Lesson 8 Inflection - English and Greek

Infection: Sounds like a complicated word, but it is not. Infection just means the changes words go through to show what part they play in the sentence. Many languages are inflected. Greek is highly inflected. English was at one time. English had such an influx of  many other languages all with different word endings that word order developed to show what was subject and direct object instead of endings. Pronouns (he, she, we, they) are one of the few things left in English that shows inflection (word changes for the part a word plays in the sentence). Thus we will illustrate with English pronouns to show how inflection works.

Pronouns come in masculine (he), feminine (she), neuter (it).

(Neuter is word that means "neither of each". Here- neither masculine or feminine.)

Pronouns come in singular (one) - I, he, she, and  plural (many) we, they.

Pronouns come in  subject form- he, she, it, I, we, they and object form- him, her, us, them.

(Remember the subject comes before the verb and the object after the verb in English)

Pronouns come in possessive (belongs to) form- his, hers, its, our, their.

English speakers use these inflected pronoun forms correctly without giving it a thought. It is when someone uses them incorrectly that we notice.  Below are some sentences showing how inflection works in our language.

Joe saw she/her. Which is correct? She or her? Since it comes after the verb, we need an object form so the correct answer is "her". Joe saw her.

She/her sang a song. Which is correct? She or her? Since is is before the verb, "she", the subject form, is correct.  She sang a song.

His/him coat is lost. Coat is the subject, so "him" (an object form) is not right. "His" is possessive so that is the correct form. His coat is lost.

These are examples of inflection, word change, that happens depending on what part a word plays in a sentence.

Greek also has masculine, feminine, and neuter. It also has singular and plural, subject, object, and possessive forms.

Grammar Gender: In English as well as Greek we have words that show gender (masculine, feminine, neuter). Some things have natural gender: woman and girl are feminine; man and boy are masculine. Some things have no natural gender, as chair, car, boat which are things (an it- neuter). Yet we give things such as boats gender by calling it a she. We say, "She sailed wonderfully today". This is not natural gender but what I call grammar gender. This is also the way Greek works.  Greek gives words which are things (neither male nor female) gender. In Greek some words have natural gender and some  have grammar gender.

Some examples of grammar gender (using words you already know): arche (beginning) is feminine, logos (word) is masculine. An example of natural gender would be theos which is masculine, because theos is a word for a male god/God.

Lesson 7 - John 1:2 THIS ONE

Only one new word to learn. You already know the rest.

Note: Before we get to the new word, just notice the little Greek "i" mark under the e in arche. This little "i" at one time was part of this word and spelled archei. But the "i" at the end dropped out of the pronunciation, but was kept in the word this way. Now it is just a silent "i". It is still important for grammar reasons, but not for pronunciation. We will learn more about this later.

Review- notice the two e's of en and en.  The long e of  the first en "was" (pronounced like the e in they) and the short e of  the seoncd en "in" (pronounced like the e in pet).

New letter and word - houtos.  The new letter is u, by itself is pronounced as oo in "who". However, the new letter u  is part of another vowel combination, a diphthong ( pronounced diff-thong - Greek for two sounds). The ou combination is pronounced as oo in "group". (If you noticed- the u and ou both are pronounced the same- "oo".) Also, notice the backwards comma, the rough breathing mark (the H sound) over the u, and the stress mark over u. This word is pronounced hoo'- tahs. It means "this" or "this one". Here it means "this one".

Translation -  This one was in [the] beginning with the God.

Note:  Another characteristic is that John, for extra emphasis and in case you did not understand what has already been said, repeats statements already covered. Also, in the time this text was written (around 90 AD) a group people were saying that John the Baptist was the Messiah. John wants the reader to firmly know that  "THIS ONE" (The Logos/Jesus the Messiah) had always existed from eternity in relationship with God. This one - not another.

Note:  All accents and breathing marks are always over the second vowel in a diphthong (two vowel combination). This is not anything major to remember. It is just for your information like the fact that all words that start with a single vowel or a diphthong (2 vowels) will have a breathing mark, smooth or rough (H sound), over them.

To go to lesson 8 click  here.

Lesson 6 - Breathing and Accent Marks in Greek

Breathing Marks: Up to now I have not used any Greek accent or breathing marks with the Greek text. This part of the lesson will introduce you to the breathing marks. Greeks did not have a letter for the H sound that we have in our language, so instead they used a backwards apostrophe. They put a backwards apostrophe at the front of any word that started with an H sound. If a word that started with a vowel did not have the H sound then they used a regular apostrophe. All words starting with a vowel will have either a regular apostrophe or a backwards apostrophe (the H sound) over the beginning vowel.

Here is John 1:1a with both breathing marks used.

Over the a in arche is a regular apostrophe which is called a smooth breathing sound which means no H sound is made. Over the o (the) in front of logos it has the H or rough breathing mark (the backwards apostrophe). If you notice in the letter translation I now have "the" written as ho instead of o. To sum it all up-- if the apostrophe is backward just put a H in front of the word.


Second Part - Breathing and Accent Marks Continued:

Review: The regular apostrophe over the a in arche and the e in en are smooth breathing marks. No H is added to their sound. The backward apostrophe over the o (the) in front of logos has the rough (H sound) breathing mark over it, so an H sound is added in front of it.

Accent Marks: The Greek language when quoted in poems and stories was originally very musical and had a beat when quoted. The accent marks told the speaker when to raise or lower their voice to stay within the beat. Notice the upside down v over the e in arche and the e in en. This is an accent mark. It originally told the speaker to raise and lower the voice on that one letter. The accent mark over the first o in logos would have told the speaker to raise the voice on this syllable. Today the accent marks are just used to stress the syllable that they are on. Often a breathing and a accent mark end up on the same vowel. Notice the two marks over the e in en (one is a smooth breathing mark and one is an accent mark).


Third Part - John 1:1c Breathing and Accent Marks Continued:

 

Notice the rough breathing (H) over the o (the) in front  of logos, and also the smooth breathing mark over en. Notice the stress accent marks over the first o in logos, the e in en, and the o in pros, the o in ton, and the o in theon. Again, these were originally to raise or lower the voice on that syllable. The accent marks over logos and theon were there originally to raise the voice. The accent marks over pros and ton were there to signal the speaker to lower the voice on that syllable. The upside down v over en (was) is there to raise and lower the voice on the same syllable. No one uses this musical pronunciation any more.

Today these accent marks are only used to put stress on a syllable when we pronounce the word. So to pronounce logos correctly you would stress the first syllable lo'-gos, and theon would be pronounced the-on'.

Have you noticed yet that all the accent and breathing marks are only over vowels?

To go to lesson seven click here


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Lesson 5 John 1:1c Greek Letters and Translation

There are no new letters or words to learn. All the letters and words you already know, but here they are again: kai = and,  theos = God,  en = was,  o = the,  logos = word

Grammar: To read the Greek in the literal order that is is written here is: and God was the word. However, it is translated: and the word was God. Why is the literal word order and translation order different.? Remember that Greek can be in any order, and it is the endings that decide what goes before and after the verb. Thus the endings, not word order, control the translation. The subject ending is os, however here we have two words with os as the ending- theos and logos. So why do both have subject endings, and which one is the real subject?

In Greek one of the ways grammatically the verb "en" (was) works is that it links together words that relate closely to one another.  Since the words closely relate to one another, they both have the same ending, a subject ending (even though only one is the subject and the other is describing the subject). So how do you tell which one is the actual subject? The subject is the one with "the" in front of it  (ho logos). The one without "the" (theos) goes after the verb and describes the subject. So the correct translation is: the word was God.

Remember I said earlier that there is always a reason when "the" is left out. This first time was John 1:1a (review if you have forgotten) and now we have a second use of "the" being left out here in John 1:1c.

Another question. If logos is the subject, why is it not before the verb and theos after the verb? Though regular Greek order puts the subject before the verb, you learned in the last lesson that the Greeks liked to put things out of order in the sentence to call attention to something they wanted to emphasize. This is the reason here that theos is not after the verb, but in front of the verb and the subject is after the verb. By reversing the normal order the emphasis is being made very emphatically, so no one misses the point, that:  the logos is GOD.

Knowing Greek grammar is important. If someone does not know the above Grammar facts that deal with this John 1:1c then translation mistakes can happen.Not knowing the above grammar has led to these two wrong translations : 1) God is the word and 2) The word is a God (they think that because there is no "the" in front of theos, that it must mean it has to be translated "a" God). So you can see, learning Grammar is very important to doing correct translation.

To go to lesson 6 click here.

Lesson 4 John1:1b Grammer: English and Greek

To understand the wonderful expressiveness and richness that is the Greek language we have to have a language of common terms to be able to talk about it. That language of common terms is called "grammar". So lets talk about some simple English grammar facts that will help understand the Greek.

Grammar terms:  Subject, verb, and object are used to describe how words work in a sentence. The subject is what the sentence is about. The verb (usually) shows action, and an object (usually) is what receives the action from another word.  Example:

Joe hit the ball.

Joe is the subject. He is what the sentence is about. Hit is the verb, the action. Ball is the object directly receiving the action (called the direct object, because it the object directly receiving the action of the verb). Here is another example that introduces another way the object can be used.:

Joe hit the ball toward Bob.

Joe is the subject, hit is the verb (action), ball is the object directly receiving the action (direct object).  Bob introduces  another use of an object- as the object of the word toward (which is a preposition). Prepositions  are words that show relationships between words. The preposition "toward" relates "Bob" to the rest of the sentence.  Bob is the object of toward and receives its "action". So we have covered two uses for an object- as direct object receiving the action of a verb, or as the object receiving the "action" of the preposition.

Grammar - Word Order. Another grammar fact is that the word order is very important in English. It is what tells us what is subject and what is object. Example:

Joe hit the ball.   The ball hit Joe.

Both sentences have the same four words, but the difference in word order totally changes the meaning of the sentence. The word in front of the verb is the subject. The word after the verb is the direct object. Thus the meaning of the sentence in English depends on the word order.

However, the meaning of a sentence in Greek does not depend on word order, but on the endings of words. The same words can be put in most any order in the sentence and the meaning does not change. It will be the ending of the Greek word that tells you if it is a subject or an object. The Greek word logos has the subject ending os. The words in the sentence can be in any order, and the os on logos will tell you that it is the subject and not some other word. For example:

 kai o logos en pros ton theon  (subject- logos before verb)
 kai pros ton theon en o logos. (subject- logos after verb)

In the first one logos is in front of the verb,and in the second sentence logos is after the verb. Yet both sentences mean the same thing: "and the word was with the God". 

The Greeks used this fact (endings not word order determines what is subject or object) often to emphasize or call attention to something in a sentence by moving the words out of the normal Greek order of subject before verb.

The object form here is on as in theon, God.  (The subject form of God is theos.)  The on ending is for objects that are receiving action, such as direct objects and objects of prepositions that have action.  Theon has the preposition  pros before it. Since pros often has the idea of "action/movement toward" the object that follows it, theon will get the Greek ending that shows "receiving action" which is on.

Note: When the Greek is translated most often people use one English word for one Greek word. For many things this is fine, but for some words this limits the meaning of what the author was trying to say. The one word that is often used to translate pros is "with" which is one way it can be translated. However, the root meaning of pros is motion toward someone-  having a face to face relationship. To translate pros strictly as "with" limits severely the picture being shown here of the "logos" being in eternal face to face relationship with God.

Study Helps: Since many new ideas have been introduced in this lesson, it will help to review the information several times.

To go to Lesson five click here.