Greek Word of the Week 004 εἰμί, εἶμι, I am, I am going (Patreon)

Greek WotW 004

εἰμί, εἶμι, I am, I am going

Λούκιος τὸν πρόξενον ἀσπάζεται! Welcome, dear Patron. There are two important verbs you should know:

εἰμί means “I am”

εἶμι means “I will go.”

Λούκιός εἰμι. I’m Luke.

Εἰς τὴν Ἰ̄ταλίᾱν εἶμι. I’m going to Italy.

Distinguishing them shows the vital importance of mastering pitch accent and phonemic vowel length. Εἶμι is cognate with Latin eō “I go.”

The verb to go or to come is a highly suppletive verb in Greek:

ἔρχομαι εἶμι ἦλθον ἐλήλυθα

I come, I will come, I came, I have come.

Definitely a set of principal parts to commit to memory.

Ἀλλ’ εἶμι, σὺ δ’ ὑγίαινε!