NOTE: this blog has been corrected below, with αἶμα changed to the correct αἷμα.
I should begin by saying that rough and smooth breathings are, for the most part, not used in modern Greek. The script/typescript itself no longer employs them (although there are holdouts; see, for example, the Greek newspaper ΕΣΤΙΑ), and – whether present or not – they do not affect pronunciation.
As a result, students of koine who use the modern pronunciation do not differentiate rough breathings from smooth; i.e., all initial vowels are pronounced as a smooth breathing, without any ‘h’ sound.
However, even using the modern pronunciation, there is reason to note the breathings, as it is then easier to understand the relationship between certain Greek and English words.
Take the Greek term for ‘blood’: this word was αἷμα in the time of Homer, αἷμα in koine, and is still αίμα today, albeit without the breathing mark. Of course ‘αἷμα’ sounds nothing like ‘blood’, but there are still associated English words which can help one to remember the Greek:
hematocrit, hemophilia, hematology, hemorrhage
with the beginning ‘h’ representing the rough breathing of the original αἷμα.
Similarly we find ἀγρός (‘field’) with a smooth breathing leading to agriculture, agrarian, and so on, but ἅγιος (‘holy’) with a rough breathing giving us hagiography and Hagia Sophia (i.e., ‘Saint Sophia’, the church).
Here are a few more examples, all with rough breathing:
ἱερόν (temple) and ἱερεύς (priest) -> hierarchy
ὅμοιος (like, similar) -> homonym
ἕτερος (another, different) -> heterodox, heterosexual
ἅλας (salt) -> halophile (an organism which likes/tolerates high salt conditions)
ἵππος (horse) -> hippopotamus
Special note should be made of the many English words beginning with ‘hypo-‘
(hypotonic, hypodermic, hypoglycemic, hypothermia)
and ‘hyper-‘
(hyperactive, hyperbaric, hypertonic, hyperextend, hyperlink)
which are derived from the Greek prepositions/prefixes ὑπό and ὑπέρ, which both take the rough breathing.
Next time . . . in a final look at breathings, we’ll examine the strange case of the word ‘eureka’- and add a question about the word ‘hour’.
A Workbook of New Testament Greek 