CLASSICAL AND BIBLICAL GREEK TRADITIO Traditional Roman Catholic Internet Site E-mail List: traditio@traditio.com, Web Page: http://www.traditio.com Copyright 1999 CSM. Reproduction prohibited without authorization. TRANSLITERATION INTO THE ASCII CHARACTER SET "A" CODES ALPHABET A, a (alpha) B, b (beta) G, g (gamma, except NG for doubled gamma) D, d (delta) E, e (epsilon) Z, z (zeta) _E, _e (eta) TH, th (theta) I, i (iota) K, k (kappa) L, l (lambda) M, m (mu) N, n (nu) X, x (xi) O, o (omikron) P, p (pi) RH, rh (rho, except R at the beginning of a word) S, s (sigma) T, t (tau) Y, y (upsilon, except U in diphthongs) PH, ph (phi) CH, ch (khi) PS, ps (psi) _O, _o (omega) W, w (digamma, or vau) Q, q (koppa) SP, sp (sampi) OTHER H, h (rough; precedes the letter receiving it, except an initial RH and the letters TH, PH and KH) (a smooth breathing is unmarked) *I, *i (iota subscript) ' (acute; follows the letter receiving it) ^ (circumflex; follows the letter receiving it) ` (grave; follows the letter receiving it) ; (question mark) . (period) , (comma) ; (semicolon) " (quotation mark) ' (elision; can be distinguished from the acute accent and crasis by the position, formation, and context of the word to which it is attached) ' (crasis; follows the blended vowel; distinguished from the acute accent and elision by the position, formation, and context of the word to which it is attached) : (diaeresis; placed between the two separately-voiced vowels) ================================================================ B CODES For the THESAURUS LINGUAE GRAECAE project of the University of California at Irvine, a method for representing Greek characters in ASCII was devised, called Beta Codes. This method should prove useful for transcribing short passages in Greek for telecommunications because up to this point a standard method has not been available. The Greek alphabet (both uppercase and lowercase) are represented as in the chart (uppercase is distinguished by an asterisk after the code). Most of the Greek letters are represented by their Roman phonetic equivalents, except for eta (H), theta (Q), xi (C), psi (Y), omega (W), and Digamma (V), which are represented by a Roman letter that is similar in appearance to the Greek letter. The accents and diacritics are represented as in the chart. Accents and diacritical marks are written directly before the coding for the character before which they appear and after the coding for the character above and below which they are occur, in the order in which they appear. In most cases, these marks are represented by a non-alphabetic character that is similar in appearance to the mark. As an example, the beta-coded version of the first two lines of the ILIAD are: MH=NIN A)/EIDE, QEA/, PHLHI+A/DEW )AXILH=OS OU)LOME/NHN, H(\ MURI/' )AXAIOI=S A)/LGE' E)/QHKE, BETA CODES Greek Beta Beta Greek Mark in Beta Letter Code Code Letter Greek Text Code ------ ---- ---- ------ ---------- ---- Alpha A A Alpha Iota Subscript | Beta B B Beta Apostrophe ' Gamma G C Xi Uppercase * Delta D D Delta Hyphen - Epsilon E E Epsilon Comma , Zeta Z F Phi Period . Eta H G Gamma Raised Dot : Theta Q H Eta Question Mark ; Iota I I Iota Dash _ Kappa K K Kappa Smooth Breathing ) Lambda L L Lambda Rough Breathing ( Mu M M Mu Acute Accent / Nu N N Nu Circumflex Accent = Xi C O Omicron Grave Accent \ Omicron O P Pi Diaeresis + Rho R R Rho Sigma S S Sigma Tau T T Tau Upsilon U U Upsilon Phi F V Digamma Chi X W Omega Psi Y X Chi Omega W Y Psi Digamma V Z Zeta ================================================================= PARTS OF SPEECH IN CLASSICAL GREEK Dionysius Thrax, a Greek grammarian living in the first century B.C., described the following six parts of speech: NOUN (to onoma) case (ptosis): a falling, misfortune, major change. nominative (he onomastike): the noun, naming case. genitive (he genike): from genos, referring to the fact that nouns in the genitive limit or "classify" another noun in some way. dative (he dotike): from the case's use with the verb didomi. accusative (he aitiatike): from aitia, indicating the thing caused or affected by the action of the main verb. vocative (he kletike): from root meaning to call or summon. VERB (to rhema) finite moods (ta paremfatika): indicating [by personal endings]. mood (egklisis): English grammar term "mood" comes from Latin modus and means mode, manner, way. Mood as emotional state comes from Anglo-Saxon mod (spirit, mind, soul). Greek term (egklisis) seems to mean something such as a declining, conjugating, or inflecting. indicative (he horistike [egklisis]): from root meaning to mark out, determine). subjunctive (he hypotaktike): from its use in subordinate clauses (hypotasso = put after, make subordinate). optative (he eyktike): from eyke (prayer) from its independent use in prayers or requests. imperative (he prostaktike): from prostasso (to order, command). infinite moods (ta aparemfata): not indicating [by personal endings]. infinitive (he aparemfatos). tense (chronos): time. present (ho enestos [chronos]): from enistemi (to be near, at, present). future (ho mellon): the "about to be" tense. From mello. imperfect (ho paratatikos): from parateino (to stretch out, extend, continue). aorist (ho aoristos): the "without" limitation tense, because it is not limited by some sense of continuation (e.g., the imperfect) and so on. hoi teleioi: the perfects [tenses]. perfect (ho parakeimenos): the "at hand" tense, because it refers to a completed action whose effects still continue to the present. Some ancients grammarians called it "ho enestos syntelikos" (the completed present, present perfect). pluperfect (ho hypersyntelikos): completed before, earlier future perfect: ho mellon suntelikos. PRONOUN (he antonymia): "in place of" nou. possesive pronoun (he ktetike antonymia). ADJECTIVE (to epithetikon, epitheton; he proteesis). ADVERB (to epirrhema): "on, at" the verb. CONJUNCTION (to sundesmos). Dionysius Thrax also included the follow two as parts of speech: participle (metoche): a sharing definite article (to arthron): joint, connecting word (arthron protaktikon, demonstrative; arthron hypotaktikon, relative; arthron oristikon, article proper) Mediaeval English grammarians regarded the participle as an adjective (adiectivum) and added the interjection (interiectio).