2.1 Transliterate First, Then You'll See It — Epoché
What you will be able to do Turn any Greek word into roman letters, and watch an English word appear in about a third of cases. Say why a machine that compares Greek and English spellings finds no resemblance at all, although the vocabulary is shared. Read forty Greek words you have never studied and give the English equivalent of each. Do the same with a word you meet in the street. Prerequisites : 1.6 — reading aloud without stopping. Read 1.6 Sounds first if you have not. What you already know When this course was designed, a program was run to measure how many Greek words an English speaker could recognise from their form. The answer it gave was zero point zero per cent . Not a small number: none. That figure is correct and completely misleading, and the reason is the alphabet. The program compared strings of characters, and no Greek word shares a single character with its English descendant — they are written in different scripts, so the overlap is empty by construction. What the measurement actually shows is that the alphabet is the whole of the difficulty . Remove it, and a large part of the academic and technical vocabulary of English turns out to be Greek wearing roman clothes. So the first thing to do with a Greek word is not to look it up. It is to transliterate it — write it out letter by letter in roman characters — and look at what you have got. The rule Most letters transliterate as you would expect from their sound. These are the ones where an English speaker needs to be told. Greek Roman β v γ g / y δ d ζ z η i θ th ι i ξ x υ y φ f χ ch ψ ps ω o ου ou αι e ει i οι i Two of those do the heavy lifting. The letter that looks like a b transliterates as v , so a word that looks unfamiliar with a b in it often becomes familiar with a v — and the reverse: an English word with a b where Greek has this letter is usually a borrowing that came through Latin, which wrote it as b. And the letter that looks like an n transliterates as n , but the one that looks like a v is the n — which is the confusion from 0.6 again, in a new place. Now the demonstration. Take the Greek word for democracy. Letter by letter it is δημοκρατία → dimokratía → democracy . Say it aloud and the English word is already there; look at the middle of it and the -crat- of aristocrat and bureaucrat is sitting in plain sight. Nothing had to be looked up. The word was always transparent; the alphabet was hiding it. Forty words Read the first column aloud, then cover the third column and say what the English word is. Most readers get between twenty-five and thirty-five of the forty on the first pass. Written Transliterated English σχολείο scholío school πρόβλημα próvlima problem τηλέφωνο tiléfono telephone μουσική mousikí music ιδέα idéa idea ιστορία istoría history κέντρο kéndro centre θέμα théma theme φωτογραφία fotografía photograph μηχανή michaní machine θεωρία theoría theory τύπος týpos type μαθηματικά mathimatiká mathematics μουσείο mousío museum θέατρο théatro theatre πολιτική politikí politics γυμναστήριο gymnastírio gymnasium σκηνή skiní scene ενέργεια enérgia energy δημοκρατία dimokratía democracy σύστημα sýstima system κρίση krísi crisis μέθοδος méthodos method οικονομία ikonomía economy πρόγραμμα prógramma programme βάση vási base, basis κλίμα klíma climate ποίημα píima poem τεχνολογία technología technology γεωγραφία geografía geography χάρτης chártis chart, map φιλοσοφία filosofía philosophy χαρακτήρας charaktíras character αστρονομία astronomía astronomy θεραπεία therapía therapy αθλητής athlitís athlete πρακτική praktikí practice μέτρο métro metre, measure ζώνη zóni zone τόνος tónos tone Two warnings, because this is a tool and not magic. First, the meanings have drifted in places: a Greek word and its English descendant are often close rather than identical, and lesson 2.6 is entirely about the cases where they have drifted far enough to trap you. Second, the transliteration is of the modern pronunciation, so a word may look less like its English form than you expect — English took most of these through Latin, at a date when Greek still pronounced several letters the old way. It is worth being clear about what this volume is and is not. It is not a claim that Greek is easy: the grammar volume that follows has fourteen lessons in it for a reason, and the endings are where the work is. What the shared vocabulary does is change the order in which the difficulty arrives. A learner of Greek can read a scientific abstract, a menu of technical terms, or half the words on a university building long before being able to ask for directions — which is the opposite of the usual beginner's experience and worth using while it lasts. Read it aloud Eight sentences. The last one has no cognate in it at all, which is a useful reminder: this volume gives you a large free vocabulary, not the whole language. Greek English What to notice Πηγαίνω σχολείο. [1] I go to school. the word for school; read it as a roman word first Είδα την ταινία. [2] I watched the movie. the film: the Greek word is the one English uses for a strip of anything Αυτό είναι άλλο πρόβλημα. [3] This is another problem. the problem, spelled as English spells it once you swap the letters Καλή ιδέα. [4] Nice idea. the idea, and it is the same word Μ' αρέσει η μουσική. [5] I like music. the music Έχω μάθημα αύριο. [6] I have class tomorrow. the lesson: the root behind mathematics Μένω στην πόλη. [7] I'm living in the city. the city — the ending is the -polis of metropolis Το νερό είναι ζωή. [8] Water is life. not a cognate in sight, and still readable: not every sentence is a gift New words Word (with article) Meaning Notes το σχολείο el to scholío school Part of speech / class noun, neuter How it differs from English the schol- of scholar ; in Greek it first meant leisure η ιστορία el i istoría history; story Part of speech / class noun, feminine How it differs from English one word for both, as English had before the two split το κέντρο el to kéndro c