#Learn Greek Language

[choccy-milky]

seb about to learn every language there is 📚📚

[psychidion]

ancient greek words for colors:

On the whole, the Greeks were not really concerned with giving names to specific colors. Their color terms were vague, often had more to do with shade than color difference, and drew in a sort of dynamic physicality that is honestly incredibly interesting.

μέλας and λευκός, which were commonly used to refer to black and white respectively, were still more involved with shade than the particular colors that we perceive as black and white. μέλας also meant dark, murky, and swarthy. λευκός was light, bright and clear, referred to any white color from a pure white to a light grey, and could also refer to someone with lighter skin.

χλωρός meant pale green or greenish yellow, but also commonly meant pale or pallid when referring to people and fresh or blooming when referring to plants and liquids (including blood and tears).

πορφύρεος is where we get the color term purple. And when it was referring to clothes or things, it did mean purple. But when it was describing people, especially their complexions, it meant bright red or flushed. This definition originates from the basic meaning of the word: heaving, surging, gushing, coming from the verb πορφύρω.

ξανθός and ἐρυθρός are perhaps the only straightforward terms, meaning yellow or golden and red respectively. ξανθός was typically used to describe blonde (ish) people; Achilles is described as having ξανθή κόμη (golden hair).

γλαυκός was commonly used to refer to the color grey, or simply to describe something as gleaming. When it refers to eyes, it usually describes the color; the most famous example being Athena and her epithet of γλαυκῶπις or grey-eyed (or gleaming eyed).

And now let's talk about κυάνεος. We get the color term cyan from it, and the word is popularly considered to refer to a dark blue. But that isn't exactly accurate. If we look at what this word typically described: hair, people, etc., it is clear that the concept of blue that we have nowadays wasn’t really coming into play. In fact, the more general translation is dark or black, conveying a shade rather than a color, like μέλας. If I were to attribute a color term to this word at all, I would probably say blue-black, or a cool black, to convey the depth of that shade, which is probably what the Greeks were describing.

[gemsofgreece]

Greek Duolingo is not playing huh

[thoodleoo]

when you double-check the meaning of a basic vocabulary word you've seen a thousand times in the language you're learning and you got it right

[lionofchaeronea]

After years and years immersed in the study of ancient Greek, I've decided it's finally time to acquire a proper command of modern Greek -- both so that I can navigate the country smoothly if and when I go back there, and so that I can read such towering poetic geniuses as Cavafy, Seferis, and Elytis in the original. Wish me luck.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

I’ve been trying to learn a bit of greek mainly because of my interest in greek mythology (learning the pronounciations of names) and I would like to ask how to pronounce gamma? I’ve watched some videos and it sounds kind of like an “eu” sound but usually these videos would compare the sound to an english sound or word for better pronounciation, but they all use either y or w, which doesn’t sound like the sound they make for gamma. I’m mainly asking about this because I’m currently figuring out how to pronounce Gaia’s name. Whenever I search for the greek pronunciation its “yaia” but I can never find any actual videos of how this sounds.

It's like the "w" in war. Gaia is pronounced exactly like "yeah". You can find videos with the Greek alphabet for sure. YouTube is full of them :)) You just have to search "learn Greek" and not something about ancient Greek. GreekPod101 is a good channel for this.

Sometimes we write words like Γιάννης as Yannis to help the Anglophones approximate it. Για sounds like "ya" many times.

Other languages transliterate the same sound as "gh", if it helps.

[sherdnerd]

My number one classics ick is when a scholar will just insert untranslated passages of Greek and Latin into their paper. good job on the artificial inaccessibility you guys, glad you were able to gatekeep the field so none of those dirty peasants may learn stuff. its just for us cool guys who speak Greek or Latin

[perseusnot]

hii, my name is mel, i’m currently learning italian🇮🇹and looking for some italian friends (that sounds kind of weird ahaha) that could maybe help me in my journey, in exchange I can help with english or latvian if you’d like :)

here’s a bit about me:

• a small list of fandoms I am in - marauders, asoiaf, voltron, percy jackson, dune, etc.

• I like playing video games (assassin’s creed, minecraft, red dead redemption, terraria, hades)

• I watch movies and read books every so often

• I’m fluent in 2 languages and am currently learning 2

• nico di angelo and regulus black🙏🙏

(p.s. you don’t have to be italian to be friends!!! very happy to also make non-italian speaking friends:))

[miyatalksshit]

I believe that the only reason why mashima didn't give team friends or fucking and their children jobs that do not have any destruction is cause lucy would be the only one having something to contribute

[renegade-hierophant]

A table of beginner Ancient Greek courses with chapters collated for parallel study: link to Google Spreadsheet.

[smallpileoftwigs]

right i have a question for u bilingual lot,

i would really like to learn a language other than english and was hoping to get some possible advice, sort of like where to start, how to keep it fresh in my mind and not something i get bored of a couple weeks from now cause wah wah its too hard

if u guys have any tips please let me know ! im most interested in learning a language like scottish gaelic or welsh, but also i am a classics student and think itd be really cool to learn greek or latin, ofc i'm aware these may be difficult languages to start with so im honestly open to anything !

[soulless-bex]

headcanon that percy is smart in a sense that he picks up language really easily, like he just learns them through exposure and stupidly fast, but since he’s dyslexic and has a hard time writing/reading and that’s all schools care about, he never learned the value of his skill

[gemsofgreece]

I might have written about this before but: to people who are weirded out Modern Greeks call Zeus Δίας (Dias).

The original name of Zeus, first attested in Mycenaean Greek Linear B scripts (1400-1200 BC), was di-we, di-wo, from the possible Proto-Hellenic form *dzeus, from possible PIE root being *dewos, meaning "god". That d-strong form in Mycenaean was later retained better in the secondary forms of the noun, meaning the cases apart from the nominative.

Nominative: ὁ Ζεύς (o Zeus) Genitive: τοῦ Διός (tou Dios) Dative: τῷ Διῐ́ (to Dii) Accusative: τὸν Δίᾰ (ton Dia) Vocative: ὦ! Ζεῦ (oh Zeu)

The theorized z-including form *dzeus in Proto-hellenic survived better in some Greek dialects but even less so in others:

Δάν (Dán) — Aeolic

Δεύς (Deús) — Boeotian

Ζάς (Zás) — Laconian

Ζάν (Zán), Ζάς (Zás) — Doric

Ζήν (Zḗn) — poetic

Θιός (Thiós), Σιός (Siós) — Boeotian, Ionic

Τάν (Tán) — Cretan

As for Modern Greek, it has more often retained words through their secondary rather than their nominative cases, with the accusative case being the most common, like here.

[gingermintpepper]

"So Ginger, what're you doing today?"

The beauty of linguistics is that I still do not know a lick of modern, living Greek. (I am, in fact, a fraud)

[dyrewrites]

"Do we use the Greek spelling or the anglicized spelling?"

"If you don't use the Greek letters people can't look it up."

"Okay but it looks real weird and out of place and I'm pretty sure it is all entirely wrong."

"All of the languages are probably wrong, on account of all four translator sites giving different translations and there being a whole mess of contextual and cultural usage your dumb one language speaking ass does not understand."

"Okay...so what do I do?"

"Leave it as is and find people to help properly translate things later."

"But it looks wrong now."

"It's a first draft. It is allowed to look wrong."

[alatismeni-theitsa]

I like the scary vibe here 😂