There is More to the Alphabet Than Just the ABCs: Sixth Week

The word for this week’s blog is “alphabet.” Johnson tells us it comes from ἄλφα (alpha) and βῆτα ­(bāta). These, of course, are the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. The Greek word for “alphabet” is ἀλφάβητος (alphabātos) – also coming from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. This is an example of synecdoche, in this context meaning to put a part for the whole. That is, a part of the letters, the a and the b, stands for all of the letters. Interestingly, synecdoche, comes from the Greek root word συνεκδοχή (sunekdoxā) which means to understand one thing by/with another.

I suppose it might be helpful at this point in our blog posts to address the Greek alphabet by way of a chart. Since Greek words are featured every week, such a chart might be helpful to those not already familiar with Greek. The chart offered is from the college textbook I used when I learned Greek.

 

Greek Letter	Name	Transliteration	Sound
α	alpha	a	father
β	beta	b	bible
γ	gamma	g	ǥone
δ	delta	d	dog
ε	epsilon	e	met
ζ	zeta	z	daze (dz)
η	eta	ē (ā)	obey
θ	theta	th	thing
ι	iota	i	intrigue
κ	kappa	k	kitchen
λ	lambda	l	law
μ	mu	m	mother
ν	nu	n	new
ξ	xi	x	axiom (xs)
ο	omicron	o	not
π	pi	p	peach
ρ	rho	r	rod
σ, ς	sigma	s	study
τ	tau	t	talk
υ	upsilon	u	book
φ	phi	ph	phone
χ	chi	ch	loch
ψ	psi	ps	lips
ω	omega	o	tone

 

Learning the alphabet and its pronunciation is a very good starting point. If you know the alphabet, lexicons become open to you. Being able to read Greek text is not necessary to still benefit from lexical study. Two primary lexical sources are: Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and the Greek-English Lexicon of Liddell, Scott, and Jones. Both of these sources are available on Google Books or Internet Archive. As the Liddell, Scott, and Jones hardback is quite expensive, the online format may be more useful and accessible to many readers. The Thayer lexicon is the standard for New Testament Greek and the Liddell lexicon is the standard for nearly all other works.

The preface to John Thornton’s A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250-1820 offers a compelling reason for studying in original languages when possible: 

In many languages, there is not a perfect fit between the semantic field of a word in one language and the semantic field in another, and thus even the best translators must choose one out of two or perhaps even more words that fit in that field.(xv) 

Thornton’s point is well taken. The subtlety of nuance can be hard to express from one language to another. Rather often the only way to properly convey the meaning is by way of explanation. An apt example can be found in the New Testament book of First Peter. Here the apostle writes, “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps” (2:21). In this verse example is a translation of the Greek root word ὑπογραμμός. This is a compound word that combines ὑπό, meaning under and γράφω, meaning to write. The literal meaning is the under writing. The idea is that of a student copying the alphabet under his teacher’s example to learn to write properly. The English word example can only relay an over simplified view of the term. The biblical lesson is to impress upon the reader the need of staying close to the Lord’s example, because straying from it causes the copy to become less and less like the original the further it moves away from it.