The Greek Language 203

The language of Greece is very distantly related to languages like Latin and Armenian. Here we will check out some of the similarities and differences of Greek to other distantly related languages.

Greek usually combines the subject and verb of a sentence into one single word and puts the object after. This is similar to Latin. In Greek you usually put adjectives before the noun. Greek also usually used prepositions.

Here are the Greek pronouns:

ego: I (similar to Latin ego)
mou: me (similar to "me")
emeis: we (could come from mou)
mas: us (could come from emeis)
sou: you (similar to Latin tu)
esy: you (accusative) (could come from sou)
eseis: you (plural) (could come come from sou)
autos: he (this word likely was invented, but we get the word "auto" which can mean "self")
auton: him (could come from autos)
auti: she (could come from autos)
autin: her (could come from auti)
to: it (similar to Slavic languages, "eto")
autoi: they (could come from autos)
tous: them (could come from to)

There are a lot more languages that have similar word to each word, but for simplicity sake, I chose 1 for each. In Greek, you just put the standard pronoun after a noun to show possession. I.E. "my house" would become "the house me". In Greek, you say "the" like "to" and you say "a" or "an" like "ena". To likely has something to do with the Greek word for it "to". Ena likely comes from the Greek word for one "enas". In Greek, to make a noun plural, you usually change the final vowel to a.

This is a diaghram of how Greek verbs work.

English     Present     Past     Future

I eat     Troo     Efaga     Tha fao

You eat     Trote     Efages     Tha fas

I drink     Pino     Ipia     Tha pio

You drink     Pineis     Ipies     Tha pieis

Here are the Greek question words:

ti: what
giati: why
pou: who
otan: when
opou: where

Here are the Greek numbers:

ena dyo tria tessera pente exi epta okto ennea deka

You can see how these are related.

Greek : German : Russian
ena : ein : odin
dyo : zwei : dva
tria : drei : tri
tessera : vier : chetyre
pente : funf : pyat'
exi : sechs : shest'
epta : sieben : sem'
okto : acht : vosem'
ennea : neun : devyat'
deka : zehn : desyat'

Here is some more vocabulary comparision.

water, dirt, air, fire, mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister

nero : wasser : voda
vromia : schmutz : gryaz'
aeras : luft : vozdukh
fotia : feuer : ogon'
mitera : mutter : mat'
pateras : vater : otets
yios : sohn : syn
kori : tochter : doch'
adelfos : bruder : brat
adelfi : schwester : sestra

You can see that for some of these words, German and Russian show similarity especially for family members, for Greek, much less.
 -- Written by Vikenait Productions