Notes on Spanish

in no particular order whatsoever:

1. the horror/awe, longing/repulsion, striving/fleeing dichotymies

2. motherfuckin spaceships

3. the almost meta-level of fluidity in shaping the context of the story. the pure unknown chaos-stuff of what life in space would be like means that creating any space story is like drawing noughts and crosses across the void. which is what any storytelling is like - the selection of what you show the reader is so arbitrary - so in your hands as a writer you are godlike over your own creation. and in space stories that is doubly true because you are fabricating twin planets and quantum star clusters and seventeen branches of government and shining steel circles in the sky and living organism hull parasites and cthulhu black holes out of the narrative plasmic matter that is space.

4. humanism humanism humanism HUMANISM. not in the sense of ‘all about humans no aliens allowed’ but in the sense of ‘look at us living creatures throwing ourselves out of our natural context into the most hostile and terrifying of outside spaces just to push ever outward in the uniting discordant hope of finding something more. how we sketch our understanding of the universe like toddlers with fingerpaint and build upwards from there like priests like poets like precise and pure mathematician-magicians. all just in the pure hope of maybe finding something new. how fucking dreamboat.

5. humanism on another level in that any space narrative has to address humanity as a whole. what are we now? how are we what have we become? what has become of our selfishness and cruelties towards one another and each other as species, as nations, as races, as people? in what ways have we grown and what ways have we curdled and curled inward and become corrupt and rotten in same old ways in new contexts? and how do we see the hope and poetry of science and human understanding grow in leaps and bounds like the blazing light without seeing in exacting clarity the bleak shadow of all the people left behind or crushed under the heel of that momentum? how do we look the abyss of the universe in the eye when we can’t even meet our own (as a species) in the mirror? how do we dare? 

inter quas phoenissa recens a volnere dido errabat silva in magna; quam troius heros ut primum iuxta stetit adgnovitque per umbras obscuram, qualem primo qui surgere mense aut videt, aut vidisse putat per nubila lunam, demisit lacrimas… among them phoenician dido, freshly wounded, was wandering in the great forest; the trojan hero, as he first stood near her and recognized through the shades her gloomy [form]–like one who, early in the month, either sees or believes he has seen the moon rise through the clouds– let fall his tears…(aeneid  6.450-5)

we have two feminine nouns here, dido and the moon (luna), and they merge seamlessly into a metaphor via the adjective obscuram, which appears to apply to both of them at second glance; but at first glance, you don’t find out that vergil is describing the moon until the very end of the next line:

obscuram, qualem primo qui surgere mense aut videt, aut vidisse putat per nubila lunam

so as the audience you experience the same uncertainty as aeneas here, the subject of the metaphor suspended and unclear until the end. but vergil’s metapoetic word order is obliterated by english word order. 

all of this is also written in beautiful dactylic hexameter, which most english-speaking readers wouldn’t even realize is a meter, if they happened to be reading a translation that attempted it.

Are you interested in Ancient Greek but don’t know where to start? Curious about the basics of a long-dead language? A Hellenic polytheist who wants to learn a few phrases for worship? A Classics student who somehow managed to make it this far without understanding the language you’re studying? Fear not! In this post I will explain the basics of Ancient Greek conjugation, declension and grammatical structure, and give you a bit of vocabulary to work with on your own.

(Are you a complete beginner with no knowledge of the Greek alphabet and how it works? Click here for an introduction.)

Vocabulary

Before starting with anything, have some handy words:

παιδεύω I teach, I educate, I raise λέγω I say, I speak ἔχω I have, I hold, I own ἥκω I come, I am here λείπω I leave, I abandon χαίρω (+ dative) I rejoice, I am glad for εἰμί I am φίλος friend ξένος stranger, host οἶκος house, home βίος life θεός god θεά goddess τιμή honour ψυχή soul κόρη girl τέκνον child ἄστρον star ἱερόν sanctuary, sacrifice (pl.) ἀγαθός good κακός bad, evil καί and μέν… δέ on one hand… on the other hand γάρ for, indeed ἀλλά but οὐ, οὐκ, οὐχ not

You don’t need to learn them all right now, but they’re good to know.

The present tense

We are now going to pick the very first verb on the list, παιδεύω, and decline it. This doesn’t mean we’re going to refuse it or make it smaller. It means we’re going to write down its different forms depending on the person. Most English verbs don’t have this; they stay the same no matter whom the verb refers to (I take, you take, they take) except for the third person singular (he/she/it takes). In Ancient Greek, however, the ending of the verb changes for each person:

παιδεύω I teach παιδεύεις you teach (singular) παιδεύει he/she/it teaches παιδεύομεν we teach παιδεύετε you teach (plural) παιδεύουσι(ν) they teach παιδεύειν to teach (infinitive)

Fun fact #1: Greek verbs don’t require a subject. Everything is contained in the ending of the verb. You can also say ἐγω παιδεύω, I myself teach, but παιδεύω is just fine on its own.

Fun fact #2: this is great news for non-gender conforming people, because you don’t need pronouns. You can just say παιδεύει and it could mean he teaches, she teaches, it teaches, they teach or any other pronoun of your choice. Please don’t say παιδεύουσι to mean that a non-gendered person is teaching, though. The third person plural, as its name indicates, is specifically for a plurality of people, not for one single person of unspecified gender.

Fun fact #3: you see that ν in brackets after παιδεύουσι? That’s only used in front of a vowel. So if Socrates and Plato are teaching Aristotle, I’ll say παιδεύουσιν Ἀριστοτέλην, but if Socrates and Aristotle are teaching Plato, I’ll say παιδεύουσι Πλάτονα.

Fun fact #4: the accent is always three beats (I don’t really know what else to call them) away from the end of the verb. Short syllables like ε and ο count for one beat, long syllables like η and ω count for two. So for παιδεύω, count two for ω and place the accent on the third, the diphthong εύ. Diphthongs also count for two, so the same goes for παιδεύεις and παιδεύει: count two for ει and place the accent on the third, again εύ. For παιδεύομεν, count one for ε, one for ο, and place the accent on εύ. And so on. This is a really handy tip to know where a verb’s accent should be.

The other verbs in the list above work the same way. Try conjugating them!

Well, not εἰμί. Like in many languages, the verb to be is irregular. We’ll talk about irregular verbs another time, but since this one is important, here’s how it declines:

εἰμί I am εἶ you are (singular) ἐστί(ν) he/she/it is ἐσμέν we are ἐστέ you are εἰσί(ν) they are (plural)

All the forms of this verb, except for εἶ, are enclitic. This means, put very simply without all the linguistic jargon, that the accent jumps onto the previous word. Sometimes it’s replaced by a grave accent (ὰ instead of ά), because enclitic words are very serious business.

But what’s the point of knowing verbs without subjects to put them with? Hence I present to you

Nouns and their declensions

There are three types of noun in Ancient Greek: masculine, feminine and neuter. Masculine nouns generally end in -ος and their article is ὁ. This is important because ὁ φίλος means the friend but φίλος only means a friend.

Feminine nouns generally end in -α or -η and their article is ἡ. As for neuter nouns, they generally end in -ον and their article is το. I say generally because there are exceptions (ἡ ἐλπίς, ὁ ἔρως, τὸ στόμα..) but we won’t get into those now. This is the basics, after all.

This is how you decline the masculine noun ὁ φίλος:

Singular Nominative ὁ φίλος (there is only one friend) Vocative ὦ φίλε (friend, there is only one of you) Accusative τὸν φίλον (I have a friend) Genitive τοῦ φίλου (I don’t know the name of my friend) Dative τῷ φίλῳ (I will speak to my friend about it)

Plural Nominative οἱ φίλοι (there are many friends) Vocative οἱ φίλοι (friends, there are many of you) Accusative τοὺς φίλους (I have many friends) Genitive τῶν φίλων (I know the names of my friends) Dative τοῖς φίλοις (because I spoke to them about it)

As you can see, like German, Ancient Greek has many cases. I summarised their basic usages in the examples in brackets, but if you need another summary: nominative is for the subject; vocative is when you address the subject; accusative is for the direct object (I give my friend a hug) and for movement (I am going to Greece); genetive is for possession (not demonic, just ownership); dative is for the indirect object (I give my friend a hug) and for location (I am in Greece).

This is how you decline the feminine noun ἡ κόρη:

Singular Nominative ἡ κόρη Vocative ἡ κόρη Accusative τὴν κόρην Genitive τῆς κόρης Dative τῇ κόρῃ

Plural Nominative αἱ κόραι Vocative αἱ κόραι Accusative τὰς κόρας Genitive τῶν κόρων Dative ταῖς κόραις

And this is how you decline the neuter noun τὸ ἄστρον:

Singular Nominative τὸ ἄστρον Vocative τὸ ἄστρον Accusative τὸ ἄστρον Genitive τοῦ ἄστρου Dative τῷ ἄστρῳ

Plural Nominative τὰ ἄστρα Vocative τὰ ἄστρα Accusative τὰ ἄστρα Genitive τῶν ἄστρων Dative τοῖς ἄστροις

Most verbs demand the accusative, but some demand different cases. Ὀργίζομαι, which means I get angry against, is one: it’s followed by the dative. Ὀργίζομαι τοῖς φίλοις means I get angry against my friends.

There are also verbs which demand different cases depending on usage. Χαίρω is one. Its basic meaning is I rejoice, which demands the dative. An example would be the famous phrase χαίρω τῷ βίῳ, I rejoice in life, which is the Greek equivalent of carpe diem, which is the ancient equivalent of YOLO. But χαίρω, in the imperative form (singular χαῖρε, plural χαίρετε), can also be used as a greeting. Since you’re addressing someone, in this case, it’s followed by the vocative: χαῖρε Διώνυσε, χαῖρε Άφροδίτη, χαίρετε θεοί.

A small note on small words

Ancient Greek is full of small words, also known as conjuctions. These mean things like indeed, definitely, somewhat, if, but, because, and so on. Many of them, like εἰμί, are enclitic. They don’t serve much of a purpose in the text other than to structure it. For example, you’ll find a lot of ancient texts beginning with μέν and continuing with δέ… δέ… δέ, which can be translated as on the other hand, but, and, or simply nothing at all because they’re the Ancient Greek equivalent of paragraphs.

One important word to know is the negation οὐ. It means no or not. In front of a vowel, it becomes οὐκ, and in front of a rough breathing it becomes οὐχ.

Now that you know this, we can construct a sentence!

Sentences

Sentences are easy. Because of all these wonderful cases, we can construct them any way we like! We can put the subject first! We can put the object first! We can put the verb first! Yay!

Okay, so we can’t construct them any way we like. Groups of words (my friend’s child, the good stranger) need to stay together. Great classical authors like Homer and Herodotus are allowed poetic license, but not only that’s incredibly bothersome for people like me who have to translate their work, you’re not a great classical author. So keep groups of words and concepts together. Don’t separate prepositions (on, at, from, by…) from their nouns either. I know we haven’t looked at prepositions yet. We’ll get to that later.

Now that’s out of the way, here are a few sentences you can make with the vocabulary I gave you above:

Παιδεύω τέκνα. I teach children.

Λείπω τὸν οἶκον. I leave the house.

Φίλος εἰμί. I am a friend.

Αἱ τιμαί τῶν θεῶν ἀγαθαί εἰσίν. The honours of the Gods are good.

Εἰμι κόρη, ἀλλὰ Κόρη ἐστι θεά. I am a girl, but Korê is a Goddess.

Φίλος μὲν ἥκει, ξένος δὲ λείπει. A friend is coming and a stranger is going.