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Help[Facts] Ahem.....
in reply to a message by Christo
I beg to disagree on some of your points, Christo.
The accent you suggest as "ancient Greek" is in fact the so-called "Erasmian accent," i.e. a scholarly attempt to reproduce ancient speech devised by Erasmus a.k.a. Desiderius (1469-1536), a Dutch scholar. This invented accent has a very strong latin pitch to it, as some of the Greek letters (eg. theta, delta, gamma) are very hard to pronounced by most western Europeans. Erasmus
A comparison between the contemporary Greek accent and the artificial Erasmian accent can be found here: http://www.greek-language.com/alphabet/.
What the true accent of classical Athens (let alone Sparta, Crete, Macedonia, etc) was cannot even be a matter of speculation! Think of an English language scholar in 1500 years trying to reconstruct what English sounds like, when there are today diverging accents such as Oxbridge, Cockney, South African, Noo Yawk and New Joysey, Southern, Jive/Ebonic, and DownUnderish!
There is however one universally accepted fact: Greek words that begin with a consonant and have a "rough breathing" (daseia) originally has a slight "h" or "s" hissing to them, mostly lost in modern Greek. This is why the Greek word for water, YDOR, became HYDOR in Latin (as in hyrdoelectric), YPER became HYPER or SUPER, EXIS became SEXUS and so forth.
My personal bias is that it is more correct to read classical texts using use the contemporary Greek pronounciation rather than an accent devised by a well-meaning Dutch scholar. After all, Greek is a living language for several millennia, that has evolved in a pretty linear fashion. It never had to be resurrected from scratch, as in the case of Hebrew. Why? Pretty much for the same reason that we would rather Chaucer today using a contemporary English accent rather than some devised Pythonesque manner.
The accent you suggest as "ancient Greek" is in fact the so-called "Erasmian accent," i.e. a scholarly attempt to reproduce ancient speech devised by Erasmus a.k.a. Desiderius (1469-1536), a Dutch scholar. This invented accent has a very strong latin pitch to it, as some of the Greek letters (eg. theta, delta, gamma) are very hard to pronounced by most western Europeans. Erasmus
A comparison between the contemporary Greek accent and the artificial Erasmian accent can be found here: http://www.greek-language.com/alphabet/.
What the true accent of classical Athens (let alone Sparta, Crete, Macedonia, etc) was cannot even be a matter of speculation! Think of an English language scholar in 1500 years trying to reconstruct what English sounds like, when there are today diverging accents such as Oxbridge, Cockney, South African, Noo Yawk and New Joysey, Southern, Jive/Ebonic, and DownUnderish!
There is however one universally accepted fact: Greek words that begin with a consonant and have a "rough breathing" (daseia) originally has a slight "h" or "s" hissing to them, mostly lost in modern Greek. This is why the Greek word for water, YDOR, became HYDOR in Latin (as in hyrdoelectric), YPER became HYPER or SUPER, EXIS became SEXUS and so forth.
My personal bias is that it is more correct to read classical texts using use the contemporary Greek pronounciation rather than an accent devised by a well-meaning Dutch scholar. After all, Greek is a living language for several millennia, that has evolved in a pretty linear fashion. It never had to be resurrected from scratch, as in the case of Hebrew. Why? Pretty much for the same reason that we would rather Chaucer today using a contemporary English accent rather than some devised Pythonesque manner.
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Replies
Hi, Pavlos.
[I apologize to others I had to send my answered to Pavlos via e-mail.]
You wrote: The accent you suggest as "ancient Greek" is in fact the so-called "Erasmian accent," i.e. a scholarly attempt to reproduce ancient speech devised by Erasmus a.k.a. Desiderius (1469-1536), a Dutch scholar.
First, the new Greek accent is one of my suggestions, too. It is more familiar to me, personally, too. I cannot ignore other accents, however.
Next, the so-called "Erasmian accent" is in fact very close to the ancient Greek. The reconstruction is reliable enough.
You wrote: This invented accent has a very strong latin pitch to it, as some of the Greek letters (eg. theta, delta, gamma) are very hard to pronounced by most western Europeans.
I cannot understand you very well. The so-called "Erasmian accent" is not just invented. Rather, it is a reliable reconstruction. Latin has been used in that reconstruction. It would be so successful without Latin evidences. The other source for that reconstruction is the traditional Greek spelling.
I think that the new pronunciation of theta, delta, gamma is too hard for most Europeans. The new gamma is approachable by Greeks only. People speaking French, Italian, German, Slavic are not capable to the new delta and theta. In contrast, the Erasmian accent is familiar to all.
You wrote: What the true accent of classical Athens (let alone Sparta, Crete, Macedonia, etc) was cannot even be a matter of speculation! Think of an English language scholar in 1500 years trying to reconstruct what English sounds like, when there are today diverging accents such as Oxbridge, Cockney, South African, Noo Yawk and New Joysey, Southern, Jive/Ebonic, and DownUnderish!
I cannot agree here. Each language exists as a set of dialects. Even now, the new Greek is a set of dialects. So is English now (consider British, Australian, several Americans accents). So was English at Chaucer's time. So was Greek at Classic times.
Nevertheless, we can say which accent is now English and which is not. We can say which accent is Greek and which is not. Similarly, we definitely can say which accent was Greek at ancient times and which was not. For instance, at ancient times (B.C.), an accent without respect to the length of vowels definitely was not Greek.
[I apologize to others I had to send my answered to Pavlos via e-mail.]
You wrote: The accent you suggest as "ancient Greek" is in fact the so-called "Erasmian accent," i.e. a scholarly attempt to reproduce ancient speech devised by Erasmus a.k.a. Desiderius (1469-1536), a Dutch scholar.
First, the new Greek accent is one of my suggestions, too. It is more familiar to me, personally, too. I cannot ignore other accents, however.
Next, the so-called "Erasmian accent" is in fact very close to the ancient Greek. The reconstruction is reliable enough.
You wrote: This invented accent has a very strong latin pitch to it, as some of the Greek letters (eg. theta, delta, gamma) are very hard to pronounced by most western Europeans.
I cannot understand you very well. The so-called "Erasmian accent" is not just invented. Rather, it is a reliable reconstruction. Latin has been used in that reconstruction. It would be so successful without Latin evidences. The other source for that reconstruction is the traditional Greek spelling.
I think that the new pronunciation of theta, delta, gamma is too hard for most Europeans. The new gamma is approachable by Greeks only. People speaking French, Italian, German, Slavic are not capable to the new delta and theta. In contrast, the Erasmian accent is familiar to all.
You wrote: What the true accent of classical Athens (let alone Sparta, Crete, Macedonia, etc) was cannot even be a matter of speculation! Think of an English language scholar in 1500 years trying to reconstruct what English sounds like, when there are today diverging accents such as Oxbridge, Cockney, South African, Noo Yawk and New Joysey, Southern, Jive/Ebonic, and DownUnderish!
I cannot agree here. Each language exists as a set of dialects. Even now, the new Greek is a set of dialects. So is English now (consider British, Australian, several Americans accents). So was English at Chaucer's time. So was Greek at Classic times.
Nevertheless, we can say which accent is now English and which is not. We can say which accent is Greek and which is not. Similarly, we definitely can say which accent was Greek at ancient times and which was not. For instance, at ancient times (B.C.), an accent without respect to the length of vowels definitely was not Greek.
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Can you please tell me the exact pronunciation of the greek alphabet at the ancent times and describe the way you think they chainged. euxaristo kai perimeno.
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PS
The site below most accurately presents the Erasmian pronounciation:
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/OM/BA/pronunciation.html
The site below most accurately presents the Erasmian pronounciation:
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/OM/BA/pronunciation.html
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