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Guide

Modern Greek or Ancient Greek: which should you learn?

Same alphabet, a lot of shared words, but they are learned quite differently. Here is how they differ, and how to pick.

The short answer

• Learn Modern Greek if you want to talk to people, travel in Greece, connect with Greek family, or enjoy Greek music, films and news.
• Learn Ancient Greek if you want to read Homer, Plato or the tragedies in the original, or study classics.
• Learn Koine Greek, the Greek of the New Testament, if your goal is reading scripture.

If you are not sure, start with Modern Greek. You can use it from day one, and the alphabet and much of the vocabulary carry over if you move to Ancient Greek later.

What each one is

Greek has been written for about 3,000 years, and it changed slowly the whole time. There was no single moment when "Ancient" became "Modern".

• Homeric Greek is the language of the Iliad and the Odyssey, an old poetic mix of dialects.
• Classical (Attic) Greek is the Greek of Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries BC: Plato, Sophocles, Thucydides. Most Ancient Greek courses teach this.
• Koine Greek spread across the eastern Mediterranean after Alexander the Great. The New Testament is written in it.
• Modern Greek is what about 13 million people speak today, in Greece, Cyprus and communities around the world.

How they differ

Sound

Modern Greek merged many sounds. Η, ι, υ, ει and οι are all said "ee". Β is "v", δ is "th" as in this, and γ is a soft throaty sound, or a "y" before e and i sounds. Ancient Greek kept these apart. Most Ancient Greek classes use a reconstructed pronunciation, so the same word can sound quite different in the two classrooms.

Accents

Ancient Greek is written with several accent marks and breathing marks: ὕδωρ, ἄνθρωπος, οἶνος. Modern Greek has used a single accent mark since 1982: άνθρωπος. It just shows which syllable is stressed.

Grammar

• Cases: Ancient Greek has five, including the dative. Modern Greek has four. It lost the dative and uses σε ("to, in, at") instead.
• Infinitives: Ancient Greek uses them all the time. Modern Greek dropped them and says "that I drink" instead of "to drink".
• Moods and numbers: Ancient Greek has a mood for wishes (the optative) and a special form for pairs of things (the dual). Modern Greek has neither.
• The future: Modern Greek forms it with a little word, θα, which makes verbs much easier.

The Ancient sentence uses an infinitive, πιεῖν ("to drink"). The Modern one says να πιω, literally "that I drink". Even the word for water changed.

Words, then and now

A lot of vocabulary survived almost untouched. Some everyday words were replaced, often by a word that was once more specific.

The old words didn't vanish. Κρασί comes from a word for "mixture", because the ancients mixed their wine with water. Ψάρι comes from ὀψάριον, a little side dish eaten with bread. And ὕδωρ lives on in English words like hydrogen.

For mythology fans

If Greek myths, the Odyssey or EPIC: The Musical got you interested, here is the honest picture.

The Odyssey opens like this:

Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον…

Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways…

That is Homeric Greek. Greek students read the Odyssey at school, but mostly in a Modern Greek translation, because the original is hard even for native speakers. Reading Homer in the original is a wonderful goal, but it takes a couple of years of Ancient Greek, usually starting with Classical prose.

If what you want is to feel closer to the stories and the places, Modern Greek gets you there sooner. The islands, the gods' names, the words for sea, ship and home are all still in daily use. And modern Greek writers never stopped telling these stories. Cavafy's poem Ιθάκη (Ithaka, 1911) is about Odysseus's journey home, and it's one of the best-loved poems in Greek. It makes a lovely first poem to read once you know some Modern Greek.

Where to start

Modern Greek

• ElliniCards: short units where you learn the words, read a short story, then practice a conversation. It explains your mistakes, and starts with the alphabet if you need it. Try a free reading.
• The Greek alphabet, with Modern Greek sounds, if you're starting from zero.
• Easy Greek on YouTube, for hearing real people talk.
• Greek: An Essential Grammar by Holton, Mackridge and Philippaki-Warburton, for clear explanations of the rules.

Ancient Greek

• Athenaze and Reading Greek, the two most common beginner textbooks for Classical Greek.
• Homeric Greek: A Book for Beginners by Clyde Pharr, if you want to go straight to Homer.
• The r/AncientGreek community, which is friendly to beginners.