Byki vocabulary list flashcards!

I have discovered a great new website: www.byki.com

This website allows you to download and use a flashcard program for various languages, including New Testament Greek.

And what's even better: the flashcards come with sound, and the words are pronounced using a modern Greek pronunciation.

Immediately below I have posted a blog which will give you an idea of how the flashcards work.

Χαίρετε!

Byki vocabulary list 2

τις, τί : not quite the same as τίς, τί

This is the paradigm for the Greek word meaning 'someone,' 'anyone', 'a certain one'

or

'something,' 'anything,' 'a certain thing', etc.

Notice again that the masculine and feminine forms are identical; they are both included only to make this clear.

Notice also a possible ambiguity: the masculine accusative singular is the same form as the neuter nominative/accusative plural.

The monosyllabic forms do not have an accent; the disyllabic forms have a placeholder accent only, on the second syllable. A placeholder accent indicates that these forms are enclitics, and will only receive an accent in use as the rules of accentuation require.

The accent is necessary to distinguish between τίς, τί and τις, τι. If there is an accent on the first or only syllable, the word is the former, and means 'who?', 'what?', 'why?', etc. Otherwise, the word is τις, τι.

The interrogative pronoun τίς, τί

The paradigm for τίς, τί is as follows:

(The paradigm is in the usual order: masculine, feminine, and neuter, reading across; nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative cases reading down; the plural forms are listed below the singular forms.)


Notice that the masculine and feminine forms are identical; this is why the word is listed as τίς, τί instead of τίς, τίς, τί.


Notice also that each word has an accent, and that the accent on the two-syllable forms is on the first syllable.

The endings of τίς, τί follow, more or less, the endings of third declension nouns.









τίς, τί is an interrogative pronoun; that is, it introduces a question. The meaning is something like: who? which? what?


E.g., τίς λέγει; Who is speaking?

τί βλέπει; What is he/she saying?


The neuter singular form, τί, is also often used to mean 'why?'

τί λέγει ταύτα; Why is he/she saying these things?


τίς, τί must be distinguished from τις, τι. More on that in the next post.

The Greek alphabet: the last eight letters

Again, we have some letters (notably Τ) which are easy to recognize for English speakers.


On the other hand, ρο is a problem; it is the Greek equivalent of the English 'r', but looks like the English 'p'.


The letter 'ύψιλον' looks like an English 'u' in lowercase, and an English 'Y' in uppercase. It is, in fact, a vowel that sounds, in modern Greek, exactly like γιώτα and ήτα.



Note that the σίγμα (the equivalent to the English 's') has two lowercase forms. The first form ('σ') is used at the beginning and in the middle of words. The second form ('ς') is only used at the end of a word: σίγμα, μαθητής

The Greek alphabet: the second eight letters

These are the next eight letters. Notice that some Greek letters have a familiar look (e.g., α, β, ε, ι, κ, ο) as both capital and lowercase letters.


Other letters look familiar as a uppercase letter (e.g., Ζ, Μ, Ν) but not in lowercase (ζ, μ, ν).

The lowercase Ν ('ν') is an example of an especially tricky kind of Greek letter; to an English speaker it looks like something it is not. It looks like a 'vee'. It is not; it is the lowercase form for the Greek equivalent of an English 'n'.

Similarly, the uppercase ήτα (H) looks like something it is not; the Greek Η (lowercase 'η') is a vowel, with a sound pronounced (in modern Greek) exactly like the sound of the Greek γιώτα.

The Greek alphabet: the first eight letters

These are the first eight letters in the Greek alphabet, to the left as capital letters, then as lowercase. The name of the letter - in Greek - is listed at the right.

If you click on the link below, you will be taken to the filoglossia website, which contains sound files for the pronunciation of each letter. It takes a bit of patience, but you will hear each letter pronounced correctly, according to a modern Greek pronunciation. http://www.xanthi.ilsp.gr/filog/ch1/alphabet/alphabet.asp