Modern Greek versus Biblical Greek
I am teaching my 2 girls (6 & 8yo) Greek with the help of a Greek friend. What are the differences between modern and ancient Greek that we need to be aware of in this situation? Jen Kelly
The letters of the alphabet are the same, but the diacritical notation is a little different — Modern Greek has dropped the different accent marks (acute = oxia, circumflex = perispomeni, grave = varia) and retains only the oxia.
Modern Greek does not differentiate several of the vowel and diphthong sounds — it makes many of them sound alike. Each letter and diphthong originally represented a distinct articulation of sound, so the further back in time you go, the more articulated the sound.
The Modern Greek vocabulary has many cognates of ancient Greek, but it has also developed new words and changed the meaning and nuance of many words.
Modern Greek is greatly simplified in grammatical forms when compared to ancient Greek grammar.
Harvey