The BIG Ancient Greek Resource Document

INSTRUCTIONS

Please use the contents tab for navigation. Links are to amazon or publisher, then Internet Archive or Perseus if freely available or out of print. The organization is mostly Beginner Grammars/Readers, then Grammatical resources, historical resources, then living language resources, then religious resources. I have collected all these resources from other smaller lists, so I do not take credit for knowing all the resources. I have tried to add more comments to help readers know what resources are at their level as well.

Help!

Please help make this document better. Send any comments/additions/errors to sethpryor@gmail.com. Before you do though, ssome things may have been left out, like the university or seminary grammar you may have used and loved. This is probably due to the fact that quite a few resources are so similar or do not do what something else already does better.

BEGIN HERE

  • One of the best textbooks is Athenaze. If you are looking for one resource, this is an excellent place to start. This will prepare you for both Attic and Koine. It is both a reader and a grammar. The story in Athenaze follows an Ancient Greek family and their daily lives (including a tragedy!), with retellings of popular myths. Quite a few textbooks only teach around 350 vocabulary words, While Athenaze teaches over a thousand, which significantly increases your ability to read more texts.
  • The Italian Edition has a lot of pictures and added material. It is better than the english version. However, it is largely inaccessible to those who don't know Italian. It is also slightly harder to purchase. There is also a Spanish version (translated from the Italian!)
  • While Athenaze is one of the best textbooks, one major weakness is that it starts off with a very large amount of vocabulary. You can read more about this problem here. In order to overcome this easily, you can use this Athenaze prequel/children’s book, Heliodorus’ Day, which has pictures for every word introduced and preps readers for the first chapter. 99% of words in the book are used in Athenaze.
  • I would also suggest beginning right away watching Alpha with Angela, a YouTube channel that teaches Ancient Greek in Ancient Greek.
  • More information on Athenaze and these resources below.

Reading Plans

  • This is slightly overcomplicated, but generally a great direction. You could simplify this by just doing Athenaze, Logos, and Jeong (if religious), and Alpha with Angela plus Luke Ranieri’s Ancient Greek in Action.

Textbooks and Methods

  • This is made to go along with Croy’s grammar, although it can be used on its own as easy reading.
  • Note: the Text and Vocabulary book only contains the stories, it will not teach any grammar. For that you will need the Grammar and Exercises book.
  • The Text and Vocabulary book make an excellent graded reader, once you have finished Athenaze 1.
  • I recommend Luke Ranieri’s new Thrasymachus reader: Catabasis (free). Here is the link for audio (paid). I would read each corresponding chapter in the reader and then the textbook.
  • This contains both the main narrative and grammar.
  • Designed to be read after finishing Alexandros.
  • This is a textbook, but has short excellent fables translated into Ancient Greek, each in a graded reading style. See review here
  • This seems to be primarily intended for classroom use, or at least with other people. However, it is easy to follow as it mostly is pictures combined with commands.
  • German:Zuntz' Griechischer Lehrgang [*] FREE

Vocabularies

  • English
  • Biblingo: popular app, which contains a free vocab app keyed to popular textbooks, includes audio and pictures for each word.
  • French
  • This is undoubtedly the best tool you can acquire for the memorization of vocabulary. (Italian and Spanish editions exist). Free edition available at Gallica.
  • The method is to learn by memorization of passages and learning the words in context.
  • Spanish
  •  This is simultaneously a reader and a vocabulary (very similar to the Vocabulaire grec).
  • Manual de adquisición de vocabulario griego antiguo. Internet Archive scan here.
  • Also a list but with images and divided by subject.
  • German
  • this is a list divided by authors and subjects.
  • Italian
  • This is simultaneously a vocabulary and phraseology list divided by subject as well as a beginner's composition book.
  • Additional material for learning Greek vocabulary is to be found here.
  • ANKI

Dictionaries

  • English
  • German
  • French
  • Spanish
  • You can find more dictionaries here.

Inverse Dictionaries

  • Multi-lingual
  • English
  • Spanish
  • German
  • Latin

Grammars

There are hundreds of grammars available, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. This document will not list them all.

  • German
  • Kühner's Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache is still one of the most authoritative grammars in existence, you can find it online (here at Perseus and here at Internet Archive), not for beginners.
  • Schwyzer's Griechische Grammatik (free at Internet archive) (Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3) is also one of the most authoritative grammars, also not for beginners.
  • Griechische Grammatik. This is the most commonly recommended grammar in German schools and Universities.
  • Stock's Kurzgrammatik Altgriechisch, is the most compact and practical reference for study and memorization. Only comparable to Holtermann's Elementa Grammaticae Graecae. A good English equivalent is the Greek Paradigm Handbook and the Outline of Greek Accidence.
  • Zinsmeister's Griechische Grammatik (vol1 and vol 2) is probably the best grammar reference for students (volume 2, concerning syntax offers the most clear and student-friendly explanations you'll find), if you speak German do try to get hold of it.
  • English
  • Others Grammars
  • Learn to Read Greek 1 & 2 with Workbook
  • Greek: An Intensive Course, 2nd Revised Edition by Hansen & Quinn
  • Charles Moss First Greek Reader (2nd Edition, No English).

History of the Ancient Greek Language

  • Available as scan from Scribd here.
  • Review available here.
  • Internet Archive scan here.

Composition Manuals

  • English
  • German
  • Görgemanns' Griechische Stilübungen (vol 1 and vol 2). This is the most beginner friendly introduction to Greek composition, it includes vocabulary and an answer key with detailed explanations, it's meant to be used in tandem with Zinsmeister's Griechische Grammatik, but you can use another grammar reference if you want.

Particles

  • Jürgen Wiesner's Appendix to Menge's Repetitorium der griechischen Syntax (link broken- unable to find) is the single most useful reference for beginners. It explains clearly and concisely what particles are and how do they work providing clear and easy to understand examples in a sensible framework. No other book provides such a beginner friendly and well organized introduction to particles. Definitely a must have. Here you can click on the "Inhaltsverzeichnis" link to get a preview of the Index.
  • Denniston's Greek Particles is the standard academic reference for particles, but is way too abstract and academic focused and barely of any use for beginners. It is also primarily focused on Classical.  A much better book in English is volume two of Arnold's Practical Introduction to Greek Prose Composition (Scan at Internet archive), Scans available from Cambridge as well (better quality but separated by section).
  • Thrall’s Greek Particles in the New Testament: Linguistic and Exegetical Studies focuses on Koine in particular.
  • Steven Runge’s Discourse Grammar is also has an excellent treatment on various particles and their discourse functions. Note, it is focused on the GNT.

Greek Readers

These are not for beginners. Most of these are a bit older but are excellent reading material that is graded or has vocabulary help.

  • Athenaze Sequels
  • [*] These three books are tailored to be used with (or after) reading the Italian Atheanze. Athenaze itself can be considered a low to intermediate level reader. Books like Thrasymachus, Reading Greek, Alexandros, A Greek Boy at Home, Vocabulaire grec, commenté et sur textes, Llave del griego and even Zuntz' Griechischer Lehrgang are essentially anthologies and can be used as readers, hence our strong endorsement of them.
  • Audio available here.
  • PDF Reprint available for sale here.
  • PDF Reprint available for sale here.
  • PDF Reprint available for sale here.
  • PDF Reprint available for sale here (read reviews before buying)

Greek Philology/Paleography

  • English
  • Available for free here. Shorter and less detailed than the below Devreesse's Introduction a l'etude des manuscrits grecs.
  • German
  • French

About Greek Literature: History, Meter, etc

Where Can I Read Greek Literature?

Perhaps the most important question beginners ask is "Where can I find texts in their original Greek?"

The easiest answer is Perseus. Perseus has digital tools to help you read your text. If you want a physical edition then Geoffrey Steadman’s readers (Paperback and Free Ebook at his website) are excellent as they offer vocab and grammatical helps. Overview here. Then there are the Loeb editions which offer the greek on the left and a translation on the right.

But what if you want to consult a critical edition? You can buy a physical copy of a Teubner or an Oxford, but there are many out-of-copyright older editions of those texts that you can find in places like Archive.org, Europeana or HathiTrust, you can find a catalogue with links here, you can also use the The Online Books Page to look for editions of the author you're interested in that are available on the web. Here's a list of out-of-copyright Loeb texts that you may find interesting.

Good alternatives to Perseus are the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG), the Bibliotheca Augustana, there's even an updated form of Perseus. If you want the texts in epub format go to Textcritical.net

Another good resource is the Dickinson College Commentaries.

Classical Greek Readers

  • Lucian
  • Plutarch
  • Hippocrates
  • Galen
  • Euripides
  • Sophocles
  • Herodotus
  • Xenophon of Ephesus
  • Aesop
  • Longus
  • Cebes
  • Plato
  • Plotinus
  • Homer
  • Xenophon of Athens

Miscellaneous

  • Ancient Greek Cyclops Tales: Homer's Odyssey 9.105-566, Theocritus' Idylls 11 and 6, Callimachus' Epigram 46 Pf./G-P 3, and Lucian's Dialogues of the Sea Gods 1 and 2

Greek Pronunciations

This is a very heated topic of discussion that only brings anger, frustration and misery and nobody can ever agree on anything. If you wish to take part in it, first read:

  • Afterwards you have three basic options (that can of course be subdivided ad infinitum): 1) You try your best to perform what most scholars consider to be a more or less accurate representation of what Greek in 4th/5th Century Athens might have sounded like and take the heat of the critics. 2) You use Modern Greek Pronunciation, the same way you might use the Italian or German or French Pronunciation for Latin and take the heat of the critics. 3) You invent your own thing and take the heat of the critics. (Technically there's a fourth option in which you delude yourself into thinking you're doing one of those three but you're actually doing another).
  • If you go for option 1 (Reconstructed Pronunciation); the example to follow is Ioannis Stratakis, his webpage is here; or Stephan Hagel, his webpage is here. The theoretical defence of it is to be found in Allen's Vox Graeca.
  • If you go for option 2 (Modern Greek Pronunciation); the example to follow is Asier Mp and Christisinn, good arguments for this option are to be found here. This option has the practical advantage of being very easy to learn and to imitate, that and the fact that there's an endless amount of high quality resources to learn (namely the Modern Greek resources) like this one.
  • If you go for option 3 (Your own Pronunciation); one of the many theoretically possible original solutions is u/LukeAmadeusRanieri 's Lucian Pronunication.
  • Whatever you do: be consistent, here's good video about the importance of consistency.

Classes for Ancient Greek

Here's a list of excellent institutions that offer both live and on-line courses:

Living Language Approaches To Start Ancient Greek

It is important to research yourself what a living language approach is, its goals, and methods, as there are many critics who have not done so and yet still ask questions like “how will asking for a cup of coffee help me read X.”

For students, (these are mostly video curriculum):

  • Alpha with Angela: teaches Ancient Greek as a living language with no prior knowledge necessary. There are only about 30 lessons available.
  • Luke Ranieri’s Ancient Greek in Action (designed to help students get into Athenaze)  
  • Biblical Language Center Curriculum
  • Another sheet with a few extra terms

For teachers or those interested in the living language methodology:

  • Good dialogue and thoughts on the living language approach can be found here:

Other resources in the Living Language Approach

List Of Schools That Teach In A Living Language Format

Canada

  • Briercrest College and Seminary

Italy

  • Vivarium Academia Novum
  • Polis Institute Rome Intensive

Israel

  • Polis institute

Spain

  • Cultura Classica programs

United States

  • Polis Institute 3 week intensive in Virginia/Texas during July
  • Western Theological Seminary
  • Satler university

Novellas and Easy Reading Material For Students

  • 30 fables written in Ancient Greek, This book contains 269 unique words (excluding names and different forms of words) and 2,095 words total.

Children’s books

The thing to remember about children’s books is that kids already have a native fluency in the language and easily know 5K words when they start learning to read. With that being said, most of these are probably not for beginners unfortunately.

Conversation Manuals

These conversation manuals are older and they will most likely be harder for beginners. However, they are excellent material.

Ancient Greek Audio

  1. Reconstructed Attic
  1. AncientGreek.eu (IOANNIS STRATAKIS and his colleagues have produced the very best Ancient Greek audiobooks around. Their mastery of prosody is astounding. They are working on a complete Iliad & Odyssey as we speak)
  2. Justin Tomlin Greek Read Aloud (free)
  1. Many ancient works read out loud including, Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Xenophon, socrates, Alcidamas, Lysias, Pindar
  1. Reconstructed Koine
  1. KoineGreek.com (Ben Kantor)
  1. This has biblical and non biblical texts
  1. Jesse Orloff
  1. Here is his list of current NT books in reconstructed pronunciation from himself and others
  1. Erasmian
  1. Polis Institute (free downloads from their website)
  1. This has biblical and non biblical texts
  1. Lucian
  1. Luke Ranieri
  1. He has many textbooks available through his Patreon, including: Athenaze (US/Uk and Italian), Jact:Reading Greek, Ancient Greek Alive, Assimil, Thrasymachus, Alexandros, etc)
  1. Modern
  1. Greek New Testament 
  1. Podcasts: (by nature intermediate/advanced)
  1.  ὁ διὰ νυκτὸς διάλογος early podcast by Seamus Macdonald
  2. Ἑλληνίζωμεθα by Seamus and
  3. Ἄργος ἀκροᾶται by Jenny Teichmann
  4. ἑλληνισον by Leandros Corieltauvorumm
  5. Conversational Koine (currently going through Jonah)
  6. Ζῶν Ἑλληνιστί (Living in Greek) - Jesse Orloff
  7. Greeking out (about Ancient Greek resources)
  8. Biblingo: excellent series about learning languages, greek grammar, everything!
  1. Bedwere
  1. Bedwere youtube audio
    Bedwere
  2. https://archive.org/details/@bedwere
  3. https://archive.org/details/@bedwere?and[]=mediatype%3A%22audio%22
  1. The Pronunciation and Reading of Ancient Greek Audio
  2. All Lessons from Kendrick's Greek Ollendorff (Modern Pronunciation)
  1. https://www.reddit.com/r/AncientGreek/comments/120p041/audio_practice_for_all_lessons_from_kendricks/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
  1. Lots of extra free Audio
  1. https://librivox.org/search?primary_key=8&search_category=language&search_page=1&search_form=get_results

Ancient Greek Video/Youtube

Below is content in ancient greek. If you are looking for grammar curriculum in a video format, please see that section.

Ancient Greek Music and Songs

Not all “ancient greek” renditions are good or use good greek.

  • Related to Classics
  • Website Explaining Shanties 
  • A little bit more about them here.
  • Related to the Greek New Testament
  • Jingle Bells
  •  Greek Christmas Carol
  •  Joy To The World
  •  We Three Kings
  •  Hark, The Herald Angel Sings
  •  Silent Night
  • Greek New Year's Carol
  • Your Birth, O Christ
  •  The Virgin Mary Today        
  • Our Saviour Has Come Upon Us
  • The Magi And Three Shepherds
  • Doxology
  • Other:

Communities

  • Discord Servers
  • Discord server links only work for 7 days, so just shoot me a message))
  • Facebook Pages
  • Nerdy Biblical Languages Facebook Group
  • Comprehensible Input Ancient Greek
  • Twitter Accounts
  • @ancientgreekci
  • Reddit
  • Ancient Greek Reddit

Keyboard and Transliterating

Ancient Greek Keyboard - Polytonic Diacritics - LEXILOGOS

Transliterating English to Greek

Apps

  • Biblingo (excellent material here!)
  • Scripturial
  • Hoplite Challenge (app for practicing rapid, accurate parsing of Ancient Greek verbs. This app is very accurate).
  • Attikos (iPhone App for Ancient Greek Texts, an improvement on Perseus.)

iOS Apps:

Vocab/grammar:

  • Quizlet:  very useful for vocab, can also be used for grammar. Many decks available
  • JACTVocab: vocab app
  • Hoi Polloi Logoi: grammar quiz app
  • Daily Dose of Greek : useful to discover bible greek verse one by one. Needs some basic knowledge
  • Daily NT Vocab: vocab app, not much added value if you like Quizlet
  • BibleVocab: same +  bible passage vocab
  • Greek NT Study App: great multi-task app with greek bible, vocab and grammar quizzes
  • Parse Greek LITE
  • Hoplite Challenge: too difficult for beginners

Other Apps:

  • Attikos: greek texts from Perseus Digital Library
  • Logeion: references for above texts
  • Greek Dictionary
  • STEP  Bible

Other Apps:

THE ONE COURSE TO RULE THEM ALL (with materials)

  1. Complete Course in Ancient Greek (Homeric/Attic/New Testament) by Dr. Walter Roberts takes you through the Book 1 of the Iliad (600+ verses) while covering the entirety of Ancient Greek grammar using Herbert Smyth’s Greek Grammar (Revised Edition). In-depth grammar lessons & guided translations of all of Iliad Book 1. He regularly posts guided translations of Attic & NT texts as well. Covers 5-6 semesters of university level Ancient Greek. CUNY's Intensive Summer Courses might have to step aside.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJTq1rtB22U&list=PLv6lcWTkqoQgLuiUXHWE_b96RmvR4CIw7

Texts and Reading Tools

  1. Homer Fully Parsed https://homer.library.northwestern.edu/
  2. alpheios.net ( A robust reading tool in your browser or on your desktop recommended by u/logeion)
  3. http://hypotactic.com/projects/ (Fully Parsed Latin & Greek texts w/ commentary recommended by u/logeion)
  4. Perseus Digital Library (With vocab and parsing tools, lyric texts are disappointing).
  5. Ancient Lyric & Prosody http://www.aoidoi.org/ (best lyric commentaries online. Pindar's First Olympic Ode fully parsed!)

Handouts & Synopses

  1. u/Logeion Nifty Greek Handouts https://github.com/helmadik/NiftyGreekHandouts (really excellent summaries of key concepts and morphology)
  2. Dr. Oughton's Greek Handouts (Great syntactical synopsis using Plato's Apology). https://cwoughton.weebly.com/files-for-learning-greek.html
  3. Mastronarde’s Handouts http://atticgreek.org/ (useful for formatted morphology lists and accent tutorials)
  4. Dr Harrington's Complete Greek Grammar Synopsis https://perseids-publications.github.io/harrington-trees/
  5. http://en.pedalion.org/ superb online university grammar with tons of examples, terminology may throw people off.

Youtube Channels & Audio Resources

  1. LatinPerDiem (YouTube channel with Greek guided translations)
  2. Harvard's Ancient Greek Lessons based on Hansen & Quinn's textbook. https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/6417.learning-ancient-greek
  3. Daily Dose of Greek (YouTube channel with NT guided translations)
  4. Non English Languages
  1. LOGOS K LOGOS (YouTube channel with NT guided translations in Spanish)
  2. Corso di Grammatica Greca (Italian YouTube channel of Chiara Belluci)
  3. Classica Nova / Otto Gradstein - Latijn leren zonder moeite! (wonderful guided translations of Latin and Ancient Greek in Dutch)
  4. Vincenzo Panzeca (Italian YouTube channel focused on Latin. Professor Panzeca offers the best practical methodology for reading inflected languages (his Latin manual is legendary). Dr. Robert's guide: The Logic of Translation is a wonderful complement to this. Panzeca's method will give you intuitive and practical techniques for deciphering simple, compound and complex sentences. He'll show you how grammar rules actually help you deduce the structural cues in any inflected sentence).

Miscellaneous

  1. Ancient Greek Wiki (an amazing collection of online Ancient Greek resources maintained by scholars) http://greekgrammar.wikidot.com/
  2. Auto Translate for YouTube™ captions (Chrome extension that provides machine translated subtitles for YouTube videos.). https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/auto-translate-for-youtub/codommceejgdnbmfednpkhkfnlbepckf
  3. Grammar/Morphology Drills https://www.etoncollege.com/eton-greek-software-project/ recommended by u/logeion
  4. Quizzes https://fass.open.ac.uk/classical-studies/learning-ancient-greek recommended by u/logeion

Greek New Testament

  • Current scholarly edition of the NT
  • Both UBS and NA are scholarly editions, the one below is another diction of the Nestle Aland.
  • This is a great alternate scholarly edition with english.  
  • GNT interlinear that also includes parsing for lesser known words. Also includes a book mark which covers the English while reading.
  • Other Resources
  • Greek New Testament Readers (various)
  • Exegetical Guides
  •     Exegetical Video Guides
  • Exegetical Tools have several guides available for purchase. They include: Acts, Philippians, Collosians, 1 Peter, Jude, Hebrews James,  
  • Daily Dose of Greek (free) has done several videos, they have completed: John, 1-3 John, James, half of Matthew
  • GlossaHouse (free) has gone through Ephesians, Galatians (this  playlist does not seem in order, so look through it to find exact one you need)

Septuagint

  • Septuaginta Scholarly Edition
  • Setuaginta Readers edition Two Volume Set
  • I would also recommend the digital septuagint in Logos Bible Software or Accordance which enables you to look up any word.
  • Here is a very cheap GNT/Septuagint edition.
  • Here is an excellent comparison of different septuagint editions.
  • Other Resources
  • Septuagint Readers (various)
  • Exegetical guides
  • Septuagint Grammar and Lexicon
  • Septuagint Resources

Christian/Jewish Texts

  • Patristic Readers
  • 2nd Temple Literature/Jewish Texts
  • Readers
  • Book of Common Prayer in Ancient Greek
  • Popular Patristics Volumes Greek Diglot (Greek and English Facing Pages) 8 St Germanus On the Divine Liturgy
  • Other Readers

Seminary Textbooks

  • Most seminary textbooks are quite similar. Mounce, Plummer, Croy, Black, etc. They all do about the same thing in the same amount of time. If you must learn by one, make sure it is one in which you learn verbs early, so you can start to read early (i.e. Mounce does not do this soon enough, whether following track one or two). Some are more updated than others, such as Plummer. Some have a graded reader to go along with it (Croy now has Jeong). Because of this, Croy is probably the best grammar to use, because it is relatively simple, gets your reading quickly starting with verbs sooner, and has Jeong to provide lots of easy reading material. Also you don't have to pay for a separate workbook, unlike almost every other. It's also one of the cheapest textbooks!
  • Two outlier textbooks are Decker with more linguistic background (700pgs) and Long which also includes a linguistic background as well as discourse analysis and quite a few appendices (630pgs). Harris also is linguistically informed but IMO overly complicated for a beginning student.
  • If you like physical flashcards, Plummer’s are probably the best now with all the features they have (can be used with major textbooks). If you like a digital app, then Biblingo probably has the best alphabet and vocabulary card format, for free too!
  • Negatives of most seminary textbooks: The huge negative is that most of the above textbooks only teach you to decipher Ancient Greek like a math problem and not read it naturally like a language. Part of this is because you never read at all, you only translate unconnected example sentences, and you don't actually read that much (10 sentences per chapter). Finally most only teach about 350 words in a year, which is basically nothing compared to a modern language class that might teach 2000. You really need at least 2K to start reading well or to even have a beginner A1-A2 level of fluency. However, there is a trade off, the above seminary textbooks will teach you the full grammar of the language (not advanced, just full), whereas modern language classes would not do that in one year. Furthermore, the majority of the above textbooks are not informed by the science of language learning (second language acquisition theory). Why? Well overall that's a relatively new field and it's hard to teach old dogs new tricks. However, we do have preliminary data that shows about 95% of seminary students do not go on to use their greek (which is not a surprise, if they’ve never read much and dont leave with a big enough vocabulary). This data can be found in David Miller’s Greek Pedagogy in Crisis. Overall, you are much better off using a holistic language learning method, informed by second language acquisition theory, whether using Alpha with Angela, Athenaze (which will teach over a 1000 vocab words in the first book alone), or something else. Overall, this is why, generally speaking classics students do way better at Ancient Greek than Samaritan students do, because they have to learn a lot more vocabulary words and have to actually read large sections of Greek material.
  • The above assessment might upset some, but the overall point still stands that a textbook which uses grammar translation methodology is not the most effective way to learn any language (ancient or modern).

Grammar Translation Video Curriculum/Youtube

Attic Greek

Biblical Greek

Other Readers

Older Resources

Random Resources