# Ancient Greek: φ



## Whodunit

Hi,

In English, foreign words borrowed from Greek often contain "ph:"

philosophy - _*φι*λοσο*φ*ία_
phrase - _*φ*ράση_
sphere - _σ*φ*αίρα_
sphinx - _Σ*φ*ινξ (?)_

I'd like to know how the letter φ is pronounced. Represented by [ɸ], one would have to pronounce it like a bilabial fricative. My Ancient Greek teacher, however, always pronounces it like the normal English _f_ or Modern Greek _φ_. Is this correct? And even if it were correct, why would we need to use "ph" instead of "f" in transliteration then?

Thanks for your answers.


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## judkinsc

Habit and a sense of linguistic purity leads us to spell it "ph," I suppose.  Personally, I don't want to spell "phoenix" or "pharmacy" as "foenix" and "farmacy" simply because I learned it the other way, and I see the latter forms as incorrect.

It is pronounced like an "f."

In "psi," however, the Greek maintains the "p" sound, which is often dropped in modern languages, except for French.  For example, "psychology" is pronounced with the "p-sycho-logy," while modern English usage renders it "sychology," sans "p."


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## Whodunit

judkinsc said:


> Habit and a sense of linguistic purity leads us to spell it "ph," I suppose. Personally, I don't want to spell "phoenix" or "pharmacy" as "foenix" and "farmacy" simply because I learned it the other way, and I see the latter forms as incorrect.


 
There has been several spelling reforms in German that want us to spell Foto (instead of Photo), Geografie (instead of Geographie), but not Sfinx (instead of Sphinx), for instance. I just wanted to know if there's some reason behind it why we should spell "ph" instead of "f."



> It is pronounced like an "f."


 
Okay, how come the Japanese bilabial fricative is represented by [ɸ] in the IPA? Isn't it that in Ancient Greek, φ was pronounced like an aspirated "p" and in Modern Greek like a normal "f?"



> In "psi," however, the Greek maintains the "p" sound, which is often dropped in modern languages, except for French. For example, "psychology" is pronounced with the "p-sycho-logy," while modern English usage renders it "sychology," sans "p."


 
If you want to elaborate on this, please open a new thread.


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## judkinsc

Whodunit said:


> There has been several spelling reforms in German that want us to spell Foto (instead of Photo), Geografie (instead of Geographie), but not Sfinx (instead of Sphinx), for instance. I just wanted to know if there's some reason behind it why we should spell "ph" instead of "f."


 There was a large change in English when Webster created his first dictionary in the 19th Century.  Post-Webster, the tendency in English is to adhere to a "purity" of the existing language and to not change it where it is unnecessary.  There is a minor movement to create such words as "thru" from "through," due to various occurances of the former caused by space constraints on road signs.

Technically, I do not see any reason it could not be spelled phonetically as "f"...however, I think it would be an insult to the language and classical tradition to do so...  Thus, we still have other words preserving their Classical spellings, such as "encyclopaedia" and "aesthetic," both of which have a ligature for the "ae," just as they did in Greek.



> Okay, how come the Japanese bilabial fricative is represented by [ɸ] in the IPA? Isn't it that in Ancient Greek, φ was pronounced like an aspirated "p" and in Modern Greek like a normal "f?"


 I am not aware of what the Japanese language does, never having studied it.  The aspiration of the _phi_ in Ancient Greek, in comparison to the "f" of the modern, seems to me a difference of stress, but not of quality.  It was simply more forceful in the older language.



> If you want to elaborate on this, please open a new thread.


It's a comparison for you, Who.


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## DrWatson

Hi,

At least Wikipedia indicates that φ was pronounced /pʰ/ (i.e. aspirated p) in Ancient Greek. The phonology table of Modern Greek shows no /pʰ/, only /f/, so φ is pronounced /f/ in Modern Greek.


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## Whodunit

judkinsc said:


> There was a large change in English when Webster created his first dictionary in the 19th Century. Post-Webster, the tendency in English is to adhere to a "purity" of the existing language and to not change it where it is unnecessary. There is a minor movement to create such words as "thru" from "through," due to various occurances of the former caused by space constraints on road signs.


 
Yes, because "thru" is shorter and more practical for signs than "through." In German, I wouldn't find "Filosofi" (instead of Philosophie) insulting or objectionable.



> Technically, I do not see any reason it could not be spelled phonetically as "f"...however, I think it would be an insult to the language and classical tradition to do so... Thus, we still have other words preserving their Classical spellings, such as "encyclopaedia" and "aesthetic," both of which have a ligature for the "ae," just as they did in Greek.


 
I don't think it is insulting to spell some letters differently when borrowed foreign words. Enzyklopädie and ästhetisch are the words I have grown with, and I have never considered them objectionable. And if you spell kindergarten with a lower-case "k," I don't find ugly either. Also, "doppelgangers" looks strange to me, but it's not insulting. 



> I am not aware of what the Japanese language does, never having studied it. The aspiration of the _phi_ in Ancient Greek, in comparison to the "f" of the modern, seems to me a difference of stress, but not of quality. It was simply more forceful in the older language.


 
Let's wait for other opinions about this topic. 



> It's a comparison for you, Who.


 
Oh, well, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. It was just a tip, so that the Mods won't scold us for getting off-topic.


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## ireney

"Φ" was first pronounced somewhat like P+ aspirated (with a rough breathing) H (the somewhat there is just because, since we haven't actually ever heard it pronounced it is hard to know _exactly_ how it sounded)

In the Hellenistic times "Φ" started being pronounced as "F".

I don't have any data available to actually back up what I am about to write but I have learnt that when such differences occur (like Ph becoming F) it is usually wrong to go about comparing the 'modern' way of pronouncing the sounds. Chances are that they were sounding more similar to one another  back than that they are nowadays.


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## mansio

Aspirated consonants are a feature of Indo-European. They are still to be found in languages from India.
There is not only the "ph" in Greek but also the "th" and the "kh".

I would like to know if the "ph" was already pronounced "f" at the time of the writing of the New Testament.


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## ireney

mansio yes it was. Koine (=common), the form of the Greek language used in NT "developed" during the Hellenistic times (after the conquests of Alexander the Great). By the time the New Testament was written very few differences still existed between the pronunciation of the Greek then and the modern pronounciation (upsilon's (Υ,υ) pronunciation being the most notable I can remember of right now)


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## mansio

I show you good (eu) grace (kharis), eukharistô.


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## J.F. de TROYES

ireney said:


> "Φ" was first pronounced somewhat like P+ aspirated (with a rough breathing) H (the somewhat there is just because, since we haven't actually ever heard it pronounced it is hard to know _exactly_ how it sounded)
> 
> In the Hellenistic times "Φ" started being pronounced as "F".
> 
> I don't have any data available to actually back up what I am about to write but I have learnt that when such differences occur (like Ph becoming F) it is usually wrong to go about comparing the 'modern' way of pronouncing the sounds. Chances are that they were sounding more similar to one another back than that they are nowadays.


 

I agree with you about how pronouncing "Φ" has changed during the times.
Some data back up the ancient pronunciation of "Φ " :

-Phonetic evolution laws (very specialised studies )
-Ancient inscriptions found out in Aegean islands, especially THERA ( 7th.BC ) use first a special letter ( the Phenician "HET" ), then  a "H" after "Π " or "Κ " to write down the aspiration:
"ΑδελπΗεος  " corresponds to Classical Greek " ἀδελφός  "
" ΔελπΗίνιον "    corresponds  to Classical Greek  " Δελφίνιον "
- Transcriptions from Greek to Latin:
"πόρφυρα"  in Latin:  "purpura"
"Φιλήμων " in Latin: "Pilemon"
From the very beginning both sounds "F" anf "P" exist in Latin; "P" is preferred to transcript "Φ " before the 2nd.BC., but later in Pompei (1st BC.) "F" translates "Φ" ( Fyllis ) .
 
We also know that from the 2nd.BC. the name that was written "Pilipus" untill then is being spelled "Philippus" and even pronounced "P+H" by some scholars or in high-class circles of  Rome. By that time pronouncing this Greek way was sounding great !
So there is no doubt that "Φ "  is an aspirated "P" in Classical Greek (5-4th BC); this gradually changes during Hellenistic times and it probably depends on places in the Mediterranean World and various backgrounds.


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## Whodunit

mansio said:


> Aspirated consonants are a feature of Indo-European. They are still to be found in languages from India.
> There is not only the "ph" in Greek but also the "th" and the "kh".


 
They are still present in German, too. Every consonant that can get aspiration it is pronounced aspiratedly in German. 



J.F. de TROYES said:


> So there is no doubt that "Φ " is an aspirated "P" in Classical Greek (5-4th BC); this gradually changes during Hellenistic times and it probably depends on places in the Mediterranean World and various backgrounds.


 
Thank you very much, Troyes, for your interesting answer. So, would you recommend that I used the pronunciation of an aspirated P for Φ in my Ancient Greek lessons? I will ask my teacher about this phenomenon, as soon as possible.


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## ireney

Whodunit what era are we talking about? 
In any case though do ask your teacher because linguists still have different ideas about how different letters are to be pronounced so better be on the safe side


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## Whodunit

ireney said:


> Whodunit what era are we talking about?


 
How do I know? Another question for me teacher. 



> In any case though do ask your teacher because linguists still have different ideas about how different letters are to be pronounced so better be on the safe side


 
My teacher is something of a linguist. At least, he knows a lot about etymology and different language families. So, it might be interesting what he has to say.


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## J.F. de TROYES

To stick to this point and as far as I know, Greeks are the only ones to pronounce their ancient language as they do right now when they speak. Unlike them most of  Hellenists use the traditional and artificial pronunciation worked out by Erasmus. How to make up one's mind ? By the way does it really matter ? Ancient Greek is'nt being learned to be spoken ; besides a restored pronounciation raises many problems, since one does'nt know accurately how some writing or other was being read in its time ( from Homer to the New Testament ! ).
Maybe we could have some respect for a couple of continuous and century-old phonetic features of the Greek language. Let'us try somehow or other to tell "Θ " and  " Χ"  from "Τ" and " Κ"  which were never mixed up by Greek-speaking  people, to stress the accented syllabes  which were always emphasized  and ( if possible ! ) to roll the rolled "ρ".  And what about "Φ" ?  It has been  a "F" for a so long time  and pronouncing "p+hilosop+hia " doesn't sound ridiculous ?


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## ireney

J.F. de Troyes you don't need to convince me at least!  The  reasons I am not even trying to learn how to _use_ the "restored" pronunciation are the following

1) Erasmian pronunciation (based on the work of two Greek scholars by the way) wasn't at first to be a guide on how to pronounce ancient Greek. It was just a theoretical work.
Up to then everyone pronounced ancient Greek as their contemporary Greeks. 

2) Now people say that the Erasmian pronunciation is wrong. Others (note the "s" at the end) have been suggested

3) If I want to be accurate to any degree I have to at least try to learn a different pronunciation for Homeric Greek, Classical Greek and Koine (biblical Greek). 
One could claim that using any sort of "restored" pronunciation is better than none. Maybe. I find going to all the trouble to do something that will not really be close to how they pronounced the language (btw I haven't mentioned different dialects have I?) is not worth it.


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## Outsider

Whodunit said:


> They are still present in German, too. Every consonant that can get aspiration it is pronounced aspiratedly in German.


Do you pronounce "chthonic" with two consecutive aspirated consonants in German? Or "phonology" with one? "Chronological"?...


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## ireney

By the way Χθόνιος is a word I would really like to hear someone pronounce as K+softH+T+softH without choking or sounding like he wants to disloge something from the back of his throat! (just joking)


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## Outsider

But that's not what the reconstructed pronunciation was (though I agree that the reconstructed pronunciation would be a pain to pronounce!)


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## J.F. de TROYES

ireney said:


> J.F. de Troyes you don't need to convince me at least! .


 
Sorry if there is a misunderstanding; I don't wish to "convince" you at all, at first  because  I am in agreement with you , as I said before. How to pronounce a language as it was in the past doesn't matter very much _practically_.  My mail was rather answering a Whodunit's question. Thanks for the piece of information about Erasmus's theories.


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## J.F. de TROYES

Outsider said:


> Do you pronounce "chthonic" with two consecutive aspirated consonants in German? Or "phonology" with one? "Chronological"?...


 
In this case the first one is not aspirated ;     Χ   was pronounced  K .


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## Outsider

Really? Then why did they write it with a different letter?


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## J.F. de TROYES

There has been several spelling reforms in German that want us to spell Foto (instead of Photo), Geografie (instead of Geographie), but not Sfinx (instead of Sphinx), for instance. I just wanted to know if there's some reason behind it why we should spell "ph" instead of "f."

The same in France. From the 16th. century there were many reform proposals and the poet Ronsard whished to sweep aside the "ph" and "th" he was calling  "the scarecrows of Pythagoras" , but none of these reforms came to an achievement, although they were generally moderate-minded.


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## Outsider

J.F. de TROYES said:


> In this case the first one is not aspirated ;     X   was pronounced  K .


 X (chi) was not pronounced like K (kappa) in ancient Greek. The former was aspirated, the latter was not.
If you wish to pronounce words of Greek origin as the ancient Greeks did, then you must aspirate both the ch and the th in chthonic. You must also aspirate the phi in photo/foto, regardless of how you spell it.
Hence my questions.


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## modus.irrealis

Outsider said:


> Do you pronounce "chthonic" with two consecutive aspirated consonants in German? Or "phonology" with one? "Chronological"?...



Chronological does have an aspirated k in English, but that's purely to do with English rules and doesn't reflect anything from ancient Greek. The other words there have fricatives so I'm not sure if aspiration applies to them.



Outsider said:


> Really? Then why did they write it with a different letter?



This is something I've looked into and I don't think anyone really know what the Χ in ΧΘ is supposed to represent phonetically. It could be double aspiration (which occurs in some languages) or it might be something else. The latter is possible because before the letter Ξ was introduced /ks/ was written ΧΣ (not ΚΣ) and there's good evidence that there was no aspiration in this case.


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## Outsider

I think there is good evidence that kappa and chi were pronounced differently from each other, and early Latin loanwords seem to indicate that chi was a kind of [k]. The spelling "CH" adopted by the Romans for it, and also some Greek alternate spellings (see the post by J.F. de Troyes in the previous page) point to an _aspirate_ [k] pronunciation for chi.


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## modus.irrealis

Outsider said:


> I think there is good evidence that kappa and chi were pronounced differently from each other, and early Latin loanwords seem to indicate that chi was a kind of [k]. The spelling "CH" adopted by the Romans for it, and also some Greek alternate spellings (see the post by J.F. de Troyes in the previous page) point to an _aspirate_ [k] pronunciation for chi.



I agree, but I meant the Χ in ΧΘ is not conclusively known to be aspirated.


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## Outsider

Oh, sorry, I had not understood you... or *J.F. de Troyes*, it seems!


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## Whodunit

Outsider said:


> Do you pronounce "chthonic" with two consecutive aspirated consonants in German? Or "phonology" with one? "Chronological"?...


 
You must know that German "ch" is always either [ç] or [x]. The other occurences (like [k], [ts] or [tʃ]) are exceptions. Here's what we pronounce your mentioned words like:

"chtonisch" = ['çtʰo:nıʃ]
"Phonologie" = [fonolo'gʰi:]
"chronologisch" = [kʰʁono'lo:gıʃ]

Letters like "g" and "d" can be aspirated, but they don't have to. Plus, it sounds more natural to aspirate voiceless consonants (except for [s/ʃ]). The sound [ç] can't be aspirated.


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## Outsider

In a very clumsy way, I was trying to comment on this you wrote earlier, Whodunit:



Whodunit said:


> mansio said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Aspirated consonants are a feature of Indo-European. They are still to be found in languages from India.
> 
> 
> 
> There is not only the "ph" in Greek but also the "th" and the "kh".
> They are still present in German, too. Every consonant that can get aspiration it is pronounced aspiratedly in German.
Click to expand...

Although German has aspirated plosives, like ancient Greek, I'm not sure they occur under the same circumstances in both languages. If I'm not mistaken, in German the aspirate and the unaspirated pronunciations of /p k t/ are allophonic: some appear in certain positions within a word, others occur elsewhere. This may mean that you will find it difficult to pronounce Greek aspirate consonants, which may occur in places where you would use an unaspirated consonant, in German.

I hope I haven't been too confusing.


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## konungursvia

I'd pronounce the letter you quote just like the first word of "Fee fi foe fum".


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## Whodunit

Outsider said:


> I hope I haven't been too confusing.


 
I'm afraid I can't follow your thoughts. It would be interesting to continue this discussion in the German forum, although I will try to answer and clear things up here:

If a word ends in a consonant, it automatically becomes aspirated and voiceless:

Hand = [hɑn*tʰ*] (hand)
Hantel = ['hɑn*t**ʰ*əl] (dumbbell)

If a consonant stands between two vowels, it is definitely aspirated:

Decke = ['de*k**ʰ*ə] (cover)
Waggon = [vɑ'*gʰ*oŋ] (railroad car)

This goes for the standard German language. I don't want to confuse you with my dialect, where we usually don't aspirate some consonants. Anyway, not to aspirate k, t, or p sounds like Swiss German (influenced by French) or Plattdüütsch (influenced by Dutch?).


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## Outsider

Whodunit said:


> I'm afraid I can't follow your thoughts.


LOL. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure I do, either. 
But I hope we have answered your original query.


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## J.F. de TROYES

Outsider said:


> Really? Then why did they write it with a different letter?


 

I cannot answer your question. What I know is that these grouping aspirate consonants differently originate from the isolated ones: "φ" is related to Sanscrit "bh" ,  "χ" to "gh", "θ" to "dh" , whereas "φθ " and "χθ " seem to be related to "Ks". About their prononciation nothing is sure, but  a double aspiration was impossible; we have an evidence of it  by an indirect way : In Greek two syllabes beginning with an aspirate cannot follow each other, one of them, generally the first, is unaspirated : The perfect of  " λύω" is " λέλυκα " , but for "θύω" and " χορέυω " it is "τέθυκα" and "κεχόρευκα " . The first thorical aspiration is off,  and the same  happens in all of the similar cases.


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## Outsider

I had misunderstood you before, but thank you for the additional information. That's very interesting.


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## Spectre scolaire

This is called “Grassmann’s Law”: Basically it is a “law” of phonetic _dissimilation_. It says that you cannot have two consecutive syllables beginning with aspirated consonants. The examples given by _J.F. de __Troyes_ are _perfect_ - if you excuse the pun - in order to show that Classical Greek had a distinction pluss/minus aspiration on p/t/k – exactly like in Chinese or in Indian languages. In Modern Greek there is no aspiration, and any attempt to explain Classical Greek φ as [f] is a waste of time. We should not forget that the Greek alphabet was a masterpiece of relationship between sound and letter.

Another example of Grassman’s Law is Classical Greek θρίξ, “hair”, gen. τριχός – and _not_ *θριχός. Exactly as in Romance languages, the Modern Greek word is derived from the accusative: Cl.Gr. την τρίχα is redefined as MG η τρίχα, cf. Italian pace from Latin pacem, acc. of _pax_.

Quite another thing is how you _actually pronounce_ Cl.Gr. φ _today_ when reading, say Herodote or NT in Germany or wherever. There are different conventions according to what is _pedagogically practical_ in different countries. I can’t see a problem here. The exercise is not to read it as Isocrates might have spoken. It is rather to understand the content of the text and to be able to translate it correctly.**


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## Forero

A few factoids:

However that chth was pronounced, there was nothing spelled with kappa-theta, only kappa-tau or chi-theta.  And who knows how they pronounced the double rho (with two different breathings)?

Greeks were made fun of by Romans who said the Greeks could not pronounce the Latin f correctly but more like a p, leading to certain humorous misunderstandings.

The phi symbol is indeed used in IPA for the bilabial fricative, which the Greek letter could have had at one time (between the earlier p+h and the later f).

Whereas most Latinate languages developed a voiced f (v) sound from the Latin v (and b between vowels), Spanish developed a voiced bilabial fricative and even, some say, an initial voiceless bilabial fricative for f, which later became and h and is now silent (e.g. fablar > hablar).


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## modus.irrealis

Forero said:


> However that chth was pronounced, there was nothing spelled with kappa-theta, only kappa-tau or chi-theta.


There are, though, some compounds with εκ that do give rise to κθ combination, e.g. ἐκθέω, but I'm not sure whether they say anything about the pronunciation, since maybe it was written this way to make the elements of the compound transparent.


> And who knows how they pronounced the double rho (with two different breathings)?


Similar to that is the fact that πφ, τθ, κχ are possible, e.g. Σαπφώ, but φφ, θθ, χχ don't seem to be, and maybe this is another indirect piece of evidence that in χθ, the first consonant was unaspirated and the second aspirated.


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