It depends which dialect and which period. In Classical Greek, these are all wrong, in post Classical and modern Greek, you're closer. Classical Greek "a" is always the |a| in "art" (in BtN's guide "
Ah"), not "air", and eta in
Ianthe and
Xanthe had the sound in "air" (Eh in BtN). In post-classical (koine or biblical Greek) and modern Greek, it was iotacised, and is pronounced the same as a long iota, i.e. as in "fee". This is why BtN gives both the Classical pronunciation Eh-aws (Eh as in "air") and Ee-aws for
Eos. Sigma is not voiced to Z (Zeta) except before certain other consonants.
So, Classical Ah-reh-thow-suh (the Greek spelling is
Arethousa, indicating a diphthong as in "row"),
Roman A-ree-thoo-suh (A as in
Barry, as a result of umlaut before the iotacised eta - this umlaut affects
Ianthe and
Xanthe as well - and a shift in emphasis from the |o| to the |u|).
Classical EE-ahn-theh,
Roman EE-yan-thee (this character appears in the
Roman Ovid's works and may have had a completely different name in the original Greek-Cypriot version)
Classical Ksahn-theh, Roman/Koine Ksan-thee
Classical Eh-aws, Roman/Koine Ee-aws (rhymes with hoarse/horse)
This message was edited 11/16/2019, 7:24 AM