A Digital Tutorial for Ancient Greek
Based on John William White’s First Greek Book

Created by Jeff Rydberg-Cox, Classical and Ancient Studies Program, University of Missouri-Kansas City

Lesson 1: The Greek Alphabet, Vowels, Consonants, And Dipthongs

The Greek Alphabet

1. The Greek Alphabet has 24 letters. You will find a good pronunciation tutorial with recorded audio at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ancgreek/pronunchtml/pronunc_guideU.html, and recordings of longer Ancient Greek texts at http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eclip/.

2. At the end of a word ς, elsewherε σ, as σκηνης, of a tent.

Vowels

3. The vowels are α, ε, η, ι, ο, ω, υ. The remaining letters are consonants.

4. Vowels are either short or long. There are separate Greek characters (ε, η, ο, ω) for the e and o sounds, but not for a, i, and u sounds. In this book the long vowels are designated by α macron– a straight line that appears above the vowel when it is long- , η, ῑ, ω, ῡ; the short vowels are α, ε, ι, ο υ.

Consonants

5. The consonants are divided into semivowels, mutes and double consonants.

6. The semivowels are λ, μ, ν, ρ, σ, and γ-nasal (10). λ, μ, ν, ρ are liquids, σ is a siblant.

7. The mutes are of three classes, and of three orders.

Classes

Labial or π-mutes π, β, φ

Palatal or κ-mutes κ, γ, χ

Lingual or τ-mutes τ, δ, θ

Orders

Smooth mutes π, κ, τ

Middle mutes β, γ, δ

Rough mutes φ, χ, θ

8. Mutes of the same class are called cognate, those of the same order co-ordinate.

9. The double consonants are ξ (for κς), ψ (for πς), and ζ.

10. The consonants are pronounced, in general like their English equivalents; but gamma before κ, γ, χ, or ξ equals (sounds like) the ng in sing, and is called gamma nasal.

Dipthongs

11. A dipthong is a combination of two vowel sounds in a single syllable. The Dipthongs are αι, αυ, ει, ευ, οι, ου, ηυ, υι, ᾳ, ῃ, ῳ. The last three, formed by writing ι under ᾱ, η, ω, are called improper diphthongs. Their second vowel is called iota subscript.

12. The diphthongs are pronounced:

αι as in aisle

αυ as ou in hour

ει as in eight

υι as in quit

οι as in oil

ου as in group

ευ as ĕh-oo *

ηυ as ĕh-oo *

* For these there is no exact equivalents in English.

13.Pronunciation Practice

Read each of the following words aloud

A Digital Tutorial For Ancient Greek Based on John William White’s First Greek Book.
A Work In Progress: Expect things to change and know that you will find errors as you use this tutorial.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Please see the acknowledgments page for a list of the on-line resources that have contributed to this project.
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