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.

Lesson 3 - John 1:1b The Greek Letters and Translation

Here are the Greek letters and their English letter translation.

New letters: k, i (ee like the i in police), p, t, th (th as in thin), e (short e- you met the capital version earlier- E).

Letters you already know: a, o (short), l, g, s, e(long), e(short), r, n.

Note: Greek has several two-vowel combinations that are pronounced as if they were one  vowel.  English has two vowel combinations also. "Kai" introduces us the the first one we have come across in the text. The two vowel combination is ai.  The fancy term for two letter combinations that are pronounced as one sound is diphthong (pronounced diff-thong and Greek for  "two sounds"). The diphthong "ai" is pronounced as "ai" in aisle or like the word "eye" or the English pronunciation of the letter i. So kai is pronouced ki.

The meaning of the above Greek words are:

kai = and,  o = the,  logos = word,  en = was,
pros = with,  ton = the,  theon (from theos) = God.

Translation: and the word was with the God


Pronunciation of the Greek words:     
 kai (ki),  o (ah),  lo-gos ( lah-gahs), en (ayn),
pros (prahs),  ton (tahn), the-on (theh-ahn).



Note "THE"- Spelling: Have you noticed that now we have two words that translate "the" - o and ton. Why two different spellings for the same word? We will deal with this a little later. Don't worry about it right now.


Grammer "THE" -Absence or Presence: In John 1:1a - "the" was left out of the Greek to draw attention to and intensify the meaning of the word "beginning". Here in John 1:1b we have another use of "the". The Greek "the" is there to make definite the word "God" (THE God), so we will translate it definite too. This will help you to take notice when "the" is used or not. English translations leave out "the" before God. In English we do not routinely say "the God" did this or that. We say God did this or that. Greek usually is translated the way we speak English.

For Interest: There is an English word that has two of the above words in it: theology (theos + logos). Logos at the end of words in English means "the study of". So theology is the study of God. (When you study, you study the words  written in books, so logos also became the study of words on a subject, then the study of the subject itself.)

To go to Lesson four click here.

Lesson 2 John 1:1a Translation

Now we put together the sounds we have learned for the letters and pronounce the words.

Greek

English 
Pronun- ciation


The Greek word En when pronounced sounds like our English word "in". Also, the ar of arche sounds like the letter r when pronounced.

Now that you know how to pronounce the words, it is time to learn what the words mean. Their meanings are:

En = in, arche = beginning, en = was, o = the,
logos = word.

In a sentence they mean:

In [the] beginning was the word.

Vocabulary: The Greek language is second only to the English language for having the greatest number of words. The Koine of the Bible numbers above 5000 words. The Classical is even larger. However, one does not have to memorize that many words, just the most used ones. As we go through the text of John learn the vocabualry. Almost all will be useful for Biblical or Classical use.

Grammar lesson. Notice that in the translation "In [the] beginning was the word" that "the" is supplied before "beginning" to make the English translation sound smooth. It is not there in the original Greek. The reason "the" is left out before "beginning" is to draw attention to the word to intensify and make stronger its meaning. Anytime in the Greek that a "the" is left out there is a grammatical reason. This is just one of several ways that the lack of "the" is used in the Greek.

The word "was" (en) also needs to be explained. It has several uses in the Greek. Here the word "was" means "exist". It is expressing that from the beginning (as far back as you can go) the logos existed/was.

Note: " Logos" This is an interesting word in the Greek. In John 1:1 Logos is translated "word", which is a correct translation, but logos has another meaning. It can also be translated as "reason or  principle". When this book was written, there were two basic groups of people, the Jews and those of  the Roman Empire which had adopted the Greek culture. The choice of "logos" was deliberately chosen to grab the attention of both the Jews and Greek thinking culture. The Greeks had long debated and searched for the answer to their question- what was  the reason behind the universe, and what was the creative principle of the universe. The Jews also were looking for something, too. They were looking for the great out pouring of God's word that would come when Messiah came. John 1:1 introduces the Jews and the Greeks to the "logos" for which they both were searching.

Note: The use of "logos" which is a two meaning or two sided word is typical of the text of John. Many two sided words with both meaning that fit are used, and are meant to be understood this way.

Also, the first 18 verses of the book of John are called the Prologue, the introduction leading up to showing the readers that the Logos is Jesus. The Prologue also lays the ground work for the entire book of John.

To go to Lesson three click here.

Lesson 1 -- John 1:1a The Greek Letters

The first text we will deal with is here:






This is Greek without the normal accent marks which we will learn later. The first letter is a capital Greek letter. See any letters that look familiar? E, a, o, and s are what they seem to be. The v, p, x and y are not. The v is a N with a leg missing, p is actually an R with a leg missing, the x is really ch (which is equal to a k sound), and the y is a g (g as in good, not as in George). Look at the following Greek text with its equal in English letters.








Notice that there are two "e" vowels in the Greek alphabet. Greek has a short and a long e. The short Greek E that looks like our capital E is pronounce like "eh" as the e in "pet". The Greek e which looks like our letter n is a long e pronounced like "ay" as in the e in "they".

The Greek also has two o vowels, one long and one short. The o here that looks like our English o is a short o pronounced like "ah" as the first o in "bottom". We will learn the long one later.

One interesting fact that will help you learn is that generally Greek letters only have one pronunciation. In English there can be up to eight different sounds for each letter or combination of letters. Our English "a" is one of those letters with eight different sounds, but in Greek "a" has only one pronunciation. It is pronounced like the a in father (ah).

Note: If you feel overwhelmed or confused, don't worry. Most of this will be covered several times. Take your time with this. Learning any language takes some work. Also, since our brains often rebel at learning new things that don't fit neatly into previously learned facts, give yourself time to digest the information.
To go to Lesson two click here

At the Beginning

Most of what we will deal with is the Koine Greek. If you are interested in the older Classical, the Koine is still a good place to start as it is a less complicated version. Many schools teach the Koine first then move into the Classical writings.

History: The Classical Greek deals with the Greek writings from about 800BC to 300BC. When in 300BC Alexander the Great conquered Greece and the Middle East he introduced the Greek culture and language to a much larger area. The Middle East speakers simplified the more ornate Classical Greek to something the common, everyday person could speak. Thus the name Koine which means common. The original language of the Bible's New Testament was written in what was the everyday language of  the people in the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Though the language of the Roman government was Latin (their native language), Greek became the everyday trade and cultural language of the Roman Empire. The Romans had fallen in love with the Greek culture and all things Greek. Even their children were tutored in the Greek language and culture by Greek tutors. The Koine Greek  covers from 300BC to around 300 AD.

Alphabet: The Greeks borrowed around 900 - 1000 BC the Phoenician alphabet. The Greeks modified it and passed it on indirectly to the Romans who continued modifying the alphabet. The modern English alphabet comes directly from the Roman one. Thus, when you study Greek many letters are the same as our alphabet, and many are not. Some many even resemble ours, but they mean something entirely different.

Expressiveness of the Greek Language: The earliest writing using the Greek alphabet was by Homer who wrote down the Iliad (Helen of Troy and the Trojan horse) based on fact with mythical additions, and the mythical Odyssey (The adventures of Ulysses/Odysseus). The Iliad was a centuries old poem of a time and events that happened centuries before it was written down. Before these poems were written down, the stories were learned, passed on, and told verbally by and to the people. These poems were the people's entertainment and history. They were written in such a way that as the events were spoken the words themselves related the sounds of what happening in the poem. If it was a battle, the words chosen for this part of the poem sounded like the battle sounds as it was quoted. If it was a scene at the beach you could hear the sound of gulls and birds as that section was quoted. The Greek of that time was also very musical in sound and beat as it was spoken in these poems. Thus, as the poems were spoken, the Greek  was painting a picture for the listener. Though the Greek of the Koine is not as verbal or musical as the older Greek in painting pictures, the Koine is every bit as expressive as it paints pictures with the meaning of the words themselves.

Text: We will use the text that some Classical and Theological schools use to teach first year Greek: The Gospel of John. It is the best and easiest one to use to learn Greek. We will jump right into the text from the first lesson. Each lesson will study a small section of text to learn the alphabet, pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.

When I  took first year Greek half of the class had dropped out by the second lesson. They were given too much information to learn at one time. They became overwhelmed and gave up. Thus, the goal of this study is to teach simply small amounts of information that will allow you to be able to comprehend and learn at your own pace.

Pronunciation: The pronunciation used here is USA, and what I learned in my school. If your area in America or the world pronounces the Greek differently, use your pronunciation. All pronunciation is best guess anyway. No one had a tape player 2000 years ago. Having said that, it seems only a couple of vowels or vowel combinations are spoken differently from area to area.

Greek Fonts/Letters: Since Blogger does not have Greek font letters that can be used in this blog, I have used my art/photo program to make the Greek text available (as a photo) to use in the blog. To type Greek words as I teach, I will have to type them in their English letter equals.

To go to the first lesson click here