Introduction

Introduction

The material presented here will be of use to anyone beginning ancient Greek, but is specifically designed to accompany our book [Gavin Betts and Alan Henry Ancient Greek (Teach Yourself Books), Hodder and Stoughton, London and McGraw Hill, New York, fourth edition 2010].

In response to the comments of many readers we have adopted the conventional sigma (σ, ς) instead of the lunate sigma of earlier editions. While the lunate sigma came to be the normal form of the letter in antiquity, the forms it took in medieval manuscripts were taken over into the first printed texts (i.e. σ, ς). These continue to be used today and are found over a wide range of Greek texts (in particular the Loeb Classical Library), despite the adoption of the lunate version by a few publishers in recent years.

This change from the lunate sigma has also been made in the website.

Additional reading and its key

Each section gives additional reading for the corresponding unit of the book. Running vocabulary lists are provided for words which either do not appear in the main vocabulary of the TYAG or have different meanings from those given there; words so listed are printed in a bolder type in the text of the additional reading. A list has not been given for Unit 25 because the aspiring Homeric student should find little trouble in consulting any of the recommended dictionaries.

The reading for Units 2-3 is made-up Greek. Almost all subsequent sentences and passages are original, although sometimes adapted. The exact source of all longer passages is given in the key. Most proverbs and proverbial expressions have been taken from the Corpus Paroemiographorum Graecorum of Leutsch and Schneidewin (rpr. Georg Olms 1958); fragments of Greek tragedy are quoted from Nauck's Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (rpr. Georg Olms 1964); the stories about Diogenes are from the Vitae philosophorum of Diogenes Laertius (Oxford Classical Text ed. H.S.Long 1964).

A hash mark (#) indicates that a sentence or passage is poetry, or that a word is poetical.

References to the TYAG are given by sections or sub-sections in it (e.g. 7.2.13, 18.3).

In the key, explanations and more literal interpretations are given in round brackets. Some words (but by no means all) which have no specific equivalent in the Greek original but which must be supplied in English are enclosed in square brackets. Translations are as literal as possible and are not to be taken as models of English style or as reflecting that of the original.

Main Index of Exercises

Revision exercises and their key

These exercises are to be used in conjunction with any version of the TYAG.

Main Index of Exercises

Glossary of grammatical terms

These terms are those normally employed in the teaching of ancient Greek, and readers of the TYAG should make themselves familiar with any they have not previously encountered. Many form part of traditional English grammar, which is the framework used in the TYAG.

Glossary

Prepositions

A table of the main uses of prepositions in prose is given to provide an overview. It is meant for reference.

Prepositions

Suggestions for further study

Listed here are a few books from the vast range available to those who wish to continue their studies in Greek.

Further Study

Note on Fonts and Characters

All Greek words and passages are presented in Unicode, which is the international standard used for non-Roman alphabets on the web. In general, all recent browsers (Firefox, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer 8 or better) should have no problems viewing these pages. Unfortunately, some particular combinations of browsers and systems may have trouble viewing diacritical marks, e.g. ‘τῆς’ will appear with the circumflex separated from the eta in some systems such as Firefox 3.5 on Mac OSX. In these cases it may be worthwhile trying an alternative browser, e.g. Safari on OSX works well and most modern browsers seem to work adequately on Windows.

The authors would be grateful for any corrections or suggestions for improvement. Any correspondence should be sent to gbetts@infoxchange.net.au. For comments and queries regarding the website itself, and for technical issues regarding Unicode please contact Chris Betts at chris@pegacat.com.