It’s Greek to Me

　　这对我来说这是希腊语

　　by Karen E. Hong

　　“It's Greek to me,”is often said when something is beyond one's understanding or especially difficult. But nothing could be further from the truth. The Greek alphabet and language look and sound exotic and comp-licated, but they shaped the vocabulary of Western languages, including English.

　　When early people began to write, they drew pictures that represented what they were writing about. In about 2000 B.C., early Greeks known as Minoans developed a system of picture or hieroglyphic, writing. They used this system to keep accurate records of goods they stored and exported. Their picture writing spread from the island of Crete to mainland Greece.

　　By 1100 B.C., the Greek world was crumbling. As the Greeks abandoned their cities, they forgot about writing. Greece entered a period known as the Dark Ages. No written records survive from this time and foreign records mention little about the Greeks. But gradually the Greeks prospered and the population grew. They began to trade with the Phoenicians, who lived in present-day Syria.

　　The Phoenicians developed the first modern alphabet about 3,000 years ago. An alphabet is an ordered system of symbols called letters. Each letter represents a specific sound. Because human speech uses about 35 different sounds, alphabets need no more than 35 letters. Combining letters creates a word. The Phoenician alphabet used 22 letters, all consonants.

　　The Greeks learned the Phoenician alphabet by trading with them. Then Greeks added vowels to the Phoenician alphabet. Vowels represent the breathing between sounds. The English vowels a, e, i, o, and u grew out of the Greek letters alpha (a), epsilon (short e), eta (long e), iota (i), omicron (o), upsilon (u), and omega (long o). Greek became the first alphabet with symbols for both vowels and consonants.

　　At first, Greek was written from right to left, like the Phoenician alphabet. Later Greek was written in a back and forth style: A line written right to left was followed by a line written left to right. Finally, the writing style shifted again, to left to right, which is how it is still written today.

　　Although people spoke Greek differently depending on where they lived, the language of Athens, known as Attic, came to be the standard and the language of the great literature of ancient Greece. Attic became the basis for Koine (KOYN), the common language of the people. When Alexander the Great swept through the Middle East in the fourth century B.C., Koine became the common language of his world. Centuries later, the New Testament of the Bible was written in Koine.

　　As the centuries passed, Greece became part of the Roman Empire. Although Koine was still spoke by the common people, learned writers turned to an older form of Attic. In the sixth century, classical Greek replaced Latin as the official language of the Byzantine Empire.

　　Modern Greek uses the same alphabet as classical Greek. In 1832, when Greece was recognized as an independent nation, the question of a national language arose. Katharevousa, a compromise between Byzantine and spoken Greek, became the official language from 1834 until 1976. Although Katharevousa is still used in official documents, Demotic Greek, the language used in speech and literature, became the official language of Greece in 1976.

　　Today about ten million people speak Greek. Greek words spread from the New Testament and other texts to Latin, German, and English. Greek provides the vocabulary for many arts and sciences. Many English prefixes and suffixes come from Greek. For example, the prefix "psycho-", as in psychology, means "the mind" or "mental activity". The suffix" phone", as in telephone, means "sound". With so much Greek in our language, we are right when we say, "It's Greek to me."

　　“对我来说这是希腊语”这句话经常用以表达难以理解或很困难的事情。其实也没那么悬，希腊的字母和语言看起来和听起来很复杂，但它们造就了西方的文字和语言，包括英语。

　　早期人们开始书写时，只是用画图来表达他们的想法。大约公元前2000年,早期的希腊人即弥诺斯人，发明了图画或象形文字。他们用这一书写方法精确记录他们储存和输出的货物。这一图画的书写方法从克里特岛传向整个希腊大陆。

　　到公元前1100年，希腊人的世界崩溃了。希腊人放弃了他们的城市，同时也遗忘了书写记录。希腊进入了被称为“黑暗时代”的阶段。从这个时候开始，没有书面记录存在，外部世界的记录也很少提及希腊人。但是，渐渐地希腊民族又繁荣了，人口也增加了。他们开始和腓尼基人进行贸易。腓尼基人居住在今天的叙利亚。

　　腓尼基人在大约3000年前开发了第一个现代体的字母表。字母表是一种由叫做字母的符号组成的规则的系统。每个字母代表一个具体的发音。因为人类说话使用大约35种不同的发音，所以字母表不必超过35个字母。字母组合起来构成一个单词。腓尼基字母表使用了22个字母，都是辅音。

　　希腊人通过和腓尼基人的贸易学会了腓尼基字母。然后，希腊人把元音加到腓尼基字母中。元音代表语音之间的呼吸停顿。英语中的元音a, e, i, o 和u就来自于希腊字母的α，ε，η，ι，ο，υ和ω。希腊语首先有了含有元音和辅音的字母。

　　起先，希腊语书写方式是从右到左，和腓尼基语一样。后来书写方式改为从后向前：即一行先从右向左，接下的一行从左往右写。最后书写方式又改为从左往右写，并且一直沿用至今。

　　尽管希腊人讲话因地而异，但雅典人的语言，即雅典语成了标准语言和古希腊伟大文学的语言。雅典语是共通语（Koine，人们普遍使用的语言）的基础。公元前4世纪亚历山大大帝统治中东时，共通语成为他所统治世界的通用语言。几个世纪以后，《圣经》的《新约全书》是由共通语撰写的。

　　几个世纪以后，希腊成为古罗马帝国的一部分。虽然一般人说话仍说共通语，但博学的作者多用老式的雅典语。在6世纪，古典希腊语代替拉丁语成为拜占庭帝国的官方语言。

　　现代希腊语中的字母和古典希腊语相同。1832年，希腊成为独立的国家时，国家官方语言成了问题。最后拜占庭语和希腊口语混合，形成纯正希腊语作为官方语言，从1832年一直用到1976年。尽管官方文件还在使用纯正希腊语，但1976年时，用于正式讲话和文学语言中的现代希腊语成为希腊的官方语言。

　　今天，约一千万人说希腊语。希腊语词语不仅在新约和一些文章中出现，而且还在拉丁语、德语和英语中出现。希腊语为许多文学和科学作品提供了词汇。许多英语词的前缀和后缀来自于希腊语。例如，psychology(心理学)的前缀psycho-，其意为“头脑、理智、想法”等或“心理活动”。Telephone的后缀-phone,其意为“声音”。我们的语言中存在如此多的希腊语，所以我们说“对我来说这是希腊语”这句话时没错。