Lesson video

Hi there.

It's great to see you again.

Welcome back to another history lesson with me, Ms. Roberts.

This lesson is all about some specific aspects of the ancient Greek civilization.

Today, we are going to be thinking about the language of Ancient Greece and the type of architecture that we might have seen in Ancient Greece.

This is part of a unit of work about Ancient Greece that considers what was the most significant legacy.

Could it be language and architecture? Let's work together and find out.

By the end of the lesson today, you will be able to identify the influence and the legacy of the ancient Greeks upon modern language and architecture.

So let's begin with looking at some key words for this lesson.

These keywords are very useful for helping you to talk about the ancient Greek language and architecture.

The first key word is legacy.

Can you say legacy? Good job.

Then we have the word influence.

Can you say influence? Lovely.

And then we have architecture.

Can you say architecture? Great.

Don't worry if you're not too sure on what the meanings of those words are.

I'm going to show you what they mean now, and then when we use them in the lesson, I'll explain them again.

Our first key word was legacy.

A legacy is a very long-lasting impact that a historical event, action, a person, or a group of people has had.

Our next key word is influence, and influence is a thing or a person that affects others.

And finally, we have the word architecture.

Architecture is a word that is specifically related to the style and the design of different types of buildings.

So later today, we will be looking at the style and design of different types of buildings in Ancient Greece.

Today's lesson has two parts, and first of all, we are going to investigate the legacy of the ancient Greek language.

Later, we will be looking at architecture.

So let's get started.

The Greek alphabet has been the same since about the year 900 BCE.

It is one of the oldest and the most long-standing languages in the whole world.

Much of the evidence that we have about life in Ancient Greece comes from pottery.

Ancient Greek pottery was often painted with scenes of everyday life, and sometimes it had ancient Greek writing on it too.

So examples of Greek writing have been found on ancient Greek pottery artefacts like this vase.

You can see the arrow there is pointing to what might look like scratches, but is in fact an early example of Greek writing.

Other evidence of ancient Greek writing has been seen in inscriptions on stelas.

Stelas or large pieces of rock that had information carved into them at some point in the past.

The Rosetta Stone is a very famous example of a stela that was inscribed with ancient Greek writing.

So what did the ancient Greek alphabet look like? Here it is.

Can you see all of the letters there? You can see what they look like as uppercase letters and as lowercase letters.

The words below each letter here tell you how to say the words.

So if you look at the very top row there, you can see that the first four letters of the ancient Greek alphabet are alpha, beta, gamma, and delta.

Take some time now to work with a partner.

I want you to both look carefully at this ancient Greek alphabet.

Together, I would like you to discuss how it is similar and how it is different to the English alphabet that you know and use.

You can pause the video now while you share your ideas with a partner.

Finished? You have some excellent observations.

I wonder if you made any of the same observations as I did.

I noticed that some letters are very similar and recognisable, like A, B, and K.

And yes, whilst some letters are very similar, other letters do not resemble any of our English letters at all.

Did you spot the letter xi? That's pronounced like the letter X plus an I, xi.

I also noticed that there are vowels and consonants, like there are in English.

And I noticed that the letter Z, which is the last letter of the English alphabet, appears as much earlier in the Greek alphabet.

I also counted the letters and there were 24 of them, but in the English alphabet, there are 26 letters.

Did you notice any of those things too? Aisha has also made an excellent observation.

Aisha says that she thinks it's really interesting that the first two letters of the Greek alphabet are alpha and beta.

So if you put them together, it's like alphabet.

Well-spotted, Aisha.

So let's have a quick stop here and just check on what we've learned so far.

This is a true or false question.

I'm going to read a statement for you to decide if it is true or false.

Listen carefully.

The English and Greek languages use the same alphabet.

Is that true or false? Have you decided? Good job.

Did you choose true? No.

Did you choose false? Excellent.

It is false to say that the English and the Greek languages use the same alphabet, but how do we know this? What other information or explanation could we provide to show how we know? Here are two more statements, and I would like you to pick which one of them is the most helpful to explain this situation.

Sentence A says that different countries do not speak the same language, so they cannot use the same alphabet.

Statement B says that there are different numbers of letters in each alphabet.

English has more letters than Greek.

Which of those is the most helpful in this situation? Have you picked one? I picked option B.

Did you? Sentence B provides us with some evidence that the alphabets are different.

The evidence is that they have different numbers of letters in each alphabet, so that sentence proves how we know it is false to say that the English and the Greek languages use the same alphabet.

Well done.

Let's discover some more facts now about the legacy of the ancient Greek language.

One of the ways that we can see the influence of the Greek language in English is by looking at the beginnings and the endings of words.

Hm, why the beginnings and the endings? Well, that's because the beginnings and endings of words are actually very special.

That's right.

Jacob.

Groups of letters together at the start of a word are called a prefix, and groups of letters at the end of a word are called a suffix.

In the English language, lots of prefixes and suffixes that we use come from the Greek language.

So this shows the influence that it has had on other languages.

Prefixes and suffixes are added to other words to create lots of new words.

Let's have a look at some examples.

There are actually more than 300 prefixes in English that stem from the Greek language.

Here are some examples of them now.

Words that begin with astro-, like astronaut, astro- is a prefix from Greek.

Tele-, like television, tele- is a prefix from Greek.

Para-, like paragraph, para- is a prefix from Greek.

Micro-, like microwave, micro- is a prefix from Greek.

I wonder if you have used any of those words today.

Let's now look at some suffixes that stem from the Greek language too.

There are about 160 suffixes in English that have come from Greek.

Let's look at some examples of those words now.

Words that end in the letters -logy come from Greek, like biology, apology, zoology.

Words that end in -ess come from Greek, like goddess.

Words that end in -ical come from Greek, like mythical, musical, or logical.

And also words that end in -ergy, like energy, also come from Greek.

So many of our English words use these Greek prefixes and suffixes.

As Andeep says, "Wow! So many words in English use prefixes and suffixes from Greek.

This shows an important language legacy that the ancient Greeks have left." So let's put on new learning to use now and try some activities about the legacy of the ancient Greek language.

Here is the ancient Greek alphabet again, and remember that the words below each letter tell you how to say them.

So the second row, for example, is epsilon, zeta, eta and theta.

I would like you to work with a partner and to take turns trying to spell out words using Greek letters.

Don't worry if you stumble on any of the letters because these are sounds that we are not used to making in English.

The words you spell out should be words that you know that are related to the ancient Greek civilization.

Pause the video now whilst you talk to your partner.

Well done.

Did you have fun trying to spell words with Greek letters? The Oak Academy children had fun and they're going to share some of their examples with us now.

First, Jun spelled out the word gods, gamma-omicron-delta-sigma, god.

Sam spelled the word myth, mu-epsilon-tau-eta, myth.

Laura spelled the word Athens, alpha-tau-eta-epsilon-nu-sigma.

Well done, everyone, and well on you too.

Time for another activity about the influence of the Greek language on English.

Here are all the words that you saw earlier which have prefixes or suffixes that come from the Greek language.

I would like you to choose any of the words that you like and to write sentences that use them.

You could use one word in a sentence or you could use several words in a sentence.

Try to write at least five sentences of your own and share and compare them with a partner.

Pause the video now while you complete the activity.

Ready? There are so many words, aren't there, and so many sentences.

I'm going to show you some examples that I came up with now.

I said that I saw an astronaut on television.

We are reading a mythical story about Ancient Greece.

My sister has an allergy to peanuts.

Opposite sides of a square or parallel.

Can I warm the soup in the microwave? Demeter was the ancient Greek goddess of the harvest.

That hurt! Can I have an apology? All of those sentences would not be possible if it were not for the influence of the ancient Greek language.

The words in each sentence that have a suffix or a prefix from ancient Greek are shown in purple.

Wonderful.

So we have thought about the influence of the Greek language, we're going to move into the second part of our lesson now and think about the influence of ancient Greek architecture.

Remember architecture from the keywords earlier.

Architecture is to do with the style and design of different types of buildings.

One of the reasons that we know so much about what Ancient Greece looked like is because all over Greece and in other places that were once part of Ancient Greece, there are many ruins of ancient buildings.

Ruins that have been found show us that in Ancient Greece, buildings were constructed in a particular way.

They followed certain styles and had special features.

The style and design of buildings is known as architecture.

People who design buildings are called architects.

Lucas is sharing with us that his aunty works as an architect.

She designs new houses.

What an interesting job.

Look at the photograph.

The photograph shows some of those ancient ruins that we were just talking about.

These ancient ruins are of a temple in Athens.

It's a very famous temple called the Parthenon.

Some of the most well-known and well-preserved ruins are those of temples like the Parthenon.

The ancient Greeks took great pride in carefully building beautiful temples because they believed that the temples were homes on Earth for their gods and goddesses, so they wanted to make them very impressive and beautiful to please them.

Temples were usually the biggest and grandest buildings in any ancient Greek city.

Lots of the temples as well as other important buildings in Ancient Greece were built using a very similar plan.

They were often built using large stone columns.

The Parthenon has many columns, like you can see in the picture.

Columns are probably one of the most distinctive features and styles of ancient Greek architecture.

The stone columns would be built first to form the shape of the perimeter of a building.

Then the ancient Greeks would place long solid beams on top of the columns.

And on top of those solid beams, a roof would be constructed.

In the case of many historical ruins from Ancient Greece, while parts of the buildings like the roofs have been destroyed over time, the strong stone columns often still stand proudly where they were originally placed.

That's definitely the case here in the Parthenon in Athens where there is not much remaining of the roof.

Have you been listening closely? Let's have a quick multiple choice question about our learning so far.

What material were columns usually made from? A, sand, B, wood, C, metal, or D, stone? Make your choice.

Have you chosen? Good job.

Did anyone choose sand? No.

Sand wouldn't be helpful.

It wasn't strong enough.

How about wood? No.

Wood wouldn't stand the test of time.

Did you choose metal? Metal is very strong, but metal wasn't widely used at the time in Ancient Greece.

How about stone? That's the right answer.

Strong stone columns were built to form the outside of buildings and many still stand proudly today.

It wasn't just these stone columns that were a particular feature of ancient Greek architecture though.

Take a look at this photograph, which shows a close up of the top of the columns in the Parthenon in Athens.

You can see here a long stone beam across the top of the columns.

What else do you notice about it? Talk to a partner now.

Good job.

This large section is actually called a frieze.

Friezes were used for decorative purpose.

They were panels of stone and they had pictures or symbols or words, usually relating to what the building did, and they were carved into the stone.

Very often, friezes would be rectangular in shape because they were forming part of a building, but they could be other shapes as well, like for example, being a triangle over a doorway.

Friezes were usually installed in buildings very high up, like here at the top of columns, or above entrances and exits.

Look at this photograph.

You can see again the distinctive tall stone columns, which are very wide.

You can get an idea of the size of the columns by looking at the people walking beside them.

There is also part of a frieze on top of the columns and the ruins of what would have been the roof.

These ruins are also found in Athens and they are actually just in front of the Parthenon.

This is called the Propylaia, and this is a type of gateway.

Ancient Greeks liked to use their architecture as a way to show how important buildings or places were.

Places that were considered to be the most important, like temples such as the Parthenon, had their own special gateways built.

Historians call these type of gateways ceremonial gateways.

Everybody that visited any of these places would be so impressed just by the entrance and the gateway before they even saw the amazing building itself.

People still walk through the ruins of the ceremonial gateway to the Parthenon today.

The influence of Greek architecture has had a lasting impact on the style of architecture used in buildings all around the world, not just in Ancient Greece.

The designs of many buildings are based on those ancient Greek features, which shows the great legacy and influence it has had.

This photograph shows the British Museum, which is in London.

I'd like you to talk to a partner and look at the photograph together.

What features of ancient Greek architecture can you spot in the design of this building? Ready? You've made some great observations.

Did you notice that the National Museum has strong stone columns, just like the Parthenon did? And do you notice it has a decorative frieze across the front as well? Both of those are features of ancient Greek architecture that have been used in the design of this more modern building in London.

Let's stop here and check what we know so far about features of ancient Greek architecture.

Here we have a photograph of the ruins of the Parthenon again, and two parts of those ruins have been labelled A and B.

I want you to tell me what each of those parts is called.

Pause the video now while you complete the activity.

Ready? Let's see if you identified them correctly.

The part labelled A is the frieze and the part labelled B is a column.

Good work.

Let's try another activity now about the influence and legacy of ancient Greek architecture.

This building in the photograph is a building in the United States of America.

The influence of ancient Greek architecture really did spread all over the world.

The building in the photograph is called the Lincoln Memorial.

It's in Washington.

It was built in the year 1935, so it's not an ancient building at all.

I'd like you to study the photograph and then write one paragraph to explain how ancient Greek architecture has influenced the design of the Lincoln Memorial building.

Pause the video now while you complete your paragraph.

Finished? Great job.

I'm going to share my paragraph with you now.

You may have made similar observations as I have.

Listen closely.

I wrote that ancient Greek architecture has had a big influence because this building looks a lot like the Parthenon temple in Athens.

It has tall stone columns all around the outside.

There are also two friezes.

Friezes are decorated panels on the top of columns, like they had on buildings in Ancient Greece.

Did you make those observations as well? Great work.

That brings us to the end of this lesson today where we have looked at the legacies of language and of architecture.

Let's review what we have covered.

We now know that Greek is one of the oldest languages in the world, and that the Greek alphabet has been used since the year 900 BCE.

We know that the Greek alphabet has some similarities as well as some differences compared to the English alphabet.

We know that a legacy of the ancient Greek language is that many English prefixes and suffixes stem from Greek.

And for architecture, we know that ancient Greek architecture had features such as columns, friezes, and buildings had ceremonial gateways.

We can still see many of those features in modern buildings, which shows the legacy of ancient Greek architecture.

I had great fun trying to spell words in the Greek alphabets, and it was so interesting to see the influence on buildings all over the world.

I hope you enjoyed investigating this legacy of the ancient Greek civilization as well.

I'll see you next time.

Bye for now.