The Athenian Acropolis, seen from the Temple of Hephaestus in the Agora
Greek is the language in which the Iliad and the Odyssey were written.
It is the language of Plato's and Aristotle's philosophy, Herodotus' and
Thucydides' histories, Sophocles' and Aristophanes' plays, and the entire
New Testament. If you devote time and energy to learning to read this
brilliant language, you'll be richly rewarded!
Learn more about Greek at The Lukeion Project
If you're wondering "Which Greek should I study?"
TEXTBOOK
If you're taking Greek with us in the fall, here is the book you'll need:
FILES
Download this file for practice writing the Greek alphabet:
A NOTE ABOUT FONTS
Every computer has at least one font installed that will handle nearly all the Greek characters. On a Windows computer, Palatino Linotype and Arial Unicode MS are two that include most characters, but both have some problems. When you look for a Greek font, you need to be sure that it fits the following criteria:
- UNICODE - this means that it uses a worldwide standard to reference each character; the computer code behind a "gamma" in one unicode font is exactly the same as the computer code behind a "gamma" in another unicode font. This means you can switch between fonts and everything will still read correctly, like when you change a line of text from Arial to Times New Roman.
- POLYTONIC - this means that it includes not only the Greek letters but also all of the diacritical marks. You can be sure that it will include all the breathing marks, accents, iota subscripts, and so on. If it's not a polytonic font, there will be many Greek symbols that your computer will be unable to display; they may show up as a blank rectangle.
My favorite Greek font, KadmosU, is no longer free, but there are links to some free fonts in the link list below. IFAO-Grec Unicode is an elegant serif font (kind of like Times New Roman) that is now used in all of my classes. Once you've installed it, the two lines of Greek text below should match pretty closely (the top one is a picture, the one below it is text being displayed by your computer). New Athena Unicode is a very utilitarian sans serif font (kind of like Arial), but because it is distributed by the American Philological Association, it includes all polytonic characters and symbols.
ὁ Μίνως οἰκεῖ ἐν τῇ Κρήτη· βασιλεὺς δέ ἐστι τῆς νήσου.
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