Greeks????

Question

How is the Ancient Greek alphabet simular to our english alphabet?? do the Greeks still use this alphabet to write?? Thanks !!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Answer 1

I think your question is covered completely by both previous answerers!! I would just add that the greek alphabet use the accent mark ('tonos' in greek) to show the syllable which is stressed. "Τόνος" is written with the sign ΄ over the syllable stressed.

The ancient greek alphabet used more than one mark to show the stressed syllable or to indicate that one letter is read with long voice or not etc.

I would just write the greek alphabet that is used today and is almost similar to the ancient greek alphabet, to show that it is not the same to english. The 24 letters of the greek alphabet - capital and small letters:

Αα Ββ Γγ Δδ Εε Ζζ Ηη Θθ Ιι Κκ Λλ Μμ Νν Ξξ Οο Ππ Ρρ Σσς Ττ Υυ Φφ Χχ Ψψ Ωω

Answer 2

The Greeks are still using it. Why wouldn't they? It's a nice alphabet. The Latin alphabet (the one we use) is based on it - the capital letters in both (lower-case letters didn't come in to the picture until the middle ages in both languages, and so the lower-case letters of the two languages are a bit more divergent) are largely the same. The consonants are very similar, the exceptions being that greek has a few double consonants (zeta, xi, psi) as a single letter, whereas the only double-consonant in the Latin alphabet is x. Greek also has aspirants (theta, chi, phi), for which the Latin alphabet uses two letters (th, ch or kh, ph or f). Also, Greek has no w - but then again, neither did the Latin alphabet at first (though v in Latin sounded like a w). In actuality, Greek did have a letter representing the w sound (digamma), but it dropped out pretty early.

As for vowels, they're largely the same, but Greek has long and short vowels for e and o (epsilon - eta, omicron - omega), whereas we only have e and o. Also, the greek upsilon and the Latin u don't quite match up - it's better expressed by the Latin y (hence, psychology - the greek word it originates from has a upsilon that we transcribe as a y).

Sorry if I left anything out. Hope it's helpful.

Answer 3

Our English alphabet (also Roman Alphabet) and the Greek alphabet both evolved from earlier Semitic alphabets: Phoenecian and Aramaic. These in turn, may have evolved from from Egyptian hieroglyphics.

For a long time, throughout the Roman and Byzantine periods, the Greeks generally used a modified form of the Ancient Greek alphabet called "Demotic" for writing, based on the capital letters of the alphabet . Only some scholars and clergy continued to use the Ancient (Attic) Greek alphabet. The Egyptian Coptic and Russian Cyrillic alphabets are derived from Demotic.

The Attic Greek alphabet was restored and made official in Greece in 1856, immediately after the Crimean War, and is till used today.