[B-Greek] Rules for Modern Greek pronunciation of gamma?

Curtis Hinson curtis at curtishinson.com
Fri Sep 15 14:43:56 EDT 2006


While we're at it can you explain how to pronounce RHO properly?  I'm 
sure mine could use some improvement.

I tried to study in Thessaloniki at a language institute myself but the 
plans didn't work out. 

Bless the Name
Curtis Hinson
http://curtishinson.com

John Schwandt wrote the following on 9/15/2006 11:17 AM:
> Eric,
>
> The following is adapted from some material that I produced for my students.
> I'm sure a good portion of it is remedial.
>
> What I have learned from Modern Greek text books, my trips to Greece and
> Greek language courses in Greece is that Gamma has two sounds.  The first is
> exactly like the English 'y' as in year.  This is convenient since the two
> symbols look similar.  Gamma only has this sound when it precedes letters
> that produce /i/ sounds (as in keep) or /e/ sounds (as in pet).  Note that
> these sounds may not correspond with ‘e’ shaped letters (e.g. U has /i/
> sound in the Modern Greek system.  Here is a nice list of /i/ and /e/
> sounding letters, AI, E, EI, H, I, OI, U, UI).
>
> The second sound is somewhere between the English hard ‘g’ (as in gum) and
> ‘y’ (as in year).  Notice that the only difference for the mechanics of the
> throat to produce these two sounds is the position of the tongue to the
> throat.  For ‘y’ the tongue stays away from the throat, but for ‘g’ it
> touches and briefly seals off the airflow.  Because the air stops I call
> this sound the hard ‘g’.  The Greek Gamma does not have such a hard sound.
> The tongue moves up as if to touch the throat but doesn't.  The mechanics
> are the same for gargling water or for gurgling like a baby.  In order to
> gargle the tongue cannot shut off the throat, but it must remain close or
> else you will choke on whatever is being gargled.  Thus to make the sound of
> Gamma preceding any other sound than /i/ or /e/ sounds gargle it, but remove
> the bubbling action.  If the sound goes through your nose, that is fine.
>
> In rapid speech there is plenty of flexibility here.  Sometimes the tongue
> will hit the throat and make the /g/ sound other times it ends up closer to
> a /y/ sound.  But to the extent you get it right the better your Greek
> accent will be.  Gamma and Rho are the two letters I most focused upon to
> reduce my American accent when in Greece.
>
> Blessings,
> John Schwandt
> www.biblicalgreek.org
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Eric Weiss
> Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 8:12 AM
> To: b-greek
> Subject: [B-Greek] Rules for Modern Greek pronunciation of gamma?
>
> >From things I've read, the modern Greek pronunciation of gamma is basically
> a "y" 
>   sound before "ee" and "e" vowels and diphthongs (i.e., H, I, OI, U, E,
> AI), and a "gh" 
>   sound elsewhere - i.e., before consonants and A, O - but this may be a bit
> simplistic.
>    
>   This Webpage: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/greek.htm says: 
>    
>   
> Ã = [ã] before back vowels [a, o, u].  Before front vowels [e, i], it is
> pronounced [ʝ] and transliterated y 
>    
>   The symbol used before front vowels for the "y" sound is the International
> Phonetic 
>   Symbol that looks like a curly-tailed letter "j" - a fricative palatal: 
>   http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ipa.htm
>    
>   (Note: the characters all display in Firefox; some of the unicode
> characters do not 
>   display in Internet Explorer. I assume "front vowels" are those pronounced
> toward the 
>   front of the mouth.)
>    
>   In listening to Spiros Zodhiates' NT Greek CDs with the Modern Greek
> pronunciation, 
>   as well as to the audio files here:
> http://www.helding.net/greeklatinaudio/greek/ (main 
>   page: http://www.greeklatinaudio.com/), I notice that they often pronounce
> gamma 
>   with a hard g/gh sound even before E and EI - e.g., forms of GINOMAI.
>    
>   (Also: The greeklatinaudio mp3 files pronounce NT as "nt" - e.g., PANTES =
> "pantes" 
>   - whereas Zodhiates pronounces it "nd" - i.e., "pandes" - as it is
> apparently supposed 
>   to be pronounced.)
>    
>   My Berlitz tape of Modern Greek seems to pronounce gamma as "y" as I noted
> above 
>   - i.e., before "ee" and "e" sounds. When I recently attended a Greek
> Orthodox Church, 
>   there was a mixture, but the priest attributed that to some of the
> non-Greeks in the 
>   choir, and he basically agreed with the Berlitz pronunciation.
>    
>   So, what is the correct Modern Greek pronunciation rule for gamma?
>    
>
>
> Eric S. Weiss
>
>
>  		
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