 | Ancient Greek Pronunciation |
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Hi, I understand that this is an almost impossible thing to learn but I'll ask it anyway. Is there any good methodology to learn to pronounce Ancient Greek like it was pronounced by the native speakers of the Attic dialect? I read a few books about Ancient Greek and I think I know its grammar pretty well to understand at least simple texts, but still I pronounce these texts using the modern greek phonology which isn't quite correct. I know the theory of the ancient phonology, but practice is a bit harder than theory and I encountered some difficulties that I can't overcome just by reading books and articles, namely: 1. Pronunciation of aspirated stops (θ, φ, χ) 2. Distinction between long and short syllables 3. Distinction between 3 types of accents. There a lot of other nuances but I think these 3 are the most important ones. If someone could point me to a set of audio lessons of Ancient Greek phonology similar to the lessons on this site - I would greatly appreciate it. I know that the phonology of Ancient Greek we possess is just a reconstruction, but if I understand correctly, this reconstruction is considered correct and close to original by all the scientists. |
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"Is there any good methodology to learn to pronounce Ancient Greek like it was pronounced by the native speakers of the Attic dialect?" Unfortunately I can't help you with this -- I don't know of any website, audio, or methodology that attempts to teach a "native" pronunciation of classical Attic Greek. The main problem here is that: 1) Nobody really knows for sure exactly what ancient Greek (including the classical Attic dialect) sounded like. There are obviously no surviving native speakers of any of the dialects of that time nor are there any sound recordings of the spoken Greek of that era. -and- 2) While the phonology, as you note, has "scientifically" been largely reconstructed, there are still disputes as to specifics of actual pronunciation, nor does anybody really know for sure what the ancient tonal pitch actually sounded like. Note that the span between Ancient Greek (usually considered to be the Ionian Greek of the Homeric oral epics, c. 900-800BC) and the Attic variety of classical Greek (around 500-400BC) is at least 400 years and many hundreds of kilometers apart, during which time various phonological evolutions continued. In addition, the Greek of 2500 years ago was divided into mutually intelligible dialects (e.g., Attic, Ionian, and Spartan), which were clearly differentiated in sound, according to comments and even lampoons in the surviving classical literature (for example in stage plays, which relied upon or even mocked certain regional/dialectic distinctions). Thus the situation then was in some ways comparable to the status of the English of our time, as embodied in the speech and vocabulary of Britain, the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. These are all mutually intelligible varieties of English, yet it is instantly obvious to native speakers when a different variety is being heard. Which variety is "correct"? The answer is that they all are. Regards, Greg Brush |
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Greg, Many thanks for your reply. I felt that was impossible but still had some hope. That's very unfortunate to not be able to pronounce, for example, τὸν φίλον and τῶν φίλων differently. A lot of beautiful grammatical features of classical greek just sound the same (like λύεις and λύοις). I also thought that Classical Greek and Ancient Greek are different names of the same language but apparently it is not. Anyway, thanks for your time. |
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If it's of any consolation to you, Greeks even in the Hellenistic period began to have the same problem. The polytonic writing system, used for over 2000 years for writing Greek, was invented around 200 B.C. for the express purpose of instructing native Greeks, as well as non-native Greek speakers of Alexander's empire, how to properly pronounce the ancient Homeric poetry. By the time of the Koine ("common") Greek Bible several centuries later, the distinction between long and short vowels (as exemplified between τον and των) or between some of the ancient diphthongs (specifically ει, οι, and υι) had either already been lost or was well along in that process. Thus even 2000 years ago the sound distinction in the Greek world between τον φίλον and των φίλων (ignoring the ancient pitch accent, which by that time was becoming a stress accent) or between λύεις and λύοις had either already been lost or would soon be lost. Regards, Greg Brush |
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Hi Greg, I'm reading a book called "It's still Greek to me" They are showing punctuation that we don't use anymore with δημοτικό greek. My three questions are very simple which I think will help me read the rest of the text. I refer to this excerpt as an example. Επειτα μετά ετη τρία άνηλθον είς Ίεροσόλυμα. The first Ε has two dots on it- how do you pronounce the letter with the two dots. I dont think the two dots acts as a diaeresis The η in άνηλθον, has a round cap on the letter - how do you pronounce this letter? Are these punctuation marks different to the common tonos when it comes to pronunciation? I see tonos shaped as a comma, one points to the left and the other to the right. |
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Those marks aren't punctuation, they are called "diacritics". Classical Greek writing system used "polytonic" diacritics which had: 1. Three types of accents (ά ὰ ᾶ). In different fonts the last type of accent (circumflex) is depicted either as cap or as tilde (~). 2. Two types of breathings (ἀ ἁ). Breathings were placed on all first vowels in words, and a vowel could have both breathing and accent (like ὕμνος, ὧς, etc). I think you confused a breathing with an accent on the word "Ἔπειτα" with diaeresis. 3. Diaeresis (ϊ) 4. Iota subscriptum (ᾳ) As Greg noted in his messages, nobody really knows the difference between accents. Modern greek phonology has only 1 accent so in practice they are all pronounced in the same way. Rough breathing (ἁ) was pronounced like English "h" in the beginning of words. For example the name Ὅμηρος became Homer, not Omer. Modern Greek language has lost the rough breathing, so you can ignore it when reading. Smooth breathing (ἀ) wasn't pronounced. Try to not confuse breathing with accents like you did in the word ἀνῆλθον (pronounced ανήλθον, not άνηλθον). The word εἰς had no accent at all, just a smooth breathing. Diaeresis has the same function as in the Modern Greek. I'm not sure about iota subscriptum in the Ancient period, but in Medieval Greek and later it wasn't pronounced in any way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_diacritics |
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By the time that the polytonic system was invented the iota subscripts were no longer pronounced. They were originally part of a long diphthong, that is, a diphthong with a long /a:/ (α), /e:/ (η), or /ο:/ (ω), but by the time of polytonic the iota had been absorbed into the long vowel and was merely shown in writing under the preceding long vowel to indicate that an iota had historically been present (and presumably pronounced) in ancient speech. In contrast, iota was never written underneath short vowels -- the entire diphthong simply evolved into a new simple vowel, either /ε/ (αι) or /i/ (ει, οι, and υι). By the way, Nick, how are you able to type and post replies using polytonic accentuation and diacritics? That is, exactly what have you done on your computer that enables you to do this? |
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I use Mac OS and there it works almost out of box. I just needed to add an input source called "Greek Polytonic" as shown on the screenshot attached. I believe Windows should support the polytonic layout as well, either out of box or via some add-on.  |
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So, enable "Greek Polytonic" keyboard input. Got it! And yes, Windows supports this out of the box. In Windows 7, for example, go to the Keyboards and Languages tab of the Region and Languages control panel, click Change Keyboards, and add Greek Polytonic keyboard input. And when inputting polytonic text be sure to use a Unicode font like Arial Unicode MS or my favorite, Palatino Linotype. Thanks for the tip! Greg Brush |
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Thank you for the reply... This really help. I was wondering, was there a time where the Greeks followed the Scriptio continua (continuous script) where there were NO spaces at all. In this case, the breathing marks and diacritics were an essential to the language, compared to modern times. |
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In the original Greek alphabets (for there were a number of local varieties) ca. 800 B.C., writing was entirely in what we call capital letters, without spaces between letters, and with no punctuation as we know it. In addition, at the dawn of Greek writing, lines alternated in direction, right-to-left, then reversed direction left-to-right, and so on. This was known as boustrophedon (βουστροφηδόν) style. Eventually over several centuries left-to-right became the norm in all Greek writing. Keep in mind that at that time the written language very closely matched and accurately portrayed the spoken language. Native speakers inherently knew the spoken sounds (including pitch) that the writing represented and thus how anything written should be pronounced. Only over a number of centuries, as the spoken language evolved and mutated, did the unchanging alphabet and spelling eventually begin to diverge from accurately representing the contemporary spoken language of later eras. This is why by the time that polytonic was invented, even native Greeks needed instruction and help as to how the ancient written texts should be pronounced and interpreted. Regards, Greg Brush |
