ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Ancient Greek verbs

Hey there kiddo! Do you know what verbs are? They are like action words, they tell you what someone or something is doing. For example, if you say "I am reading", the word "reading" is a verb because it tells you what I am doing.

Now, we are going to talk about ancient Greek verbs. These are verbs that were used a long, long time ago in Greece. Ancient Greeks had their own way of speaking and writing, just like we do now.

In ancient Greek, the verbs have different endings depending on who is doing the action. For example, if I wanted to say "I am reading" in ancient Greek, I would say "ἀναγιγνώσκω" (pronounced: ana-gin-os-ko). But, if you wanted to say "he is reading" you would say "ἀναγιγνώσκει" (pronounced: ana-gin-os-kay). See how the endings are different?

Ancient Greek verbs also have different tenses. Tenses tell you when an action happened. For example, if you say "I am reading" that's happening right now. But if you say "I will read", that's happening in the future. In ancient Greek, there are different tenses like present, future, past, and more.

So, to sum it up, ancient Greek verbs are words that tell us what someone or something is doing. They have different endings and tenses depending on who is doing the action and when it's happening. Cool, huh?