koine Greek or Aramaic help?

[tDub248]

Hey Guys! First off, what is the main distinctions between koine Greek and regular Greek? Please keep in mind, I know pretty much nothing about Greek.

Secondly, I'm working on a live Nativity, with Herodian soldiers, and would like to know some simple words in Greek (or Aramaic), like:

Soldier, Plural and singular if different
Friend, Plural and Singular
Greetings or Hi
Sir, or some sort of way to address some higher up

Thats all I can think of right now. If anyone has other things, or a link for somewhere better, that'd be great! I think my problem is I don't know enough about Greek, and the different dialects, to know what to search. Thanks so much!

[MeinPanzer]

Hey Guys! First off, what is the main distinctions between koine Greek and regular Greek? Please keep in mind, I know pretty much nothing about Greek.

Secondly, I'm working on a live Nativity, with Herodian soldiers, and would like to know some simple words in Greek (or Aramaic), like:

Soldier, Plural and singular if different
Friend, Plural and Singular
Greetings or Hi
Sir, or some sort of way to address some higher up

Thats all I can think of right now. If anyone has other things, or a link for somewhere better, that'd be great! I think my problem is I don't know enough about Greek, and the different dialects, to know what to search. Thanks so much!

I can help with a few of these with Greek.

For "soldier," I'm guessing you want to know how it was said when addressing somebody, and so you would want it in the vocative. In Attic Greek it would be stratiota in the singular, and stratiotai in the plural - I'm pretty sure it's the same in Koine.
For "friend," again I'm guessing that you're looking for the vocative, and so it would be "phile" singular and "philoi" plural.
For greetings, khaire in the singular and khairete in the plural (also works for goodbye).

For addressing a superior, I unfortunately can't think of any examples of such that would likely be used in everyday life (as opposed to literary formulae), but I'm sure somebody can.

[tDub248]

cool, thanks! So would you pronounce that strah-tee-ow-tah? and then strah-tee-ow-tay? and for friend would it be fee-ley? and then fee-loy? And I dont really know what to guess with khaire... Thanks again!

[MeinPanzer]

cool, thanks! So would you pronounce that strah-tee-ow-tah? and then strah-tee-ow-tay? and for friend would it be fee-ley? and then fee-loy? And I dont really know what to guess with khaire... Thanks again!

My knowledge of ancient Greek pronunciation isn't that great (I've only read Vox Graeca on the subject), but this is how I understand these to be pronounced:

Stra-tih-oh-ta for singular, stra-tih-oh-teye for plural.

The a is short, and so is pronounced like the "a" sound in "drama," and the oh is long, and is pronounced like the "o" in "total."

Fih-leh for singular, fih-loy for plural.

The ih is a short "i" sound, and so is pronounced like the "i" in "bit," and the eh is also a short sound (it's an epsilon, as opposed to an eta), and is pronounced like the "e" in "get."

Khaire is a little more difficult, because there was a shift over time from kh- being an aspirated k (think of it like a regular "k" sound in English only with a long breath out at the end, kind of like if you were to pronounce the ckh in "backhand" as a single sound) to being a rough "h" sound (so make a sound like you would if you were normally pronouncing an "h," but make it from the back of the throat and rougher), much like the "ch" in German. I'm pretty sure this transition had already happened by the time of Herod, though, so I would use the latter:

Heye-reh for singular, heye-reh-teh for plural.

The eh sounds are pronounced like in phile.

[tDub248]

Thank you!

[tDub248]

Hey, how would you use "idiôtês"? as far as plural, singular goes? can give me some insight as to how to determine how to make something singular or plural? Or maybe you know of a website to point me at? Thanks!