Greek vs. Latin

                  Being interested in studying the Classics in college, I thought it only logical to get a head start on Greek before I go to school, so a month or two ago I bought myself a Greek textbook, thick with grammar and all that hard, gritty stuff. After getting past the excruciatingly painful sections that had to do with Greek spelling and accents and such (mega ouch), I now find myself already translating long and not so simple Greek sentences with some proficency--and enjoying it. While listening to recordings of ancient Greek and reading Greek text, I also find myself picking up one or two words and understanding their specific import. Greek really is a fascinating and strange language. Although it shares many things in common with Latin, it is also differs from Latin in many ways. Here are some of the ways that Greek is similar to and different from Latin:
                   (1) Both languages are inflected. This means that their nouns change form to show how they relate to other words in the sentence, and that their verbs change form to express different persons, numbers, moods, etc. The nouns in both Latin and Greek have several cases. The Greek noun has five cases: the nominative, genetive, dative, accusative, and vocative. Latin has all of these plus an extra two: the ablative and locative. Both languages use the cases that they share in common in many of the same ways. For instance, just as in Latin, the Greek nominative is used as the case of the subject, while the accusative is used as the case of the direct object. But the genetive and the dative in Greek have some additional functions that they do not have in Latin.
                   (2) Greek and Latin both share some of the same words, and some of the same noun and verb endings. For example, the Greek word for "I" is "ego," just as in Latin. The word for "assembly," which was eventually used by the Christians to refer to the Church, is "ekklesia" in Greek and "ecclesia" in Latin. All Greek verbs that I have learned so far have the endings "-o, -eis, -ei" in the singular of the Present Inicative Active. Compare that to the Latin "-o, -s, -t." But while Greek and Latin are very alike in some ways, they are very distinct from eachother as well. The endings of the present optative active, for example, are "-oimi, -ois, -oi," etc., a very weird bunch of endings for a student of Latin. The endings for the plural of one of the Greek declensions are "-ai, -on,-ais, -as, -ai" instead of the familiar "-ae, -arum,-is, -as, -is."
                   (3) Greek and latin share the same noun and verb numbers, and the same verb tenses, moods, and voices. But, oddly enough, Greek adds more to all of these things, sometimes to my bewilderment and wonder. Greek has the numbers "singular" and "plural," but it adds a third number, the dual which it uses to speak of things that come in twos. Greek has four moods, sharing three with Latin and including one of its own: the optative. Greek has seven tenses instead of Latin's six. The addition it makes is a tense called the "Aorist." Finally, Greek makes a mysterious and unheard-of addition to the voices of the verb. The voice of a verb tells us what part the subject takes in the action performed. There are only two voices in English and Latin: the active and the passive. The active voice tells us that the subject is performing the action, and the passive voice tells us that the action is being performed on the subject. In the sentence "He is smashing," the verb is active; in the sentence "He is being smashed," the verb is passive. I always thought, until I began studying Greek, that these were the only two voices that a verb could have, but I was totally wrong. Greek has three voices instead of two! The third voice is called the middle, and it tells us that the subject is performing the action, but it also shows that the action returns to the subject in some way. Since there is no middle voice in English, it will be a unique challenge to translate it.
                   Those are the points on which Latin and Greek agree and differ, although I'm sure there are many more. From my short time in studying this language, I gather that Greek grammar really is complex--more complex and subtle than Latin grammar. No wonder the Greeks were good philosophers! Their vehicle of communication was truly suitable for good thinking. I've heard, althugh I have only seen this in one or two instances, that Greek vocabulary is also very subtle, another feature of the language which makes it incredibly good for making tiny distinctions. I think that it is a very mysterious and awesome language, and I'm sure that I'll get a lot out of the experience of studying it.