[B-Greek] Beginners on B-Greek?

James Tauber jtauber at jtauber.com
Wed Nov 2 04:01:52 EST 2005


On 31/10/2005, at 10:29 PM, Bob Hart wrote:
> I do have a question for the group.  I read everywhere that we  
> really don't
> know how Hellenistic Greek (did I get that right?) was pronounced.   
> How
> then, or when and who, did the current suggested methods of  
> pronunciation
> come about?

Those who say we really don't know how HGrk was pronounced are  
generally using that as excuse for adopting a pronunciation system  
that is traditional but not authentic.

Let's first of all separate two questions: (1) how was HGrk  
pronounced by native speakers? (2) how should HGrk be pronounced by  
language learners now?

Regarding (1), we do have a fairly good idea. Differences of opinion  
on this matter are generally caused by that fact that sound changes  
didn't take place everywhere at the same time and so some people  
might argue for a more conservative or a more progressive  
pronunciation. For example, at some point in HGrk, theta went from  
being an aspirated t (the first sound in the English word 'top') to a  
dental fricative (the first sound in the English word 'thistle'). In  
many cases, it is clear that a phonemic change took place even if we  
aren't completely sure of the phonetic details. For example, early on  
in HGrk, EI started to be pronounced the same as a long I. We know  
this independently of just how high a vowel that phoneme corresponded  
to.

The answer to (2) will depend on one's relative prioritisation of  
factors such as:

a) authenticity to actual HGrk
b) naturalness as a spoken language
c) academic tradition
d) similarity to English (or one's native tongue)
e) one-to-one mapping between orthography and phonemics


James Tauber



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