1.1.1 Ancient Greek? - How should I pronounce...
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This article is from the Classical Studies FAQ, by Richard M. Alderson III alderson@netcom2.netcom.com with numerous contributions by others.
1.1.1 Ancient Greek? - How should I pronounce...
Technical Answer:
Ancient Greek had dialects and regional inflections, so asking how it was
pronounced is like asking how English is pronounced today. The original
inhabitants of Greece were not Greek-speakers, but spoke a lost non-Indo-
European language (traces remain in some place-names).
People who spoke what we call the Greek language migrated into the Balkan
peninsula during the Aegean bronze age, ~2200BCE.
From about 1200BCE to 850 BCE, there were several migrations of Dorians,
themselves Greek speakers, into the Peloponese, following the demise of the
Mycenaean realm.
There were at least five main dialects of Greek spoken during this time: Ionic,
Aeolic, Arcadian, Doric, and North-West Greek.
Prior to the demise of Mycenae, there seems to have been a North/South split in
Greek dialects, with Arcado-Cypriot and Attic-Ionic descending from South
Greek, and Doric and Aeolic from North Greek. This accords better with the
early inscriptions than the East/West division usually noted in older textbooks
on the basis of post-Mycenaean data only.
Since the 19th Century, much of the pronunciation of the Attic dialect has been
well described, based on rigorous principles applied to close readings of the
descriptions of ancient grammarians. The pronunciation of the consonants has
been accepted for more than a century; the vowels have been well-known for more
than 50 years; and with the advances of modern linguistics in such areas as
accentology we now have a very good idea of how the accent system worked.
Practical Answer:
It depends on who you ask. Most Europeans and Americans use what's called the
"Erasmian" pronunciation, which is nothing like modern Greek. Native speakers
of Modern Greek use the Modern Greek pronunciation. Others use less common
systems.
We will describe two pronunciations, the Erasmian (traditional in most European
and American schools) and the linguistic. We will assume an educated southern
American accent in our examples, as well as using the ASCII version of the
International Phonetic Alphabet (as devised by Evan Kirshenbaum, and available
at http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Evan_Kirshenbaum/IPA/).
Letter Erasmian Linguistic IPA Example IPA Example a'lpha a father a father be~ta b baker b baker ga'mma g girl g girl de'lta d dog d dog e` psi'lon E get e gait (without the i-offglide) ze~ta z zoo zd buzzed e~ta e: gate E: head (longer than in "get") the~ta T thin th tin (that is, aspirated as in English) io'ta i beet i beet ka'ppa k scat k scat (that is, unaspirated) la'mbda l list l list mu~ m mom m mom nu~ n not n not o` mi'kron O,o caught, o coat (without the u-offglide) coat ksi~ ks picks ks picks pi~ p spat p spat (that is, unaspirated) rho' r rock r rock si'gma s sat s sat tau~ t stack t stack (that is, unaspirated) u` psi'lon y cute, u boot French du, German Pruefung phi~ f folly ph perfect (that is, aspirated as in English) psi~ ps oops ps oops khi~ x Scots loch, kh cat (that is, aspirated as in English) German Bach o~ me'ga o: boat O: law, cawed (long vowel)
The digraphs:
omikron+upsilon u: boot o: boat (without the u-offglide epsilon+iota ej bait e: bait (without the i-offglide) alpha+iota aj bite aj bite long alpha+iota a: <= alpha> a:j bide alpha+upsilon au cow au cow omikron+iota oj boy oj boy eta+iota e: <= eta> E:j stayin' (participle, spoken rapidly) omega+iota o: <= omega> O:j sawin' (participle, spoken rapidly)
Other vowel digraphs are pronounced as simple combinations of the vowels.
gamma+kappa/gamma/ksi/khi is Nk/Ng/Nks/Nkh: sinker, finger, sinks, sinking
(Also possibly in gamma+mu: Nm).
Accents: In the Erasmian system, all three accents (oxeia/acute, bareia/grave,
and perispomenon/circumflex) are treated as simple stress accents. However, as
we know from the ancient grammarians, these represented different *pitches*,
similar to though not identical with the accent system in certain Japanese
dialects.
If you wish to use a pitch accent in your Greek reading, the following system
works well:
1. The acute is a rise of a musical fifth from the base level of the voice,
according to the grammarians. This is approximately the change in pitch in the
English inquiring sentence "Yes???"
2. The grave is either a complete lack of an expected accent, or a lowered rise
(a musical third). A string of these may be pronounced levelly on the higher
note of the rise.
3. The circumflex is usually referred to as a falling pitch contour; the real
secret is that it consists of a rise of a third followed by a fall to ground in
the course of a single long vowel or a diphthong. The explanation for this is
that long vowels, like diphthongs, can be viewed as a sequence of two short
vowels, with the accent being applied to the first.
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