If you want to learn to read and speak Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, or Old English in fun, immersive classes, sign up for lessons by August 10th for the fall semester at AncientLanguage.com 🏺📖 What did Greek sound like in the HELLENISTIC Koine Period, after Alexander the Great and before the death of Cleopatra? This video explains the phonology in detail with inscriptional and epigraphic evidence, showing you what the Septuagint LXX Bible translators or Polybius might have sounded like: Hellenistic Lucian Pronuciation. Sources: see below. 🦂 Support my work on Patreon: www.patreon.com/LukeRanieri 📚 Luke Ranieri Audiobooks: luke-ranieri.myshopify.com 🤠 Take my course LATIN UNCOVERED on StoryLearning, including my original Latin adventure novella "Vir Petasātus" learn.storylearning.com/lu-promo?affiliate_id=3932873 🦂 Sign up for my Latin Pronunciation & Conversation series on Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/54058196 ☕ Support my work with PayPal: paypal.me/lukeranieri And if you like, do consider joining this channel: ruclips.net/channel/UCLbiwlm3poGNh5XSVlXBkGAjoin 🏛 Latin by the Ranieri-Dowling Method: luke-ranieri.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/latin-by-the-ranieri-dowling-method-latin-summary-of-forms-of-nouns-verbs-adjectives-pronouns-audio-grammar-tables 🏺Ancient Greek by the Ranieri-Dowling Method: luke-ranieri.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/ancient-greek-by-the-ranieri-dowling-method-latin-summary-of-forms-of-nouns-verbs-adjectives-pronouns-audio-grammar-tables 🏛 Ancient Greek in Action · Free Greek Lessons: ruclips.net/p/PLU1WuLg45SixsonRdfNNv-CPNq8xUwgam 👨🏫 My Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata playlist · Free Latin Lessons: ruclips.net/video/j7hd799IznU/видео.html 🦂 ScorpioMartianus (my channel for content in Latin, Ancient Greek, & Ancient Egyptian) ruclips.net/user/ScorpioMartianus 🎙 Hundreds of hours of Latin & Greek audio: lukeranieri.com/audio 🌍 polýMATHY website: lukeranieri.com/polymathy/ 🌅 polýMATHY on Instagram: instagram.com/lukeranieri/ 🦁 Legio XIII Latin Language Podcast: ruclips.net/user/LegioXIII 👕 Merch: teespring.com/stores/scorpiomartianus 🦂 www.ScorpioMartianus.com 🦅 www.LukeRanieri.com 📖 My book Ranieri Reverse Recall on Amazon: amzn.to/2nVUfqd Intro and outro music: Overture of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) by Mozart, conducted by Neville Mariner Main video music: Mozart: Piano Concerto No.22 in E flat major, 3rd mov - David Fray, Marin Alsop. Mozart: Concerto for piano and Orchestra (d-minor) K.466, Mitsuko Uchida SOURCES Vox Graeca, by W. Sidney Allen amzn.to/3FsiCT6 Vox Graeca, Η προφορά της ελληνικής την κλασική εποχή, by W. Sidney Allen (Modern Greek translation) ins.web.auth.gr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=690:vox-graeca-the-pronunciation-of-classical-greek&catid=93&Itemid=270&lang=en Vox Latina, by W. Sidney Allen amzn.to/3WdPxSY Greek: A History of the Language and its People, Geoffrey Horrocks amzn.to/3FXYedR The Pronunciation of Greek and Latin, Edgar Howard Sturtevant amzn.to/3W4nt45 Medieval and Early Modern Greek, by David Holton et al. amzn.to/3zkhgqO The Pronunciation of New Testament Greek here, by Benjamin Kantor amzn.to/3QEkuz1 The Short Guide to the Pronunciation of New Testament Greek, by Benjamin Kantor amzn.to/40hUMDs The Greek Dialects, by Charles D. Buck amzn.to/46TfagK Adams, J.N., 2013, Social Variation and the Latin Language, Cambridge University Press. Allen, James P., 2020, Ancient Egyptian Phonology, Cambridge University Press. Calabrese, Andrea, 2002, On the evolution of the short high vowels of Latin Gignac, Francis Thomas, 1975, A grammar of the Greek papyri of the Roman and Byzantine Periods, Part I: Phonology, Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino - La Goliardica. Ranieri, Luke A., Turrigiano, Raphael, 2020, The Lucian Pronunciation of Ancient Greek, lukeranieri.com/lucianpronunciation/. Schwyzer (Schweizer), Eduard, 1898, Grammatik der Pergamenischen Inschriften, Weidmannsche Buchhandlung. Sturtevant, E.H., 1920, The Pronunciation of Latin and Greek, The University of Chicago Press. Teodorsson, Sven-Tage, 1978, The phonology of Attic in the Hellenistic Period, Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Threatte, Leslie, 1980, The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions, Volume I: Phonology, Walter de Gruyter & Co. 0:00 Intro to the Sound of Greek in Hellenistic Times 3:12 What is the Hellenistic Period? 4:36 Major Shifts from Classical to Hellenistic Greek Phonology 9:17 The One Big Difference between Hellenistic & Romaic Lucian 12:26 Challenges of Long Diphthongs 14:16 Advantages of Long Diphthongs 16:32 Peculiarities of ῃ 20:42 Hellenistic Lucian Pronunciation 26:13 A Note on ῳ in Hellenistic Koine 27:58 Conclusion 30:14 Birds in my backyard
And also you make a looot of mistakes... Sorry again but this video is misleading. Comments say WHY ancient greek sounds like old English 😂 Come on man.
"Pronunciation of the Greek OLD Testament"...great. Just what I needed to know before I go to sleep. No, honestly, I love your content and will get back to this video. But I have to get up in five hours. Australian Eastern time.
@@shawnbrewer7 I am using specifically the text as found in the Complutensian Polyglot, as it is based on many lost manuscripts and purposefully avoided using Alexandrian type manuscripts such as Vaticanus. Scans of the whole Polyglot can be found in the Library of Congress and are available on their website.
@@Wully02 Gotcha. Last December, I went to Harvard University to view their Guttenberg Bible. Afterward, I was honored to examine their Complutension Polyglot, which I didn't realize they possessed. It’s quite an achievement how quickly they went from simply printing the Latin Vulgate to an organized polyglot Bible in the 16th century.
This might be a bit of an odd request but is there any chance you'll be looking at Doric Greek (pronunciation and/or the whole language itself) in the future? Tbh, I'm especially interested in the koinè (actually, the koinà) that came to be in Sicily due to Syracuse - see Tribulato (2012) for more info - but I know that that's asking for too much :)
His accent is so bad 😂😂 Sorry but the dude s trying to help you and kudos to him,his other videos are amazing BUT he a not good at all when it comes to greek language ...😂
@@NorbertNahumEvreuklovicI'm curious to hear what you'd consider a good pronunciation/accent of attic or koine Greek, if you can direct me to any good examples
*Laughs giddily and moves hands happily from side to side like a school child* It’s here! It’s here! Yay! I’ve been trying to follow the Classical Attic Pronunciation; however, I ended up getting an old phonetics book, Ladefoged’s 4th edition, to grasp the meaning of terms like phonemes and phonetic . The book has really opened my eyes. I can more easily follow along now. I love studying Language and History and how what has happened and what was thought and recorded back then affects our understanding and our lives today. Furthermore, I enjoy comparing modern conceptions of what the past was to what we actually have evidence for. It’s an illuminating and rewarding experience. I love it! I can’t help it! It’s like being a kid and reading Tolkien or Harry Potter all over again! It’s magical. 😂 Sorry for the rant; your channel has been a great help in me pursuing my endeavors and finding what I like to do. I just wanted to say thank you for all of the hard work that you put into your videos: it’s greatly appreciated.
Lol. Independently I had just started adding in the long diphthongs into my "Early Lucian" pronunciation which you taught me some 4 years ago, just because I found the increased palette of sounds, specifically for dative-singular nouns, more comprehensible. Glad to see that I can present a historical justification for my innovations.
I meant hellenistic pronounciation@@polyMATHY_Luke Also, i meant rivaling everyone that uses every Lucian Pronounciation that is not Romaic nor Hellenistic!
Hello Luke! Great video as always! You talk about how is interesting and important to know how the people who wrote the texts actually pronounced those texts, so my question is : are you planning to explore the incredible world of greek dialects and their pronunciations and its change over time? Because that would be great.
My best guess for the Doric pronunciation is somethinɡ like this: α /a(:)/ (same as Classical Attic) ε /ɛ/ ει /e:/ (same as Classical Attic) η /æ:/ if not /ε:/ ι /i(:)/ (same as Classical Attic) ο /ɔ/ ου /o:/ (probably more like conservative Classical Attic if not /u:/) ω /ɔ:/ (same as Classical Attic) υ /u(:)/, /ɯ(:)/ or /ʉ(:)/ if not /y(:)/ like Classical Attic φ /pʰ/ or /ɸ/ θ /θ/ χ /kʰ/ (same as Classical Attic) The diphthonɡs and the rest of the consonants miɡht have been similar to Classical Attic. My hypothesis is based on the way η was written as α and the testimony from Athenians about the Doric dialect, for example, "Ναί τῶ σιῶ, ὦ παρσένε" with σ instead of θ might mean it was pronounced as a dental fricative in the Doric dialect.
Greetings Luke, always a pleasure to hear you talk in and about old tongues. Are you planning to comment on the new footage of Civilization 7? I've seen that we definitely hear Julius Caesar speak Latin for a bit.
I have been using for several months now the Romaic Lucian pronunciation because it is phonetically closer to my mother tongue, but I want to start using this variant and see what results I get in terms of language acquisition since I am still a novice in the study of Ancient Greek.
I'm also curious what your mother tongue is. Ever since I heard about Romaic Lucian, I have wondered if native Korean speakers would find it easier to use than a more evolved variant such as Samosatene Lucian, given their plosive aspiration distinction
Considering the palatalization of plosive velar consonants, shouldn’t the conjunction και be pronounced more like /'ca͡i/? Do we know when this phonetic change occurred?
I absolutely love this! I just got done rewatching the updated Lucian Pronunciation video from a year ago, and I'm excited to see the family of conventions expanded. I've been mostly using Samosathene, but I've recently been practicing Romaic (and switching between them). Eventually I'd like to be able to switch at will between any of the 7 varieties of Lucian Pronunciation (and any more which are later added (/p͡x/ /t͡x/ /k͡x/ variety? One where the voiced stops become fricatives only in certain contexts? Both were given as examples of possibilities in the updated Lucian Pronunciation video from a year ago, and I'm sure that just as with Hellenic Lucian, any other varieties you release would be equally as cool) I'm especially excited to try the long dipthongs, as I expect them to be good reinforcing practice for maintaining phonemic quantity distinction
@@polyMATHY_Luke Indeed I have! I am actually applying this pronunciation for my reading of my Septuagint, which I just purchased, and will use this as my usual pronunciation when I am not using your Samosatene variant or Buthian.
@@HCRAYERT. tentatively, the series is called Daughters of Jerusalem, a line from the Gospels: “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me,” which Jesus delivers during his passion. The series focuses on women during the first for or so decades of early Christianity, culminating in the Jewish Rebellion and the destruction of the Second Temple. The first installment (and potentially second) spans the years of Jesus’ public ministry up to his death.
@@carmensavu5122 To a certain extent. In my current draft I focused on Jesus’s miracles and his teachings, but I’ve found it came across as too preachy, with the characters seeking out Jesus whenever something happens. “Someone is hurt? We need to find Jesus.” So I’m currently working on fixing that. Instead of focusing on miracles, I’m considering a more debate type of approach. In other words, they don’t see him perform miracles, or if they do there’s doubt. TLDR: In answer to your question, it’s generally favorable toward Christianity, but I’d like to approach it with more nuance in subsequent drafts.
28:00 - I do not understand how Erasmian and Modern Greek can be put in the same sentence as having equally (sic) "no relation with ancient Greek pronunciation". Erasmian is a philological exercise/hypothesis, while Modern Greek is the natural evolution of previous forms of Greek, most notably Koine Greek. Most of the pronunciation changes present in Modern Greek started in Koine Greek.
I have no interest in Erasmian Pronunciation. Don’t confuse Erasmian with the actual historical pronunciation of Ancient Greek. Watch this and you’ll learn all you need: ruclips.net/video/dQBpwKWnZAo/видео.htmlsi=IZ0egy7dtnqeojX4
@@polyMATHY_Luke Great, but my comment wasn’t about Erasmian per se, but about Modern Greek. Food for thought for another video: In which pronunciation did Greek speakers of all times read texts of previous eras? The pronunciation of the older Greek text or the pronunciation of their own time? Example: Did Alexander the Great read the Iliad using Homeric Greek pronunciation or Classical Attic Greek?
Thanks so much, do you think you will eventually record more audiobooks for different eras/dialects? I know you’ve done some already, but it would cool to have more extended readings of different texts in their historical pronunciation. I know it takes a lot of time and work though.
I am very interested in the topic, but there I haven’t found enough attestation of Doric in any period to declare an obvious pronunciation scheme. We know some basics, like the alpha in place of a few eta, and that theta was a fricative, but that’s in the Classical Period. After that, Doric is completely subsumed by Great Attic / Koine. Thus it would not fit into Lucian Pronunciation which is a scheme for Koine.
My best guess for the Doric pronunciation is somethinɡ like this: α /a(:)/ (same as Classical Attic) ε /ɛ/ ει /e:/ (same as Classical Attic) η /æ:/ if not /ε:/ ι /i(:)/ (same as Classical Attic) ο /ɔ/ ου /o:/ (probably more like conservative Classical Attic if not /u:/) ω /ɔ:/ (same as Classical Attic) υ /u(:)/, /ɯ(:)/ or /ʉ(:)/ if not /y(:)/ like Classical Attic φ /pʰ/ or /ɸ/ θ /θ/ χ /kʰ/ (same as Classical Attic) The diphthonɡs and the rest of the consonants miɡht have been similar to Classical Attic. My hypothesis is based on the way η was written as α and the testimony from Athenians about the Doric dialect, for example, "Ναί τώ σιώ, ὦ παρσένε" with σ instead of θ might mean it was pronounced as a dental fricative in the Doric dialect.
Another lovely video! I gotta say, I personally feel like the comprehensibility aspect to preserving long diphthongs rather than merging them is more persuasive than the difficulty in articulating them (I'm probably not most people, though; I have some grounding in experimental phonetics and transcription of unfamiliar languages in addition to knowing a few modern foreign languages, after all.), but both concerns are admittedly quite minor, and I emphatically second your recommendation to explore different pronunciation systems, if only to better understand other speakers (I mean, there are memes about how people who grew up in the US struggle to comprehend heavily dialectal varieties of English in, say, Ireland or Scotland if they are not familiar with them, of which the chances are quite high; that's probably something we would like to avoid, as we all seek to communicate with each other and access Ancient Greek literature from any and all periods). Hell, I still find myself experimenting with Ancient Greek pronunciation a lot, and the only aspect I feel is firmly entrenched in my own pronunciation habits is preserving the three-way distinction in the stops. I sometimes like to pronounce the digraph as /e:/, and sometimes I prefer rendering it as /i:/, for instance; I sometimes like the more archaic variant of merging the quality of and versus , and sometimes I like to render as /u:/ and merge the quality of omicron and omega (and sometimes I like treating as being of somewhat intermediate quality; as in, a slightly raised /o:/ sound; helps draw a cleaner distinction to the mid-low omega). All in all, I just like experimenting with recitations because they make the texts in question feel so much more real.
I'm a little confused here about one thing. Growing up, I always thought the Greek of the Bible (Septuagint and New Testament) was originally written in miniscule (e.g. π,μ) and not majuscule (e.g. Π,M), as I always see them written in this form. But then I read more recently the miniscule didn't come around until the Ninth Century. And I saw some Biblical texts written in majuscule. So I just assumed I'd been wrong. But you are showing texts that use the miniscule (and even diacritics!) to discuss this. Are those later versions, or is that I do wrong? And, if the former, why does everyone write Koine in a script that was not used at that time?
because of font availability (uncial fonts are pretty rare), and because the polytonic marks (at least some of them) helps legibility and convey more linguistic information.
@@wordart_guian Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. Majuscules are in every font that has the minuscules. Uncials are just Majuscules. You press Shift or turn on caps lock. LIKE I'M DOING RIGHT NOW. Besides, he's using them like they are the real symbols. When he describes how they were written, he shows the minuscules. When he shows the IPA for their sound, he uses the minuscules. When he shows books purportedly being from that era, he uses the minuscule. How would anyone who didn't already know about the script changing by the 9th Century supposed to know that this isn't what Koine looks like? His target audience is clearly people who are completely new to this. I think he should at least take a bit of time to mention it--even if only to link to another video where he explains it in depth.
@@ZipplyZane uncials aren't majuscules though. Different thing. And many diacritics are simply unavailable on majuscules due to unicode encoding. The 9th century minuscules are also far from resembling modern minuscules. And actual capitals had completely fallen out of use between the hellenistic era and the 16th century, even as capitals, so they're not appropriate for roman era koine either.
@@Mac_an_Mheiriceanaigh Why not? That's what ancient Greek actually looks like. Someone else has to convert it to the minuscule form. I'm not saying not to learn the minuscules. The issue I have is not showing that the original did not look like that. I just think there's a lot of misinformation about what Koine Greek actually looked like. I would hope that someone who is passionate about ancient Greek would want to clear that up.
He’s a great scholar and passionate teacher, so comments about his pronunciation are not meant to detract from his influential career. He uses, in theory, Erasmian, with entirely American English phonology and no attempt at all to realize the sound of the language ancient or modern. As a student of modern languages as well, I find this entirely unacceptable when it comes to paedagogy even of an ancient language. Like I said, this does not take away from his stellar work in other areas.
Oh this absolutely piques my curiosity. I wonder about the circumstances in which the Septuagint was produced in the Jewish community in Alexandria, coexisting alongside Greek and what i must assume were the earliest stages of Coptic. Did the phonology of this early Coptic affect Alexandrian Greek enough by that time period to turn the aspirates (or the voiced stops) into fricatives? Can we glean anything about *Hebrew* phonology of the period by looking at how Hebrew proper names are rendered in the LXX? There is also another resource to probe regarding the interchange between Hebrew and Greek - the Secunda (so named because it constituted the second column of Origen’s sixfold interlinear, the Hexapla), a word-for-word phonetic transcription of the Hebrew text of the Tanakh into the Greek alphabet. It survives now only in fragments but it seems like it would be very useful for mapping out how Hebrew sounded to Greek speakers (or how Greek sounded to Hebrew speakers).
Oh. Were you saying Septuagint as it would sound in Modern Greek? I noticed the softer G and final stress pattern, and wondered if I'd been saying it wrong in English. I've always said sep *TOO* uh jnnt (where "nn" is sylabic N).
@@ZipplyZane Honestly not sure, I don't remember how he said it in the video. But, unless I'm mistaken, I think "septuagint" is a purely Latin term, so I would guess he would have said it in either a more Latin way or that he just may have said it wrong by mistake
Has the pronunciation of Hellenistic Lucian been fully developed, such that it may be learned and utilized? If so, might it be possible to obtain more audio examples in Hellenistic Lucian?
Hello sir, may I please request your expertise? I'm an old Marine who is making a banner for a ceremony for other old Marines, and I'd like it to read "still faithful" in Latin, as a play on Semper Fidelis. Could you confirm that Adhuc Fidelis is a good translation? Or is there a better one? Thanks!!
@@Mac_an_Mheiriceanaigh Thank you kindly. I suppose the fidelis would be appropriate, as the Marine Corps motto is Semper Fidelis, not Semper Fideles... which begs an interesting question-- why wasn't it the plural? Perhaps because it is referring The Corps, singular.
@@historyandhorseplaying7374 That is possible. I had always assumed it was because each individual servicemember was "semper fidēlis". Perhaps a historian could tell us...
@@Mac_an_Mheiriceanaigh Well apparently Colonel McCawley, 8th Commandant of the USMC, gave it the motto in 1883. So one would have to study his biography to figure out why. Sources seem to suggest it was possibly due to his being aware of the phrase being the motto of the old Irish Brigade. Apparently many towns and units the world over have it as a motto, but not "semper fidelES".
Euclid's Elements is another early Koine work. Unlike classical authors, Euclid, as far as I know, did not use the dual: δυσιν ορθιαις ισαι εισιν. Άιδης has an iota adscript. In lowercase, it would be ᾴδης. If the Α were short, it would be *Αίδης.
Luke pronounces the letter name ὔψιλον (ὖ ψιλόν) as *ὕψιλον (not to be confused with the neuter of the adjective ὑψηλός). Is there any attestation of the use of rough breathing in this letter name? - UPDATE: Yes, there is! (SEE BELOW)
All initial υ take aspiration in Ancient Greek (unless it’s a psilotic dialect). In reality, the ancient name for the letter is simply ὗ /hy:/, and the name of letter y in Latin is the same: hȳ. Thus the initial aspiration is both attested, and mandatory. We can call the letter different things in English, of course; but I am fond of archaization.
@@polyMATHY_Luke If anyone anyone is able to find attestation for a combined, proparoxytone letter name “ὕψιλον” with rough breathing, please cite it here. I couldn’t find anything. The longstanding tradition seems to be to write this letter name separately as “ὔ ψιλόν” with either smooth breathing or an omitted diacritic. If it was ever combined with a smooth breathing, it may be an exception to the rule. However, LSJ (via TLG) does support the idea that there may have been some ancient attestation of an aspirated ὗ /hy:/, which is supported by Latin and Coptic. Here are the relevent sections of the LSJ entry: [SMOOTH BREATHING] It is called τὸ ὖ by Pl.Cra.393d, Callias ap.Ath.10.453d... Hellad. ap. Phot.Bibl.p.530 B. [ROUGH BREATHING] τό τ’ ὖ or τό θ’ ὗ might be read in Achae.33.3... ὗ is aspirated in AP9.385.20 (Steph.Gramm.), 11.67.1 (Myrin.) cod.Pal.; For some reason, the hyperlinks to texts that LSJ claims exhibit aspirated ὗ have been digitized without apiration over the letter in question: AP9.385.20 (Steph.Gramm.) Υ̓̃, μακάρων ἔρις ὦρτο, φέρει δ’ ἐπὶ κάρτος Ἀχαιοῖς. 11.67.1 (Myrin.) cod.Pal. Υ̓̃ τετρηκόσι’ ἐστίν· ἔχεις δὲ σὺ τοὺς ἐνιαυτοὺς
As always a great topic and congratulations on your time and effort behind each of your videos! Could you please share your sources on how exactly the use of umlauts/diacritics/diairesis distinguishes the pronunciation of words in ancient greek "koine" language?
Hi Nick, all my sources are cited in the description. What do you mean by diacritics? In any case, every detail of pronunciation that I describe here is detailed in those books and references. If you are a Modern Greek speaker, recommend the Modern Greek translation of Vox Graeca.
@@polyMATHY_Luke, thank you for your reply! I appreciate! It is true, I am a modern greek speaker, but with a classical studies background. This is why I find your videos so interesting and would like to add here my point of view! The erasmic pronounciation that you describe is just a proposal for the recomposing of how ancient texts should be read (or heard, to be presice), one with a long history of documentation that is, with a rightful academic acceptance, but mainly in the "west" (anglo-saxonic) universities. It must be understood though, that "modern" greek pronunciation (which has a background dating back to medieval "byzantine-roman" greek scholars), has in itself too a long-thousand years history of studies and should not be frawned upon. Especially when we are using the New Testament as an example, we should keep in mind that most of the words used in the original text have remained unchanged, as far as their meaning is concerned (take for example the words: ἄγγελος, ἀρχιερεῖς, διδάσκαλος, μαθητὰς, to name but a few). I don't want to sound overblown, but a modern greek speaker is able to comprehend up to 80% of the original text, without any help or academic background/knowledge. So..why bother with the erasmic pronounciation? What I mean to say here is that using the modern greek pronounciation to approach phonetically a text of that era, it should not be considered as a mistake. In any case, the erasmic method is just a proposal - true with more academic credentials than others - but that doesn't make it necessarily more valid than other approaches. Furthermore, we can never be sure how speakers in the whole wide roman world would speak this language, as there was no formal and regulated method of teaching foreign languages at the time. What we, modern students of these texts, can do is just...assume! Thank you for trying to compress all that much knowledge in your videos and thank you for reading through my comment!
@@Nick-PanagiotisDalampirasthere isn't really a reason to bother with erasmian in particular if you know another pronunciation, but an actually historical pronunciation might be interesting in biblical texts so the Hebrew and aramaic loanwords sound more like they did in these languages
As I mention in this video and in the Variants of Lucian Pronunciation video, Ben Kantor’s Pronunciation of New Testament Greek book supports my previous conclusions, and also reinforces the recommendations I make in that video and this one.
Does anyone know where I can find Athenaze 1 in an English translation. There are some videos that have a few chapters but I was hoping to find the entire book in English?
@@polyMATHY_Luke looking for a translation of the Greek text. I’m reading through it fairly well but I was hoping to find a way to ensure that I’m reading it correctly.
I do not agree, and I will make several videos about his book in the near future. What’s remarkable about his book is that every page has at least six or more tremendously egregious errors in logic, linguistics, or phonology. It will take many hours to dissect everywhere Zachariou - clearly a well-meaning scholar, if terribly misguided - has gone astray. In the meantime, see this video I made about Caragounis infamous paper: ruclips.net/video/BybLbHPU7Qc/видео.htmlsi=n-yzCxUsCFxrPQgy
@@polyMATHY_Luke Thank you. He seems to lean towards a Modern Greek pronunciation as a valid reconstruction, but I’m liking your approach as it seems to seek to preserve the dipthong variants, yet keeping simple and historical. Yet Zacharious seems to make historic sense too. Will continue watching and learning. I’m autodidact as I can’t afford courses. I had two semesters of Greek with Dr. Harry Sturz at Biola College in 1977-78. By that time he used Summers grammar. We learned Erasmian, etc, and overtime I lost most of what I learned. Gradually, I’m re-learning. At the moment all I have is Summers and David Black’s grammar. I’ll try and get some of the one’s you have reviewed. I think I saw an interview between you and Master Academy (Daryll Burling)? Or Burling and Biblingo.
Graecē loquī nōn valeō nec quidquam dē eā sciō praeter id quod hōc in locō dedicī. Valdē vērō mihi placet tē Lūcī audīre hāc dē rē fabulārī. Inter carmina quae mihi grāta sunt ad audiendum, ūnum est illud quod in epitaphiō Sīkilī inventum est. Habēsne tū alterve pelliculam factam in quā id audīrī potest eā in prōnūntiātiōne linguae Graecae quae māximē ipsī sit idōnea?
Στη κλασική αττική διάλεκτο, το ημιφωνό [j] είναι μόνο στο τέλος των μακρών δίφθογγων ᾳ ῃ ῳ [a:j, ε:j, ɔ:j]. Στη διάλεκτο της Κοινής ελληνικής, οι μακροί δίφθογγοι προφέρονταν ως ενιαίοι φθόγγοι [a:, e:, o:].
When you talk about the Greek old testament, what version does actually fall in this era? I know the "Septuaginta" you can buy today was redacted in the era of the Christian church fathers, so really in the period of your other pronounciation. But maybe there are actual papyrus founds of the older edition, so I would like to know if you refer to that or to what version of that.
Yes, dozens of colleagues of mine speak Attic quite fluently, and many hundreds more speak varieties of Ancient Greek quite well. We are few, but enthusiastic.
The Septuagint, a large composite text. from 400ce approximately, is copied from an older, currently unknown text. The Cairo Geniza discovery in Egypt, provided 5 pages of a Hebrew Bible written with Greek letters. Postulated to be from Origen's Hexapala. It was a document like this which the Septuagint came from. Greeks required those they ruled over to write their language with Greek letters. All of the cultures they ruled did this, Coptic as an example. What do you think would happen when a Greek scribe tries to copy a text that is Hebrew written with Greek letters. The Greek scribe doesn't understand Hebrew and will interpret what he sees as pure Greek. Comparisons to works like the Mesoretic and other texts produced corrections in translation. This also means the Greek in the Septuagint is much older, circa 200 bce, probably Attic Greek. Examples of mistranslation words, in Revelation, Arny, phonetically the same in two languages. Pronounced In Greek, lamb, pronounced in Hebrew, be vigilant. It is not easy to tell which is correct in all cases, except through context. It is difficult and time consuming to research a single word. Multiplying that across the 166,000+ Bible verses would take one person 54 years, at 8 hours a day 7 days a week, to check them all, assuming one problem in every verse.
From the comments I get to realize how even the study of classics is filled with some sort of elitism and full of obnoxious people. A comment from a guy bragging that he came here "before modern greeks who dont know ancient Greek come and claim that ancient Greek was pronounced as the modern Greek" is a great example of this. Let's make some things clear. The Greek world NEVER in its history ever used "reconstruction" of older Greek to read its own texts. Never. Greeks throughout the time used their contemporary pronunciation to read any Greek text and that given them a great accessibility to even truly ancient works...they obviously knew that the speach and pronunciation had changed but that was never a matter of learning to read the works based on same reconstructive dialect. It wouldn't make any sense: you need to understand the language and the texts not to mimic a specific time period. The West for centuries used the contemporary Greek pronunciation and the studies of Greek in the West accelerated by the influx of Greeks coming to the West after the fall of Constantinople. These Byzantine Greeks were up until the 16th century the primal source of teaching Greek in the West. In the 16th century since the interest of classical greek was getting more and more popularity, Westerners created different "reconstructive" pronunciations of the Attic Greek (specifically) and therefore they also imposed these pronunciations on the institutions teaching ancient greek. I don't wanna comment over how successful that reconstructions were or the polemic around all this mess (cause yeah there was a huge polemic) but I wanna point out that this is totally irrelevant of how the Greek world continued to operate. We continued to learn and read any greek text with the contemporary pronunciation. One pronunciation to have access to all ancient or medieval greek texts...that was always how we done it and we always considered that the study of Greek can be only be way more accessible and do better when using the contemporary pronunciation. The erasmian or any other reconstruction used in the West sounds like an elitistic tool. Of course they should be a study of how each greek dialect could be pronounced and all that, but when you try to teach people the language...a language that spans millenia (from bronze age to modern) you better not put unnecessary obstacles and separate the studies via pronunciation techniques and make people learn 3 or 4 different pronunciations to read one language! This is totally absurd... sorry but it is. You keep people away, the task seems HUGE and you literally use this elitistic tool to came by as "someone" when you use some Erasmian pronunciation (as did Westerners did to the Greek people when came to the 19th century, bragging that they themselves "know better ancient greek"). Nonsense.
Studying an ancient language with modern pronunciation is not wrong and a totally useful tradition, but you should be aware that there are literally hordes of nationalist Greeks commenting under the videos of creators (that use reconstructed pronunciation) saying that the pronunciation of Greek never actually changed, which is obviously nonsensical
@@kristaps5296 no, but they are on every social media platform almost every time a non Greek attempts a reading that is not in modern Greek pronunciation. I have personally encountered them, and I understand that it's mostly people who studied ancient Greek on high school and missed the memo about pronunciation, but they do exist
@@enricodolci7560 yup those people are very common, it's always Greeks who went to their local church for a few weeks when they were 12 insisting that they know better than actual linguists who have dedicated substantial time and effort into making these videos.
Two of your last three comments are about modern Greeks. What happened little guy? What hurt you? Did your girlfriend go on vacation in Greece and was welcomed by a Greek guy/guys? (You can spell "come" however you see fit).
@@greekmetalhead1805 not really worried about the competition from a bunch of 40 year old out of shape bald guys who don't even look European but look like Turkish.
According to the Illiad, the gods do not speak the language of the Greeks. Possibly the gods are merely more conservative, and name things after their patron deity, or it might have been a proto-Hellenic language from 1500 BC or earlier.
Incorrect. Watch the videos of mine that I referenced, and also read the sources cited in the video and in the description. We know very well what it sounded like.
Okay, this did resolve my question about ῃ. It sounds like it would have merged with η too early for it to have kept an open pronunciation while η and ε went mid. Thank you so much! What are the Lucian realizations of υι ᾱυ ηυ ωυ? For υι Allen recommends [yjj] for Attic but also says it was [y:] by 6th c BC, which don't seem to fit, but I'm sure I'm missing something. Both your spreadsheet and Allen seem to have the other three merged with αυ ευ ω around 100bc, if I'm understanding correctly-during the Koine period. So could Hellenistic (but probably not Romaic?) Lucian still have [yjj] + long first elements for the other three?
Been listening to Dr. Ammon Hillman @@ladybabylon666. The Septuagint is written in Greek and poorly translated into Hebrew. Hebrew only has around 8k words, where Greek has over 250k, at least!! Not possible to translate from Greek, as the words don't exist in Hebrew. So interesting!!
Hehe, is that problematic? I suppose I could ask my friend Farya Faraji if I might borrow some of his wonderful compositions - but if I hadn’t used Mozart, I would have used jazz piano or something else relaxing that helped the listen engage with the material. And that wouldn’t have been appropriate either as for as antiquity goes.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Why not use some Gregorio Paniagua’s interpretive reconstructions of Ancient Greek music (many of the few surviving would be from b.c.e., although possibly from the 4th-1st centuries).
Although I don't mind the Mozart, you'd hardly find me the least bit opposed to some more topical musical choices, as I've recently been reading up on Ancient Greek music
If you want to learn to read and speak Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, or Old English in fun, immersive classes, sign up for lessons by August 10th for the fall semester at AncientLanguage.com 🏺📖
What did Greek sound like in the HELLENISTIC Koine Period, after Alexander the Great and before the death of Cleopatra? This video explains the phonology in detail with inscriptional and epigraphic evidence, showing you what the Septuagint LXX Bible translators or Polybius might have sounded like: Hellenistic Lucian Pronuciation.
Sources: see below.
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Intro and outro music: Overture of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) by Mozart, conducted by Neville Mariner
Main video music: Mozart: Piano Concerto No.22 in E flat major, 3rd mov - David Fray, Marin Alsop. Mozart: Concerto for piano and Orchestra (d-minor) K.466, Mitsuko Uchida
SOURCES
Vox Graeca, by W. Sidney Allen
amzn.to/3FsiCT6
Vox Graeca, Η προφορά της ελληνικής την κλασική εποχή, by W. Sidney Allen (Modern Greek translation)
ins.web.auth.gr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=690:vox-graeca-the-pronunciation-of-classical-greek&catid=93&Itemid=270&lang=en
Vox Latina, by W. Sidney Allen
amzn.to/3WdPxSY
Greek: A History of the Language and its People, Geoffrey Horrocks
amzn.to/3FXYedR
The Pronunciation of Greek and Latin, Edgar Howard Sturtevant
amzn.to/3W4nt45
Medieval and Early Modern Greek, by David Holton et al.
amzn.to/3zkhgqO
The Pronunciation of New Testament Greek here, by Benjamin Kantor
amzn.to/3QEkuz1
The Short Guide to the Pronunciation of New Testament Greek, by Benjamin Kantor
amzn.to/40hUMDs
The Greek Dialects, by Charles D. Buck
amzn.to/46TfagK
Adams, J.N., 2013, Social Variation and the Latin Language, Cambridge University Press.
Allen, James P., 2020, Ancient Egyptian Phonology, Cambridge University Press.
Calabrese, Andrea, 2002, On the evolution of the short high vowels of Latin
Gignac, Francis Thomas, 1975, A grammar of the Greek papyri of the Roman and Byzantine Periods, Part I: Phonology, Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino - La Goliardica.
Ranieri, Luke A., Turrigiano, Raphael, 2020, The Lucian Pronunciation of Ancient Greek, lukeranieri.com/lucianpronunciation/.
Schwyzer (Schweizer), Eduard, 1898, Grammatik der Pergamenischen Inschriften, Weidmannsche Buchhandlung.
Sturtevant, E.H., 1920, The Pronunciation of Latin and Greek, The University of Chicago Press.
Teodorsson, Sven-Tage, 1978, The phonology of Attic in the Hellenistic Period, Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis.
Threatte, Leslie, 1980, The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions, Volume I: Phonology, Walter de Gruyter & Co.
0:00 Intro to the Sound of Greek in Hellenistic Times
3:12 What is the Hellenistic Period?
4:36 Major Shifts from Classical to Hellenistic Greek Phonology
9:17 The One Big Difference between Hellenistic & Romaic Lucian
12:26 Challenges of Long Diphthongs
14:16 Advantages of Long Diphthongs
16:32 Peculiarities of ῃ
20:42 Hellenistic Lucian Pronunciation
26:13 A Note on ῳ in Hellenistic Koine
27:58 Conclusion
30:14 Birds in my backyard
My dude SORRY but as a greek guy 😂😂You have absolutely butchered my language. You need work in pronunciation. This wasn't greek at all man.
And also you make a looot of mistakes... Sorry again but this video is misleading. Comments say WHY ancient greek sounds like old English 😂 Come on man.
As an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I am delighted to observe the growing discourse surrounding the LXX on various channels.
"Pronunciation of the Greek OLD Testament"...great. Just what I needed to know before I go to sleep. No, honestly, I love your content and will get back to this video. But I have to get up in five hours. Australian Eastern time.
25:32 Η ελληνιστική προφορά είναι ευκολότερη και για εμάς 😅
@@VladTevez Αυτό είναι τόσο αστείο! Πέθανα! 🤣🤣🤣
You never seem to run out of amazing topics! Such a great video. Thanks!
Thanks, Jason! Haha, it’s a curse
Χαίρε Λουκά! Great video. It would be great to do a video on Mycenaean Greek at some point.
I'm oriental orthodox Coptic Orthodox from Egypt ☦️🇪🇬
I am a greek orthodox! ☦️
Χαίρε αδερφέ!
Im an eastern orthodox Christian in america i love my septuagint
amazing cinematography this video, luke!!
The LXX is my favorite OT, I'm currently working on translating it from the received text.
Where did you find the LXX received text?
@@shawnbrewer7 I am using specifically the text as found in the Complutensian Polyglot, as it is based on many lost manuscripts and purposefully avoided using Alexandrian type manuscripts such as Vaticanus. Scans of the whole Polyglot can be found in the Library of Congress and are available on their website.
@@Wully02 Gotcha. Last December, I went to Harvard University to view their Guttenberg Bible. Afterward, I was honored to examine their Complutension Polyglot, which I didn't realize they possessed. It’s quite an achievement how quickly they went from simply printing the Latin Vulgate to an organized polyglot Bible in the 16th century.
This might be a bit of an odd request but is there any chance you'll be looking at Doric Greek (pronunciation and/or the whole language itself) in the future? Tbh, I'm especially interested in the koinè (actually, the koinà) that came to be in Sicily due to Syracuse - see Tribulato (2012) for more info - but I know that that's asking for too much :)
I would like it too!! I am very intrigued by Doric
His accent is so bad 😂😂 Sorry but the dude s trying to help you and kudos to him,his other videos are amazing BUT he a not good at all when it comes to greek language ...😂
Koine, means common.
@@Gavr555None unfortunately knows atm those accents. However the Doric dialect uses more the A ( alpha) over the H ( heta ).
@@NorbertNahumEvreuklovicI'm curious to hear what you'd consider a good pronunciation/accent of attic or koine Greek, if you can direct me to any good examples
Perhaps a tip for American English speakers to distinguish short amd long diphthongs could be to compare 'tight' to 'tide' for example
Great suggestion!!
First Simon Roper's video, and now this?? Wow how lucky these days
*Laughs giddily and moves hands happily from side to side like a school child* It’s here! It’s here! Yay!
I’ve been trying to follow the Classical Attic Pronunciation; however, I ended up getting an old phonetics book, Ladefoged’s 4th edition, to grasp the meaning of terms like phonemes and phonetic . The book has really opened my eyes. I can more easily follow along now. I love studying Language and History and how what has happened and what was thought and recorded back then affects our understanding and our lives today. Furthermore, I enjoy comparing modern conceptions of what the past was to what we actually have evidence for. It’s an illuminating and rewarding experience. I love it! I can’t help it! It’s like being a kid and reading Tolkien or Harry Potter all over again! It’s magical. 😂
Sorry for the rant; your channel has been a great help in me pursuing my endeavors and finding what I like to do. I just wanted to say thank you for all of the hard work that you put into your videos: it’s greatly appreciated.
ONE OF THE BEST CHANNELS ON RUclips 🤌🏽
Lol. Independently I had just started adding in the long diphthongs into my "Early Lucian" pronunciation which you taught me some 4 years ago, just because I found the increased palette of sounds, specifically for dative-singular nouns, more comprehensible. Glad to see that I can present a historical justification for my innovations.
I am also glad, Craig!
We can start the Hellenic Lucian Pronounciation Gang and rival the Normal Lucian Gang!
Heh, do you mean the Samosatene Lucian variant?
I meant hellenistic pronounciation@@polyMATHY_Luke
Also, i meant rivaling everyone that uses every Lucian Pronounciation that is not Romaic nor Hellenistic!
Excellent video, Thank you so much!! :)
Hello Luke! Great video as always! You talk about how is interesting and important to know how the people who wrote the texts actually pronounced those texts, so my question is : are you planning to explore the incredible world of greek dialects and their pronunciations and its change over time? Because that would be great.
Very good as always! Could you make a video about the Doric dialect and its pronunciation??I can't find much information about it.
Thanks! There is very little on it, but I will address it at some point
My best guess for the Doric pronunciation is somethinɡ like this:
α /a(:)/ (same as Classical Attic)
ε /ɛ/
ει /e:/ (same as Classical Attic)
η /æ:/ if not /ε:/
ι /i(:)/ (same as Classical Attic)
ο /ɔ/
ου /o:/ (probably more like conservative Classical Attic if not /u:/)
ω /ɔ:/ (same as Classical Attic)
υ /u(:)/, /ɯ(:)/ or /ʉ(:)/ if not
/y(:)/ like Classical Attic
φ /pʰ/ or /ɸ/
θ /θ/
χ /kʰ/ (same as Classical Attic)
The diphthonɡs and the rest of the consonants miɡht have been similar to Classical Attic. My hypothesis is based on the way η was written as α and the testimony from Athenians about the Doric dialect, for example, "Ναί τῶ σιῶ, ὦ παρσένε" with σ instead of θ might mean it was pronounced as a dental fricative in the Doric dialect.
Amazing this video .Luke ❤️
Greetings Luke, always a pleasure to hear you talk in and about old tongues. Are you planning to comment on the new footage of Civilization 7? I've seen that we definitely hear Julius Caesar speak Latin for a bit.
I have been using for several months now the Romaic Lucian pronunciation because it is phonetically closer to my mother tongue, but I want to start using this variant and see what results I get in terms of language acquisition since I am still a novice in the study of Ancient Greek.
Terrific! What’s your mother tongue?
I'm also curious what your mother tongue is. Ever since I heard about Romaic Lucian, I have wondered if native Korean speakers would find it easier to use than a more evolved variant such as Samosatene Lucian, given their plosive aspiration distinction
Dear Mr Rainiery,
What do you concidder more important;
Practicing multiple pronounciations or
mastering Hexometers?
Considering the palatalization of plosive velar consonants, shouldn’t the conjunction και be pronounced more like /'ca͡i/? Do we know when this phonetic change occurred?
Fantastic stuff Luke!
Proud to represent ALI!
@@polyMATHY_Luke 🥰
Amazing
I absolutely love this! I just got done rewatching the updated Lucian Pronunciation video from a year ago, and I'm excited to see the family of conventions expanded. I've been mostly using Samosathene, but I've recently been practicing Romaic (and switching between them). Eventually I'd like to be able to switch at will between any of the 7 varieties of Lucian Pronunciation (and any more which are later added (/p͡x/ /t͡x/ /k͡x/ variety? One where the voiced stops become fricatives only in certain contexts? Both were given as examples of possibilities in the updated Lucian Pronunciation video from a year ago, and I'm sure that just as with Hellenic Lucian, any other varieties you release would be equally as cool)
I'm especially excited to try the long dipthongs, as I expect them to be good reinforcing practice for maintaining phonemic quantity distinction
Awesome video. Appreciating it more now given I first saw it when I was in my final "staunch Reuchlinnian" phase about two months ago.
Haha, have you ended your apostasy?
@@polyMATHY_Luke Indeed I have! I am actually applying this pronunciation for my reading of my Septuagint, which I just purchased, and will use this as my usual pronunciation when I am not using your Samosatene variant or Buthian.
6:33 Num _vere_ dicis aliud esse IPA quam indica pallida cerevesia?
Thank you! I’m writing a novel set during the rise of Christianity and it’s set during Jesus’ ministry. This helped me out a lot!
How is it called?
@@HCRAYERT. tentatively, the series is called Daughters of Jerusalem, a line from the Gospels: “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me,” which Jesus delivers during his passion. The series focuses on women during the first for or so decades of early Christianity, culminating in the Jewish Rebellion and the destruction of the Second Temple. The first installment (and potentially second) spans the years of Jesus’ public ministry up to his death.
@@Roma_eterna Is it favorable towards Christianity?
@@carmensavu5122 yes
@@carmensavu5122 To a certain extent. In my current draft I focused on Jesus’s miracles and his teachings, but I’ve found it came across as too preachy, with the characters seeking out Jesus whenever something happens.
“Someone is hurt? We need to find Jesus.”
So I’m currently working on fixing that. Instead of focusing on miracles, I’m considering a more debate type of approach. In other words, they don’t see him perform miracles, or if they do there’s doubt.
TLDR: In answer to your question, it’s generally favorable toward Christianity, but I’d like to approach it with more nuance in subsequent drafts.
28:00 - I do not understand how Erasmian and Modern Greek can be put in the same sentence as having equally (sic) "no relation with ancient Greek pronunciation". Erasmian is a philological exercise/hypothesis, while Modern Greek is the natural evolution of previous forms of Greek, most notably Koine Greek. Most of the pronunciation changes present in Modern Greek started in Koine Greek.
I have no interest in Erasmian Pronunciation. Don’t confuse Erasmian with the actual historical pronunciation of Ancient Greek. Watch this and you’ll learn all you need: ruclips.net/video/dQBpwKWnZAo/видео.htmlsi=IZ0egy7dtnqeojX4
@@polyMATHY_Luke Great, but my comment wasn’t about Erasmian per se, but about Modern Greek.
Food for thought for another video: In which pronunciation did Greek speakers of all times read texts of previous eras? The pronunciation of the older Greek text or the pronunciation of their own time? Example: Did Alexander the Great read the Iliad using Homeric Greek pronunciation or Classical Attic Greek?
Thanks so much, do you think you will eventually record more audiobooks for different eras/dialects? I know you’ve done some already, but it would cool to have more extended readings of different texts in their historical pronunciation. I know it takes a lot of time and work though.
Is there a Lucian pronunciation variant scheme for Doric?
I am very interested in the topic, but there I haven’t found enough attestation of Doric in any period to declare an obvious pronunciation scheme. We know some basics, like the alpha in place of a few eta, and that theta was a fricative, but that’s in the Classical Period. After that, Doric is completely subsumed by Great Attic / Koine. Thus it would not fit into Lucian Pronunciation which is a scheme for Koine.
My best guess for the Doric pronunciation is somethinɡ like this:
α /a(:)/ (same as Classical Attic)
ε /ɛ/
ει /e:/ (same as Classical Attic)
η /æ:/ if not /ε:/
ι /i(:)/ (same as Classical Attic)
ο /ɔ/
ου /o:/ (probably more like conservative Classical Attic if not /u:/)
ω /ɔ:/ (same as Classical Attic)
υ /u(:)/, /ɯ(:)/ or /ʉ(:)/ if not
/y(:)/ like Classical Attic
φ /pʰ/ or /ɸ/
θ /θ/
χ /kʰ/ (same as Classical Attic)
The diphthonɡs and the rest of the consonants miɡht have been similar to Classical Attic. My hypothesis is based on the way η was written as α and the testimony from Athenians about the Doric dialect, for example, "Ναί τώ σιώ, ὦ παρσένε" with σ instead of θ might mean it was pronounced as a dental fricative in the Doric dialect.
Another lovely video! I gotta say, I personally feel like the comprehensibility aspect to preserving long diphthongs rather than merging them is more persuasive than the difficulty in articulating them (I'm probably not most people, though; I have some grounding in experimental phonetics and transcription of unfamiliar languages in addition to knowing a few modern foreign languages, after all.), but both concerns are admittedly quite minor, and I emphatically second your recommendation to explore different pronunciation systems, if only to better understand other speakers (I mean, there are memes about how people who grew up in the US struggle to comprehend heavily dialectal varieties of English in, say, Ireland or Scotland if they are not familiar with them, of which the chances are quite high; that's probably something we would like to avoid, as we all seek to communicate with each other and access Ancient Greek literature from any and all periods). Hell, I still find myself experimenting with Ancient Greek pronunciation a lot, and the only aspect I feel is firmly entrenched in my own pronunciation habits is preserving the three-way distinction in the stops. I sometimes like to pronounce the digraph as /e:/, and sometimes I prefer rendering it as /i:/, for instance; I sometimes like the more archaic variant of merging the quality of and versus , and sometimes I like to render as /u:/ and merge the quality of omicron and omega (and sometimes I like treating as being of somewhat intermediate quality; as in, a slightly raised /o:/ sound; helps draw a cleaner distinction to the mid-low omega). All in all, I just like experimenting with recitations because they make the texts in question feel so much more real.
I'm a little confused here about one thing.
Growing up, I always thought the Greek of the Bible (Septuagint and New Testament) was originally written in miniscule (e.g. π,μ) and not majuscule (e.g. Π,M), as I always see them written in this form.
But then I read more recently the miniscule didn't come around until the Ninth Century. And I saw some Biblical texts written in majuscule. So I just assumed I'd been wrong.
But you are showing texts that use the miniscule (and even diacritics!) to discuss this. Are those later versions, or is that I do wrong?
And, if the former, why does everyone write Koine in a script that was not used at that time?
because of font availability (uncial fonts are pretty rare), and because the polytonic marks (at least some of them) helps legibility and convey more linguistic information.
@@wordart_guian Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. Majuscules are in every font that has the minuscules. Uncials are just Majuscules. You press Shift or turn on caps lock. LIKE I'M DOING RIGHT NOW.
Besides, he's using them like they are the real symbols. When he describes how they were written, he shows the minuscules. When he shows the IPA for their sound, he uses the minuscules. When he shows books purportedly being from that era, he uses the minuscule.
How would anyone who didn't already know about the script changing by the 9th Century supposed to know that this isn't what Koine looks like?
His target audience is clearly people who are completely new to this. I think he should at least take a bit of time to mention it--even if only to link to another video where he explains it in depth.
@@ZipplyZane uncials aren't majuscules though. Different thing. And many diacritics are simply unavailable on majuscules due to unicode encoding.
The 9th century minuscules are also far from resembling modern minuscules. And actual capitals had completely fallen out of use between the hellenistic era and the 16th century, even as capitals, so they're not appropriate for roman era koine either.
I believe this channel is meant to help people better understand Ancient Greek. Writing in all capital letters would not do that.
@@Mac_an_Mheiriceanaigh Why not? That's what ancient Greek actually looks like. Someone else has to convert it to the minuscule form.
I'm not saying not to learn the minuscules. The issue I have is not showing that the original did not look like that.
I just think there's a lot of misinformation about what Koine Greek actually looked like. I would hope that someone who is passionate about ancient Greek would want to clear that up.
Hello! I really like this videos, your channel and the content of your channel. What do you think of Bill Mounce's pronunciation of Ancient Greek?
He’s a great scholar and passionate teacher, so comments about his pronunciation are not meant to detract from his influential career. He uses, in theory, Erasmian, with entirely American English phonology and no attempt at all to realize the sound of the language ancient or modern. As a student of modern languages as well, I find this entirely unacceptable when it comes to paedagogy even of an ancient language. Like I said, this does not take away from his stellar work in other areas.
Oh this absolutely piques my curiosity. I wonder about the circumstances in which the Septuagint was produced in the Jewish community in Alexandria, coexisting alongside Greek and what i must assume were the earliest stages of Coptic. Did the phonology of this early Coptic affect Alexandrian Greek enough by that time period to turn the aspirates (or the voiced stops) into fricatives? Can we glean anything about *Hebrew* phonology of the period by looking at how Hebrew proper names are rendered in the LXX?
There is also another resource to probe regarding the interchange between Hebrew and Greek - the Secunda (so named because it constituted the second column of Origen’s sixfold interlinear, the Hexapla), a word-for-word phonetic transcription of the Hebrew text of the Tanakh into the Greek alphabet. It survives now only in fragments but it seems like it would be very useful for mapping out how Hebrew sounded to Greek speakers (or how Greek sounded to Hebrew speakers).
Oh. Were you saying Septuagint as it would sound in Modern Greek?
I noticed the softer G and final stress pattern, and wondered if I'd been saying it wrong in English. I've always said sep *TOO* uh jnnt (where "nn" is sylabic N).
Your pronunciation is correct for English.
@@Mac_an_Mheiriceanaigh Cool. So do you think he was saying it in a more Greek way?
@@ZipplyZane Honestly not sure, I don't remember how he said it in the video. But, unless I'm mistaken, I think "septuagint" is a purely Latin term, so I would guess he would have said it in either a more Latin way or that he just may have said it wrong by mistake
ITS HERE ITS HERE ITS FINALLY HERE
Interesting!
Beautiful location. Care to share? I know you are from Phoenix, but as Dorothy said, “We’re not Kansas anymore, Toto”
I am from Pennsylvania, in fact; I’ve not lived in Arizona for many years. This is a trail my home in eastern PA.
Has the pronunciation of Hellenistic Lucian been fully developed, such that it may be learned and utilized? If so, might it be possible to obtain more audio examples in Hellenistic Lucian?
Absolutely! And yes, I intend to make recordings in the future.
@@polyMATHY_LukeMore Romaic Lucian audio would be nice too. 🙂↕️
I really need you to play Legend of Zelda in Attic Greek and show us the pronunciations that way
😂
Ματζόρας Μασκ❤❤
Hello sir, may I please request your expertise? I'm an old Marine who is making a banner for a ceremony for other old Marines, and I'd like it to read "still faithful" in Latin, as a play on Semper Fidelis. Could you confirm that Adhuc Fidelis is a good translation? Or is there a better one? Thanks!!
"adhūc fidēlis" means still faithful, but refers to only one person. if you wanted it to be plural it would be "adhūc fidēlēs"
@@Mac_an_Mheiriceanaigh Thank you kindly. I suppose the fidelis would be appropriate, as the Marine Corps motto is Semper Fidelis, not Semper Fideles... which begs an interesting question-- why wasn't it the plural? Perhaps because it is referring The Corps, singular.
@@historyandhorseplaying7374 That is possible. I had always assumed it was because each individual servicemember was "semper fidēlis". Perhaps a historian could tell us...
@@Mac_an_Mheiriceanaigh Well apparently Colonel McCawley, 8th Commandant of the USMC, gave it the motto in 1883. So one would have to study his biography to figure out why. Sources seem to suggest it was possibly due to his being aware of the phrase being the motto of the old Irish Brigade. Apparently many towns and units the world over have it as a motto, but not "semper fidelES".
Euclid's Elements is another early Koine work. Unlike classical authors, Euclid, as far as I know, did not use the dual: δυσιν ορθιαις ισαι εισιν.
Άιδης has an iota adscript. In lowercase, it would be ᾴδης. If the Α were short, it would be *Αίδης.
Although I always like Ranieri’s videos, I’d like to register a historical complaint on the background music: Mozart? Really!?
Luke pronounces the letter name ὔψιλον (ὖ ψιλόν) as *ὕψιλον (not to be confused with the neuter of the adjective ὑψηλός). Is there any attestation of the use of rough breathing in this letter name? - UPDATE: Yes, there is! (SEE BELOW)
All initial υ take aspiration in Ancient Greek (unless it’s a psilotic dialect). In reality, the ancient name for the letter is simply ὗ /hy:/, and the name of letter y in Latin is the same: hȳ. Thus the initial aspiration is both attested, and mandatory.
We can call the letter different things in English, of course; but I am fond of archaization.
@@polyMATHY_Luke If anyone anyone is able to find attestation for a combined, proparoxytone letter name “ὕψιλον” with rough breathing, please cite it here. I couldn’t find anything.
The longstanding tradition seems to be to write this letter name separately as “ὔ ψιλόν” with either smooth breathing or an omitted diacritic. If it was ever combined with a smooth breathing, it may be an exception to the rule.
However, LSJ (via TLG) does support the idea that there may have been some ancient attestation of an aspirated ὗ /hy:/, which is supported by Latin and Coptic. Here are the relevent sections of the LSJ entry:
[SMOOTH BREATHING]
It is called τὸ ὖ by Pl.Cra.393d, Callias ap.Ath.10.453d... Hellad. ap. Phot.Bibl.p.530 B.
[ROUGH BREATHING]
τό τ’ ὖ or τό θ’ ὗ might be read in Achae.33.3... ὗ is aspirated in AP9.385.20 (Steph.Gramm.), 11.67.1 (Myrin.) cod.Pal.;
For some reason, the hyperlinks to texts that LSJ claims exhibit aspirated ὗ have been digitized without apiration over the letter in question:
AP9.385.20 (Steph.Gramm.)
Υ̓̃, μακάρων ἔρις ὦρτο, φέρει δ’ ἐπὶ κάρτος Ἀχαιοῖς.
11.67.1 (Myrin.) cod.Pal.
Υ̓̃ τετρηκόσι’ ἐστίν· ἔχεις δὲ σὺ τοὺς ἐνιαυτοὺς
Is it my imagination, or are the sounds a bit like Old English?
As always a great topic and congratulations on your time and effort behind each of your videos! Could you please share your sources on how exactly the use of umlauts/diacritics/diairesis distinguishes the pronunciation of words in ancient greek "koine" language?
Hi Nick, all my sources are cited in the description. What do you mean by diacritics? In any case, every detail of pronunciation that I describe here is detailed in those books and references. If you are a Modern Greek speaker, recommend the Modern Greek translation of Vox Graeca.
@@polyMATHY_Luke, thank you for your reply! I appreciate! It is true, I am a modern greek speaker, but with a classical studies background. This is why I find your videos so interesting and would like to add here my point of view! The erasmic pronounciation that you describe is just a proposal for the recomposing of how ancient texts should be read (or heard, to be presice), one with a long history of documentation that is, with a rightful academic acceptance, but mainly in the "west" (anglo-saxonic) universities. It must be understood though, that "modern" greek pronunciation (which has a background dating back to medieval "byzantine-roman" greek scholars), has in itself too a long-thousand years history of studies and should not be frawned upon. Especially when we are using the New Testament as an example, we should keep in mind that most of the words used in the original text have remained unchanged, as far as their meaning is concerned (take for example the words: ἄγγελος, ἀρχιερεῖς, διδάσκαλος, μαθητὰς, to name but a few). I don't want to sound overblown, but a modern greek speaker is able to comprehend up to 80% of the original text, without any help or academic background/knowledge. So..why bother with the erasmic pronounciation? What I mean to say here is that using the modern greek pronounciation to approach phonetically a text of that era, it should not be considered as a mistake. In any case, the erasmic method is just a proposal - true with more academic credentials than others - but that doesn't make it necessarily more valid than other approaches. Furthermore, we can never be sure how speakers in the whole wide roman world would speak this language, as there was no formal and regulated method of teaching foreign languages at the time. What we, modern students of these texts, can do is just...assume! Thank you for trying to compress all that much knowledge in your videos and thank you for reading through my comment!
@@Nick-PanagiotisDalampirasthere isn't really a reason to bother with erasmian in particular if you know another pronunciation, but an actually historical pronunciation might be interesting in biblical texts so the Hebrew and aramaic loanwords sound more like they did in these languages
@@Nick-PanagiotisDalampiras also, reconstructed pronunciations aren't erasmian at all.
What would Benjamin Kantor say about all that?
As I mention in this video and in the Variants of Lucian Pronunciation video, Ben Kantor’s Pronunciation of New Testament Greek book supports my previous conclusions, and also reinforces the recommendations I make in that video and this one.
Could we go to the next period: Roman Greece?
I already did. See the Variants of Lucian Pronunciation video: ruclips.net/video/dQBpwKWnZAo/видео.htmlsi=dCPsHV9rYSfuaufs
Does anyone know where I can find Athenaze 1 in an English translation. There are some videos that have a few chapters but I was hoping to find the entire book in English?
Do you mean a translation of the text, or the original textbook for English speakers? ruclips.net/video/2vwb1wVzPec/видео.htmlsi=EzrwYYjefAWcbizZ
@@polyMATHY_Luke looking for a translation of the Greek text. I’m reading through it fairly well but I was hoping to find a way to ensure that I’m reading it correctly.
The Hellenistic pronunciation sounds beautiful, but I still prefer using the Samosatene Lucian pronunciation.
wow alotta christians in the komments, good to see tons of brothers and sisters
What is your opinion of the work of Philemon Zacharious? Do you agree with his analysis of pronunciation?
I do not agree, and I will make several videos about his book in the near future. What’s remarkable about his book is that every page has at least six or more tremendously egregious errors in logic, linguistics, or phonology. It will take many hours to dissect everywhere Zachariou - clearly a well-meaning scholar, if terribly misguided - has gone astray. In the meantime, see this video I made about Caragounis infamous paper: ruclips.net/video/BybLbHPU7Qc/видео.htmlsi=n-yzCxUsCFxrPQgy
@@polyMATHY_Luke Thank you. He seems to lean towards a Modern Greek pronunciation as a valid reconstruction, but I’m liking your approach as it seems to seek to preserve the dipthong variants, yet keeping simple and historical. Yet Zacharious seems to make historic sense too. Will continue watching and learning. I’m autodidact as I can’t afford courses. I had two semesters of Greek with Dr. Harry Sturz at Biola College in 1977-78. By that time he used Summers grammar. We learned Erasmian, etc, and overtime I lost most of what I learned. Gradually, I’m re-learning. At the moment all I have is Summers and David Black’s grammar. I’ll try and get some of the one’s you have reviewed. I think I saw an interview between you and Master Academy (Daryll Burling)? Or Burling and Biblingo.
Graecē loquī nōn valeō nec quidquam dē eā sciō praeter id quod hōc in locō dedicī. Valdē vērō mihi placet tē Lūcī audīre hāc dē rē fabulārī. Inter carmina quae mihi grāta sunt ad audiendum, ūnum est illud quod in epitaphiō Sīkilī inventum est. Habēsne tū alterve pelliculam factam in quā id audīrī potest eā in prōnūntiātiōne linguae Graecae quae māximē ipsī sit idōnea?
Η υπογεγραμμένη δεν ήταν το ημιφωνήεν [ j ]; Τουλάχιστον αυτό ξέρω, αλλά μπορεί να είμαι καί λάθος!
Στη κλασική αττική διάλεκτο, το ημιφωνό [j] είναι μόνο στο τέλος των μακρών δίφθογγων
ᾳ ῃ ῳ [a:j, ε:j, ɔ:j].
Στη διάλεκτο της Κοινής ελληνικής, οι μακροί δίφθογγοι προφέρονταν ως ενιαίοι φθόγγοι [a:, e:, o:].
@@BrandonBoardman Α οκ ευχαριστώ
Will you do a video on your top 10 movies ever?
A great suggestion
Wow, pretty much how I've been pronuncing ancient Greek, although I do like to fricativize the voiced ans aspirated stops!
When you talk about the Greek old testament, what version does actually fall in this era? I know the "Septuaginta" you can buy today was redacted in the era of the Christian church fathers, so really in the period of your other pronounciation. But maybe there are actual papyrus founds of the older edition, so I would like to know if you refer to that or to what version of that.
Mastering long dipthongs ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Is there anyone in the world today that actually speaks ancient Greek fluently? That is, knows the entire language.
Yes, dozens of colleagues of mine speak Attic quite fluently, and many hundreds more speak varieties of Ancient Greek quite well. We are few, but enthusiastic.
The Septuagint, a large composite text. from 400ce approximately, is copied from an older, currently unknown text.
The Cairo Geniza discovery in Egypt, provided 5 pages of a Hebrew Bible written with Greek letters. Postulated to be from Origen's Hexapala. It was a document like this which the Septuagint came from.
Greeks required those they ruled over to write their language with Greek letters. All of the cultures they ruled did this, Coptic as an example.
What do you think would happen when a Greek scribe tries to copy a text that is Hebrew written with Greek letters.
The Greek scribe doesn't understand Hebrew and will interpret what he sees as pure Greek.
Comparisons to works like the Mesoretic and other texts produced corrections in translation.
This also means the Greek in the Septuagint is much older, circa 200 bce, probably Attic Greek.
Examples of mistranslation words, in Revelation, Arny, phonetically the same in two languages. Pronounced In Greek, lamb, pronounced in Hebrew, be vigilant.
It is not easy to tell which is correct in all cases, except through context. It is difficult and time consuming to research a single word. Multiplying that across the 166,000+ Bible verses would take one person 54 years, at 8 hours a day 7 days a week, to check them all, assuming one problem in every verse.
Jews were hesvily Hellenized. Like, to the EXTREME !!!! 👌🏻
From the comments I get to realize how even the study of classics is filled with some sort of elitism and full of obnoxious people.
A comment from a guy bragging that he came here "before modern greeks who dont know ancient Greek come and claim that ancient Greek was pronounced as the modern Greek" is a great example of this.
Let's make some things clear. The Greek world NEVER in its history ever used "reconstruction" of older Greek to read its own texts. Never.
Greeks throughout the time used their contemporary pronunciation to read any Greek text and that given them a great accessibility to even truly ancient works...they obviously knew that the speach and pronunciation had changed but that was never a matter of learning to read the works based on same reconstructive dialect. It wouldn't make any sense: you need to understand the language and the texts not to mimic a specific time period.
The West for centuries used the contemporary Greek pronunciation and the studies of Greek in the West accelerated by the influx of Greeks coming to the West after the fall of Constantinople. These Byzantine Greeks were up until the 16th century the primal source of teaching Greek in the West. In the 16th century since the interest of classical greek was getting more and more popularity, Westerners created different "reconstructive" pronunciations of the Attic Greek (specifically) and therefore they also imposed these pronunciations on the institutions teaching ancient greek. I don't wanna comment over how successful that reconstructions were or the polemic around all this mess (cause yeah there was a huge polemic) but I wanna point out that this is totally irrelevant of how the Greek world continued to operate. We continued to learn and read any greek text with the contemporary pronunciation.
One pronunciation to have access to all ancient or medieval greek texts...that was always how we done it and we always considered that the study of Greek can be only be way more accessible and do better when using the contemporary pronunciation. The erasmian or any other reconstruction used in the West sounds like an elitistic tool. Of course they should be a study of how each greek dialect could be pronounced and all that, but when you try to teach people the language...a language that spans millenia (from bronze age to modern) you better not put unnecessary obstacles and separate the studies via pronunciation techniques and make people learn 3 or 4 different pronunciations to read one language! This is totally absurd... sorry but it is.
You keep people away, the task seems HUGE and you literally use this elitistic tool to came by as "someone" when you use some Erasmian pronunciation (as did Westerners did to the Greek people when came to the 19th century, bragging that they themselves "know better ancient greek"). Nonsense.
"Greeks throughout the time used their contemporary pronunciation to read any Greek text" - This is a great point. Can Luke make a video about this?
Studying an ancient language with modern pronunciation is not wrong and a totally useful tradition, but you should be aware that there are literally hordes of nationalist Greeks commenting under the videos of creators (that use reconstructed pronunciation) saying that the pronunciation of Greek never actually changed, which is obviously nonsensical
@@enricodolci7560
Are these hordes in the room with us right now?
@@kristaps5296 no, but they are on every social media platform almost every time a non Greek attempts a reading that is not in modern Greek pronunciation. I have personally encountered them, and I understand that it's mostly people who studied ancient Greek on high school and missed the memo about pronunciation, but they do exist
@@enricodolci7560 yup those people are very common, it's always Greeks who went to their local church for a few weeks when they were 12 insisting that they know better than actual linguists who have dedicated substantial time and effort into making these videos.
In here before all the modern Greek speakers who don't know ancient Greek will claim that circa 200bc ancient Greek used modern pronunciation.
Lmao yes
Two of your last three comments are about modern Greeks. What happened little guy? What hurt you? Did your girlfriend go on vacation in Greece and was welcomed by a Greek guy/guys? (You can spell "come" however you see fit).
@@greekmetalhead1805 probably his wife had some party summers back in the day 🍆
@@greekmetalhead1805
not really worried about the competition from a bunch of 40 year old out of shape bald guys who don't even look European but look like Turkish.
@@greekmetalhead1805 I'm not worried about the competition from a bunch of 40 year old out of shape bald guys who look Turkish.
History will be generous with you for spreading the language of the Gods.
According to the Illiad, the gods do not speak the language of the Greeks. Possibly the gods are merely more conservative, and name things after their patron deity, or it might have been a proto-Hellenic language from 1500 BC or earlier.
"στην" νεα ελληνικα. Nicht "στα" νεα ελληνικα 😮😉
Nein: man sagt στα νέα ελληνικά (neut.pl.) oder στη(ν) νέα ελληνική γλώσσα (fem.sing.)
@@polyMATHY_Luke oh 😅 danke für die Korrektur meiner Korrektur 🤣
Ancient greek was ALBANIAN!🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱🧔🏿♂️
No way to really know what it sounded like.
Incorrect. Watch the videos of mine that I referenced, and also read the sources cited in the video and in the description. We know very well what it sounded like.
We can make informed guesses.
Okay, this did resolve my question about ῃ. It sounds like it would have merged with η too early for it to have kept an open pronunciation while η and ε went mid. Thank you so much!
What are the Lucian realizations of υι ᾱυ ηυ ωυ? For υι Allen recommends [yjj] for Attic but also says it was [y:] by 6th c BC, which don't seem to fit, but I'm sure I'm missing something. Both your spreadsheet and Allen seem to have the other three merged with αυ ευ ω around 100bc, if I'm understanding correctly-during the Koine period. So could Hellenistic (but probably not Romaic?) Lucian still have [yjj] + long first elements for the other three?
Ah, I found your updated PDF with the different Lucian pronunciations, and I see that you do address υι!
Been listening to Dr. Ammon Hillman @@ladybabylon666. The Septuagint is written in Greek and poorly translated into Hebrew. Hebrew only has around 8k words, where Greek has over 250k, at least!! Not possible to translate from Greek, as the words don't exist in Hebrew. So interesting!!
Although I always like Ranieri’s videos, I’d like to register a historical complaint on the background music: Mozart? Really!?
Hehe, is that problematic? I suppose I could ask my friend Farya Faraji if I might borrow some of his wonderful compositions - but if I hadn’t used Mozart, I would have used jazz piano or something else relaxing that helped the listen engage with the material. And that wouldn’t have been appropriate either as for as antiquity goes.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Why not use some Gregorio Paniagua’s interpretive reconstructions of Ancient Greek music (many of the few surviving would be from b.c.e., although possibly from the 4th-1st centuries).
Although I don't mind the Mozart, you'd hardly find me the least bit opposed to some more topical musical choices, as I've recently been reading up on Ancient Greek music