# Alternative theories of Ancient Greek phonology



## Linnets

I've read some chapters of Antonius N. Jannaris' _An_ [_sic_] _Historical Greek Grammar_: in this book, the author seems to refute the Erasmian reconstruction of Ancient Greek phonology and considers it erroneous and too much divergent from Modern Greek (it's well-known that contemporary Greeks pronounce Ancient Greek more or less the way they pronounce spoken language). Recently a different but somewhat similar criticism is exposed in _Il parlato ignoto_ by Umberto Rinaldi, an Italian scholar who thinks the actual Classical Greek pronunciation was less different form Modern Greek than we usually assume. The book is out of print and unavailable in bookshops, but I was able to get it from a university library. What do you think about?


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## Hulalessar

I see the full title of the book is: "An historical Greek grammar, chiefly of the Attic dialect as written and spoken from classical antiquity down to the present time : founded upon the ancient texts, inscriptions, papyri and present popular Greek”. You cannot get a punchier title than that.

I know little about the phonology of Ancient Greek. I do know though that Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language which extended over a long period, so there must have been more than one phonology. The suggestion that Ancient Greek (however you define it) must have been more like Modern Greek (however you define it) than some think sounds rather dubious. If your starting point is the beginning of the classical period you are talking about 2500 years. That is a long time in the history of a language. Compare the French of today with the Latin of Cicero and how the phonologies of the various Romance languages differ from each other.

How exactly ancient languages were pronounced is never going to be agreed upon by those who study them, not least because there is insufficient information. Where there is a paucity of information theories abound. If Demosthenes were to return and do a little orating I suspect many would be confounded.


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## S.V.

Going back to some reconstructions, while I searched your author (EN). He can search for "diphthongs"+"romayka" (or _romeika_).

Two were _Demodokus' Song About Ares and Aphrodite_, _Reciting Homer - Iliad book 6_. At times one may hear a Vedic chant.


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## apmoy70

Linnets said:


> I've read some chapters of Antonius N. Jannaris' _An_ [_sic_] _Historical Greek Grammar_: in this book, the author seems to refute the Erasmian reconstruction of Ancient Greek phonology and considers it erroneous and too much divergent from Modern Greek (it's well-known that contemporary Greeks pronounce Ancient Greek more or less the way they pronounce spoken language). Recently a different but somewhat similar criticism is exposed in _Il parlato ignoto_ by Umberto Rinaldi, an Italian scholar who thinks the actual Classical Greek pronunciation was less different form Modern Greek than we usually assume. The book is out of print and unavailable in bookshops, but I was able to get it from an university library. What do you think about?


Ιs he the linguist who started his academic career in Greece and successfully expanded his resume by studying philology in Leipzig and Marburg in Germany? He died in 1909 so he is the product of the previous to the last, century.

Concerning the Erasmian pronunciation, no serious modern linguist accepts it as god's verdict, Erasmus tried really hard -based on the material he had at hand- to reconstruct the ancient pronunciation (bear in mind that in his era, students of Greek used the modern phonology, as the revival of Greek studies was triggered by the emigration of Greek speaking scholars to major western European centers of _studia humanitatis_ following the Ottoman capture of Constantinople. These scholars like Demetrios Chalkokondyles, Ioannes Chrysoloras, Ioannes Argyropoulos, Nikolaos Leonikos etc. spoke Greek by using the modern pronunciation).

I personally am convinced that the Classical pronunciation is not the modern one, for one simple reason, the language of Classical Athens is at least two millenia away from us, no language uses a fossilised pronunciation for such a long time. Even the most conservative one. Of course no Athenian from 460 BCE is alive today, so we can't be sure 100% about the ancient Greek phonology.
However, linguistics is a scientific discipline, and there are a few ways to determine, or at least, to reconstruct the phonology of 5th c. BCE Classical Athens based on various sources:

1) Ancient Greek poetry & metrical texts. Poetry just proves which words rhyme.
2) Backwards reconstruction based on MoGr dialects.
3) Descriptions of how to pronounce certain words by ancient authors, and the spelling mistakes of the same words we see in Greek places as geographically peripheries to the Greek speaking centre.
4) Comparative linguistics (diachronic development of IE languages per example).

There's a very good YT channel called podium-arts, which is the best attempt so far, to reconstruct the Classical pronunciation of Greek by a native Modern Greek speaker. Give it a shot.

Apologies for a looong and tiring "dissertation"


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## Linnets

apmoy70 said:


> There's a very good YT channel called podium-arts, which is the best attempt so far, to reconstruct the Classical pronunciation of Greek by a native Modern Greek speaker. Give it a shot.


Sounds really good, thank you!


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## Perseas

apmoy70 said:


> Concerning the Erasmian pronunciation, no serious modern linguist accepts it as god's verdict


Also, no serious modern linguist rejects it, in contrast they accept it as a decent attempt to reconstruct the ancient pronunciation. Isn't it right?


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## Hulalessar

apmoy70 said:


> 1) Ancient Greek poetry & metrical texts. Poetry just proves which words rhyme.
> 2) Backwards reconstruction based on MoGr dialects.
> 3) Descriptions of how to pronounce certain words by ancient authors, and the spelling mistakes of the same words we see in Greek places as geographically peripheries to the Greek speaking centre.
> 4) Comparative linguistics (diachronic development of IE languages per example).


1) Not much Ancient Greek poetry rhymed.

2) The snag with that is dialects which have died out unrecorded are not taken into account.

3) Will give some clues.

4) Subject to the same limitations as 2)

Since linguists have not reached agreement, it suggests that we have insufficient information. With the information available the best that can be done is to make an educated guess.


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## Perseas

Hulalessar said:


> Since linguists have not reached agreement, it suggests that we have insufficient information. With the information available the best that can be done is to make an educated guess.


I'd say it's just the opposite. The consensus view of linguists is that the Erasmian pronunciation is basically reliable.


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## Hulalessar

Perseas said:


> I'd say it's just the opposite. The consensus view of linguists is that the Erasmian pronunciation is basically reliable.


Post 1 says that at least two scholars disagree with Erasmus.


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## Perseas

Hulalessar said:


> Post 1 says that at least two scholars disagree with Erasmus.


I don’t know if they disagree with one, two or more aspects of Erasmus’ approach. I would like to know. 
In any case, the Erasmian pronunciation is considered the mainstream approach nowadays.


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## apmoy70

Perseas said:


> Also, no serious modern linguist rejects it, in contrast they accept it as a decent attempt to reconstruct the ancient pronunciation. Isn't it right?


Erasmian was religiously followed in the UK (I'm not familiar with US academic institutions) but it has slowly given way to the Allen's systematic reconstruction which is not the Erasmian (named after the Cambridge linguistics professor William Sidney Allen; there's a Greek translation of his work Vox Graeca if you're interested)


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## Perseas

apmoy70 said:


> Erasmian was religiously followed in the UK (I'm not familiar with US academic institutions) but it has slowly given way to the Allen's systematic reconstruction which is not the Erasmian (named after the Cambridge linguistics professor William Sidney Allen; there's a Greek translation of his work Vox Graeca if you're interested)


Τhanks, I knew about Allen's book, but are Allen's and Erasmus' approaches so different? I thought they were close or Allen's reconstruction was based on Erasmus'.


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## bearded

At Italian ''Classical Lyceums'' a famous example is often given to students in order to illustrate some differences between Ancient and Modern Greek pronunciation:

An Anc.Greek author (I forgot which one) reported sheep uttering the sound ''βη βη''. According to modern pronunciation, that would result in /vee vee/ (English spelling), or [vii vii]. Now, in spite of many centuries that have elapsed, it seems unlikely that sheep have changed their way of bleating in the meantime... So that should tell us someting as concerns - at least - the letters beta/vita and eta/ita and the way they were pronounced in ancient times.

I find it a bit strange that nobody mentioned that example in this thread so far.


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## Perseas

bearded said:


> An Anc.Greek author (I forgot which one)


It was Cratinus. But it was Aldus Manutius who pointed out this βη _βη_, which lead him to the conclusion that some letters were pronounced differently in Ancient Greek.

On this page (unfortunately it's only in Greek), you can hear how Greek letters and some words were pronounced in antiquity. The text was based on the projects by Allen W.C. and Petrounias E.
Ελένη Αντωνοπούλου: Η προφορά της αρχαίας Ελληνικής (2007)


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## bearded

Perseas said:


> On this page


If I click on your link, only the ''Portal'' home page appears..


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## Perseas

bearded said:


> If I click on your link, only the ''Portal'' home page appears..


Hm, can you see a Greek flag on the top right corner? Click on it!


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## bearded

Perseas said:


> Hm, can you see a Greek flag on the top right corner? Click on it!


Found! Many thanks / s'efharisto para poly.


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## Ben Jamin

apmoy70 said:


> Ιs he the linguist who started his academic career in Greece and successfully expanded his resume by studying philology in Leipzig and Marburg in Germany? He died in 1909 so he is the product of the previous to the last, century.
> 
> Concerning the Erasmian pronunciation, no serious modern linguist accepts it as god's verdict, Erasmus tried really hard -based on the material he had at hand- to reconstruct the ancient pronunciation (bear in mind that in his era, students of Greek used the modern phonology, as the revival of Greek studies was triggered by the emigration of Greek speaking scholars to major western European centers of _studia humanitatis_ following the Ottoman capture of Constantinople. These scholars like Demetrios Chalkokondyles, Ioannes Chrysoloras, Ioannes Argyropoulos, Nikolaos Leonikos etc. spoke Greek by using the modern pronunciation).
> 
> I personally am convinced that the Classical pronunciation is not the modern one, for one simple reason, the language of Classical Athens is at least two millenia away from us, no language uses a fossilised pronunciation for such a long time. Even the most conservative one. Of course no Athenian from 460 BCE is alive today, so we can't be sure 100% about the ancient Greek phonology.
> However, linguistics is a scientific discipline, and there are a few ways to determine, or at least, to reconstruct the phonology of 5th c. BCE Classical Athens based on various sources:
> 
> 1) Ancient Greek poetry & metrical texts. Poetry just proves which words rhyme.
> 2) Backwards reconstruction based on MoGr dialects.
> 3) Descriptions of how to pronounce certain words by ancient authors, and the spelling mistakes of the same words we see in Greek places as geographically peripheries to the Greek speaking centre.
> 4) Comparative linguistics (diachronic development of IE languages per example).
> 
> There's a very good YT channel called podium-arts, which is the best attempt so far, to reconstruct the Classical pronunciation of Greek by a native Modern Greek speaker. Give it a shot.
> 
> Apologies for a looong and tiring "dissertation"


I would add also one important item: the pronunciation of Greek loans in other ancient languages, and how they were spelled in those languages, especially in Latin.


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## Apollodorus

I agree that in the absence of conclusive evidence, nothing definitive can be said. 

I’m not sure if the development of AG to MG phonology can be compared with that of Latin to Romance languages, though. Latin seems to have started off as one language among the many languages spoken in the Italic Peninsula and was later introduced to populations who spoke Celtic, etc., whereas the development of Greek was more local.

Obviously, some changes must have occurred. For example, in AG the bleating of sheep is _blēchḗ_ (βληχή) and is represented as /be be/ (βῆ βῆ), whereas MG has μπε μπε (Babiniotis, _Etymological Dictionary_, p. 891), which suggests that AG /b/ (Β, β) evolved to MG /v/ and the original sound must now be spelt “mp”.

But Erasmus’ reconstruction does seem somewhat extreme. One of the problems is that people tend to pronounce a foreign language in a way that is similar to their own mother tongue, e.g. Latin “ce” may be pronounced /ke/, /tse/, or /che/, depending on the speaker’s native pronunciation. This may influence any suggested phonology of the reconstructed language.

This reminds me of a (German) Latin teacher who insists that Latin in Ancient Rome was “spoken slowly” which I suspect only reflects the need of a non-native speaker to do some thinking in order to get the Latin pronunciation and grammar right.

So, I suppose for the time being it all depends on personal preference.


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