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Pronunciation of Katharevousa?

Posted: May 11th, 2017, 2:20 pm
by Jonathan Robie
Does anyone know where I can find information on how Katharevousa is pronounced? Tables, books, Youtube, recordings ...

Re: Pronunciation of Katharevousa?

Posted: May 11th, 2017, 2:55 pm
by MAubrey
If Greek orthography helps, it's: καθαρεύουσα.

Wikitionary lists the IPA as: [kaθaˈɾɛvusa], which implies a syllable structure like: ka-tha-RE-vu-sa.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BA%C ... F%83%CE%B1

Re: Pronunciation of Katharevousa?

Posted: May 11th, 2017, 3:42 pm
by Stephen Hughes
The same as the speakers own dialect.

Re: Pronunciation of Katharevousa?

Posted: May 11th, 2017, 4:52 pm
by Jonathan Robie
MAubrey wrote: May 11th, 2017, 2:55 pm If Greek orthography helps, it's: καθαρεύουσα.

Wikitionary lists the IPA as: [kaθaˈɾɛvusa], which implies a syllable structure like: ka-tha-RE-vu-sa.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BA%C ... F%83%CE%B1
I wanted to know how to pronounce the language, not the name. I'm curious about how similar / different it is to Buthian pronunciation.

Re: Pronunciation of Katharevousa?

Posted: May 11th, 2017, 4:54 pm
by Jonathan Robie
Stephen Hughes wrote: May 11th, 2017, 3:42 pm The same as the speakers own dialect.
So the pronunciation does not distinguish ἡμεῖς / ὑμεῖς, rough / smooth breathing, etc?

Re: Pronunciation of Katharevousa?

Posted: May 11th, 2017, 5:22 pm
by MAubrey
Ah!

Sorry. My bad. It's the same as Demotic/Modern Greek. The differences between Demotic and Katharevousa were primarily lexical/morphological. As far as I'm aware, they was never a difference pronunciation.

All the pronunciation changes had already happened before the "language question."

No breathing marks at all (no initial 'h' ever).
Five vowel system.
Fricatives instead of aspirated stops (th vs. tʰ).
Etc.

Re: Pronunciation of Katharevousa?

Posted: May 11th, 2017, 7:05 pm
by Stephen Carlson
Jonathan Robie wrote: May 11th, 2017, 4:52 pm I wanted to know how to pronounce the language, not the name. I'm curious about how similar / different it is to Buthian pronunciation.
Just like Modern Greek. Think of it like pronouncing Shakespeare: you'd do it either with your own accent or with a prestige accent (e.g. stage RP). The Buthian approach would be to reconstruct the "original pronunciation" (OP) and use that. This has actually been done a few times; it makes some puns easier to appreciate.

Re: Pronunciation of Katharevousa?

Posted: May 11th, 2017, 7:59 pm
by MAubrey
Stephen Carlson wrote: May 11th, 2017, 7:05 pm
Jonathan Robie wrote: May 11th, 2017, 4:52 pm I wanted to know how to pronounce the language, not the name. I'm curious about how similar / different it is to Buthian pronunciation.
Just like Modern Greek. Think of it like pronouncing Shakespeare: you'd do it either with your own accent or with a prestige accent (e.g. stage RP). The Buthian approach would be to reconstruct the "original pronunciation" (OP) and use that. This has actually been done a few times; it makes some puns easier to appreciate.
(Thank you, David Crystal!)

Re: Pronunciation of Katharevousa?

Posted: May 12th, 2017, 1:15 am
by Stephen Hughes
Jonathan Robie wrote: May 11th, 2017, 4:54 pm
Stephen Hughes wrote: May 11th, 2017, 3:42 pm The same as the speakers own dialect.
So the pronunciation does not distinguish ἡμεῖς / ὑμεῖς, rough / smooth breathing, etc?
Only three Modern Greek dialects retain the upsilon as in the Restored Koine pronunciation (ie have not merged it to /i/) - Tsakonian, the Maniot dialect, and the Old Athenian enclave dialects. Younger speakers receive education in the standard 5 vowel pronunciation (rather than their dialectical 6 vowel system). Buth mentions from time time that the restored pronunciation of upsilon sounds dialectical. These are the dialects the restored pronunciation sounds like. The ου / υ variant that we see in the manuscripts of the Apocalyse is also in the variation between dialects.

In case you were wondering, what was an eta in Koine, has in some words in some dialects become epsilon. That is to say, that there have been two different tracks to Modern Greek. The upsilon has a wholesale change or retention (subject to differentiations between organic development and interdialectical borrowing and early ου / υ interaction both lexical and morphological) and Koine eta generally becomes /i/, but in some (not so common) cases becomes epsilon.

In other words, there are two tyoes of dialects in Modern Greek, the social / literary dialects - demotic and katharevousa, and regional dialects. You will find the Koine pronunciation in the regional dialects if you strain and mix them.

No spiritus asper in any Modern pronunciations so far as I'm aware.

Re: Pronunciation of Katharevousa?

Posted: May 12th, 2017, 9:41 am
by Jonathan Robie
Interesting details, Stephen! I see a good writeup of this here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Modern_Greek
A highly archaic feature shared by Tsakonian, the Maniot dialect, and the Old Athenian enclave dialects, is the divergent treatment of historical /y/ (<υ>). While this sound merged to /i/ everywhere else, these dialects have /u/ instead (e.g. [ˈksulo] vs. standard [ˈksilo] 'wood').
Here's a paper on the vowel systems in various modern Greek dialects that looks particularly good:

Greek Dialect Vowel Systems, Vowel Dispersion Theory, and Sociolinguistic Typology, Journal of Greek Linguistics 9(1):165-182 · June 2009.