I study Ancient Greek: how hard is Modern Greek?

If you have translated Plato or Xenophon for the Graecum, a versione at the liceo classico or a set text for A level, you start Modern Greek far ahead of other beginners. The alphabet is the same, and so is the spelling of many words: ἄνθρωπος is still άνθρωπος, θάλασσα is still θάλασσα, ψυχή is still ψυχή. Nouns still have three genders, an article and cases, and verbs still distinguish aspect, so the categories you learned for Attic prose are the ones a Modern Greek grammar uses.

Formal Greek, the language of newspapers, signs and official forms, is full of words you can parse at sight. A bakery can still call itself a «πρατήριο άρτου», a shop of bread, and a fishmonger an «ιχθυοπωλείο». Reading comes quickly. What takes work is hearing and speaking.

Many schools outside Greece teach the Erasmian pronunciation, a scholarly reconstruction. Greeks read the same letters differently, and most of the change happened long before the modern state. The Centre for the Greek Language describes how, already in the Koine, itacism made endings such as -εις and -ῃς sound alike, and how the old contrast between long and short vowels was lost.

In practice, η, ι, υ, ει and οι are all pronounced [i], and αι is [e]. The letters β, γ and δ are soft fricatives, so the dictionary transcribes υδραυλικός as [iðravlikós], with αυ read [av]. The accent is a stress, not a pitch. Modern spelling keeps the historical letters, so your eye recognises words your ear does not catch yet. Today Greek is also written with a single accent mark, the monotonic system, without breathings.

Much of what you memorised has gone. According to the Centre for the Greek Language, non-literary papyri of the 1st century BC already replace the dative, first with the accusative and later with the genitive. Today it survives only in fixed phrases such as εντάξει (all right), τοις μετρητοίς (in cash) and δόξα σοι ο Θεός (thank God). The optative has disappeared, and so has the infinitive, which was very restricted by the 10th century and lost by the 16th. Its one trace is the fixed form in the perfect, «έχω γράψει», which Greek grammars still call the απαρέμφατο.

New structures take their place. Where Xenophon writes an infinitive, Modern Greek uses να, from ἵνα, with the subjunctive: «θέλω να γράψω», I want to write. The future is formed with the particle θα, which grew out of θέλει να: «θα γράψω», I will write. An indirect object becomes σε with the accusative or a genitive pronoun: «δώσε μου», give me. The grammar is lighter than Attic, but these are new habits to build.

The biggest surprise is that the most ordinary words often changed. Many modern ones come from Hellenistic diminutives in -ιον. Ὀψάριον, a little relish, the word for the two fish in John 6:9, became ψάρι; ψωμίον, a small morsel, became ψωμί; ὀμμάτιον, a little eye, became μάτι; and κρᾶσις, the mixing of wine with water, gave κρασί. Even ὕδωρ was replaced, by νερό, from νηρὸν ὕδωρ, fresh water.

The old words did not vanish. They moved up a register: ιχθύς, άρτος and οίνος are formal or church words, and the Eucharist is still «ο άρτος και ο οίνος». The practical rule for a classicist is to learn the everyday word first and keep the ancient one as formal vocabulary. So how hard is Modern Greek? Reading is a short step. Listening and speaking need steady practice, but you never start from zero.