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

A new beginning . . .

After careful consideration, I've decided to shift the emphasis of this blog. Instead of working one verse at a time through the New Testament, I'm going to write entries that are more like the chapters of a textbook. In other words, we will start in the usual place-the Greek alphabet--and work from there.

This will involve some repetition from what I've written here before, but it will also be, I believe, more accessible for most readers.

Stay tuned! Χαίρετε!

More Matthew 1:22

τούτο δε όλον γέγονεν
and this all occurred

ίνα πληρωθῇ
in order that it might be fulfilled

το ρηθέν υπό κυρίου
that which was spoken by the lord

διά του προφήτου λέγοντος
through the prophet saying . . .

Last time we looked at the first line of this verse; today we'll continue on to the second:

ίνα πληρωθῇ
in order that it might be fulfilled

The word 'ίνα' is translated here 'in order that.' But the next four words in English - 'it might be fulfilled' - require only one word in Greek: 'πληρωθῇ'. (Incidentally, the mark above the last letter is a circumflex accent - this is pronounced the same as an acute accent for our purposes.)

The word 'πληρωθῇ' is from the verb (in the present tense) 'πληρόω', which has the basic meaning 'to fill', 'to make full', 'to fulfill'. But our form is passive; that is, the basic meaning is 'made full' or 'fulfilled'.

Something is 'made full' of 'fulfilled' by an agent that is not the subject of the phrase. So what is the subject - i.e., the person or thing that is being acted upon? In this case the subject is 'it' - referring to 'that which was spoken by the lord', which comes next in the verse. So if we are reading word by word, and not looking ahead, we don't know what is being fulfilled yet.

The verb form is third person singular, indicating 'he/she/it was fulfilled', not 'we were fulfilled' or 'I was fulfilled', etc. The verb form is also aorist. The meaning of the aorist tense does not precisely correspond to the meaning of any English verb tense. It is - in the indicative - mostly a simple past tense; e.g., 'I said' (aorist) vs. 'I say' (present tense) or 'I was saying' (imperfect).

But this is not an indicative form; 'πληρωθῇ' is third person, aorist passive subjunctive. In the subjunctive the aorist does not really have a past tense meaning. In non-indicative tenses the aorist is more an indication that the action involved involves a single and completed occurrence. Here we bring out the subjunctive sense by the use of the English helping word 'might'.

The aorist is a subject of some discussion among Greek grammar experts.

Remember to check www.greekbiblestudy.org for much more information about each word that we look at. Χαίρετε!

τούτο δε όλον γέγονεν
and this all occurred

ίνα πληρωθῇ
in order that it might be fulfilled

το ρηθέν υπό κυρίου
that which was spoken by the lord

διά του προφήτου λέγοντος
through the prophet saying . . .

Yes, the verse breaks off there, and we need to wait for the next verse to find out what the prophet was saying.

Let's start with the first line:

τούτο δε όλον γέγονεν
and this all occurred

The 'δε', (usually 'and' or 'but), is post-positive, as we've seen before; that is, it comes second in the Greek, but first in an English translation.

The words 'τούτο' and 'ὀλον' mean 'this' and 'all', respectively; so, 'all this'.

All this -- what?

The verb here is 'γἐγονεν', which is the third person, perfect active indicative of the verb 'γίνομαι᾿, which means something like--
'to come into being, to begin to be, to become, to arise, to happen'.

The perfect tense in Greek is similar to the English perfect: something has happened rather than something happened. The perfect is usually explained as indicating an action in the past whose consequences continue to the present.

For example, if you slipped on the ice and fell down, and were telling this story to friends later, you would say:

I slipped and fell down (aorist tense). You would not say, I have slipped and fallen down (perfect tense). The latter implies that you are still down on the ice.

On the other hand, if you slipped and fell down, and can't get up, and are desperately calling for help on your cell phone, you would say I've slipped and fallen down (perfect tense). Come help me, please. Oh, you could have said I slipped and fell down--perhaps being in pain, and not concerned about the fine points of the aorist vs. the perfect tense--but here the perfect tense would be . . . perfect, since the essential point of your communication is that the consequences of the actions of slipping and falling are continuing to the present.

More on this verse next time. Χαίρετε!