Category Archives: Grammar

Greek accent marks—acute, grave, and circumflex—are more than ornamental flourishes; they’re linguistic guardians that have shaped pronunciation, meaning, and rhythm across centuries. In Classical Greek, accents signaled pitch variations, with the acute rising, the grave lowering, and the circumflex curving up then down. As Greek evolved into Koine and Modern forms, these tonal distinctions faded into stress-based pronunciation, yet the marks persisted in manuscripts, guiding readers through homographs and inflected forms. From the melodic contours of δῶρον to the grammatical clarity of ὅτι versus ὅ,τι, accentuation remains a vital tool for parsing, preaching, and preserving the rich legacy of the Greek language—especially in the study of New Testament texts.… Learn Koine Greek

Greek breathings—those subtle diacritical marks hovering over vowels—carry a legacy far deeper than their tiny size suggests. Introduced by Alexandrian scholars to preserve the fading “h” sound, smooth (᾿) and rough (῾) breathings became essential tools for distinguishing meaning and guiding pronunciation in Classical and Koine Greek. Though the aspirated /h/ sound vanished in Modern Greek, breathings remain embedded in polytonic orthography and biblical manuscripts, offering clues for exegesis, textual criticism, and historical linguistics. Whether marking the difference between ὅς (“who”) and ὡς (“as”), or echoing the phonetic rhythms of ancient Athens, breathings are a testament to the precision and reverence with which Greek has been read, taught, and preserved across millennia.… Learn Koine Greek