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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