This ongoing class will introduce students to 3-5 Ancient Greek vocabulary words per class. The goal of the course is not to teach the language as a whole, but to teach vocabulary for its historical and cultural significance and for its usefulness in helping to remember English words that are derived from the Greek. Nevertheless, the class would be a useful introduction to Ancient Greek for those students who wish to study the language further.

Ancient Greek words will be taught using both the Roman alphabet and the Ancient Greek alphabet, so students will not need to study the Ancient Greek alphabet if they are not familiar with it. The class assumes no prior knowledge, and each session  can be taken on its own. There is no need to attend every week to follow the session.

In each session, I will explain each word and its historical and cultural significance. I will discuss some English words derived from each of the Greek words and ask the students to use the English words in a sentence. The class will also include some time for questions and discussion.

The course will repeat every eight weeks. We will cover these words (I provide only the English translations here):

Week of Sept. 4: soul, big, pride, virtue
Week of Sept. 11: reason, law, star, self
Week of Sept. 18: love, wisdom, philosophy
Week of Sept. 25: rule, people, the few, best, tyrant
Week of Oct. 2: human being, man, woman, body
Week of Oct. 9: nature, part, all, whole
Week of Oct. 16: under, over, down
Week of Oct. 23: beginning, beautiful, ugly, power