Each of these letters also has a name. In English, an a is an a is an a, and there is not much more we can say about that letter in terms of identifying it.[2] But in Greek, the letter α has the name alpha (ἄλφα). See the table below under “Pronunciation” for the name of each of the Greek letters.
Writing the Letters
1.4. The handwritten forms of Greek letters are shaped slightly different compared with the printed forms above.[3] Follow the style and method for writing each letter as shown in figure 1.1. Begin each letter where the star appears. Some characters have a small arrow to indicate the direction in which you should begin the stroke. Most characters can be drawn with a single stroke, but some require two (ε, κ, λ, τ, φ, χ, ψ) or even three (π) strokes. Be careful that each lowercase letter is proportioned vertically in relation to the midline. (The uppercase letters are all written “full height.”) Be sure to make the nu (ν) and upsilon (υ) distinct. The nu must always have a sharp point at the bottom, and the upsilon must always have a rounded bottom.
There are two forms of the lowercase sigma. When it occurs at the beginning or middle of a word, it is written σ, but when it comes at the end of a word (and only then), it is written ς and is called a final sigma. The σ is a medial sigma.
Figure 1.1
1.5. Figure 1.2 shows what the author’s handwriting looks like. It is not fancy, but it is legible. It is easy to look at printed characters in a book or on screen and despair of copying them, so this shows you what your own attempts should resemble. You can surely do better, but your goal should be no less. Even if your English handwriting is atrocious, work hard at developing a neat Greek hand. It is much easier to learn Greek when you can read what you have written.
Figure 1.2
Handwriting Practice
1.6. Use the blank lines below for your initial practice. You can pretend that you are back in kindergarten or first grade.
Recognition
1.7. The following passage from the Greek NT contains every letter of the Greek alphabet. Can you identify all twenty-five forms? (Remember that there are twenty-four letters, but one of them has two forms.)
ἐν ᾧ καὶ τοῖς ἐν φυλακῇ πνεύμασιν πορευθεὶς ἐκήρυξεν, ἀπειθήσασίν ποτε ὅτε ἀπεξεδέχετο ἡ τοῦ θεοῦ μακροθυμία ἐν ἡμέραις Νῶε κατασκευαζομένης κιβωτοῦ εἰς ἣν ὀλίγοι, τοῦτ᾿ ἔστιν ὀκτὼ ψυχαί, διεσώθησαν δι᾿ ὕδατος. (1 Pet. 3:19–20)
Pronunciation
1.8. Here is a pronunciation key for each letter. The sound each letter makes in a word is similar to the italicized English letter(s) in the fourth (or fifth) column.[4]
| Lowercase | Name | Uppercase | Pronunciation | Alternate Pronunciationa |
| α | alpha | Α | alms | |
| β | beta | Β | book | voice |
| γ | gamma | Γ | goat | yield (before ι, ε, η) |
| δ | delta | Δ | dog | this |
| ε | epsilon | Ε | epic | |
| ζ | zeta | Ζ | adze, kudzu | zoo |
| η | eta | Η | ape | |
| θ | theta | Θ | theism | |
| ι | iota | Ι | igloo (short), ski (long) | ski (always) |
| κ | kappa | Κ | kite | |
| λ | lambda | Λ | lid | |
| μ | mu | Μ | mouse | |
| ν | nu | Ν | not | |
| ξ | xi | Ξ | ax | |
| ο | omicron | Ο | optimum | obey |
| π | pi | Π | pepper | |
| ρ | rho | Ρ | red | |
| σ/ς | sigma | Σ | side | |
| τ | tau | Τ | top | |
| υ | upsilon | Υ | moonb | |
| φ | phi | Φ | phase | |
| χ | chi | Χ | lochc | |
| ψ | psi | Ψ | cups | |
| ω | omega | Ω | obey |
a The last column in the chart above gives the phonetic values used in “Reconstructed Koine.” Only sounds that differ are listed; all others are the same. See also the chart of the diphthongs below. You should use only the phonetic values in column 4 or the ones in column 5 (not both), depending on which system of pronunciation your teacher uses.
b The pronunciation of upsilon varies considerably among NT grammars and teachers, so you may be advised to use a different pronunciation. If you know German, the pronunciation of upsilon is often said to sound like ü as in über.
c The letter chi makes a gutteral sound pronounced in the back of your throat; it is not the more “crisp” sound of ch in choir. Follow your teacher’s pronunciation.
Each letter sounds like the first sound in its name.
α sounds like the a in alpha.
λ sounds like the l in lambda.
φ sounds like the ph in phi, etc.
Gamma (γ) sounds like our English g, but a double gamma (γγ) sounds like ng. There are a few other combinations with γ that do this also (γκ, γξ, γχ), but the double gamma is the most common. For example, ἄγγελος is pronounced an´-ge-los (not ag-ge-los).
Vowels
1.9. Vowels are the “glue” that hold consonants together, enable pronunciation (it is nearly impossible to pronounce a string of consonants with no vowels), and distinguish similar words. In Greek they also have a morphological function: they serve to join various parts of a word (e.g., a stem and an ending) and to distinguish some forms of a word from other forms.
Hint: To help remember the Greek vowels, relate them to English vowels:
English vowels: a e i o u (and sometimes y and w)[5]
Greek vowels: α ε ι ο υ + η and ω
The following table shows you which vowels are short and long as well as how the short ones lengthen (Greek vowels have a habit of doing that). Vowels that can be either short or long (depending on the spelling of a particular word or form) are technically pronounced differently in each case, but most people tend to be a bit sloppy in such distinctions. There are rules to determine when one of these is long or short,[6] but this need not concern us right now. You will learn the most significant variations from listening to your teacher pronounce Greek in class.
| Short | Long | Either Long or Short | |
| ε | ► | η | α, ι, υ |
| ο | ► | ω | |
| eta | η | ≠ | n | ||
| mu | μ | ≠ | u | ||
| nu | ν | ≠ | v | ||
| rho | ρ | ≠ | p | ||
| chi | χ | ≠ | x | ||
| omega | ω | ≠ | w | ||
Diphthongs
1.10. Diphthongs (sometimes called digraphs) are a combination of two vowels that are pronounced as a single sound. The eight diphthongs are as follows in the table below. The pronunciation of each is illustrated by the italicized English letters in the second column. The third column gives one example of a Greek word in which the diphthong occurs.
| Pronunciation | Example | Translation | Alternate Pronunciationa | |
| αι | aisle, eye | αἴρω | I lift up | epic (same as ε) |
| ει | weight, freight | εἰ | if | ski (same as ι) |
| οι | boil | οἰκία | house | mew (same as υ) |
| αυ | sauerkraut, how | αὐτός | he | Ave Mariab |
| ου | soup, hoop | οὐδέ | neither | |
| υι | suite | υἱός | son | |
| ευ, ηυ | feud | εὐθύς | then | ever |
| ηὔξαμεν | we grow | knavec |
a See the table under “Pronunciation” above and the note on the “Alternate Pronunciation” column.
b Before the letters π, τ, κ, φ, θ, or χ, the diphthong αυ is pronounced like the af in after when using Restored Koine pronunciation.
c Before the letters π, τ, κ, φ, θ, or χ, the diphthong ευ is pronounced ef and ηυ becomes ehf.
Improper diphthongs are also combinations of two vowels, but here the letter iota is written below the preceding letter. There are three such combinations: ᾳ, ῃ, and ῳ. An iota is not always written as a subscript when it follows another vowel. It usually happens when various endings are added to a word, and then only if the preceding vowel is a long vowel. (An iota is the only letter that can be written as a subscript, and it does so only under a long vowel: η, ω, or long α.) Here is an example: τῷ Ἠσαΐᾳ τῷ προφήτῃ. Pronunciation of these improper diphthongs is the same as that of the letters without the subscript: α, η, ω. The iota subscript distinguishes only the written form of the word, not its oral form.
Diphthongs are almost always long. The only exceptions are οι and αι when they come at the end of a word, in which case they are considered short for purposes of applying the accent rules (see the Advanced Information for Reference section at the end of this chapter).
Diaeresis
1.11. When two adjacent vowels are pronounced as parts of separate syllables (especially if they would normally form a diphthong), they are marked with a diaeresis: two dots written above the second vowel. (Diaeresis is from the word διαίρεσις, “division, separation.”) The vowel so marked is almost always an iota, sometimes an upsilon. This is most common in Greek names and other words transliterated from a Semitic language. Almost all words in the LXX with a diaeresis fall into this category—for example, Σεμεϊ (“Shimei”), Κεϊλα (“Keilah”), Αμεσσαϊ (“Amasa”), and Ἰαϊρ (“Jair”). The most common such word is Μωϋσῆς (“Moses”), which occurs 80 times in the NT and more than 700 times in the LXX. Other common forms with a diaeresis include Καϊάφας (“Caiaphas”), Βηθσαϊδά (“Bethsaida”), Ἑβραϊστί (“in the Hebrew/Aramaic language”), and ἁλληλουϊά (“hallelujah”). Other Greek words with a diaeresis that are not the result of transliteration include προΐστημι, χοϊκός, διϊσχυρίζομαι, διϋλίζω, πραΰς, δηλαϊστός, and ἀΐδιος. (English makes sparing use of the same marker; it can be seen in a word like naïve.)
Breathing Marks
1.12. Greek uses one of two diacritic marks above the first vowel (or diphthong) in a word beginning with a vowel to indicate pronunciation. The two diacritic marks are the smooth breathing (ἀ) and the rough breathing (ἁ).
Figure 1.3
You may have noticed that the Greek alphabet does not have any equivalent of our English letter or sound h. This is the purpose of the breathing marks: they tell you whether or not there is to be an h sound at the front of a word.[7]
The smooth breathing mark means that there is no change in sound. That is, pronounce the vowel as you normally would—for example, ἀ = ah. The rough breathing mark adds an h sound in front. That is, pronounce the vowel with the h sound in front of it: ἁ = hah; ἑ = heh; etc.). Greek also uses a rough breathing mark (never a smooth) on all words that begin with the letter rho (ρ). This is the sound rh.[8] When a word begins with a diphthong, the breathing mark is placed over the second letter—for example, αἷμα.
When an iota (ι) occurs at the beginning of a word, it has a y sound: Ἰησοῦς is pronounced yay-soos′. This is common in Greek names, especially names that originated as Hebrew or Aramaic words.
Punctuation
1.13. Greek uses the following punctuation marks. Some are the same as English, some are different.
Commas and periods are the same as English: θεός, θεόν.
The Greek semicolon (or colon)[9] is a raised dot: θεός·
A question mark looks like our English semicolon: θεός;
The last mark in the list is the hardest to keep straight when you are beginning, but it will make an enormous difference in what you understand a text to say. For example, the statement ἔστιν θεός. says: “There is a god” (or perhaps, “God is” or “God exists”). But if we change the punctuation to ἔστιν θεός; then we have: “Is there a god?” (or perhaps, “Does God exist?”).
1.14. There are three accent marks in ancient Greek.[10]
acute: ά
grave: ὰ
circumflex: ῶ or ῶ
These accents were not often written at the time when the LXX and the NT were written, though they originated around 200 BC. The accents were developed to indicate not stress (as we use accents in English dictionaries today) but pitch. This reflected the way Greek was pronounced in the Classical period. The acute marked a high, rising pitch, the circumflex a pitch that rose and fell on the same syllable, and the grave a normal, low pitch.[11] Consistent use of accents does not show up in Greek manuscripts until after AD 600. This means that the accents you see in a printed edition of the LXX or NT were not originally present. Although they are later editorial conventions, they are accurate, reliable, and very helpful.
1.15. How do you know which accent to use and where to put it? Accent rules are complicated. Entire books have been written on Greek accents.[12] Some teachers expect you to learn a fair bit about these matters. Others take a more pragmatic approach and expect you to know accents only when they differentiate between two words. Unless your teacher tells you otherwise, follow these guidelines.
Know the names of the three accents.
Stress the accented syllable when you pronounce a Greek word.
Remember that a grave accent can never stand at the end of a word unless there is another Greek word immediately following it (without even a punctuation mark intervening). If it does (e.g., when you cite a word out of context), the grave must always be changed to an acute accent.
There will be a few instances in which the accent will make a difference in the word, and in those cases I will tell you what you must learn. For Greek students who want to go a bit further in this area, see the Advanced Information for Reference section at the end of this chapter for a brief summary or Carson’s book Greek Accents for the details.
Uppercase Letters
1.16. What about the uppercase letters? Uppercase letters are used less frequently in printed editions of Greek texts than in English. There are only three situations in which you find an uppercase letter in modern editions of Koine Greek texts:
Proper names are capitalized.
The first letter of a paragraph receives a capital letter (but not the beginning of every sentence).[13]
The first letter of a direct quote is capitalized. There are no quotation marks in Greek, so the uppercase letter is one of your clues to a quotation.
a In Greek, Ἁγία Σοφία is short for Ναός τῆς Ἁγίας τοῦ Θεοῦ Σοφίας, “Church of the Holy Wisdom of God.” This is an Eastern Orthodox church building in Constantinople (modern Istanbul) that was constructed in the fourth century. For over a thousand years it was the Patriarchal Basilica of Constantinople. It is now a museum.
You will learn the uppercase letters as you go. Most of them are quite obvious and easy to recognize.
αΑ βΒ γΓ δΔ εΕ ζΖ ηΗ θΘ ιΙ κΚ λΛ μΜ νΝ ξΞ οΟ πΠ ρΡ σΣ τΤ υΥ φΦ χΧ ψΨ ωΩ
For practice in identifying the uppercase letters, try reading this palindrome one letter at a time.[14]
ΝΙΨΟΝΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΜΗΜΟΝΑΝΟΨΙΝ
Now You Try It
1.17. Identify each of the “marks” (letters, accents, breathing marks, etc.) in this portion of the NT (Mark 1:1–3).
1Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ υἱοῦ θεοῦ. 2Καθὼς γέγραπται ἐν τῷ Ἠσαΐᾳ τῷ προφήτῃ, Ἰδοὺ ἀποστέλλω τὸν ἄγγελόν μου πρὸ προσώπου σου, ὃς κατασκευάσει τὴν ὁδόν σου. 3φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, Ἑτοιμάσατε τὴν ὁδὸν κυρίου, εὐθείας ποιεῖτε τὰς τρίβους αὐτοῦ.
The “Original” New Testament
1.18. You might be interested to know that at the time the NT was first written, all the letters were “uppercase”—or at least all the same case—and most of them looked similar to forms that later became uppercase letters. These letters are called uncials (or sometimes majuscules). Lowercase letters were not invented until the ninth century. Figure 1.4 is a photo of possibly the oldest known manuscript of any part of the NT. This manuscript is known as 𝔓52 (that is, papyrus manuscript number 52), dated to the first half of the second century AD, perhaps about AD 120. If that date is accurate, then it may be only a quarter century from the time John originally wrote the Gospel in Ephesus—hundreds of miles from where this copy was found in Egypt. The letters look quite different from the way they are written today. Also notice that there is no word division and no punctuation. Those features come much later. The text here is John 18:31–34. The actual manuscript fragment measures about 3.5″× 2.25″. It is presently located in the John Rylands University Library at the University of Manchester.
Figure 1.4. Manuscript 𝔓52
The John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester
By contrast, figure 1.5 shows a much later (fifteenth century AD) manuscript, written in minuscule script, which has both uppercase and lowercase letters. In this writing style many letters are written together, and numerous ligatures are used. This is manuscript 545 and shows the beginning of Mark’s Gospel. You will notice that the title of the Gospel, ἘΥΑΓΓΈΛΙΟΝΚΑΤᾺΜΆΡΚΟΝ (in modern orthography, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μάρκον) is still written in the older, uncial script.
Figure 1.5. Manuscript GA 545 from the Special Collections Library, University of Michigan
Photo provided by the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts
The text that you see in this textbook and in a printed LXX or Greek NT is the modern form of the Greek alphabet, which was developed after the printing revolution in the fifteenth century.[15] New Testament scholars have long since worked through the questions of the proper word division and punctuation. There are a very few instances in which there is not agreement on such matters and where it does make some difference in what the text says, but those are few and far between. Unless you run across a discussion of such matters in a good commentary, you can safely trust your Greek NT as it is printed without constantly worrying as to whether or not the word division is correct.
For example, in Mark 10:40 the original would have looked something like this:
αλλοιςητοιμασται
This might be read as ἀλλ᾿ οἷς ἡτοίμασται and translated, “but it is for those for whom it is prepared.” Or it could be read as ἄλλοις ἡτοίμασται and translated, “it is prepared for others.”[16] Modern translations go with the first option.
Sing the Alphabet
1.19. Music is another way to practice your developing Greek pronunciation skills. There are a number of Greek alphabet songs, but the one shown in figure 1.6 is very simple, does not require much musical skill, and uses an old, familiar tune.
Figure 1.6
1.20. Now that you know the alphabet and are becoming comfortable at pronouncing Greek words, we need to figure out how these basic building blocks can express meaning. The various Greek texts that you want to read and understand (probably the Greek NT and perhaps the LXX) consist of a large number of alphabetic characters grouped into segments of various sizes. This grouping is not random or mathematical, but it is deliberate and meaningful. We do not understand texts merely by recognizing the letters or by knowing the words formed from them. Words are one of the smaller groups of letters that convey information, but these words must be organized into a coherent, structured whole to communicate meaning. You need to understand the basic structure of language to begin comprehending this meaning.
1.21. Language consists of structured information. Although the word is one such structural unit, there are even smaller units that are meaningful. The smallest such units are sometimes called morphemes and consist of individual letters or syllables that modify the meaning of an individual word. For example, in English one morpheme is the letter s added to the end of some nouns to create plurals. The word cat is singular, but cats is plural; the difference in meaning is the one-letter morpheme -s. Likewise, other structural meaning units are larger than words. A verb, such as run, is often accompanied by several related words that compose a verb phrase—for example, had been running. But more is still needed to make a meaningful statement. Who or what is running? Is this a reference to a race or hunting or a boat, a fish, a disease, or a harried mother? Without context, there is only potential meaning in this phrase.
He had been running toward the finish line when he stumbled.
The hounds had been running the fox the whole evening.
The yacht had been running before the wind when the storm hit.
The salmon had been running for several days.
Her nose had been running all day.
She had been running all week and was exhausted.
Each of these statements provides more information that changes our understanding of the verb run or the verb phrase had been running. This additional information, however, is organized in a structured way. In English it is typical first to indicate who it is that is doing the action, then to tell what they did, and finally to give additional information about the event. An English speaker understands the pattern in which these pieces of information are recorded. If the expected pattern is not followed, communication is either hindered or prevented altogether.
all week running she had been and exhausted was
was she all running week exhausted had been and
Both of the examples just given have all the same words, but they do not follow English patterns. The first might sound like someone trying (not very successfully) to imitate Yoda, but the second is total nonsense.
1.22. Various languages have different patterns for forming communicative sentences. English is sometimes described as an analytical language. Languages of this type depend on the order of words in a sentence and various particles to indicate the relationship of the words in the sentence and thus the intended meaning. The words have a very limited range of changes to their form. Other languages can be called agglutinative. In cases such as these, meaning units are juxtaposed in ever-increasing-length words for which there is no limit in length.[17] By contrast, Greek is an inflected (sometimes called synthetic) language, in which meaning is indicated by various morphemes (prefixes and suffixes) added to words to indicate how they are related to other words in the sentence.[18] As a result, what we assume to be “normal” word order in an English sentence can be very different in Greek, since the inflectional endings on the words tell us which word is the subject and which the object, and so forth.
1.23. Other than word order, there are additional elements of structure in both English and Greek. One of these relates to the kinds of words that are used. Speaking somewhat broadly, we can say that some words are function words and some are content words. Content words are those that have lexical value (or more likely, values) that can be defined in terms of reference. We can define the lexical value or content of a word like χείρ; it is the body part at the end of the arm containing fingers, that is, a hand. But other words do not lend themselves to this sort of referential definition. Instead of defining their content, we can only describe how they function in a sentence. For example, to describe the word ἵνα, we can say that it is a word that normally functions to introduce a subordinate clause indicating purpose, result, content, or explanation. There is no real “content” to such a word; it does not refer to anything. In summary, remember that content words “mean,” function words “do.”
Sentences normally contain both content words and function words that are structured in such a way as to communicate meaning. Although there are some exceptions (e.g., short, one-word sentences such as “Fire!”), we usually expect both content and some indication of function. Take the following sentence as an example:
This book is largely concerned with Hobbits, and from its pages a reader may discover much of their character and a little of their history.[19]
As a few samples, these are content words: book, Hobbits, pages, reader, discover, character, and history. Function words include this, with, and, from, a, and may. Neither of these sets of words communicates meaning on its own, not even if we put a period after them and enclose them in quotation marks.
“Book Hobbits pages reader discover character history.”
“This with and from a may.”
In the following chapters you will learn many content words that are part of Koine Greek vocabulary, words such as κύριος, οὐρανός, Ἰησοῦς, πιστεύω, γράφω, and ἀποθνῄσκω. There will also be numerous function words, such as καί, γάρ, οὖν, ἐν, ἐνώπιον, ὁ, and εἰ. More important, you will learn how these words are arranged in a structure that communicates meaning.
1.24. Vocabulary is essential to the beginning stages of learning Greek. There is nothing more frustrating than staring at a written text and not knowing what the words mean. Even if you recognize what part of speech[20] they are, you must have a basic vocabulary even to guess at the meaning of other words. Although context is always the determinative factor in meaning, if you do not know many words, there will be no meaningful context to consider.
In this textbook you will learn 465 words if you master the assigned vocabulary (15 words per chapter). These vocabulary assignments begin in the next chapter. The list of words you will learn in this book includes all the words that occur 44 times or more in the NT, many additional words that occur between 43 and 36 times in the NT and very frequently in the LXX, and a few others that occur fewer than 36 times in the NT but that are frequently used words in the LXX. From a LXX perspective you will learn all the words that occur more than 460 times in the LXX, many that occur more than 200 times, some that occur more than 100 times, and others that occur fewer than 100 times but that are frequent in the NT. This will give you a reasonable base from which to read most NT and LXX texts, though you will still need to consult your lexicon frequently. In your future study you will want to extend your vocabulary abilities further, at least to the words occurring 20 or more times in the NT (and 10 would be better). If you want to read much LXX, perhaps 100+ would be a good goal in that larger corpus.
1.25. What a student is typically expected to memorize as a reading aid are the English glosses for these common Greek words, that is, how they might be translated into English in some common contexts. You learn, λόγος, “word”; θεός, “god”; καί, “and.” But what do these words actually mean? That is a different question. Although vocabulary cards and textbook lists typically give only a few one-word equivalents (i.e., glosses), these vocabulary words can be defined. We are accustomed to our English dictionaries providing actual definitions, but Greek-English dictionaries have only recently begun providing similar help. You are not expected to memorize formal definitions for the 465 words in this textbook, but the vocabulary assignments in each chapter and the glossary in the back of the book provide a definition for each word. You should read these carefully, since they enable more accurate understanding of the words you are learning; they also will enable you to distinguish between some words that cannot be differentiated on the basis of an English gloss. If you were to learn both δεξιός and ἐξουσία as “right,” you would not know which one meant “right, as in authority” and which meant “right, as opposed to left.”
The definitions provided are not exhaustive. Many of these words have other, less common uses that are not included. The definitions given are based on and derived from the major lexicons, often simplified to some extent. The purpose of these definitions is to help you think in terms of meaning rather than simple English glosses. The lexicons should be consulted for more authoritative discussions. Although this textbook assumes the use of Danker’s Concise Lexicon (CL) as a companion volume, other lexicons can be used. The only other standard lexicon that provides definitions is the third edition of Bauer, Danker, Arndt, and Gingrich (BDAG), an essential tool for serious study of the NT.[21]
It is very important that you learn the assigned words well and drill and review them constantly during this course. Begin working on the vocabulary at the same time you begin studying the material for each new chapter; do not wait until you have finished the chapter to tackle the assigned vocabulary words. Your teacher will talk about some ways to learn and review vocabulary. Not everyone learns the same way when it comes to vocabulary, so try several methods to find what works for you. The “tested and tried” system uses small paper flash cards, or you can use the newer digital flash-card systems.
Advanced Information for Reference:
Greek Accents
1.26. To take the next step in learning accents, you first need to know something about syllables in Greek words. The most basic principle is that for every vowel or diphthong, there is one syllable. Single consonants go with the following vowel; double consonants (e.g., γγ) are divided.
The last three syllables of a Greek word are named, starting from the end of the word. The last syllable is called the ultima, the second-to-last syllable is the penult, and the third is the antepenult. Accent rules relate to these named syllables, and accents can occur only on these three syllables. A syllable is considered long or short if the vowel or diphthong in that syllable is long or short.
The accent on nouns (and related words) is said to be retentive (or persistent) in that it usually stays on the same syllable in which it is found in the lexical form (that is, the form as it is spelled in a lexicon). Verb accent, by contrast, is recessive in that it moves toward the front of the word as far as the general rules of accent allow when the ending changes. (Many infinitives, however, are not recessive.)
Here are the most basic rules of accent.
1. An acute accent can be used on any of the last three syllables of a word.
2. A circumflex accent can occur only on one of the last two syllables (ultima or penult) and only if that syllable is long.
3. A grave accent can occur only on the ultima.
4. If the ultima is long, the accent can occur only on one of the last two syllables.
a. If the accent is on the penult, it can only be an acute.
b. If the accent is on the ultima, it may be either acute or circumflex.
5. If the ultima is short and the penult is long, the penult must have a circumflex if it is accented (it may not be).
6. If there is an acute accent on the ultima and there is another accented Greek word immediately following with no intervening punctuation, the acute always changes to a grave.
7. If a word in a Greek text has a grave on the ultima, that word, if cited out of context with no other Greek text immediately following, or with a punctuation mark immediately following, or if followed by an ellipsis in the citation, must have the grave changed to an acute.
An observant reader will notice that rules 1–5 do not specify which accent must be used or on which syllable. They only indicate what is and is not possible. The actual accent must be determined from the accent on the lexical form as modified by these rules when the ending on the word changes. (You will soon learn that the endings on nouns and verbs and other parts of speech often change to indicate the word’s function in the sentence or to mark particular nuances of meaning.)
The above summary does not include some specific situations in which accents will change. These situations include words with a contraction (especially contract verbs) and words that are classed as enclitics or proclitics. Explanations of some of these situations will be found later in the book.
Key Things to Know for Chapter 1
1.27. Each chapter will conclude with a summary section to enable you to verify that you have mastered the most important material. Some entries will be statements, others questions. The vocabulary words assigned for each chapter, beginning with chapter 2, are assumed; they will not be listed again in the “Key Things to Know” sections.
Greek alphabet: You must be able to recite it orally as well as write it.
Vowels: Do you know the seven letters that are classed as vowels?
Diphthongs: Can you pronounce each one correctly when you find it in a word?
Accents: Unless your teacher tells you otherwise, know the three items listed in §1.15. (Some teachers will want you to learn more about accents.)
Miscellanea: Do you recognize the two breathing marks and the various marks of punctuation?
Pronunciation: It will take a few weeks before you are totally comfortable reading Greek aloud, but by the time you have finished this chapter, you should be able to read clearly and accurately from a printed Greek text and be able to follow along and distinguish the words when you hear someone else read a text (though you will not know what most of them mean yet). You may read slowly at first, but keep practicing. It will come in time.
