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How It Affects Our World

5/12/2014

Wait so I still don’t get it. How does Greek language and literature affect our world today??? The basics of English alphabet, grammar, and punctuation all come from Ancient Greece. Did you know that the word alphabet comes from the first two words in the Greek alphabet Alpha and Beta? Pretty cool right!! The Greeks also improved our writing system and added rules so that it would be a lot easier to follow. The Greeks also invented our literature types. Can you imagination what life would be like if the Greeks hadn’t created plays??? There would be no entertainment on the TV to watch! The Greeks provided a lot for us and have a huge impact on our everyday life. I hope you enjoyed learning so much more about the Greeks’ language and literature! click on the button below for some other links to get some really awesome information about Ancient Greece! Goodbye and have a lovely day!

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Greek Literature

5/12/2014

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Greek literature is incredible and fascinating. There are many type of literature that the greeks created.The first type is an Epic poem. An Epic poem is a long narrative poem that tells a story about a hero’s deeds. Homer is an author of two very famous Epic poems called The Odyssey, about a guy named Odysseus and his journey, and the other one called Iliad, about the Trojan War. Homer wrote these around 700 B.C.E.

The second type ia a poem. A poem is a piece of writing written and verse, and usually contains imagery and metaphors. Archilochus is the first lyric poet of Ancient Greece. Sappho and Pindar are also two major poets. Sappho’s poems are the only piece of survived writing by a Greek women.

The third type are plays. A play is a show that entertains you by telling a story using masks and music and sound effects. In ANcient Greece, plays were usually divided into two categories. Tragedies and comedies. The oldest existing tragedies plays were written by Aeschylus around 500 B.C.E. Sophocles and Euripides were also famous tragedy play writers. A lot of comedies were written by Menander around 350 B.C.E. The oldest existing comedies were written by Aristophanes.

The fourth type is history. Herodotus and Thucydides were very famous historians. Herodotus was famous for writing about the Persian Wars. Thucydides was famous for his history of the Peloponnesian War. Xenophon and Polybius were pretty famous historians as well. Xenophon wrote about his adventures as a soldier for the Persians. Polybius wrote about the history of Rome in Greek.

And the last two types are the legal speeches and the philosophical dialogues. The most famous speechwriters were Lysias, Isocrates and Demosthenes. Plato wrote the first philosophy in 380 B.C.E. in the form of a play. Plato and his student Aristotle later wrote philosophical books.

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Greek Alphabet

5/12/2014

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The Greek alphabet is very interesting, each made up of clever unique symbols to represent letters. But where in the world did the Greeks get the idea of their alphabet? After the Mycenaean civilization fell apart, the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, that was first introduced to them by a Phoenician named Cadmus. The Greeks of course made a few modifications and added to the alphabet. The greeks also decided of adding accents to the letters, so that it would be easier to pronounce. There are also two main subdivisions to the Greek alphabet, Chalcidian (Western) and Ionic (Eastern). Chalcidian was more so representative of the Latin alphabet and the Old Italic. The Ionic alphabet later became the official alphabet of modern Greece. The development of lowercase letters came from Byzantium, after 800 A.D. Byzantine refers to the time when Byzantium controlled the economic and religious center of the eastern part of the Roman Empire. Later, the Byzantine minuscule was developed and was formed with cursive writing. The Greek alphabet has also helped with the formation of many other languages, such as Biblical Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic and many more.

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The starting point

5/12/2014

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The history of Greek language comes from...Oh I’m sorry, I forgot my introduce my blog! Hello there! It’s Samantha here! You guys have been waiting for a long time and I think it’s about time that I posted my final blog. So as you should already know, for the past few weeks I have been researching about Greek literature and language. So the main question is, How did the Greeks’ literature and language all get started? It all goes back to early Greece, around the 13th century. There were the Mycenaean civilization, one of the first civilizations of ancient Greece. This was a pretty big civilization and were the first to write a written script called Linear B. Linear B has 100 characters and is made up of all symbols. Each symbol is different and represents some syllable. It was discovered In Knossos, central Crete. Not all of the written tablets found in Mycenae are written in Linear B form. Some believe that Linear B may have come from the Minoan civilization, who also wrote a similar script that was called Linear A.

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Post Update!!

5/4/2014

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Hello there! This is blog post update on what is to come for my final blog post. As you all should know, I am researching on the history of greek language and literature. One interesting fact I found in my research is that Greek writing was first discovered by the Mycenaean tribe, an early tribe of ancient Greece. They wrote the earliest written script called Linear B, discovered in central Crete. The alphabet was developed by the Phoenicians, and later adapted by the Greeks. In my final blog post, I will be going in detail about the different types of greek literature, language, and how they affect our modern world today. Stay tuned for more details and descriptions all having to do with Greek writing!

Final Post Outline
1. Intro: History of writing/Greek Language
2. Greek alphabet
3. Types of Greek literature/writing
4. How Greek writing affects our world

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How It Affects Our World

Greek Literature

Greek Alphabet

The starting point

Post Update!!

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