I can’t believe I did it but I started to learn Greek at the tender age of 72!
“Why did you do it,” you may ask?
It all started in Ephesus…
It happened when I was visiting Ephesus, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Selcuk, Turkey.
It’s a magnificent archeological site about which I didn't have the time to write yet.
Imagine…
It’s a whole city, preserved down to its 24,000-seat amphitheater, public baths, public restrooms, and even brothels.
When I was strolling up and down the broad marble avenues of Ephesus, I kicked myself for my inability to read any of the hundreds of inscriptions in Greek (and Latin) that you can see on every corner, wall, and arch of Ephesus, a city of between 35,000 and 50,000 souls at its height.
For one second I imagined what a delight it would be to walk through the ancient Agora with my hands clasped on my back and read every stele, wall, monument, etc. just like reading a daily newspaper…
The idea of penetrating the daily secrets of a civilization thousands of years old excited me so much that I decided to teach myself Greek as soon as I returned home. Better late than never.
Now, of course, I’m aware that modern Greek is very different than ancient classical Greek.
But that’s okay. Even if I could read a single word like “Athena” or “Logos” I’ll still be elated. It would be incremental progress that would crack the door to the past open. And it would still be better than not even understanding the individual letters themselves.
Few Resources
The surprising thing is that there are very few resources in Turkey to learn Greek, modern or ancient. I’m sure there are good Greek courses in Turkish universities but for a layman like myself with no time or money for a four-year university education, there aren’t many Teach-Yourself-Greek books in the bookstores or libraries.
So I hit YouTube (hooray!) and small used book stores in the neighborhood where they sell old books. So far I’m doing good, learning the Greek alphabet and starting to read simple words in Greek already.
Reappreciating Both Greek and Turkish
This adventure to learn Greek made me reappreciate both Greek (a fast language that has given thousands of words to English) and Turkish, my mother tongue.
Greek, as great a language as it is, does not have some of the sounds that Turkish represents through a single letter.
Take the sound “Ç” for example (as the CH in Chime or CH in Check), represented in Turkish by the letter “Ç”.
In the Greek alphabet, there is no letter “Ç”. Instead, you use the “τσ” (Teta+Sigma) combination.
So to write “Çanta” (bag/briefcase) you write “τσ” (Teta+Sigma). The full word is “τσάντσ”.
But in Turkish, it’s more logical and simple. You just write “Çanta” (which happens to be the exact same word in Greek) by using “Ç” (thanks to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s linguistic revolution back in the 1930s which redefined the Turkish alphabet). End of the story.
This is yet another pleasure of learning a new language: it makes you evaluate the other languages you know through a more realistic and critical filter and makes you appreciate the beauty of human culture even more.
Overlapping Vocabulary
One pleasant surprise in my case was the number of words common to Greek and Turkish. That should make my learning curve not that steep I hope.
I’m not a professional linguist but I have a feeling most of these words were borrowed from Greek, with a few traveling from Turkish in the other direction. The overlap between the two languages should come as no surprise given the long history of coexistence between the Turks and the Greeks.
Here is a random example of common words and their English counterparts:
Goodbye for now…
Saying goodbye to you all in Greek from the Agora in Ephesus, ADIO SAS, as well as in Turkish, ALLAHAISMARLADIK.
Or as we say in English: Take good care!