Greek survival kit

About this kit

Greek is one of the oldest languages in the world, the ancestor of many French scientific and medical words. The alphabet is different but very logical: 24 letters, regular phonetics. Essential for exploring Athens, Santorini, Crete or Thessaloniki.

Modern Greek (elliniki glossa) is spoken by roughly 13.5 million people, mainly in Greece and Cyprus, as well as in Hellenic diasporas across Australia, North America, Germany and South Africa. It is one of the oldest documented languages in the world, with an unbroken lineage stretching back to the ancient Greek of Homer. That continuity explains why so many French and English scientific, medical and philosophical roots come from Greek: democracy, philosophy, theatre, biology, psychology. The Greek alphabet has twenty-four letters, several of which already feel familiar from mathematics (alpha, beta, gamma, delta, pi, sigma, omega). The phonetics are highly regular: each letter has a single pronunciation, which makes reading quick to learn. A few quirks are worth knowing: the written accent always marks the stressed syllable, and letters such as theta or chi correspond to aspirated sounds absent from French. Ancient Greek also used a smooth breathing and a rough breathing above initial vowels, traces of which survive in the Latin transcription of certain words. For travellers, two cultural concepts matter as much as the language itself. Xenia, the sacred hospitality offered to strangers, opens the doors of tavernas and homes: a smile and a kalimera are often enough. Parea refers to the circle of friends with whom one shares coffee, meals and hours of conversation. Slip a few Greek words into your exchanges and you will be welcomed as a temporary member of this parea.