Some rules for recognizing rough and smooth breathings

My specific focus in this and the following blog is on the rough and smooth breathing in classical and koine Greek.  We’ll first take a quick overview of their use, and then examine how breathings have influenced the English spellings of associated words.

The rough and smooth breathing marks are placed over word-initial vowels, and an initial rho.

Especially for some of us older folk – and depending on the size and type of font – breathing marks can be difficult to see (what is that squiggle next to the accent in ἄνθρωπος?)  Here are some patterns which may help in their recognition:

1.

 The rho always takes a rough breathing.

ἡ Ῥόδος, ῥύομαι, ῥίπτω, ἡ Ῥαμά

2.

 An initial upsilon (υ) always takes a rough breathing.

ὑγιής, ὕμνος, ὑπερβάλλω

3.

Verbs which begin with a prefixed preposition (with an initial vowel) retain the breathing of that preposition.  The preposition ἀπό takes a smooth breathing, for example, and thus also ἀπολογία, ἀπολύω, ἀποπλέω and so on.

Prepositional prefixes which take a smooth breathing include:

ἀπό, ἀνά, ἀντί, εἰς, ἐκ, ἐν, ἐπί

Prepositional prefixes which take a rough breathing include:

ὑπό, ὑπέρ (see #2, above)

4.

The alpha-privative takes a smooth breathing.  The alpha privative is a prefix like the un- in uncommon, expressing absence or negation.  Thus:

δυνατός . . . possible, strong, powerful

ἀδύνατος . . . impossible, weak

5.

Epsilon as a temporal augment for an aorist or imperfect indicative takes a smooth breathing.

γράφω, aorist active indicative ἔγραψα

βαπτίζω, imperfect active indicative ἐβάπτιζα

6.

The masculine and feminine, nominative, forms of the article take the rough breathing:

ὁ, ἡ, οἱ, αἱ  (and thus, ‘hoi polloi’)

7.

The very common pronoun αὐτός and all its forms take the smooth breathing, but

8.

The near demonstrative pronoun οὗτος, αὕτη, τοῦτο takes the rough breathing in its masculine and feminine nominative forms.  Thus the reader must carefully note the difference between ἀυτή (‘she’) and αὕτη (‘this (female)’).

Finally, note that the breathing mark goes over the second vowel of word-initial diphthongs, and precedes an acute accent if both are present on the same vowel:

αὐτός, εἰσέρχομαι, εὑρίσκω, ἄνθρωπος

 

In the next blog we’ll look at the relationship between Greek breathing marks and English spellings.