Lesson 9.1 · Reading
Reading a whole verse
A first whole verse, taken one marker at a time.
You now know every marker in the language. Here is John 1:1, in full, with nothing in it you have not met:
En archa ate tos logos, kai tos logos ate pros ton
theon, kai theos ate tos logos.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)
| Word | Pieces | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
en | never changes | in |
archa | arch· a | beginning, feminine, "in" |
ate | a· t· e | (no stem) — he/it was |
tos | t· o· s | the — masculine, doing it |
logos | log· o· s | word — masculine, doing it |
kai | never changes | and |
pros | never changes | toward, with |
ton theon | t· o· n · the· o· n | God — masculine, done to |
What the endings are telling you
archaends bare in its gender vowel, so it is the "in / to / for" form — hence "in the beginning".ateends in-e, so this is an ongoing past: not "became", but "was, and went on being".- In the last clause,
theosandlogosboth end in-s. With the verb "to be", both sides take the same ending — and the writer has puttheosfirst for emphasis.
That is the whole skill. Read left
to right, take each word's ending as it comes, and let the reader
fill in vocabulary you do not know yet. Everything from here is
mileage.