12.1 Review: Script, Sounds, Cognates — Epoché
What you will be able to do Test the first three volumes in the direction this course has not yet tested: from English back into Greek. Write out a Greek word from its English descendant: δημοκρατία , φιλοσοφία , μηχανή . Recognise which of the cognates you know are traps: εμπάθεια , χάρτης , πάγος . Score yourself against a stated threshold rather than a feeling. Know which of the three volumes to go back to, if any. Prerequisites : 11.2 — the monotonic spelling. Read 11.2 Background first. This lesson introduces nothing; it measures. The first three volumes of this course claimed three things. The script volume claimed that you would be reading Greek off a page by its sixth lesson. The sounds volume claimed that you would read an unfamiliar sentence aloud without stopping. The cognates volume claimed that an English speaker owns several hundred Greek words before he starts, and it counted them. Every test so far has run in the easy direction: you were shown Greek and asked what it meant. This review runs the other way. Recognition is cheap and production is not, and a vocabulary you can only recognise will not produce a sentence when you need one. Twenty sentences Twenty items. Cover the right-hand column, write your answer out in Greek letters by hand, and only then look. Items one to eight test the script and the sounds; items nine to sixteen test the cognates in the direction that matters; items seventeen to twenty test the traps. Item What to produce Answer 1 Write the Greek letter that is the English th of thin , and name it. theta, the eighth letter 2 Write the two letters that spell the sound of b at the start of a word, and the two that spell d . mu with pi, and nu with tau 3 Name the five spellings of the vowel of machine . eta, iota, upsilon, epsilon-iota, omicron-iota 4 Write the two forms of sigma and say which goes where. the ordinary one and the final one 5 Name the two letters that are one sound and whose names still record a length. omicron and omega 6 How many vowel sounds does Greek have? five 7 Where in a word can the stress fall? on one of the last three syllables 8 What does the accent do that is not decoration? it marks the stress, and in minimal pairs it is the whole difference 9 Write the Greek behind English democracy . δημοκρατία 10 Write the Greek behind English philosophy . φιλοσοφία 11 Write the Greek behind English history . ιστορία 12 Write the Greek behind English theatre . θέατρο 13 Write the Greek behind English music . μουσική 14 Write the Greek behind English photograph . φωτογραφία 15 Write the Greek behind English geography . γεωγραφία 16 Write the Greek behind English programme , and give its plural. πρόγραμμα , and the plural inserts a syllable 17 What does εμπάθεια mean, and what does it look like? malice; it looks like empathy and is close to its opposite 18 What does χάρτης mean? a map, not a chart of numbers 19 What does πάγος mean? ice, and it has nothing to do with a page 20 What does σύνταγμα mean, and where in Athens is it? a constitution; the main square is named after one Item two is the rule people half-learn. Those two pairs of letters spell b and d at the start of a word; inside a word the nasal is still heard, which is why the noun for a constitution is said with an nd and not a d . Go back to lesson 0.3 if that was not already obvious, because it governs the pronunciation of several hundred common words. Score yourself Score What it means What to do 17 to 20 the first three volumes are in place go on to 12.2, which is the harder gate 13 to 16 solid, with gaps in one area find which block you lost marks in and reread that volume's last lesson 9 to 12 recognition without production reread 2.1 and redo its exercises writing the Greek out by hand below 9 the script is not automatic yet go back to 0.6 and read its eight sentences aloud daily for a week Two remarks about the scoring, because a review that cannot be failed is not a review. The first is that items nine to sixteen are the ones that matter most, and they are the ones people do worst on. If you scored well on the script and badly on the cognates, you have the easier half and not the useful half: the script volume takes a week and the cognate vocabulary is what will let you read a newspaper headline in the third phase. The second is that writing by hand is part of the test and not a suggestion. Greek handwriting was lesson 0.6, and a word you can recognise on a screen but cannot form with a pen is not a word you own. If you typed the answers, score yourself two marks lower. The four traps at the end are worth a paragraph of their own. Each of them is a word that an English speaker will get wrong with complete confidence, and confidence is what makes them expensive. The cognates volume measured how common they are and found that they cluster: abstract nouns about people, institutions and states of mind. A Greek word for a scientific instrument is almost always what it looks like; a Greek word for a feeling deserves a dictionary. Go deeper — when you have time Longer lectures and talks for those who want more. You do not need to watch them to finish this lesson. Check the length and the note, and pick only what interests you. The Iliad, Scroll 1 - Reading Greek Tragedy Online The Center for Hellenic Studies (1:29:30, 2021) In English. A reading and discussion from Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies. Ancient Greek, not the modern language this course teaches — listen for how far the two have travelled. Practice Do the twenty. With the right column covered, and with a pen. Score it. Use the table above, and take the two-mark penalty if you typed. Find the block. Which of the three blocks did you lose most marks in? Name the volume it belongs to. Four more traps. From the cognates volume, name four traps that are not in this test and say what each looks like and means. Produce ten. Write out δημοκρατία , φιλοσοφία , ιστορία , θέατρο , μουσική , φωτογραφία , γεωγραφία , πρόγραμμα