{"id":6330,"date":"2018-08-30T15:17:11","date_gmt":"2018-08-30T15:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/?p=6330"},"modified":"2020-07-07T14:01:26","modified_gmt":"2020-07-07T14:01:26","slug":"back-to-the-future-with-ancient-greek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/back-to-the-future-with-ancient-greek\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to the Future with Ancient Greek"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Learn Ancient Greek as it was spoken more than 2,500 years ago with the newest addition to the uTalk language learning app \u2013 and discover why there\u2019s no word for socks!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

London-based language learning company uTalk made the app, in consultation with Classics experts, to recreate how hundreds of authentic Ancient Greek words and phrases were originally spoken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the app, which also features some careful reimagining of modern-day words into Ancient Greek – e.g. pizza becomes Italian flatbread<\/em> – does have a few omissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very serious about helping people learn Ancient Greek particularly now it\u2019s one of the language choices for primary schools,\u201d says uTalk CEO Richard Howeson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe language is also an important part of our cultural past and future.   But we have deliberately left out translations for some words like socks because they\u2019re not associated with the Ancient Greeks – and they do look terrible with sandals!\u201d he jokes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the Ancient Greek words were translated and voiced by doctoral students from Oxford University who based the pronunciation on historical evidence of how the language was spoken in everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This evidence comes from plays, personal letters \u2013 and even phrasebooks, dating back to when the Greek-speaking world came under Roman control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGreek street sellers found that they needed to know some Latin words to sell things, like fish, to Roman soldiers,\u201d explains Richard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo they made phrasebooks, written in Ancient Greek, of what Latin words would sound like in their language and from what remains of these books and the sorts of mistakes they made we can work out how they spoke.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf there was a time machine and we had this app,\u201d Richard adds, \u201cI believe we could just about make ourselves understood whereas speaking modern Greek would be of little help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The app shows how Ancient Greek words pepper the English language from names of letters of the alphabet like alpha and iota to adjectives like mega and micro.  And Ancient Greek is particularly present in the fields of medicine, science, academia and technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The uTalk app is designed as a fun complement for students learning Ancient Greek and does not include grammar instruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany people think of Ancient Greek as a dead language but hearing it as it was really spoken \u2013 or as near as \u2013 brings it alive,\u201d adds Richard.\u00a0 \u201cAnd, anything that helps encourage children to learn it in schools, has to be a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twelve words that come from Ancient Greek:
<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Mega from m\u00e9gas<\/em> which is Greek for big.<\/li>
  2. Micro from mikr\u00f3s<\/em> for small.<\/li>
  3. Music from mousik\u00e9 <\/em>which means (art) of the muses. In Ancient Greece mythology, Muses were goddesses of science and art.<\/li>
  4. Telephone from t\u0113le<\/em> meaning far away and ph\u014dn\u1e17 <\/em>meaning voice.<\/li>
  5. Pharmacy from pharmakeia <\/em>meaning medicine.<\/li>
  6. Arachnophobia (fear of spiders) from ar<\/em>\u00e1khn\u0113<\/em> and ph<\/em>\u00f3bos<\/em>, the Ancient Greek words for spider and fear.<\/li>
  7. Idiot is from idi\u1e53t\u0113s<\/em> which means uneducated and unskilled as well as private as a person.<\/li>
  8. Technology comes from the Greek t\u00e9khn\u0113<\/em> for craft and logos <\/em>meaning word<\/em> – so technology is words expressing a craft.<\/li>
  9. I<\/em>\u00f4ta<\/em> is the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet and, in English, means an extremely small amount.<\/li>
  10. Hoi pollo<\/em>\u00ed<\/em> (which means the masses or commoners in English) translates as the many or the people in Ancient Greek.  Its usage in English originated in the early 1800s when it was fashionable for the well-educated to be familiar with Greek and Latin.<\/li>
  11. \u00c1lpha<\/em> is the first letter in the Greek alphabet and, in English, means the beginning or first.<\/li>
  12. Hoi \u00f3rnithes<\/em> meaning birds which gives us the word ornithology (the study of birds) in English.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    You can\u00a0learn more Ancient Greek here!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Learn Ancient Greek as it was spoken more than 2,500 years ago with the newest addition to the uTalk language learning app \u2013 and discover why there\u2019s no word for socks! London-based language learning company uTalk made the app, in consultation with Classics experts, to recreate how hundreds of authentic Ancient Greek words and phrases … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,51,1635],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6330"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}