Greek

I have occasionally mentioned Latin classes in these posts. Our Latin tutor has just introduced us to Greek. However, although we are Latin improvers, we are all Greek beginners, starting with alpha, beta, gamma.

Several Greek words can be transliterated directly into English, e.g., iota, delta, epsilon and alpha spell "idea." Another example is "Midas." Chi, Rho, Iota, Omicron, Tau, Omicron, Sigma is "Christos" which became "Christus" in Latin, then "Christ" in English.

Our tutor knows a Greek Orthodox priest so will ask him my question: do contemporary Greek Orthodox congregations hear and understand the New Testament read in the original or do they need it translated into modern Greek just as we have it translated into English?

Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series informs us that the Phoenicians invented the alphabet. Google also informs me that the Greek alphabet is derived from the Phoenician one. English uses Roman letters. Thus, in moving from Latin to Greek, we have moved one stage further back towards the origin.

I envy Anderson's Time Patrolmen and Terran Intelligence Officers their ability to learn languages electronically. Flandry learns Eriau, which is not an earlier human language but an entirely unrelated one. He also learns how to translate Eriau duodecimal numbers into Arabic decimal numbers. By engaging with ancient human languages, I gain some degree of insight into Flandry's ability to think in both Anglic and Eriau, although one major difference is that, in that case, the languages and their alphabets are completely unconnected.