It looks like the Lucian Pronunciation contradicts the principles you mentioned in this video. Most of the features of LP come from Koine Greek, but at the same time they are combined with the fricative pronunciation of φ, χ and θ, which, as you say here, is a Middle Byzantine feature . Could you explain that? Have you changed your principles, or have there been some new discoveries in reconstructed Ancient Greek phonology?
Michał Kosek precisely; I changed my position. The evidence for the more evolved characteristics was tenuous, and I was working under the “dominant pronunciation” model. I no longer subscribe to a dominant pronunciation model, since there are too many contradictions. Thus, with Lucian Pronunciation, I present the possible which includes the recommendations in the Xaire video, as well as the pedagogically more useful Standard Lucian system.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Well, if the evidence for the more evolved characteristics was tenuous, why are you listing variant pronunciations of χ as /x~ç/ already in first century BC in your current spreadsheet? In the spreadsheet shown in the video, you haven't listed χ as /x~ç/ before tenth century AD. (Sorry if it looks like I'm nitpicking, but I'm not; I'm really trying to understand the logic behind the Lucian Pronunciation.)
@@michakosek9314 I was checking now and noticed the same. In video he speaks of χ pronuntiation after 10th century AD but in the spreadsheet I see it from 1st century AD onwards... I am reading it wrong? Can you please confirm this @polýMATHY? Thanks in advance :)
Εύγε! As a Greek, I've always felt that efforts to reconstruct the Ancient Greek pronunciation were influenced by the researcher's native language, id est by their accent, which was noticeable in any "Ancient Greek" speech sample of theirs. However, judging not only by the last "χαίρε" that sounded Greek to me (no pun intended), but also by the rest of your research and presentation, I'm glad to say that your approach is more authentic than others and that it sounds more natural to me! Ευχαριστώ πολύ, καλή συνέχεια στο έργο σου! Thank you very much, keep up the good work!
Ευχαριστώ πολύ, φίλε μου! 😃 If you like that, you’ll love this video: ruclips.net/video/Dt9z5Gvp3MM/видео.html It explains how I pronounce Ancient Greek, which heavily favors the Modern Greek accent.
I know there are different pronunciations in Greek - (5) Pede vs Pende, etc. - but how accurate can it be that the pronunciation has changed so much? Did Κοινή actually evolve from Κόϊναι? And wasn’t κοινή taught in Greek schools up until the 1970’s or so? I feel like a Latin language speaker simply did their best to guess what Greek sounded like while Greeks were isolated from the West during 400 years of Turkish occupation. I know the Greeks didn’t forget how to speak it.
@@dimk735 We can agree to disagree. Most sounds are pretty much the same but I do remember someone I knew who majored in classic Greek trying to learn modern Greek pronunciation and they were completely thrown off and could not adjust. Especially with words like σεαυτον. I remember watching a film where they said that word and it did not click what word they were saying until I read the subtitles.
@@nessie4215 thats what i am saying, in order to say that it changed a lot you need to have a point of comparison. it changed a lot compared to what? anyway, i can see your point. may i ask what pronunciation are you and your acquainted using?
@@dimk735 oh gosh, it's been quite a while since I have been in college. I can't remember the exact name or time period but I do remember it was truly the ancient pronunciation before the changes occured during Koine (I think that's what it was called, sorry been a while). I've never met anyone who didn't understand what I was saying though by saying classic Greek but I get wanting to be specific. Like I said we can agree to disagree. Not that serious lol
@@nessie4215 i just wanted to know what pronunciation you used in order to understand how you would be heard by a modern greek. i am not a classicist, so i cant claim i know vowel changes and all that stuff, but from what little i do know, i have understood that the erasmian pronunciation(the one you used most probably) is wrong. anyway, i am not here to be the know-all. from my perspective as a modern greek native speaker, this pronunciation here, that Luke is using is understandable.(i believe this is 3rd or 2nd century bc, so its not attic greek but still very ancient) ruclips.net/video/iyqIRhxAvzM/видео.html
The 'mismash' pronunciation is what I was taught at school, here's the justification for it: - The aspirates are difficult to distinguish for anglophones, so khi, phi and theta get their modern pronunciations - However, the vowel and diphthong changes in modern Greek produce confusing homophones - We are learning in order to read, not to accurately speak, the language That said, it's fascinating 40+ years later to learn all these details and subtleties, and I'm so glad to have discovered Luke's work
as a greek native i always was fascinated by how the ancients(οι αρχαίοι ημών πρόγονοι) spoke.By learning the ancient pronuniations as a teen (now 23) and also learning about other languages as well helped understand that a language is a living organism constantly changing Also by learning about the ancient pronounciation helped me understand why all those different accents and words were used throught all the greek accents and dialects that i heard from my grand parents( from amorgos island from my father and from asia minor(constantinople+smyrna) from my mother) and from my trips traveling throught Greece because of my mandatory military service. There are many accents out there that still preserve those sounds,sadly they are getting lost in this time of homogeny and streamlining Also i am a firm believer that we should bring back kathareuousa as to my eyes and ears seems more elegant.Having being taught many phrases from my parents and grand parents that actaually used it in the 50s 60s....etc As always great video. Thank you.
@ΤηεΒεστ ΟφΜε sure sure good point but to put it simply I am not a big fan of what happens in Greek and also other languages through the world, the over simplification is that I don't like and people's vocabulary being poorer and poorer as to the only way to grasp something or fathom it is by the ability to construct it with words in your mind And before you say but Sad pepechu(Λεωνίδας is my name) languages were always simply fired for the masses I'd say you are correct but we live in a time when you have the human knowledge at the palm of your hand and channels like this one exist and are totally free . What a time to be alive
My man! I also wish Katharevousa came back but not the way it was before. Let's keep the monotonic alphabet and modern grammar but come up with new, Greek words, instead of adopting English words left and right
Well don't forget that the official language that we learn in school and it is used on official matters and media is not the demotic greek form but is the modern greek language (Νεοελληνική γλώσσα) which is actually a mixture of the kathareuousa or loyia (λόγια) form of the language with demotic and a more modern way pronouncing words. Also, the modern greek language was written in polytonic for a some time until 1982 when it turned to monotonic. I think that the current official form of the modern Greek language must be continued but with the introduction of more loyia form vocabulary and forms of kathareuousa in it and also switch from monotonic to polytonic for traditional and historical continuation of the Hellenic language and also because it is a better look writing system.
@@stgr0186 languages change to the worst too so we must be free to chose to speak greek language not ONLY an englishturkishalbanian Pidgin or a modern version of something that is more and more less greek too.
Have you considered making a video of how the different gods and mythological creatures were pronounced? I'm curious how far the English versions are from the original Greek.
From Wiktionary, a few examples, comparing 5th century BCE Attic to modern English: Zeus (Ζεύς) was *probably* /zděu̯s/, “zděhwss”, with a rising tone and a very un-English combination of initial /zd/ an /eu̯/ diphthong. Compare this to modern English /zuːs/ “zooss”. We kept the first and last consonants but we reduced everything in between down to /uː/. Athena (Ἀθηνᾶ) was /atʰɛːnâː/, that is, a-tʰeh-NÂ with an aspirated /tʰ/ as described in the video, an /ɛː/ a bit like in “bed”, and stress on the final syllable with a falling pitch. This is massively different to modern English /əˈθiːnə/ “ə-THEE-nə”, where we have turned the Ancient Greek plosive “tʰ”/“t-h” into a fricative “th” also reduced both unstressed vowels to schwa /ə/ “uh”. Finally, Hephaestus (Ἥφαιστος), in Attic /hɛ̌ː.pʰai̯s.tos/, that is, HĚ-pice-toss, again with an aspirated plosive /pʰ/ as described in the video. Compare this to English /hɪˈfiːstʊs/ “hih-FEECE-tus” or /hɪˈfɛstʊs/ “hih-FESS-tus”. Both pronunciations have moved the stress to the second vowel, lost the “eye” pronunciation of the middle vowel, and turned the Greek /pʰ/ into /f/. Both also use a Latinised pronunciation.
@@caenieveEhhh…we didn’t “reduce” everything in Zευς. By the time Latin loaned it, it was already /ẕːe̞us̱/. In English, the “eu” spelling is read as /uː/, and English doesn’t germinate or retract its sibilants or consonants of any kind, hence…/zuːs/.
Just discovered your channel. Fascinating stuff. Don’t speak any classic tongues, just modern Romance languages, and you really illuminate their continuity with the ancient language.
Thanks for subscribing! 😊 I'm glad you like it! Yeah, on my other channel ScorpioMartianus I do exclusively content in Latin. I also love all the Romance languages, which I study continuously.
Thank you, very interesting, as a modem gteek speaker I'm always fascinated with how the ancients sounded, you see. to have studied this deeply well done.
They have pottery shards of ancient Greek dialects before the rise of Attic where KH was used before it was replaced by X. Thus it is important to voice the "h" which most classical scholars neglect to do who, pronounce X as K instead of K+H. "H" is after all, why X was eventually pronounced as H in modern Greek.
Hi! 😊 Well, it definitely becomes a sound in Greek at some point, but if "Koine" ends in the 4th century AD (which is quite an arbitrary date), then indeed, it's not a Koine sound. Truly, "Koine" and "Byzantine" are hardly useful terms since they span such vast periods of time. It's better to talk about the century, and the region if we know something abouth more local dialects. χαῖρε in 1st century BC and AD Greek sounded like the Classical Attic word most likely, but in the 5th century AD Greek sounded closer to the Modern word.
I can't imagine if it is so different for us (Greeks) to learn our ancient language how more would be for you. But it is what we have to recognize to you. Gongrats!! It's really amazing and so preety!
Your videos are awesome, I love everything your producing. Since your drilling into detail, I feel like it'd be handy to not just say "this is the correct pronunciation", but also to go on to say, "here is the actual evidence". One one hand, there might be a hesitance to do this because people get lost on the detail, but on the other hand, this video is already so detailed, I bet people would appreciate exploring the evidence in more detail. I dont know, what do other people think?
What Dutch teachers do, as they themselves are taught to do so at university, is pronounce χ as /x/ and ɸ as /f/; χαῖρε is pronounced somewhat like [xɑɪrə] here. However, they pronounce θ as /t/, only because they don't have a clue how θ was pronounced in Ancient Greek nor in Modern Greek (and Dutch lacks a /θ/-sound). When I during my studies at university pronounced χ as /kh/ I was told not to, because they said that if I did the distinction with /k/ was lost - which is ironic.
Wat is dan het historische verschil tussen de uitspraak van χ en κ (tijdens de periode die we geleerd krijgen, dus rond 509 vCr)? So what is the historic difference in pronunciation between χ and κ (during the time period we are taught, so around 509 BC)?
@@MattFyrm De χ werd destijds niet uitgesproken als 'ch' zoals in 'pech' maar als 'k' plus 'h', zoals in 'bakhuis'. In de vijfde eeuw ná Chr. ontstond de uitspraak 'kch'. Pas in de tiende eeuw werd dat 'ch'. De 'κ' werd rond 500 voor Chr. uitgesproken als onze 'k'. At that time χ was not pronounced as 'ch' as in Scottish 'loch' but as a 'k' plus an 'h', a bit like how the word 'backhand' is pronounced, or even the word 'king' (at least by native speakers of English). In the fifth century AD, the pronunciation 'kch' arose. 'Ch' didn't exist until the tenth century. 'κ' was pronounced as Dutch 'k' around 500 BC.
@@yvanspijk oh wacht, nu ik er over nadenk doet nederlandse helemaal niet aan die h na de k. Dat is waar ik vast liep. Hoe dan ook, bedankt! Oh wait, now I think about it dutch doesn't do the h after the k. That's where I got stuck. Thanks either way!
Você tem uma habilidade tão impressionante a respeito da sutileza da pronúncia de sons vocálicos e consonantais em diferentes línguas, que provavelmente você seria também um excelente professor de redução de sotaque para estrangeiros (estudantes da Língua Inglesa, especialmente, falantes de línguas neolatinas) que aspiram a melhorarem seus sotaques e suas pronúncias do Inglês.
The spreadsheet has changed, hasn't it? It now very much permits /x/ for χ as early as the 1 cen AD. In terms of useful: Turning χ into a fricative is useful to everyone who only is familiar to a 2-way VOT contrast (such as english speakers). You could however also pronounce as /ɣ k kʰ/, which is also only a two-way contrast in VOT on stops, and sufficently historically plausible.
This makes sense. The vowel change from ai --> e is what is driving the consonant change from /kh/ to an affricate sound. Thus, the vowel change comes first.
This is just awesome. I'm learning Ancient Greek with my 8-year old daughter, as some of her friends have Greek origin and I've been playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and she's very excited about it. So I used ChatGPT and Midjourney to make her a schoolbook to Ancient Greek language. Pronounciation is a big question to me, and this really helps with perhaps the most important word.
You saved my day ! I was doing it in a very incoherent way, trying to make it sound more like "modern" greek ... What about a video on eta (é,e or è,ä, äi)??
I agree about consistency of restoration of pronunciation. Such inconsistencies are present in English language when borrowing words. For instance "Mt. Sinai", the first syllable is pronounced using English phonology -- "sigh" -- while the second syllable is pronounced with a "restored" pronunciation - "nigh". We should either pronounce it as "sigh-nay" (English phonology) OR "see-nigh" (Continental Eur phon)
I agree when the correct pronunciation still exists that you should use the one which fits your sensibilities, but prescriptivism isn't useful either. I have never heard the two pronunciations you have suggested in natural speech, so the borrowed word is now naturally /'saɪnaɪ/ in English. TL;DR, say /'saɪnαɪ/ when speaking in English, say /si'na/ when speaking Greek say /sinaj/ when speaking Hebrew.
Off course. The pronunciations which I wrote down do not exsist. Not in the modern speech, at least. I believe that "Sinai" went through partial assimilation. I merely underlined the inconsistency present here.
I pronounce χαῖρε as in Modern Greek, but I used to pronounce it with the fricative and the diphthong. My aim was not to reconstruct Ancien Greek pronunciation. I pronounced letters so as to to differentiate them as much as possible. I wanted to be able to determine the spelling of the Greek word just by the way I pronounced it.
Interesting that 'ai' tends to become 'open e' in many languages. In my language (at least in my dialect), 'ai' has become open 'e' in colloquial speech while the formal and written language still retains the 'ai' diphtong. And 'au' (formal) becomes 'o' (informal) just like in French.
I always wondered how the “αι”, “ει” and “οι” or “αυ” and “ευ” pronounced in antiquity. Is your pronunciation of “koine” («κοινή») Erasmian? We know from Thucydides that the ancient Athenians must have pronounced the words «λοιμός»(disease) and «λιμός»(famine) the same way, since the prophesy was ambiguous to them. Thoughts?
Without any expertise, just some introspective thinking I did, I came to the conclusion that οι was pronounced not as oe but as a combination of the two, œ. Voice ι, then just form o with your lips. Sounds french. As few people knew how to write, each village had a different pronounciation. So fοΐκος στα hΟμηρικά œκος στα Κλασσικά ίκος στα hΕλληνιστικά
My assumption is that he pronounced it that way because that's the most popular way to say it, that way everyone knows what he's talking about. But, yeah, I caught that too: guy makes video correcting pronunciation of a Greek word, and utterly mangles another Greek word in the same video. Thanks, Erasmus!
The problem for me is that the way you pronounce the unaspirated k at 6:57 sounds g to me. I thought that in my native Portuguese all k sounds were unaspirated but now I’m not so sure. Do we aspirate them sometimes? I don’t know.
They’re not. Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish, for example, lightly aspirate /k t p/, to increase the phonetic contrast with /g d b/. In Ancient Greek, you have to decrease the voice onset time (make more voiced) the /g d b/, completely devoice and deaspirate the /k t p/, and give a positive voice onset time to the aspirated stops.
Do you have any videos on the strange TONAL system of Ancient Greek, or the supposed system? Many books say ancient Attic greek was pitch-tonal , but I never heard anyone actually showing how to use those tone distinctions in real audio.
Yes! I have this old video, that is unlisted since it nera to be redone. But it should get you started Pitch Accent in Ancient Greek - what I do ruclips.net/video/v6Fj8gdjsNs/видео.html
Terrific spreadsheet! The diachronic and synchronic synopsis is invaluable. The slower change of the digraph ει to /i:/, when followed by a vowel, was always right there before my eyes when I was reading transliterated Greek names in Latin, but I never realized it until now. The general vowel shift during the 4th century BC is also clearly evident in your table, speaking of which, I wonder whether you think there are still reasons to subscribe to Allen's thesis that the change from /o:/ to /u:/, in Attic, happened before the 5th century and before the orthographic reform that introduced ου and ω, as well as ει and η, in Attic spelling.
Grazie mille per il risposto! 😊 Yes! It's really quite fascinating. Latin helps corroborate the ει change in addition to the ancient Greek spelling mistakes. As for ου being /o:/, I can imagine this in the first part of the century (and I used that in my Seikilos video: ruclips.net/video/AL9KQ-trY00/видео.html ), but by the end of the 5th century /u:/ seems more likely for most speakers. Also for ζ, I believe this is best rendered /z:/ for Classical Attic as well, since it was already generalized right at the year 400 BC (though I still use /zd/ in my Athenaze videos: ruclips.net/video/rsKhcHpYk00/видео.html ). But getting a precise date is very tricky; we can be very accurate within 500 years; within 50 years is a challenge. 😅 Overall, I favor 4th or 1st century BC Koine as a kind of universal standard of Ancient Greek, especially the 1st century BC, because this is the way the Romans knew Greek and moved it into further prominence and permanent status. It's similar enough to Classical Attic pronunciation, yet also is a pronunciation appropriate for Biblical scholars. But just my thoughts. 😊
The Seikilos video is very impressive. When I was in high school (many years ago...) my teachers said that it would have been almost impossible to reproduce the correct pronunciation of classical Greek with the pitch accent etc. Well, you proved them wrong! For what concerns the change from /o:/ to /u:/, I'd consider it happening with the other vowel shifts of mid 4th century, for symmetry reasons. Well, being a physicist, I'm used to see symmetries even when there are none! 😅 I hope to see also, in the near future, videos featuring your recitation of homeric hexameters. Interim bene vale, optime vir!
I admit that my pronunciation of Ancient Greek is anachronistic, but I've always been aware it's anachronistic. I knew everything you said in this video (not the exact centuries, but I could have guessed those). I was taught this pronunciation as a convention and as a 13-year-old, I wasn't exactly striving for the correct "historical" pronunciation. I've now more or less been following this convention for over 7 years, even though I know it's not correct because I've always heard it that way and done it that way. My current Greek linguistics professor argued that it's not feasible to pronounce every sound in every text correctly because of diatopic and diachronic differences, so he made a distinction between the scientifically correct pronunciation and the conventional pronunciation. I've since corrected my pronunciation of ω to a more open sound and ευ to "ew", but I still pronounce ζ, θ, φ and χ wrong. (And of course there are the accents.) However, except for some morphologic features and diachronic evolutions, the correct pronunciation was never very important because the education system here emphasises the passive knowledge of Greek. Until I went to university, I only had to be able to read Ancient Greek (and decline and conjugate the paradigms) and even now, I've only had to translate the occasional sentence into Greek to demonstrate my knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. This is one of my frustrations with how classics are often stuck in tradition and I think this teaching method actually makes it harder to fully master Ancient Greek (and Latin).
Right! You may appreciate this convention ruclips.net/video/Dt9z5Gvp3MM/видео.html
Год назад
My question here Is: How is possible to establish those changes? I mean, what’s the methodology ? By comparison of ortography? Comparison with Latin? With words from other languages? As a researcher of jewish kïnë (κοινή) Greek I wonder if this dialect was so powerful to modelate the future of global Greek lenguage Please let me know your methodology!
I have a whole playlist on this subject: ruclips.net/p/PLQQL5IeNgck0hFZ5oEfTV1Zhp_xksAgCz I frequently cite my sources, also linked in the description. Find those books.
Год назад
@@polyMATHY_Luke thank you! Success in your work !
Hi there. In public schools in Austria we pronounce it exactly the way you don't like (modern chi, ancient ai). Our teacher was indeed interested in the correct pronunciation and did deliberately not follow some suggestions from the university to pronounce eta as "ee" (as in tee) like in modern greek, because the sheep, as indicated in an ancient children's textbook, would have made "mee mee mee" sounds which obviously they probably didn't. But for "chaire" I would not consider this an "error", but rather a genuine dialect of ancient greek at the same level as german latin. Or the austrian latin in our days as the german public schools are in the process of abandoning the german tradition of latin pronunciation. So today only Austria uses the pronunciation which e.g. the latin masses of classical masters was written for (Mozart et al). So if some scholars in the 19th or 18th century apparently decided to restore the ancient ai diphtong, but did not restore the chi sound correctly, I would think of it the same way as of the restauration of alto from olto in spain as you reported in another video: Incomplete but not wrong, or you would have to consider any roman language wrong, which is not classical latin, so to say. ;-) Great channel, I just came across it! Best greetings from Austria!
There was variation in language within ancient greek language since city states spoke their own dialect. What we think is the pronunciation is due to later interpretations from Orthodox Church or throughout the centuries the universities of Europe, later mainly British on the 18th and 19th century were writing the textbooks on Ancient Greek.
Nice video. I am learning Koine Greek for the New Testament in university. But I am being taught a mixture of ancient and modern pronunciation of the letters(some letters they pronounced in the modern way while others they pronounced in the ancient way)😂. So I have to figure out what they were actually pronounced(or somewhere close) in the Koine period.
Hi Carolina! Hopefully I'll have time for that some day soon. In short, it depends on the century, and convervative versus more evolved dialects. The more evolved pronunciation is to pronounce αι as /e̞/ and οι as /y/, which would have occurred some time during the Roman Empire. The more conservative Koine pronunciation that I use is to pronounce them as /ae̞/ and /øy/, which I recommend for pedagogical reasons. For more, see my talk on this subject: ruclips.net/video/c_Giy_LHAlU/видео.html
Can you show how the aspirated consonants were pronounced before consonants (especially plosives), because when I try, the difference between aspirated and unaspirated consonants disappears. Thanks.
Mmmh, interesting. I leard the χ as a "j" in spanish and not a "k" (algo in spanish), I did pronounce the αι as "e", so thanks for the video. Do you have any video about greek vowel? Man I'm really enjoy in all of the videos je, and I need to leard the IPA.
Dear Ranieri ... I'm look at your chart, the eta [ŋ] during the Koine period... how do you pronounce e: and ẹ? I can't find e: anywhere on the website. Please help, I'm doing a research. Thank you
This is very interesting, but how can we know how the pronunciation of words and letters changed thoughout history, way before sound recording was available?
@polýMATHY any tips for learning how to distinguish/pronounce the various sounds of the International Phonetic Alphabet in the first place? The only way I can currently make it through reading that notation is by looking up English examples for every single sound used.
Thank you. As a Canadian American Greek speaker, I’ve always been puzzled by these things. Even my parents could not give me a clear answer. My question is, how do we know that was the pronunciation at that time? I know that a lot of things get figured out by rhyming schemes in the Iliad and the odyssey, certain things have to go with certain way for the rhyme scheme to work, but I don’t understand how the pronunciation of.Chi can be inferred. I would assume that the rhyme scheme works with both pronunciations. It would be cool if you had a video that shows how we derived these pronunciations.
Another possibility: [æ, æ:, æi] -- Note that when the Anglo-Saxons (Old English) adopted the Latin alphabet, before Ælfrēd the Great, they had Ææ called æsc (ash) like the rune, pronounced long and short, to distinguish it from Aa [a]. This was sometime around ±500AD. So Latin and Greek AE, AI may have been [æ] as in cat, apple, ash, or [æ] + [I]. (Compare how Americans say ]æu] instead of [au]. There's also (I've read) evidence that Greek dialects going way back had A in some dialects and Epsilon or Êta in other dialects, which would lend support to the idea that it could have been [æ] and [æi], but that it was in between A and E, and therefore difficult for them to decide how best to spell the sound. Besides, they could have had their regional dialects doing tomayto tomahto and ant-aint-aunt-ahnt on some words too. This could mean that AE and AI did have [ai] to [æi] to [æ:] going on in a gradient, but EI and HI could have been separate with a tendency to merge or diverge. [æi] then would tend to rain and front to [ei]. Note English during the Great Vowel Shift had similar things going on to the Greek vowel shift, so we have long open E going to [ei] or occasionally [I] with ea/e, and long close E going to [I] (ee/e), long open O going to [ou] (oa/a) and long close O going to [u] (oo/ou/u/o), with A being problematic thanks to Norman French respelling Middle English into Modern English, things going on with U versus EU versus Old English Y already going to [I], and I and U going to [ai] and [au], and long I/Y in English mostly spelled only with I/Y, less often spelled with two letters, and OU/OW often for [au] from former [u], because again the Norman French convention of OU [u] versus U [y, ü]. The comparison to Greek and English helps, and Æ may have been a thing for Latin and Greek. I almost wonder if Vulgar Latin and Common Romance had a sort of working class English / Cockney / Northern accent feel/sound to them. (I've read that photo-Latin also had a th to F change similar to the British dialectal th to F, dth tor V change. (I'm self-taught on any linguistics with some Spanish and several French classes, besides English lit.).
From which source do you know that the monophthongization of αι took place around 150 CE? As far as I know, it was much earlier for most greek speakers, and was the driving force behind the itacism of η and ει, causing the push chain shift ɛ: > e: and e: > i: .
I have a greek language problem to be solved. I hope you can help me. How we pronounce κεια? Does word ι pronounced as i or its omited from vocal pronounciation? So which one is the correct ? Keia Or Kea Thanks in advanced sir.
For modern Greek pronounce ει as i in machine (same as iota, same as i in Spanish words), for koine or classical Greek pronounce it as a diphthong, like ey in hey (Siri).
Absolutely; I wasn't concentrating on the precise 'r' pronunciation in my IPA transcription. I believe how I pronounced the words in my video is correct for the various centuries cited.
Interesting to see that our German "ch" sounds the same as Greek χ, but with the determining vowel on the other side, e.g. -ich = [-iç] and -ach = [-aχ], maybe because there were different rules how the starting consonants of syllables developed in Germanic languages, so it could not appear at the onset.
How do we know χ was pronounced more like a K in ancient Greek? You know that the two fricatives are part of the German language (spelt as ch) so I learnt to pronounce "χαῖρε" as chaire in school.
Thank you for the video, this was very interesting!! Can I ask how do we know such details like the change during Byzantine times? Especially since we are talking about a consonant. Do we find it misspelled in Byzantine times with a "κ" instead of a "χ"??
Actually we find those spelling mistakes earlier. And my more recent research shows Greek speaking languages pronouncing χ like Modern Greek in earlier centuries. We know this from books by Horrocks and Gigmac which show those spelling errors.
As a modern Greek speaker, I wonder how certain we can be about RanieriGreekPronunciation as there is a certain amount of dispute on the issue and we have no recordings or sound symbolics to know.
How about if, for some purposes, you declare that you are using an artificial, hybrid system, don't imagine that it is a real reconstruction of anything that was ever a real spoken language, and know how it differs from those real spoken languages? If it helps you learn and remember the basics, and can generate whatever other variety you are interested in, why not?
I'm teaching myself Attic Greek. Where can I find information on how the different accents change the sound of the word? Right now I'm pronouncing the acute, grave, and circumflex as though they are the same but I know that's not right.
I'm sure you could be a great coach on accent reduction for English students, specially, those ones who speak Romance languages natively. English isn't my first language, so please excuse any mistakes.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Which would actually help me a lot, since I have a difficult accent to understand, and that can make working in a call centre frustrating. I remember one time, doing a car insurance job, and I had to ask someone 'how many years No Claims Bonus have you earned ?", but my pronunciation of ea in 'earned' is like ε, and the letter r, slides to the back of the throat, like in French. The posh English woman thought I was saying ulned or urned, and when she realised, and pronunced 'earned', the ea sound was like something between u and ö.
In my opinion, it doesn't matter too much the way the letter khi is pronounced if you just want to learn the language and know the litterary works, since generally we don't learn Classical languages to speak them. I am a Brazilian language teacher/professor, graduated in Latin, but I teach Ancient Greek too and what I say to my students is that the "original" sound of the letter χ is the "English K" (cause in Portuguese It doesn't exist) but I also say that they can pronounce it like the "Spanish J" or the "German CH" (or even the "R from Rio", cause in Rio de Janeiro they use to pronounce the R, when it comes before a consonant, with this sound) just to simplify it. Since I use the italian version of the book Athenaze from the Vivarium Novum Accademy, I tend to follow their tips. Some students insist in pronounce the θ as the English "th", but I always warn them that it's actually the English "t" which os aspirated while our "t" in Portuguese is "hard" instead. With the letter phi I say that it's like the "English p" as in "pie" (which is also differenti from our Portuguese "p"), but to turn it easier for them (as I think it's easier even for myself) I advise them to make a "pf" sound like the German "pf" or even try to pronounce the F just using their lips (the sound [φ] as in the IPA chart). So, in the end of the day I tend to use these fricative sounds because I (and Brazilian people in general) have some trouble pronouncing these aspirated plosives. But I know Ancient Greek well, I guess, as do my students xD
If I am meant to pronounce chi as an English k sound in attic Greek, how is kappa then pronounced? Would an English speaker hear the difference? Perhaps I'm missing something obvious
Assuming you know pinyin, kappa = g and chi = k in pinyin. And no, just as English speakers cannot correctly do k and g in pinyin, the correct Classical Greek pronunciation escapes them
It could be aspired because ancient Greek has numbers of semitic words khaire resembles a semitic salutation meaning good to you and it is pronouced with the fricative
I’m interested in learning Byzantine Greek, does anyone have any good information where to start, good books as starting information etc? I’ve read much conflicting information from Byzantine Greek being close to koine that I should begin here but I also read that it was closer to attic As well as that it was completely different from both. I’m unsure where to start, should I begin with koine, attic ir Byzantine Greek because I’m not sure of what their differences are from the information I have read, can anyone clear this up for me?
I think you will find that most of the Byzantine literature is written in Attic, or an attempt at Attic & that just as in the WEst where writing continued in Latin (with disdain for the vernacular in writing literature), so the Byzantine writers wanted to write Attic. I took a course in Byzantine Greek & was thus disappointed.
Hello polymathy, love the channel and content! I was wondering if i could ask you how good you thought the ancient greek pronunciation of Alexander the Great and Theodora's Koine(?) Greek in Sid Meier's Civilisation 5 was?
@@polyMATHY_Luke Thanks for the response! The two videos I was talking about were: Alexander - ruclips.net/video/0h7p6r0I0PA/видео.html (ft. a nice version of the seikilos epitaph) Theodora - ruclips.net/video/0T-t1k4qf2U/видео.html Thanks a lot & love the videos!
polýMATHY If you're interested there is more in the next game 'Civilisation 6'. I think that has Alexander, Pericles and Gorgo. I think there is also Latin equivalents. I almost forgot about my favourite in civ 5 - Augustus! ruclips.net/video/bspvbLB6QkI/видео.html
For me, the vowels are wonderfully important for poetic works. As for the consonants, they are as important as they are in Sansrkit spoken anciently, as opposed to the modern way I hear it. But that's me. You can do what you wish, but even Early Modern English has bits and bobs that rhyme in the time; yet, no longer. E.g. Love and Move. And that's only 400 years ago. We no longer have "Wherefore" in English. But it exists in Russian. Again: Context...so many from which to choose. Decide and explore.
Hi. I really admire your videos. I wanted to ask you a question. How is the letter Θ pronounced in Attic Greek? As th or t? I don’t remember. Thank you!
![Conversation: Ancient Greek vs. Modern Greek [SUB ESP]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vDojnOSporE/mqdefault.jpg)
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
I now recommend the Lucian Pronunciation as an ideal convention for Ancient Greek, for which see this video 🤠ruclips.net/video/Dt9z5Gvp3MM/видео.html
It looks like the Lucian Pronunciation contradicts the principles you mentioned in this video. Most of the features of LP come from Koine Greek, but at the same time they are combined with the fricative pronunciation of φ, χ and θ, which, as you say here, is a Middle Byzantine feature . Could you explain that? Have you changed your principles, or have there been some new discoveries in reconstructed Ancient Greek phonology?
Michał Kosek precisely; I changed my position. The evidence for the more evolved characteristics was tenuous, and I was working under the “dominant pronunciation” model. I no longer subscribe to a dominant pronunciation model, since there are too many contradictions. Thus, with Lucian Pronunciation, I present the possible which includes the recommendations in the Xaire video, as well as the pedagogically more useful Standard Lucian system.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Well, if the evidence for the more evolved characteristics was tenuous, why are you listing variant pronunciations of χ as /x~ç/ already in first century BC in your current spreadsheet? In the spreadsheet shown in the video, you haven't listed χ as /x~ç/ before tenth century AD. (Sorry if it looks like I'm nitpicking, but I'm not; I'm really trying to understand the logic behind the Lucian Pronunciation.)
@@michakosek9314 I was checking now and noticed the same. In video he speaks of χ pronuntiation after 10th century AD but in the spreadsheet I see it from 1st century AD onwards... I am reading it wrong? Can you please confirm this @polýMATHY? Thanks in advance :)
@@polyMATHY_Luke Good of you to admit of changing position. Too few people do this. Especially publicly.
Beeing Greek and hearing wrong pronunciations on a daily basis in university, your channel is like an oasis of knowledge 😊👍🏼great channel φίλε μου
Ευχαριστώ πολύ
Εύγε!
As a Greek, I've always felt that efforts to reconstruct the Ancient Greek pronunciation were influenced by the researcher's native language, id est by their accent, which was noticeable in any "Ancient Greek" speech sample of theirs.
However, judging not only by the last "χαίρε" that sounded Greek to me (no pun intended), but also by the rest of your research and presentation, I'm glad to say that your approach is more authentic than others and that it sounds more natural to me!
Ευχαριστώ πολύ, καλή συνέχεια στο έργο σου!
Thank you very much, keep up the good work!
Ευχαριστώ πολύ, φίλε μου! 😃 If you like that, you’ll love this video: ruclips.net/video/Dt9z5Gvp3MM/видео.html
It explains how I pronounce Ancient Greek, which heavily favors the Modern Greek accent.
I know there are different pronunciations in Greek - (5) Pede vs Pende, etc. - but how accurate can it be that the pronunciation has changed so much?
Did Κοινή actually evolve from Κόϊναι?
And wasn’t κοινή taught in Greek schools up until the 1970’s or so?
I feel like a Latin language speaker simply did their best to guess what Greek sounded like while Greeks were isolated from the West during 400 years of Turkish occupation.
I know the Greeks didn’t forget how to speak it.
I learned Greek in college (classical) and had no idea the sounds had changed so much. Fascinating
i believe that this is highly subjective. i dont think that they have changed that much.
@@dimk735 We can agree to disagree. Most sounds are pretty much the same but I do remember someone I knew who majored in classic Greek trying to learn modern Greek pronunciation and they were completely thrown off and could not adjust. Especially with words like σεαυτον. I remember watching a film where they said that word and it did not click what word they were saying until I read the subtitles.
@@nessie4215 thats what i am saying, in order to say that it changed a lot you need to have a point of comparison. it changed a lot compared to what? anyway, i can see your point. may i ask what pronunciation are you and your acquainted using?
@@dimk735 oh gosh, it's been quite a while since I have been in college. I can't remember the exact name or time period but I do remember it was truly the ancient pronunciation before the changes occured during Koine (I think that's what it was called, sorry been a while). I've never met anyone who didn't understand what I was saying though by saying classic Greek but I get wanting to be specific. Like I said we can agree to disagree. Not that serious lol
@@nessie4215 i just wanted to know what pronunciation you used in order to understand how you would be heard by a modern greek. i am not a classicist, so i cant claim i know vowel changes and all that stuff, but from what little i do know, i have understood that the erasmian pronunciation(the one you used most probably) is wrong. anyway, i am not here to be the know-all. from my perspective as a modern greek native speaker, this pronunciation here, that Luke is using is understandable.(i believe this is 3rd or 2nd century bc, so its not attic greek but still very ancient)
ruclips.net/video/iyqIRhxAvzM/видео.html
Me saying hello to everyone after AC Odessey : Khiere
Lol
throws up in greek
I love saying it ever since that game
Yep. Where I came from too. Just sounds great to say
That is for singular.
The 'mismash' pronunciation is what I was taught at school, here's the justification for it:
- The aspirates are difficult to distinguish for anglophones, so khi, phi and theta get their modern pronunciations
- However, the vowel and diphthong changes in modern Greek produce confusing homophones
- We are learning in order to read, not to accurately speak, the language
That said, it's fascinating 40+ years later to learn all these details and subtleties, and I'm so glad to have discovered Luke's work
as a greek native i always was fascinated by how the ancients(οι αρχαίοι ημών πρόγονοι) spoke.By learning the ancient pronuniations as a teen (now 23) and also learning about other languages as well helped understand that a language is a living organism constantly changing
Also by learning about the ancient pronounciation helped me understand why all those different accents and words were used throught all the greek accents and dialects that i heard from my grand parents( from amorgos island from my father and from asia minor(constantinople+smyrna) from my mother) and from my trips traveling throught Greece because of my mandatory military service.
There are many accents out there that still preserve those sounds,sadly they are getting lost in this time of homogeny and streamlining
Also i am a firm believer that we should bring back kathareuousa as to my eyes and ears seems more elegant.Having being taught many phrases from my parents and grand parents that actaually used it in the 50s 60s....etc
As always great video.
Thank you.
@ΤηεΒεστ ΟφΜε sure sure good point but to put it simply I am not a big fan of what happens in Greek and also other languages through the world, the over simplification is that I don't like and people's vocabulary being poorer and poorer as to the only way to grasp something or fathom it is by the ability to construct it with words in your mind
And before you say but Sad pepechu(Λεωνίδας is my name) languages were always simply fired for the masses I'd say you are correct but we live in a time when you have the human knowledge at the palm of your hand and channels like this one exist and are totally free . What a time to be alive
συγχαρητήρια !
My man! I also wish Katharevousa came back but not the way it was before. Let's keep the monotonic alphabet and modern grammar but come up with new, Greek words, instead of adopting English words left and right
Well don't forget that the official language that we learn in school and it is used on official matters and media is not the demotic greek form but is the modern greek language (Νεοελληνική γλώσσα) which is actually a mixture of the kathareuousa or loyia (λόγια) form of the language with demotic and a more modern way pronouncing words. Also, the modern greek language was written in polytonic for a some time until 1982 when it turned to monotonic. I think that the current official form of the modern Greek language must be continued but with the introduction of more loyia form vocabulary and forms of kathareuousa in it and also switch from monotonic to polytonic for traditional and historical continuation of the Hellenic language and also because it is a better look writing system.
@@stgr0186 languages change to the worst too so we must be free to chose to speak greek language not ONLY an englishturkishalbanian Pidgin or a modern version of something that is more and more less greek too.
Have you considered making a video of how the different gods and mythological creatures were pronounced?
I'm curious how far the English versions are from the original Greek.
very, very far.
From Wiktionary, a few examples, comparing 5th century BCE Attic to modern English:
Zeus (Ζεύς) was *probably* /zděu̯s/, “zděhwss”, with a rising tone and a very un-English combination of initial /zd/ an /eu̯/ diphthong. Compare this to modern English /zuːs/ “zooss”. We kept the first and last consonants but we reduced everything in between down to /uː/.
Athena (Ἀθηνᾶ) was /atʰɛːnâː/, that is, a-tʰeh-NÂ with an aspirated /tʰ/ as described in the video, an /ɛː/ a bit like in “bed”, and stress on the final syllable with a falling pitch. This is massively different to modern English /əˈθiːnə/ “ə-THEE-nə”, where we have turned the Ancient Greek plosive “tʰ”/“t-h” into a fricative “th” also reduced both unstressed vowels to schwa /ə/ “uh”.
Finally, Hephaestus (Ἥφαιστος), in Attic /hɛ̌ː.pʰai̯s.tos/, that is, HĚ-pice-toss, again with an aspirated plosive /pʰ/ as described in the video. Compare this to English /hɪˈfiːstʊs/ “hih-FEECE-tus” or /hɪˈfɛstʊs/ “hih-FESS-tus”. Both pronunciations have moved the stress to the second vowel, lost the “eye” pronunciation of the middle vowel, and turned the Greek /pʰ/ into /f/. Both also use a Latinised pronunciation.
@@caenieve you’re strange
@@thorodinson6649 grass is green, the sun rises in the morning, if you drop a glass it shatters, and I am, indeed, quite strange.
@@caenieveEhhh…we didn’t “reduce” everything in Zευς. By the time Latin loaned it, it was already /ẕːe̞us̱/. In English, the “eu” spelling is read as /uː/, and English doesn’t germinate or retract its sibilants or consonants of any kind, hence…/zuːs/.
Just discovered your channel. Fascinating stuff. Don’t speak any classic tongues, just modern Romance languages, and you really illuminate their continuity with the ancient language.
Thanks for subscribing! 😊 I'm glad you like it! Yeah, on my other channel ScorpioMartianus I do exclusively content in Latin. I also love all the Romance languages, which I study continuously.
Thank you, very interesting, as a modem gteek speaker I'm always fascinated with how the ancients sounded, you see. to have studied this deeply well done.
Evharisto poli! Thanks so much!
They have pottery shards of ancient Greek dialects before the rise of Attic where KH was used before it was replaced by X. Thus it is important to voice the "h" which most classical scholars neglect to do who, pronounce X as K instead of K+H. "H" is after all, why X was eventually pronounced as H in modern Greek.
Right!
The digraph KH by itself just shows that it was a different sound than K.
We were taught in Biblical (Koine) Greek that χ was pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative, (/x/ in IPA). I guess that was wrong.
Hi! 😊 Well, it definitely becomes a sound in Greek at some point, but if "Koine" ends in the 4th century AD (which is quite an arbitrary date), then indeed, it's not a Koine sound. Truly, "Koine" and "Byzantine" are hardly useful terms since they span such vast periods of time. It's better to talk about the century, and the region if we know something abouth more local dialects. χαῖρε in 1st century BC and AD Greek sounded like the Classical Attic word most likely, but in the 5th century AD Greek sounded closer to the Modern word.
Χαίρε! Thanks Luke , really appreciate your wisdom that brings to life the glory of the Greek language.
I can't imagine if it is so different for us (Greeks) to learn our ancient language how more would be for you. But it is what we have to recognize to you. Gongrats!! It's really amazing and so preety!
That's an excellent video. The comparison between Classical Greek and Modern Greek is very interesting and probably quite accurate!
Πολύ βοηθητικό βίντεο!Ευχαριστούμε!
Ευχαριστώ πολύ!
It makes me happy that peapol from other countries have such a knowledge about our landguadge χαίρε φιλόμαθε φίλε μου!
NODS PRUDUCTIONS S ευχαριστώ πολύ! Ναι, μου αρέσει πολύ η Ελλάδα 🇬🇷
Καταπληκτικά! Έγινα συνδρομιτής σου!
How to pronounce “Hypetia” Greek ? 🆘 my mail sehilal@ gmail.com “HANGOUTS “ please help me
και πως είναι σίγουρο πως ηταν φωνητικά η γλώσσα στο παρελθόν;
@@zhaw4821 Χαῖρε πλεῖστον, ὦ φίλε Ἕλλην! Καλῶς μὲν ἐρωτᾷς, οὐ δὲ ταχέως ἀποκρί̄νεσθαι σοι δύναμαι. (Συγγώμην ἔχε εἰ ἀρχαίᾳ ἑλληνικῇ γλώσσῃ γράφω, ἣν ἤδη βέλτῑον ἔγνων ἢ τὴν νεά̄ν.) Οἱ γὰρ αὐτοὶ οἱ γραμματικοὶ ἔγραψαν ὅπως ἡ γλῶσσα ἀκούεται, καὶ οἱ γραμματικοὶ οἱ Ἕλληνες καὶ οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι. Ταύτην τὴν ταινίᾱν βλέψον εὔχομαι ruclips.net/video/c_Giy_LHAlU/видео.html
I am so so so proud of myself for being able to recognize that χαῖρε was chaire before the video started
Your videos are awesome, I love everything your producing. Since your drilling into detail, I feel like it'd be handy to not just say "this is the correct pronunciation", but also to go on to say, "here is the actual evidence". One one hand, there might be a hesitance to do this because people get lost on the detail, but on the other hand, this video is already so detailed, I bet people would appreciate exploring the evidence in more detail. I dont know, what do other people think?
What Dutch teachers do, as they themselves are taught to do so at university, is pronounce χ as /x/ and ɸ as /f/; χαῖρε is pronounced somewhat like [xɑɪrə] here. However, they pronounce θ as /t/, only because they don't have a clue how θ was pronounced in Ancient Greek nor in Modern Greek (and Dutch lacks a /θ/-sound). When I during my studies at university pronounced χ as /kh/ I was told not to, because they said that if I did the distinction with /k/ was lost - which is ironic.
Ja, het is heel ironisch! 😃 οἴμοι...!
The same goes for us in Flanders. Dutch application for Greek sounds I suppose.
Wat is dan het historische verschil tussen de uitspraak van χ en κ (tijdens de periode die we geleerd krijgen, dus rond 509 vCr)?
So what is the historic difference in pronunciation between χ and κ (during the time period we are taught, so around 509 BC)?
@@MattFyrm De χ werd destijds niet uitgesproken als 'ch' zoals in 'pech' maar als 'k' plus 'h', zoals in 'bakhuis'. In de vijfde eeuw ná Chr. ontstond de uitspraak 'kch'. Pas in de tiende eeuw werd dat 'ch'. De 'κ' werd rond 500 voor Chr. uitgesproken als onze 'k'.
At that time χ was not pronounced as 'ch' as in Scottish 'loch' but as a 'k' plus an 'h', a bit like how the word 'backhand' is pronounced, or even the word 'king' (at least by native speakers of English). In the fifth century AD, the pronunciation 'kch' arose. 'Ch' didn't exist until the tenth century. 'κ' was pronounced as Dutch 'k' around 500 BC.
@@yvanspijk oh wacht, nu ik er over nadenk doet nederlandse helemaal niet aan die h na de k. Dat is waar ik vast liep. Hoe dan ook, bedankt!
Oh wait, now I think about it dutch doesn't do the h after the k. That's where I got stuck. Thanks either way!
Você tem uma habilidade tão impressionante a respeito da sutileza da pronúncia de sons vocálicos e consonantais em diferentes línguas, que provavelmente você seria também um excelente professor de redução de sotaque para estrangeiros (estudantes da Língua Inglesa, especialmente, falantes de línguas neolatinas) que aspiram a melhorarem seus sotaques e suas pronúncias do Inglês.
The spreadsheet has changed, hasn't it? It now very much permits /x/ for χ as early as the 1 cen AD. In terms of useful: Turning χ into a fricative is useful to everyone who only is familiar to a 2-way VOT contrast (such as english speakers). You could however also pronounce as /ɣ k kʰ/, which is also only a two-way contrast in VOT on stops, and sufficently historically plausible.
Cheers! Thanks for the explanation.
Είσαι φοβερός! Χαίρε!
Ευχαριστώ
This makes sense. The vowel change from ai --> e is what is driving the consonant change from /kh/ to an affricate sound. Thus, the vowel change comes first.
Είσαι απίστευτο Luke! Ευχαριστώ για τις πολύ ενδιαφέρουσες πληροφορίες !
Ευχαριστώ!
Thank you for doing all this work and teaching people my language. Cheers from Greece!
Duhm you modern Greek pronantiation is on point ...!!
Ευχαριστώ!
Pleased to hear the pronunciation of the word from the ancient time the same as we learned it in Homeric Greek class.
This is just awesome. I'm learning Ancient Greek with my 8-year old daughter, as some of her friends have Greek origin and I've been playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and she's very excited about it. So I used ChatGPT and Midjourney to make her a schoolbook to Ancient Greek language. Pronounciation is a big question to me, and this really helps with perhaps the most important word.
Great! There is much more here which will help: ruclips.net/video/dQBpwKWnZAo/видео.html
You saved my day ! I was doing it in a very incoherent way, trying to make it sound more like "modern" greek ... What about a video on eta (é,e or è,ä, äi)??
I actually recommend this video
ruclips.net/video/Dt9z5Gvp3MM/видео.html
I agree about consistency of restoration of pronunciation. Such inconsistencies are present in English language when borrowing words. For instance "Mt. Sinai", the first syllable is pronounced using English phonology -- "sigh" -- while the second syllable is pronounced with a "restored" pronunciation - "nigh".
We should either pronounce it as
"sigh-nay" (English phonology)
OR
"see-nigh" (Continental Eur phon)
I agree when the correct pronunciation still exists that you should use the one which fits your sensibilities, but prescriptivism isn't useful either. I have never heard the two pronunciations you have suggested in natural speech, so the borrowed word is now naturally /'saɪnaɪ/ in English.
TL;DR, say /'saɪnαɪ/ when speaking in English,
say /si'na/ when speaking Greek
say /sinaj/ when speaking Hebrew.
Off course. The pronunciations which I wrote down do not exsist. Not in the modern speech, at least. I believe that "Sinai" went through partial assimilation. I merely underlined the inconsistency present here.
I pronounce χαῖρε as in Modern Greek, but I used to pronounce it with the fricative and the diphthong. My aim was not to reconstruct Ancien Greek pronunciation. I pronounced letters so as to to differentiate them as much as possible. I wanted to be able to determine the spelling of the Greek word just by the way I pronounced it.
This will help ruclips.net/video/Dt9z5Gvp3MM/видео.html
At this pace, in a century or two more, absolutely all vowels and diphtongs in Greek will be pronounced [ i ]
Συγχαρητήρια Luke. Εξαιρετική επιστημονική γνώση.
Interesting that 'ai' tends to become 'open e' in many languages. In my language (at least in my dialect), 'ai' has become open 'e' in colloquial speech while the formal and written language still retains the 'ai' diphtong. And 'au' (formal) becomes 'o' (informal) just like in French.
And what language would that be?
I always wondered how the “αι”, “ει” and “οι” or “αυ” and “ευ” pronounced in antiquity. Is your pronunciation of “koine” («κοινή») Erasmian? We know from Thucydides that the ancient Athenians must have pronounced the words «λοιμός»(disease) and «λιμός»(famine) the same way, since the prophesy was ambiguous to them. Thoughts?
Thank you!
Awesome !!! Thanks
Without any expertise, just some introspective thinking I did, I came to the conclusion that οι was pronounced not as oe but as a combination of the two, œ.
Voice ι, then just form o with your lips. Sounds french.
As few people knew how to write, each village had a different pronounciation.
So fοΐκος στα hΟμηρικά
œκος στα Κλασσικά
ίκος στα hΕλληνιστικά
My assumption is that he pronounced it that way because that's the most popular way to say it, that way everyone knows what he's talking about. But, yeah, I caught that too: guy makes video correcting pronunciation of a Greek word, and utterly mangles another Greek word in the same video. Thanks, Erasmus!
@@ProslepsisStuff It's the way he says it. See the table.
The problem for me is that the way you pronounce the unaspirated k at 6:57 sounds g to me. I thought that in my native Portuguese all k sounds were unaspirated but now I’m not so sure. Do we aspirate them sometimes? I don’t know.
They’re not. Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish, for example, lightly aspirate /k t p/, to increase the phonetic contrast with /g d b/. In Ancient Greek, you have to decrease the voice onset time (make more voiced) the /g d b/, completely devoice and deaspirate the /k t p/, and give a positive voice onset time to the aspirated stops.
Do you have any videos on the strange TONAL system of Ancient Greek, or the supposed system? Many books say ancient Attic greek was pitch-tonal , but I never heard anyone actually showing how to use those tone distinctions in real audio.
Yes! I have this old video, that is unlisted since it nera to be redone. But it should get you started Pitch Accent in Ancient Greek - what I do
ruclips.net/video/v6Fj8gdjsNs/видео.html
Sweet! Thank you fire this and the chart!
Terrific spreadsheet! The diachronic and synchronic synopsis is invaluable.
The slower change of the digraph ει to /i:/, when followed by a vowel, was always right there before my eyes when I was reading transliterated Greek names in Latin, but I never realized it until now.
The general vowel shift during the 4th century BC is also clearly evident in your table, speaking of which, I wonder whether you think there are still reasons to subscribe to Allen's thesis that the change from /o:/ to /u:/, in Attic, happened before the 5th century and before the orthographic reform that introduced ου and ω, as well as ει and η, in Attic spelling.
Grazie mille per il risposto! 😊 Yes! It's really quite fascinating. Latin helps corroborate the ει change in addition to the ancient Greek spelling mistakes. As for ου being /o:/, I can imagine this in the first part of the century (and I used that in my Seikilos video: ruclips.net/video/AL9KQ-trY00/видео.html ), but by the end of the 5th century /u:/ seems more likely for most speakers. Also for ζ, I believe this is best rendered /z:/ for Classical Attic as well, since it was already generalized right at the year 400 BC (though I still use /zd/ in my Athenaze videos: ruclips.net/video/rsKhcHpYk00/видео.html ). But getting a precise date is very tricky; we can be very accurate within 500 years; within 50 years is a challenge. 😅 Overall, I favor 4th or 1st century BC Koine as a kind of universal standard of Ancient Greek, especially the 1st century BC, because this is the way the Romans knew Greek and moved it into further prominence and permanent status. It's similar enough to Classical Attic pronunciation, yet also is a pronunciation appropriate for Biblical scholars. But just my thoughts. 😊
The Seikilos video is very impressive. When I was in high school (many years ago...) my teachers said that it would have been almost impossible to reproduce the correct pronunciation of classical Greek with the pitch accent etc. Well, you proved them wrong! For what concerns the change from /o:/ to /u:/, I'd consider it happening with the other vowel shifts of mid 4th century, for symmetry reasons. Well, being a physicist, I'm used to see symmetries even when there are none! 😅
I hope to see also, in the near future, videos featuring your recitation of homeric hexameters.
Interim bene vale, optime vir!
I admit that my pronunciation of Ancient Greek is anachronistic, but I've always been aware it's anachronistic. I knew everything you said in this video (not the exact centuries, but I could have guessed those). I was taught this pronunciation as a convention and as a 13-year-old, I wasn't exactly striving for the correct "historical" pronunciation. I've now more or less been following this convention for over 7 years, even though I know it's not correct because I've always heard it that way and done it that way.
My current Greek linguistics professor argued that it's not feasible to pronounce every sound in every text correctly because of diatopic and diachronic differences, so he made a distinction between the scientifically correct pronunciation and the conventional pronunciation. I've since corrected my pronunciation of ω to a more open sound and ευ to "ew", but I still pronounce ζ, θ, φ and χ wrong. (And of course there are the accents.)
However, except for some morphologic features and diachronic evolutions, the correct pronunciation was never very important because the education system here emphasises the passive knowledge of Greek. Until I went to university, I only had to be able to read Ancient Greek (and decline and conjugate the paradigms) and even now, I've only had to translate the occasional sentence into Greek to demonstrate my knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. This is one of my frustrations with how classics are often stuck in tradition and I think this teaching method actually makes it harder to fully master Ancient Greek (and Latin).
Right! You may appreciate this convention ruclips.net/video/Dt9z5Gvp3MM/видео.html
My question here Is: How is possible to establish those changes? I mean, what’s the methodology ? By comparison of ortography? Comparison with Latin? With words from other languages?
As a researcher of jewish kïnë (κοινή) Greek I wonder if this dialect was so powerful to modelate the future of global Greek lenguage
Please let me know your methodology!
I have a whole playlist on this subject: ruclips.net/p/PLQQL5IeNgck0hFZ5oEfTV1Zhp_xksAgCz
I frequently cite my sources, also linked in the description. Find those books.
@@polyMATHY_Luke thank you! Success in your work !
I love your videos 👍
Thanks, Larry!
Hi there.
In public schools in Austria we pronounce it exactly the way you don't like (modern chi, ancient ai). Our teacher was indeed interested in the correct pronunciation and did deliberately not follow some suggestions from the university to pronounce eta as "ee" (as in tee) like in modern greek, because the sheep, as indicated in an ancient children's textbook, would have made "mee mee mee" sounds which obviously they probably didn't.
But for "chaire" I would not consider this an "error", but rather a genuine dialect of ancient greek at the same level as german latin. Or the austrian latin in our days as the german public schools are in the process of abandoning the german tradition of latin pronunciation. So today only Austria uses the pronunciation which e.g. the latin masses of classical masters was written for (Mozart et al).
So if some scholars in the 19th or 18th century apparently decided to restore the ancient ai diphtong, but did not restore the chi sound correctly, I would think of it the same way as of the restauration of alto from olto in spain as you reported in another video: Incomplete but not wrong, or you would have to consider any roman language wrong, which is not classical latin, so to say. ;-)
Great channel, I just came across it! Best greetings from Austria!
Danke! Ja ich hab meine Meinung ein wenig geändert: ruclips.net/video/Dt9z5Gvp3MM/видео.html
Τhe attic pronunciation is the same the last 3500 years .. Ok
Thank you for your videos, very informative
Thanks so much for watching and sharing! 😃
There was variation in language within ancient greek language since city states spoke their own dialect. What we think is the pronunciation is due to later interpretations from Orthodox Church or throughout the centuries the universities of Europe, later mainly British on the 18th and 19th century were writing the textbooks on Ancient Greek.
You should see this video: ruclips.net/video/dQBpwKWnZAo/видео.htmlsi=bSqunFPomWD3huSv
Any videos of how Pyrrhus and the Molossians spoke their dialect? Also, how did they pronounce Χριστός in Byzantine times.
Hello! PLEASE How can i get the Excell from 0:32?? I would appreciate that soooo much!!
LukeRanieri.com
Nice video. I am learning Koine Greek for the New Testament in university. But I am being taught a mixture of ancient and modern pronunciation of the letters(some letters they pronounced in the modern way while others they pronounced in the ancient way)😂. So I have to figure out what they were actually pronounced(or somewhere close) in the Koine period.
Great explanation! Epharistos!
Dear teacher do you have a video about koine pronunciation
Dipthongs principally
Thank you so much
Hi Carolina! Hopefully I'll have time for that some day soon. In short, it depends on the century, and convervative versus more evolved dialects. The more evolved pronunciation is to pronounce αι as /e̞/ and οι as /y/, which would have occurred some time during the Roman Empire. The more conservative Koine pronunciation that I use is to pronounce them as /ae̞/ and /øy/, which I recommend for pedagogical reasons.
For more, see my talk on this subject: ruclips.net/video/c_Giy_LHAlU/видео.html
I like it so much; all! The content, cabal iniciative, the aesthetic! So amazing, exquisite! I love! 💓
That's very kind of you! Thanks :)
Can you show how the aspirated consonants were pronounced before consonants (especially plosives), because when I try, the difference between aspirated and unaspirated consonants disappears. Thanks.
Sure! I demonstrate that in this video with the living Armenian language: ruclips.net/video/BybLbHPU7Qc/видео.html
Mmmh, interesting. I leard the χ as a "j" in spanish and not a "k" (algo in spanish), I did pronounce the αι as "e", so thanks for the video. Do you have any video about greek vowel? Man I'm really enjoy in all of the videos je, and I need to leard the IPA.
Thanks! Yes I do! Here you go: ruclips.net/video/Dt9z5Gvp3MM/видео.html
_jiére_ would be more or less correct for modern Greek though...
Is this related to the word Kyrie, as in the Mr Mister song?
ΧΑΙΡΕ Ω ΠΟΛΥΜΑΘΉ 👋
Hi, I'm interested in the biblical pronunciation of the Greek of the New Testament, which period is the more probable to the people who wrote it?
This is what you want! ruclips.net/video/Dt9z5Gvp3MM/видео.html
I've been wanting to integrate it into my vocabulary since I started playing AC Odyssey recently. Now I can work out how to properly pronounce it
Hahaha, the Mele Kalikimaka at the end was the last thing I expected to hear! 😅
Dear Ranieri ... I'm look at your chart, the eta [ŋ] during the Koine period... how do you pronounce e: and ẹ? I can't find e: anywhere on the website. Please help, I'm doing a research. Thank you
Hi! Have you tried using Wikipedia? They have all these IPA values 😊
This is very interesting, but how can we know how the pronunciation of words and letters changed thoughout history, way before sound recording was available?
I explain in detail here: ruclips.net/video/dQBpwKWnZAo/видео.htmlsi=lXnMYfaK3zJVjNME
@@polyMATHY_Luke thanks. Will watch that now
Looking at Georgian and Armenian, we see that the aspirates were the mode when those Scripts were founded upon Greek and Coptic letters.
I love this! Io sono tedesco! So exact!
Are there extensive Byzantine Greek documents? Are they not mostly Atticistic, not following oral.
Your interpretation of the early Byzantine sounds pretty close to the Cretan pronunciation for x.
@polýMATHY any tips for learning how to distinguish/pronounce the various sounds of the International Phonetic Alphabet in the first place? The only way I can currently make it through reading that notation is by looking up English examples for every single sound used.
Thank you. As a Canadian American Greek speaker, I’ve always been puzzled by these things. Even my parents could not give me a clear answer. My question is, how do we know that was the pronunciation at that time? I know that a lot of things get figured out by rhyming schemes in the Iliad and the odyssey, certain things have to go with certain way for the rhyme scheme to work, but I don’t understand how the pronunciation of.Chi can be inferred. I would assume that the rhyme scheme works with both pronunciations. It would be cool if you had a video that shows how we derived these pronunciations.
Hi there, thanks for the question. I have a whole playlist where I answer in detail: ruclips.net/p/PLQQL5IeNgck0hFZ5oEfTV1Zhp_xksAgCz
Hiiiii, plz, plz, plz, can you tell me how one says the word for “underworld/earth”, χθόνιος in Ancient Greek vs Classic Greek?
Another possibility: [æ, æ:, æi] -- Note that when the Anglo-Saxons (Old English) adopted the Latin alphabet, before Ælfrēd the Great, they had Ææ called æsc (ash) like the rune, pronounced long and short, to distinguish it from Aa [a]. This was sometime around ±500AD. So Latin and Greek AE, AI may have been [æ] as in cat, apple, ash, or [æ] + [I]. (Compare how Americans say ]æu] instead of [au]. There's also (I've read) evidence that Greek dialects going way back had A in some dialects and Epsilon or Êta in other dialects, which would lend support to the idea that it could have been [æ] and [æi], but that it was in between A and E, and therefore difficult for them to decide how best to spell the sound. Besides, they could have had their regional dialects doing tomayto tomahto and ant-aint-aunt-ahnt on some words too. This could mean that AE and AI did have [ai] to [æi] to [æ:] going on in a gradient, but EI and HI could have been separate with a tendency to merge or diverge. [æi] then would tend to rain and front to [ei]. Note English during the Great Vowel Shift had similar things going on to the Greek vowel shift, so we have long open E going to [ei] or occasionally [I] with ea/e, and long close E going to [I] (ee/e), long open O going to [ou] (oa/a) and long close O going to [u] (oo/ou/u/o), with A being problematic thanks to Norman French respelling Middle English into Modern English, things going on with U versus EU versus Old English Y already going to [I], and I and U going to [ai] and [au], and long I/Y in English mostly spelled only with I/Y, less often spelled with two letters, and OU/OW often for [au] from former [u], because again the Norman French convention of OU [u] versus U [y, ü]. The comparison to Greek and English helps, and Æ may have been a thing for Latin and Greek. I almost wonder if Vulgar Latin and Common Romance had a sort of working class English / Cockney / Northern accent feel/sound to them. (I've read that photo-Latin also had a th to F change similar to the British dialectal th to F, dth tor V change. (I'm self-taught on any linguistics with some Spanish and several French classes, besides English lit.).
From which source do you know that the monophthongization of αι took place around 150 CE? As far as I know, it was much earlier for most greek speakers, and was the driving force behind the itacism of η and ει, causing the push chain shift ɛ: > e: and e: > i: .
I have a greek language problem to be solved. I hope you can help me.
How we pronounce κεια? Does word ι pronounced as i or its omited from vocal pronounciation?
So which one is the correct ?
Keia
Or
Kea
Thanks in advanced sir.
For modern Greek pronounce ει as i in machine (same as iota, same as i in Spanish words), for koine or classical Greek pronounce it as a diphthong, like ey in hey (Siri).
Pretty amazing video for the history of χ and αι of my native language across the millennia. Inta-sub :) Ευχαριστώ πολύ !
Παρακαλώ!
Is this word the one the angel Gabriel used when referring to Our Lady?
I don't know anything about Ancient Greek, but would χαίρε by any chance be related to κύριος (as in Κύριε ἐλέησον?) They seem to sound similar.
Interesting idea. No relation
I think the ρ is tapped (and somewhat retracted) ɾ, not trilled r in modern greek.
Absolutely; I wasn't concentrating on the precise 'r' pronunciation in my IPA transcription. I believe how I pronounced the words in my video is correct for the various centuries cited.
@@polyMATHY_Luke i would still recommend to use the ɾ symbol when you want to show the precise pronounciation.
@@TheJopeToons There is only one /r/ phoneme in Greek, and it can be both a tap or a trill depending on context..
@@TheJopeToons Sure. But my IPA transcription is broad ( / / ), not narrow ( [ ] )
Interesting to see that our German "ch" sounds the same as Greek χ, but with the determining vowel on the other side, e.g. -ich = [-iç] and -ach = [-aχ], maybe because there were different rules how the starting consonants of syllables developed in Germanic languages, so it could not appear at the onset.
VERY GOOD!
How do we know χ was pronounced more like a K in ancient Greek? You know that the two fricatives are part of the German language (spelt as ch) so I learnt to pronounce "χαῖρε" as chaire in school.
Here you go ruclips.net/video/5lcIcYFveII/видео.html
In the diphthong αι, the ι stands for the semivowel F so initially was αF pronounced as aw.
Thank you for the video, this was very interesting!! Can I ask how do we know such details like the change during Byzantine times? Especially since we are talking about a consonant. Do we find it misspelled in Byzantine times with a "κ" instead of a "χ"??
Actually we find those spelling mistakes earlier. And my more recent research shows Greek speaking languages pronouncing χ like Modern Greek in earlier centuries. We know this from books by Horrocks and Gigmac which show those spelling errors.
@@polyMATHY_Luke thank you for your answer!!
As a modern Greek speaker, I wonder how certain we can be about RanieriGreekPronunciation as there is a certain amount of dispute on the issue and we have no recordings or sound symbolics to know.
How about if, for some purposes, you declare that you are using an artificial, hybrid system, don't imagine that it is a real reconstruction of anything that was ever a real spoken language, and know how it differs from those real spoken languages? If it helps you learn and remember the basics, and can generate whatever other variety you are interested in, why not?
I'm teaching myself Attic Greek. Where can I find information on how the different accents change the sound of the word? Right now I'm pronouncing the acute, grave, and circumflex as though they are the same but I know that's not right.
Maybe this will help: ruclips.net/video/BJfKqy3fUDQ/видео.html
Make sure to turn on the subtitles, since it is in Greek.
I'm sure you could be a great coach on accent reduction for English students, specially, those ones who speak Romance languages natively. English isn't my first language, so please excuse any mistakes.
Roger Cham that’s a fun idea! I’ve done a small amount of work as a coach for ESL students.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Which would actually help me a lot, since I have a difficult accent to understand, and that can make working in a call centre frustrating. I remember one time, doing a car insurance job, and I had to ask someone 'how many years No Claims Bonus have you earned ?", but my pronunciation of ea in 'earned' is like ε, and the letter r, slides to the back of the throat, like in French. The posh English woman thought I was saying ulned or urned, and when she realised, and pronunced 'earned', the ea sound was like something between u and ö.
Awesome vid :)
In my opinion, it doesn't matter too much the way the letter khi is pronounced if you just want to learn the language and know the litterary works, since generally we don't learn Classical languages to speak them. I am a Brazilian language teacher/professor, graduated in Latin, but I teach Ancient Greek too and what I say to my students is that the "original" sound of the letter χ is the "English K" (cause in Portuguese It doesn't exist) but I also say that they can pronounce it like the "Spanish J" or the "German CH" (or even the "R from Rio", cause in Rio de Janeiro they use to pronounce the R, when it comes before a consonant, with this sound) just to simplify it. Since I use the italian version of the book Athenaze from the Vivarium Novum Accademy, I tend to follow their tips.
Some students insist in pronounce the θ as the English "th", but I always warn them that it's actually the English "t" which os aspirated while our "t" in Portuguese is "hard" instead.
With the letter phi I say that it's like the "English p" as in "pie" (which is also differenti from our Portuguese "p"), but to turn it easier for them (as I think it's easier even for myself) I advise them to make a "pf" sound like the German "pf" or even try to pronounce the F just using their lips (the sound [φ] as in the IPA chart). So, in the end of the day I tend to use these fricative sounds because I (and Brazilian people in general) have some trouble pronouncing these aspirated plosives.
But I know Ancient Greek well, I guess, as do my students xD
Oi! I have somewhat modified my opinion since making the above video. Please watch this one 😊 ruclips.net/video/Dt9z5Gvp3MM/видео.html
Hi Iam from Nepal thanks for the vedio my name is Ram
If I am meant to pronounce chi as an English k sound in attic Greek, how is kappa then pronounced? Would an English speaker hear the difference? Perhaps I'm missing something obvious
Assuming you know pinyin, kappa = g and chi = k in pinyin.
And no, just as English speakers cannot correctly do k and g in pinyin, the correct Classical Greek pronunciation escapes them
@@polyMATHY_Luke Thankyou very much for replying.
Do you think that "cere" and the italian "piacere" are related?
They are not
@@polyMATHY_Luke you got me thinking and trying to prove meanings like you do, I guess...
How about goddess Nike's name? (Nee-khé?)
It could be aspired because ancient Greek has numbers of semitic words khaire resembles a semitic salutation meaning good to you and it is pronouced with the fricative
Looking at the last update of your spreadsheet I could conclude that the “ xaire” pronunciation could have existed, right?
Help! The data in the linked spreadsheet seems to stop at column M!
Check the tabs
@@polyMATHY_Luke Brilliant - thank you!
I’m interested in learning Byzantine Greek, does anyone have any good information where to start, good books as starting information etc?
I’ve read much conflicting information from Byzantine Greek being close to koine that I should begin here but I also read that it was closer to attic As well as that it was completely different from both.
I’m unsure where to start, should I begin with koine, attic ir Byzantine Greek because I’m not sure of what their differences are from the information I have read, can anyone clear this up for me?
The Athenaze books will give you the best preparation: www.patreon.com/posts/36186862
ruclips.net/video/MfyHy-eOu1k/видео.html
I think you will find that most of the Byzantine literature is written in Attic, or an attempt at Attic & that just as in the WEst where writing continued in Latin (with disdain for the vernacular in writing literature), so the Byzantine writers wanted to write Attic. I took a course in Byzantine Greek & was thus disappointed.
Hello polymathy, love the channel and content! I was wondering if i could ask you how good you thought the ancient greek pronunciation of Alexander the Great and Theodora's Koine(?) Greek in Sid Meier's Civilisation 5 was?
Show me the video 😊
@@polyMATHY_Luke Thanks for the response! The two videos I was talking about were:
Alexander - ruclips.net/video/0h7p6r0I0PA/видео.html (ft. a nice version of the seikilos epitaph)
Theodora - ruclips.net/video/0T-t1k4qf2U/видео.html
Thanks a lot & love the videos!
Thanks very much! This seems like a really good idea.
polýMATHY If you're interested there is more in the next game 'Civilisation 6'. I think that has Alexander, Pericles and Gorgo. I think there is also Latin equivalents. I almost forgot about my favourite in civ 5 - Augustus!
ruclips.net/video/bspvbLB6QkI/видео.html
This is terrific! Is there more like this?
You great dude!!!!
For me, the vowels are wonderfully important for poetic works. As for the consonants, they are as important as they are in Sansrkit spoken anciently, as opposed to the modern way I hear it. But that's me. You can do what you wish, but even Early Modern English has bits and bobs that rhyme in the time; yet, no longer. E.g. Love and Move. And that's only 400 years ago. We no longer have "Wherefore" in English. But it exists in Russian. Again: Context...so many from which to choose. Decide and explore.
Hi. I really admire your videos. I wanted to ask you a question. How is the letter Θ pronounced in Attic Greek? As th or t? I don’t remember. Thank you!
As a aspirated t, that is, /tʰ/.
Great video! Correction Alexander the savage