Question about native Greek speakers

[siliconwafer]

Can native speakers of Modern Greek understand Classical or Koine Greek? I'm asking because I just started studying Ancient Greek and I'm curious about this.

[alaskazimm]

As I understand it, modern Greek has been simplified from ancient Greek. The forms and constructions are somewhat different as well as spelling. However, many words are similar enough for the modern speaker to make some sense of the ancient text.

See here and here

[robrecht]

Good links. English has changed much more dramatically in 1,000 years than Koine Greek has in 2,000 years. Classical Greek is more difficult to moderns but not as difficult as Beowulf is to modern English speakers.