Expert: Maria - 1/22/2008

Question
Hi! Would you be kind enough to tell me how to write 'win or die' in ancient greek? I would like to include it as text in a painting (on Sparta)I'm working on.

Answer
Hello,

'Win or die' translates into Ancient Greek as follows:

-“Νίκα  η  θνήσκε“ (ancient Greek letters).

Anyway, since I’m afraid you cannot read these Greek letters as the system often does not allow it, here’s the transliteration of this phrase into Latin alphabet we use still today:

-“Nika e thnesche”.

See below for more info.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-Win = Νίκα (Nika ); present imperative, 2nd.person singular, of‘Νiκαo’ (nikao), ‘I win’

-or = η  (e)

-Die = θνήσκε (thnesche); present imperative, 2nd.person singular, of “θνήσκω “ (tnescho).

Note that I’m writing each Greek letter of each word so that you can see them at the sites below:

Νίκα (Nika)= nu-iota with the acute accent-kappa-alpha

η (e) = eta with the grave accent and smooth breathing

θνήσκε (thnesche) = theta-nu-eta with the acute accent and iota subscript-sigma-kappa-epsilon

See the Ancient Greek alphabet at:
http://www.dur.ac.uk/stat.web/greek.htm
http://www.ibiblio.org/koine/greek/lessons/alphabet.html