Ἀρχαῖα Ἑλληνικὴ Γλῶσσα - Greek!

[Tc Frorleivus Almus Ph]

Ἀρχαῖα Ἑλληνικὴ Γλῶσσα - Ancient Greek Tongue

Greek is, as the astute reader may adequately guess, the language spoken by the Greeks in the country of Greece. It is its own independent branch of the Indo-European languages, despite its somewhat rough connections to many of the language families that surround the borders of Greece. The language itself has the lofty position of having the longest documented history of any of the other Indo-European languages; 34 centuries of usage, though the language has certainly undergone a great number of changes over time. The particular era of Greek that I'll be teaching is of the ancient variations. "Ancient Greek" is an umbrella term that technically identifies several different stages of the language: Archaic Greek, Classical Greek and Koine Greek. The archaic stage is a bit extricated, but the classical and koine stages are very closely related. Thus, I'll be teaching specifically classical Greek, but if you are learning koine Greek, it won't be that much different. Furthermore, there are several dialects of classical Greek that existed, and the variant I learned first is called "Ionic" Greek. The most common form of classical Greek is a dialect called "Attic" Greek. There are several distinct variations among the two dialects, so I will try to point them out when necessary.

With that, let us begin!  

[Tc Frorleivus Almus Ph]

Ἀρχαῖα Ἑλληνικὴ Γλῶσσα - Orthography and Pronunciation Guide

Of course, Greek gets its own whole post dedicated to orthography. Why? Because it has a different alphabet than the Roman one! It has to come with pronunciation simply because one will not be able to read the alphabet without knowing how the letters sound (especially the ones that don't look like the Roman equivalents). Since this variant of Greek is no longer utilized in the modern day, then the pronunciation will not be as important; it will be more focused on understanding the spelling of a word. Without further ado, the alphabet!

Αα - ἄλφα (alpha) /a/ "father"
Ββ - βῆτα (bēta) /b/ "bed"
Γγ - γάμμα (gamma) /g/ "go"
Δδ - δέλτα (delta) /d/ "dentist"
Εε - ἒ ψιλόν (e psilon) /ɛ/ "pet"
Ζζ - ζῆτα (zēta) /z/ "zoo"
Ηη - ἦτα (ēta) /ɛː/ "make"
Θθ - θῆτα (thēta) /tʰ/ "hothead"
Ιι - ἰῶτα (iōta) /iː/ "fleece"
Κκ - κάππα (kappa) /k/ "mock"
Λλ - λάμβδα (lambda) /l/ "leap"
Μμ - μῦ (my) /m/ "move"
Νν - νῦ (ny) /n/ "new"
Ξξ - ξῖ (xi) /ks/ "socks"
Οο - ὂ μικρόν (o mikron) /ɔ/ "boat"
Ππ - πῖ (pi) /p/ "picky"
Ρρ - ῥῶ (rhō) /r/ trilled r as in Spanish or Italian
Σσς - σίγμα (sigma) /s/ "hiss"
Ττ - ταῦ (tau) /t/ "tough"
Υυ - ὖ ψιλόν (y psilon) /ü/ French "tu" (position your tongue as if to say "ee" but round your lips to say "ooh")
Φφ - φῖ (phi) /pʰ/ "upheave"
Χχ - χῖ (chi) /kʰ/ "lockheart"
Ψψ - ψῖ (psi) /ps/ "elipse"
Ωω - ὦ μέγα (ō mega) /ɔː/ "boat"

A few notes. First of all, don't worry about all those scary accent marks that you don't recognize; we'll cover those in the next lesson. There, we'll also cover the vowels in more detail; there are some very specific particularities that are important.
Capital letters normally only appear in formal or proper nouns, such as Ζεύς (Zeus). They are not normally used to begin a sentence in most texts (though I do that anyway, so keep note of that fact).
When sigma is the last letter in a word, it appears as ς. Otherwise, Σ or σ is used.
Beyond this lesson, I will not transliterate Greek words into the Roman alphabet; study this well!  

[Tc Frorleivus Almus Ph]

Ἀρχαῖα Ἑλληνικὴ Γλῶσσα - Further pronunciation and diacritics

First things first, I'm going to have to post these in a bigger font size than normal. I don't really like the bigger font, but it's quite difficult to see the difference between the breathing marks otherwise, so. With that said, on to the lesson!

"Diacritics" is another fancy-pants word for the accent markings above letters. Ancient Greek utilizes a few, some that are exclusive to Greek. We'll start with those.

The smooth breathing mark ἀ represents the absence of aspiration. This diacritical mark can only appear over a vowel and only if the vowel is the first letter. That said, if a word begins with a vowel, it must have either the smooth breathing mark or:
The rough breathing mark ἁ represents the presence of aspiration. Thus, ἁ is pronounced "ha".
-The letter ρ is the only consonant that can be aspirated and this only occurs when it is the first letter (ῥήτωρ, a public speaker) or if there are two rho's next to one another (πυῤῥός, fiery-red).
-The letter υ, when it is the first letter, always receives a rough breathing mark (ὕδωρ, water).

The acute accent ( ´ ) marks a slight rise in pitch (equivalent to where one puts the emphasis on a word in English; think of the difference between American English "aluminum" [alúminum] and British English "aluminum" [alumínium])
The grave accent ( ` ) only appears where an acute would appear and tells the speaker not to raise the tone where one normally would. In other words, keep a flat tone, as in the English expression "no aluminum" [nò alúminum]/[nò alumínium]. This mark only appears when a word is accented on its final syllable and the next word follows with no intervening punctuation. Σοφὸς ἀνήρ.
The circumflex ( ~/^ ) marks a rise in pitch followed by a fall in pitch. This accent mark may only appear on long vowels and long diphthongs.

The iota subscript is when a small iota is written below a long vowel ( ᾳ ῳ ῃ ) to mark an older diphthong sound ( αι ωι ηι ) in which the iota is no longer pronounced. Depending on what accent you want to adopt (provided that this part matters to you), you may pronounce the vowel with a slight iota sound following it (which is Ionic/Doric/Epic style) or simply pronounce the vowel with no extra diphthong sound (Attic style).

Now let's take a look at the vowels quickly.
- Inherently long vowels are:
Ηη and Ωω
- Their short counterparts are:
Εε and Οο
- These vowels can be either long or short
Αα, Ιι and Υυ
Nota bene: Diphthongs are usually long save for αι and οι, but only when they are the last two letters in a word.

With that in mind, we'll now go over the general rules for accentuation.

I. The acute is limited to the last three syllables of a word unless the final syllable contains a long vowel; then it is limited to the last two.
II. The circumflex is limited to the last two syllables unless the final syllable contains a long vowel; then it is contained to the final syllable. If the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable is to be accented, then it receives the circumflex whenever possible.
III. The grave may only occur in the final syllable, and only to replace an acute when another word follows without pause.

The accentuation for verbs is recessive, meaning that the accent recedes as far away from the end as the rules permit.
The accentutation for nouns and adjectives is persistent, meaning that the standard position of the accent is where it tends to stay and will move from that position as little as possible.

A little practice!

- Verbs -
Μιμνήσκειν (to remember) - The last syllable contains a diphthong, so the accent can only recede to the penultimate. Since the final syllable is long, no circumflex is possible.
Λῦε (loosen!) - The last syllabe is short ε, so the accent recedes as far away as it can. It happens to fall on a long υ which is the penultimate, so it receives the circumflex.
Ηὕρηκα (short α [I have found it!]) - The final syllable is short, so the accent recedes to the antepenultimate (third-to-last) syllable. It's too far for the circumflex, so it gains an accute. Note also that it begins with a vowel diphthong and therefore needs a breathing mark. In this case, it is aspirated.

- Nouns -
Ἀλήθεια (truth) - Just from this, we can guess that the α is short simply because the accent is on the antepenultimate syllable. Therefore, when the word changes...
Ἀληθείας - We can guess that the final α must now be long, since the accent has moved down to the penultimate syllable.
Δῶρον - Since the final syllable is short and the penultimate is long, the circumflex appears. However...
Δώρων - When the final syllable becomes long, the accent doesn't move (because it doesn't need to) but the circumflex becomes an acute.

Cram all that into your head and once you've got it all in there, come back for the next lesson!  

[Tc Frorleivus Almus Ph]

Ἀρχαῖα Ἑλληνικὴ Γλῶσσα - Noun Cases

Everyone's favorite grammatical aspect! Cases. These can be difficult if English is your first language. If modern Greek, German, or Russian is your first language, then you are already quite familiar with this concept.

To put it in a technical sense, a case is something that defines a noun's grammatical function within a sentence. That's complicated to think about, though, isn't it? Let's try to simplify this a bit. Take the sentence:
"The poet addressed the man."
We know the subject to be "poet" and the object to be "man". In English, this is entirely determined by the word order; subject first, verb next, followed by the object. This construction is commonly abbreviated as "SVO". Subject Verb Object. If we flip the sentence around, it changes meaning:
"The man addressed the poet."
Greek, however, works differently. Instead, they have special word endings that show you what the subject and the object are.

We English speakers still use the case system to a very, very small extent, believe it or not. Normally, it only occurs within pronouns. So if we assume that the poet is male and swap the two nouns here with pronouns...
"He addressed him."
See that? It's not 'he addressed he', because one has to be the object of the verb, right? There it is. That's how the cases work, as simple as that. In theory, we can swap the word order:
"Him addressed he."
See how you can still understand the meaning? It's really weird in that order, but if you ignore the strangeness of the order, you can still understand the meaning perfectly well.
The only difference between English and Greek here is that most Greek nouns can undergo changes like this, pronouns included, whereas English only allows pronouns to do this.

With that said, let's go over the cases themselves. Greek has four most of the time and sometimes a fifth case.

The first (I) is the Nominative. This marks the subject of the sentence.

The second (II) is the Vocative. This is what you use when you directly address someone. "Hey, mom!" This is the one that isn't always there; it's often identical in form to the nominative, so it is often preceded in Greek by Ὀ or, in really strenuous circumstances, by Ὠ. Ὀ Σώκρατες!

The third (III) is the Accusative. This marks the direct object of a verb. "He addressed him."

The fourth (IV) is the Genitive. It shows possession. "The poet's words." Or, alternately: "The words of the poet."

The fifth (V) and final is the Dative. It marks a few things; the indirect object: "I gave the book to him." Or it is usually the case that follows certain prepositions. "I hit him with the book." "He's in the house, crying."

This order is not set in stone; this order is just the order that I learned them when I learned Latin, and thus, this order stuck. In shorthand, I tend to write just a Roman numeral in lieu of writing out the whole name for these cases, so eventually I will start to do that. Before I jump straight into that, I'll abbreviate the names of the cases for you when I talk about them and gradually fall into using only the numerals. Practice practice!