Language

Grammar

• Parts
  • Sentence (lógos)
  • Word (léxis)
  • Syllable (syllabḗ)
  • Consonant (sýmphōnon)
    • Semivowel
      • Single – l, m, n, r, s, r, s
      • Double – x, z
    • Mute
      • Smooth – b, c, d, k, p, q, t
      • Rough – f, h, þ
      • Medial – g, v, ð
  • Vowel (phōnḗnta)
    • Long – á, é, í, ó, ú, ý
    • Short – a, e, i, o, u, y
    • Dipthongs – ae, au, ei, eu, oe, ou
• Categories
  • Noun (ónoma)
    • Generic – e.g. man, horse
    • Specific – e.g. Peter, Paul
  • Verb (rhḗma) – e.g. strike
  • Participle (metochḗ) – e.g. trusting
  • Article (árthron) – e.g. the
  • Pronoun (antōnymía) – e.g. he
  • Preposition (próthesis) – e.g. in, at, from
  • Adverb (epírrēma) – e.g. here, wastely
  • Conjuction (sýndesmos) – e.g. and, but, or, so
• Cases
  • Nomitive – e.g. he is working
  • Generic – e.g. his hands
  • Dative – e.g. speaking to him
  • Accusitive – e.g. hearing him
• Persons
  • 1st (sng.) – I, my/mine, me
  • 1st (pl.) – we, our, us
  • 2nd (sng.) – thou, thy/thine, thee
  • 2nd (pl.) – you, your, ye
  • 3rd (sng.) – he/she/it, his, him/her
  • 3rd (pl.) – they, those, them
  • – (–) – who, whose, whom
• Accents
  • Acute (oxeîa) – ◌́
  • Circumflex (perispōménē) – ◌̃/◌̂
  • Grave (bareîa) – ◌̀
  • Rough Breath (dasỳ pneŷma) – ◌῾
  • Smooth Breath (psīlòn pneŷma) – ◌᾿
  • Trema (diǽresis) – ◌̈

John of Damascus, St. “Philosophical Chapters” in: The Fount of Knowledge.

Thrax, Dionysius. The Art of Grammar.

Pronunciation

For the sake of better understanding this page, here is how each English letter is properly pronounced:

A number of vowel usages have been left out here, most simplified to just e. At times a is pronounced áe, á as eí, u as áe, &c.

The words in brackets are those I haven’t thought of a suitable, acrophonic one for yet. Until then, read ice there as /ees/, and ox as /ooks/.

Alphabets

Traditionally, codices were written in uncial (now called lowercase), only employing capitals (now called uppercase) for chapter initial decoration. The terms upper- and lowercase are a result of printing presses, while their technical functions, a Germanic custom.

It is neccesary, I think, to tell in brief summary the history of the alphabet:

According to Christians, Moses (or Abraham) was the first to make written letters, which survives today as Syriac, and taught heiroglyphics to the Egyptians. Cadmus, a Phœnecian, taught a form of Syriac to the Greeks, which survives as Greek, and again to the Latins (now called Italians), which survives as Latin.

According to the Greeks, Hermes was the first to write, and taught it to the Egyptians, and it was a form of this Cadmus in turn then taught, and so on. They also credit Phœbus with some letters.

The Assyrian cuneifrom would seem to have been formed from the Egyptian heiroglyphics. Chinese Han-tzu, in turn, would seem to have been formed from Assyrian cuneiform. This is my opinion.

The Brachmic (now called Hindi) and Arabic were formed from Syriac.

SS. Cyril and Methodius taught a form of Greek to the Slavs, further developed by SS. Gorazd, Clement, Naum, Angelar, and Sava of Ohrid, which survives as Slavic (also called Cyrillic).

Suda, the.

Herodotus. The Histories.

Numerals

For continued counting in Greek, prefix a , to multiply the following number by 1000. The same is done with a ҂ in Slavic, but also overlaying ⃝ for 10,000, ҈ for 100,000, ҉ for 1,000,000, ꙰ for 10,000,000, ꙱ for 100,000,000, and ꙲ for 1,000,000,000.

Syriac

Besides these, Syriac has five vowels, which are written above the letters:

For a want of resources, here’s a table for converting Assyrian script (now called “Hebrew”) to Syriac:

Syriac is pronounced thus:

Greek

It should be known that the use of the macron (◌̄) above e and o for η and ω is a contemporary, not traditional, practise. The traditional custom was to translate them as é and ó, which can be problematic if we intend to translate the tones. So, when translating names from Greek, I use the acute mark, but when translating words with tones, I use the macron.

Further, the following digraphs are translated thus:

When translating names from Greek into Latin, -οc is translated as -us, -ρος as -er, and -ων as -ó, or, if not a person, -um.

There are a number of ligatures, some of which are: ϗ for καί, ȣ for ου, and ϛ for στ.

When translating certain sounds into Greek which they naturally don’t have, i.e. gi and sh, put τζ and τσ respectively.

If diacritics are unavailable on a keyboard, the grave accent may be either omitted or replaced with \ after the letter, the acute, with ' or / after, and the circumflex, either with ~, ', or \ after, or omitted. This can also be useful on a keyboard with diacritics but unable to put more than one on a letter. Here is a website that can impose more diacritics on a letter.

Greek is pronounced thus:

The pairs αυ and ευ are pronounced áf and ef when the following letter is unvoiced–e.g θ, τ–but áv and ev when voiced–e.g. β.

These are the punctuation marks in Greek:

Latin

Latin is pronounced thus:

When a word begins with two consonants–i.e. bd, chth, cn, ct, gn, mn, phth, pn, ps, pt, x (cs, gz)–the second consonant takes precedence and is said over the first.

There are also a number of abbreviations, some of which are:

Slavic

Regarding translating в as ff and ц as c: when в is at the end of a word, it is pronounced as f, thus the translation is changed to reflect this, but with double f to show it is в and not ф, and ts for ц is preferred for Russian, whereas c is for Serbian.

When translating Latin words into Slavic: use г for h and ф or в for th (depending on if it is þ or ð).

Slavic is pronounced thus:

Runic

Runic is pronounced thus:

Whether ᚦ is þ or ð, and ᚠ, f or v, traditionally depends on whether they are at the beginning of a word, where they’re pronounced þ and f, or in the middle (or end sometimes) of a word, where they’re pronounced ð and v. Take, for example, leaf, where it ends with f, and leaves, previously spelled leafes, where the f is now said, and written, as v.