I speak English, Russian, German, Italian, and Modern Greek. I also know Ancient Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit, and I am very interested in speaking ancient languages. I can read literature in Spanish, Portuguese, and French. I also have studied many other languages to varying degrees, including the majority of historical and living Germanic and Slavic languages, Irish, Turkish, Japanese, Chinese, and Hebrew.
I absolutely doubt that it takes longer to to read Ancient Greek texts fluently than it is to read texts in Japanese or Chinese. I've been studying Japanese for 6 years now and it means learning absolutely everything from zero. I'm still relying mostly on texts with furigana because otherwise I can't look up and learn unknown words. I've begun studying Ancient Greek two month ago and it feels like come home. I must admit that my native language is German, so I've already been familiar with the case system and conjugating every tiny piece of the sentence. But I'd still say remembering the vocab and looking up new words is so much easier in ancient Greek than it is in Japanese, even for native English speakers. I just can't imagine a scenario where a native English speaker learns written Japanese faster than Ancient Greek, if they use the same learning methods for the same amount of hours per day.
Yeah, I'm going to be using a modified form of Lucian pronunciation. Modern Greek vowels have collapsed way too much to be viable for pronunciation. And I already speak modern Greek to a sufficient level to not be confused..
I really hope this guy comes back, because many of the resources that I stumbled into and the names that he referenced in his videos have been people who have been unbelievably helpful to me in learning French, Greek and German. Doing three different lessons in review format, one time through (8), two times through (9), three times through (10), and now the current lesson (11) is absolutely genius. When I do this, I go back-and-forth between listening & reading simultaneously and reading out loud. When I read out loud, I’m going line by line and sentence by sentence, checking the notes and making sure I understand it, but the going back-and-forth allows me to get many readings, multiple listening, and the analysis done over the 20 or 25 minute period that I’m working on in the new lesson.
I know this question wasn't directed at me, but I've watched a lot of his content, for years now. I think he's very intelligent and well-spoken, but his renditions of Greek sound far too robotic and artificial, as does everyone's. This is less his fault than it being due to the fact that reconstructed pronunciations are artificial by definition. They never sound natural. Language REQUIRES listening to grasp accurately, which is why I have no doubt that if Socrates or Plato could travel to our time and hear their ancient Attic phonology reconstructed, they would probably be very confused. So my question is, why should we bother with reconstructed pronunciations at all? We're lucky enough that Greek has survived to this day and has a natural, functioning, melodic phonology. Why not simply use it?
Great video! I am in total agreement with you on the use of the Modern Greek/Neohellenic pronunciation, and not just because I'm Greek myself. While I respect the meticulous work behind all the various reconstructed pronunciations of Ancient Greek, to me at least, they come across as artificial and forced when put into practice. Language relies on actually hearing sounds and repeating them, the human brain is wired to do so. To extrapolate the sounds of human speech, exactly, with all the subtle nuances and inflections and tones, from written texts alone is next to impossible. So, one can never know exactly how accurate he/she is being to the original pronunciation when trying to use one of these reconstructed phonologies. One must constantly look over one's shoulder, so to speak, doubting whether or not that eta was too long, that acute accent was too high. How can you be sure without a native speaker or voice recording to correct you? To add to that, eta is sometimes said to sound like the long e sound in the English "air" and omega like the o in the English "or", but which of the multitude of English accents out there is correct here? The British, the Americans, the Irish, the Scottish, the Australians all pronounce "air" and "or" differently, so who is right? Now, I understand we have evidences from various ancient texts outlining, for example, the difference between long vowels and short vowels, the nature of voiced/unvoiced plosives and aspirates, pitch accent and meter. However, these only paint a rough picture, like disconnected pieces of a puzzle, they are simply not enough to complete said puzzle and fully restore, essentially, the voices of people like Homer, Socrates, Plato and Plutarch. In my humble opinion, I think it is wiser to leave the data where they lie - in written print or carved stone etchings - appreciate them, consider them, but take them no further than that. Instead, we can use the one phonology of Greek that we have available, the one used consistently amongst all native Greek speakers, the one we have countless audio recordings of, the only verifiably correct system of pronunciation at least for one period of time in the language's long history: Modern Greek.
i take that as a challange, ive never fully learned any language yet but will learn this because of your words. Only the seeming flowing water can negate the path before me now into the strains of what is and what isnt.
I do agree, but however, i do think that this video seemingly has within it the assumption that it is a very difficult task to apply ancient greek phonological knowledge to modern greek, i personally think we should teach it all.
Why not just pronounce the words like they are spelled? I find this twisting of the clear holy tongue rather silly, even Greeks will tell you that the sounds of the letters are that of their names; 'Ah' for 'Ahlfa' 'We' for 'Weitah' 'G' for 'Gamma'. Very simple, as all great things are. Why would somebody change the pronunciation for a language? That's silly. What; did somebody just go up on a rock one day and said: "Henceforth ye shall pronounce 'We' as "Be" and 'Ih' as "Äh"", or what? Have any of these people got any proof of that? Because that's a rather extreme claim to make.
Imagine being so arrogant as to believe you could have formed a better sounding language yourself. Greek evolved this way naturally over millenia. These changes are not inherently bad or good, they just are. To consider iotacism as something "idiotic" shows your deep ignorance of linguistic development. Iotacism was not some modern day invention, it began very early on, around the 6th to 5th Century BC, with ει being confused with ι. Even η began to be confused with ι in the Attic dialect of 5th Century BC, specifically a subdialect which was actually spoken by the majority of Athenians at the time. Now if you're going to take issue with homophony, why don't you criticisize English? There are over 30 ways to write the long e vowel sound "ee", including: e, ee, ei, ie, y, ey and the rest. Modern Greek, by comparison, really only has three iotacized letters ι, η and υ. The digraphs are actually the absorption and silencing of the vowel before the ι, causing only the ι to be pronounced. Οι, ει, υι (rare), ηι (rarer). The exceptions are when αι and ωι are combined, which sound like /ε/ and /oi/ respectively. That's it. Feeling somehow superior because you (probably) use Erasmian pronunciation is ridiculous. It sounds cacophonous at best, hideous at worst.
Could you reference your source that shows that quantity of text is more useful than complexity of text for learning a new language? I am only finding the opposite.
Very nice. But why do you say the present passive participle is the only remaining declined participle? How about the past passive participle and others? For example, σωζόμενος, σωσμένος, ...
Nothing is ever really thrown out in the Greek language. There are also some active participles which still can be declined ἐνδιαφέρων, -ουσα, -ον. I also often see more formal variants like ἔχων, γράφων, λέγων etc. and it's declined variants
@@enyalios316 Exactly. There are also all sorts of perfect participles. Here is just a random example, clearly defined as such in wiktionary with declination and all: el.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B5%CE%BE%CE%B1%CF%83%CE%BA%CE%B7%CE%BC%CE%AD%CE%BD%CE%BF%CF%82
I have to disagree very strongly. Ancient Greek and Modern Greek are not the same language at all. Just as no one would argue that Modern High German and Old High German are the same language, despite having a continuous literary tradition at least from the 8th century onward. The differendes between the two Greek languages in my view far outnumber their similarities, acutally. Were is the infinitive of Ancient Greek? Where are the simple future and future perfect? Where is the whole perfect stem system? Most of the participles are gone too, as is the largest part of the third declension. No optative anymore. The aorist II? Gone as well, just like the dative. And it is very clear that the pronunciation has changed drastically, too. Not to forget that reading Ancient Greek poetry using modern Greek pronunciation is nearly impossible, as Modern Greek does not have long and short vowels independent of the accent. In a word like Σωκράτης, for example, Modern Greek pronunciation would make the only short (but stressed) vowel long, while the two long vowels ω and η would be shortened since they are unstressed. Basically, the whole system forming the basis of the Ancient Greek language would fall apart. Not to forget that so many endings vital for understanding what’s going on in a Greek sentence would be indistinguishable in Modern Greek pronunciation. Suddenly, βουλεύει, βουλεύοι, βουλεύῃ would all sound the same, which they certainly didn’t at any point within the timeframe normally used in education, i.e. the time from Homer to New Testament Greek. Indeed, I would claim that it is not really necessary (albeit undeniably helpful) to know modern Greek in order to pronounce Ancient Greek in a restored pronunciation, since almost all of Ancient Greek’s features can be learned from other languages as well, like unaspirated (and aspirated) plosives, pitch accent, retracted s. On the other hand, however, I would argue it is rather necessary to know Ancient Greek when trying to understand Modern Greek (as is the case in any language, since an older form of the language isn’t based on the newer one, which is not true vice versa): How would someone know when to use which letter to represent the i-sound, if not by knowing ancient Greek and its rules? And finally, although when speaking Modern Greek, Modern Greek pronunciation is undeniably beautiful and pleasing to hear, the same can’t be said, unfortunately, about applying it to Ancient Greek. A phrase like εἴ μοι ξυνείη, for example, which was pronounced in Classical Attic (noted without retracted s and pitch accent as RU-vid butchers those symbols) as [eː moi̯ ksyneːɛː], would in Modern Greek pronunciation give [i mi ksin'iːi], which is a lot less harmonic. Another example would be Σὺ δ' εἰπέ μοι μὴ μῆκος, which in Modern Greek pronunciation would be rendered as [Si d i'pɛː mi mi 'miːkɔs]. Not to forget that the onomatopoetic sounds of Homer’s sheep (μηκᾶσθαι) and cows (μυκᾶσθαι) would be rather inappropriate and hard to understand when using Modern Greek pronunciation.
Good video but I just want to point out that if you can't speak English, how are you going to teach us Latin. The word is Latin (Lat-in), not La'in. There's a T in it.
Finally someone who understands how similar this culture is to it’s past. So many people are so worried about how modern Greeks aren’t Ancient but nobody is, they are still almost the same as their past just with different grammar, phonetics and selective vocabulary.
I am currently learning both along with Italian and Modern Greek, as well as Latin. I am on my way to polyglottery and polyliteracy, no matter that it may take me about 3-5 years to become fluent in these languages and then move on to possibly three or four more! I am in no hurry.
Lots of excellent advice in this video! But I’m surprised you didn’t mention the wealth of resources available by studying Koine via Biblical Greek materials! While Biblical Greek is certainly a niche branch of the language, it offers two awesome benefits: 1) Koine is a nice transitional point in the language evolution which links modern to classical Greek, and 2) it’s incredibly easy to find inexpensive source study materials. Also, while the vocabulary of the Bible is relatively simplified compared to Classical texts, the core of the Greek language is easier to spot since it’s far less cluttered with flowery terminology and rarely used poetic jargon.
I think you’re right. I independently came to the same conclusion and Then found your videos. You make a very convincing and skilled argument. Much appreciated!
The same stem is in use, but since the -mi verbs don’t exist in MG, the endings have been replaced: 1) by the passive voice endings (-mai, -sai, -maste, -ste) for 1st and 2nd person and 2) by the ancient infinitive “einai” for 3rd person. (εγώ είμαι, εσύ είσαι, αυτός/αυτή/αυτό είναι, εμείς είμαστε, εσείς είστε, αυτοί/αυτές/αυτά είναι) (egó eímai, esy eísai, autós/autí/autó eínai, emeís eímaste, eseís eíste, autoí/autés/autá eínai)
I'm only interested in learning Latin to improve my English; would it be better to start with Italian first? Doing this for Greek (I speak French fluently & a little Spanish)?
But the modern Greek pronunciation divorces it from the script. It is like Thai, where you have many more letters than sounds. I say this as a person who is half Greek and somewhat fluent at it.
I’m Greek. I’ve studied Classics and Linguistics in Greece. All you say and argue is fine; nevertheless: You CANNOT read and “feel” classical poetry correctly using the modern Greek pronunciation, since: 1. There is no prosody in modern Greek, no short and long vowels, no “light and heavy” syllables due to the phonemes they contain (only due to their stress), which define the sort of any metrical foot in classical poetry . 2. Modern phonology is quite different from classical, eg in classical times Attic ε and ει had exactly the same quality (not quantity, since they had different length/morae), thus “parechesis” is in action in a verse containing them; yet in modern Greek ε = [e] and ει = [i]; also ε and η in classical phonology are quite homologous, as being vowels of the [e] quality, thus again “parechesis” is employed; 3. the same holds for κ,γ,χ and π,β,φ, all being stop/plosive consonants in Attic, with different attributes and relations to each other than in modern Greek, where some are voiced or voiceless fricatives (no “parechesis” can be felt) . This list could be easily prolonged; I suppose the point is made clear. There is no Classicist who argues in favor of the modern Greek pronunciation for poetry, at least, like Homer and attic poetry, because these are better understood, felt and studied using the reconstructed phonology, or less using the Erasmian, and least using the Modern Greek one. For attic and Ionian prose there is no major advantages in using reconstructed phonology, but some minor ones are still in place (the reader still has a better sense and feeling of the language). The second major problem with the Modern Greek pronunciation is the accentuation; we pronounce only 5 vowels of one mora (shirt), but we teach about short and long vowels etc., and we really pronounce no diphthong at all in all Ancient Greek diphthongs; thus the difference between ᾶ/ά, ῆ/ή is totally absent. I teach my pupils ancient Greek always using the Modern Greek pronunciation, since this is the practice in Greece; I never read or study Ancient Greek using this pronunciation; of course I know many things on the history, development and dialectal differentiation of the Greek language, and I can exploit this knowledge in favor of my reading and understanding Ancient Greek texts (Archaic, classical, Hellenistic or Medieval).
