LESSON 1: The Greek Alphabet 1-3
Sight and Sounds of the Greek Letters (Module A)
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The suggested procedure for learning the alphabet is straightforward. Use the
provided practice Greek alphabet practice pages on pages 1-19 through 1-24.
Proper penmanship while learning to write the Greek letters is an essential step in
learning Greek. Possible confusion between the letters is avoided from the start if
bad habits are not learned!
Next, use the animated tutorial link below each Greek alphabetical letter to learn
how properly to form the character and how its phoneme and alphabetical
character is pronounced. On your practice sheets, practice writing both the capital
and small Greek letters while listening to the letter’s pronunciation.
As you listen to how an alphabetical character is pronounced, remember that the
pronunciation of a letter’s phoneme is learned by proper pronunciation of its
alphabetical name. For example, the second letter in the Greek alphabet is
, and
is pronounced as the first letter in its alphabetical name,
(bēta). Knowing
how to pronounce the character’s alphabetical name, therefore, is to know how to
pronounce the Greek letter’s phoneme. This
is also true for all the remaining letters in the
alphabet. A Greek letter’s phoneme has the
same pronunciation as does its initial sound of
its alphabetical letter’s name.
As stated before, the twenty-four letters of the
Greek alphabet are divided into two types: seven are vowels and the remaining
seventeen are consonants. Beginning on page 1-5, the order does not reflect
these separate categories, but rather the Greek letters’ proper alphabetical order.
Moreover, each of the twenty-four Greek letters is represented by two forms. The
first letter illustrates the capital letter (or upper case), and then its corresponding
small letter (or lower case) follows. The capital letters should be studied along
with their matching small letters. The letters should be pronounced aloud several
times while practicing writing them. The human eye must not carry the entire
burden of learning and memorizing the alphabetical order of the Greek alphabet.
The arrow accompanying each case letter indicates the starting point and direction
of flow when forming a Greek character. Greek is read from left to right like
English. Therefore—if at all possible—a Greek letter should be written so that the
final stroke ends to the furthest right where the next letter’s stroke begins.
The Greek names for the lower case letters are spelled on the following pages
with accompanying accents and breathing marks. Whereas these are for future
A Greek letter’s phoneme has the
same pronunciation as does the
opening sound of its alphabetical
© 2014 by William Ramey • Phonology (Part 1) NTGreek In Session