Greek orthography and syntax topics

1Introduction

This booklet is a work of reference. It is intended to accompany or supplement course material; it is not a substitute for a course-book. It has been written mainly for students of Koiné / New Testament Greek, but this particular booklet regards classical Greek as the backbone of even NT Greek, and it shows how the NT at times adheres to the classical construction, and at times migrates to a different, generally simpler, syntax.

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  Advice is given on how to pronounce Ancient Greek.
  
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  The role of the length of the vowels a i and u in accentuation rules is explained in detail. Knowledge of vowel lengths is virtually a pre-requisite to an appreciation of the accentuation rules.
  
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  Various syntactical subjects have been summarised, with examples from the Greek New Testament. The Greek text used is the 1904 Patriarchal text of the Greek Orthodox Church. It was gratefully taken from http://kainh.homestead.com/English.html.
  

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  Various comparisons are made between classical and New Testament Greek, where the syntax varies. Sometimes we use the Septuagint as second choice, or for a classical example, Xenophon's Anabasis this being a popular and fairly easy book, available from http://www.mikrosapoplous.gr (with thanks).
  

2The Greek Alphabet

The Greek alphabet consists of 22 letters, but we must note that three vowels (a, i, u) do duty for a long (a>, i<, u<) and short vowel sound (a`, i^, u^), further explained below. There are two forms of sigma; the final form (j) is called stigma. There are also three other letters that fell into disuse at an early stage of the language's development: V wau or digamma, v sampi, and J qoppa.

Lower case letters are called minuscules or cursives. Upper case letters are called majuscules or uncials.

Lower case	Upper case	Medieval cursive	Sina-iticus	Greek name	English name	Tran- scription	Greek Value	Hebrew Cognate
a` a>	^A	a` a>	a	a!lfa	alpha		1	)
b	B	b	b	bh=ta	beta		2	b
g	G	g	g	ga&mma	gamma		3	g
d	D	d	d	de/lta	delta		4	d
e	E	e	e	e2 yi	epsilon		5	h
-	V	-	-	-	digamma		-	w
j	-	j	s	sti/gma	stigma		6	_
z	Z	z	z	zh=ta	zeta		7	z
h	H	h	h	h=ta	eta		8	x
q	Q	q	q	qh=ta	theta		9	+
i^ i<	^I	i^ i<	i	i0w~ta	iota		10	y
k	K	k	k	ka/ppa	kappa		20	k
l	L	l	l	la&¨m©bda	lambda		30	l
m	M	m	m	mu<=	mu		40	m
n	N	n	n	nu<=	nu		50	n
c	C	c	c	ci<=	xi		60	s
o	O	o	o	o2 mi	omicron		70	(
p	P	p	p	pi<=	pi		80	p
-	-	-					-	c see below
-	J	-			qoppa		90	q(=100)
r	R	r	r	r9w~	rho		100	r(=200)
s	S	s	s	si/gma	sigma		200	#(=300)
t	T	t	t	tau=	tau		300	t(=400)
u^ u<	^U	u` u>	u	u<] yi	upsilon		400
f	F	f	f	fi<=	phi		500
x	X	x	x	xi<=	chi		600
y	Y	y	y	yi<=	psi		700
w	W	w	w	w} me/ga	omega		800
-	v	-			sampi		900	c(=90)

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