![spelling a words using greek alphabet spelling a words using greek alphabet](https://www.thoughtco.com/thmb/U38meb658R1KWqjp3LVOmjzz9Os=/1500x1000/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/learn-the-greek-alphabet-1525969_v2-5b48e691c9e77c0037b0f431.png)
The vowels α, ε and ο contract with one another.Ī vowel + ι forms a diphthong. Write down the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet in order.It is therefore essential to master the rules that follow. The sound change rules below apply to a great number of nouns, adjectives, and verbs. These sound changes are regular enough that they resemble a sort of alphabet math: vowel x + vowel y = vowel sound z. See examples of GREEK ALPHABET used in a sentence. for the writing of Greek, and forming the basis of many other scripts, including Latin and Cyrillic. If two vowels came together, they preferred either to pronounce the two vowels together as one sound (called a DIPHTHONG, Greek for “double sound”), or to CONTRACT the two vowels to form either a single long vowel or diphthong (cf. Greek alphabet definition: the alphabetic script derived from a Semitic alphabet by way of the Phoenicians, used from about the 8th century b.c. The better you pronounce a letter in a word, the more understood you will be in speaking the Greek language. Without it, you will not be able to say words properly even if you know how to write those words. Η ηĪncient Greek speakers tended to avoid pronouncing two different vowel sounds in a row. Learning the Greek alphabet is very important because its structure is used in every day conversation. The long sounds for epsilon and omicron, however, are written with different letters: eta and omega, respectively. Notice that the letter forms for alpha, iota, and upsilon are used for both long and short vowels. Like English, Greek has SHORT and LONG versions of its vowels. So we begin our introduction to the Greek alphabet with the vowels. Greek has roughly the same five vowels as English. In English, consonants tend to dominate our words. Greek Alphabet Presentation in PowerPoint format. The letters in the picture above are alpha, beta, gamma, delta. Those letters were combined to make a new word - alphabet. The first two letters of the Greek alphabet are alpha and beta. Consider the verb present (preeZENT) and the noun present (PREsent), which are spelled alike but pronounced differently in English. In Greek, such words would be spelled according to their pronunciations: “preezént” and “prézent.” If a Greek community pronounced “going” as “gonna,” they would spell it as “gonna.” Homophones like “to,” “two,” and “too” would all be spelled the same, even though they have different meanings. These writings helped scholars to discover a great deal about ancient Greek daily life. If the pronunciation of a word changed, so too did the spelling. Spell it like it sounds! As we learn the ancient Greek alphabet, it is important to note one essential principle about Greek spelling: ancient Greeks spelled words the way that they were pronounced.