How should Ancient Greek be pronounced? 

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Τα περισσοτερα απ αυτα που γραφεις ειναι ενδιαφεροντα και συμφωνω. Ομως οι ποντιοι γραφουν στα αληθεια έθελα και προφερουν οντως"ethela". Δεν γραφουν ηθελα και προφερουν "ethela". Η συζητηση γινεται για το αν θα ηταν "σωστοτερο" κι οι ξενοι αντι να βλεπουν ηθελον και να λενε "ethelon", να βλεπουν ηθελον και να λενε "ithelon" !

maláka

@@lennonjackson1264 Look your face in the mirror...

@@heraclitop7904 maláka

στα ποντιακα το ¨ηθελα" ειναι "εθελνα" και οχι "εθελα". "Εθενλα να λεγω σε ντο χαπαρ' κι ε'εις ασα ρωμαίκα αμα επ'εκει επουσμανεψα και τιδεν 'κι ειπα σε, . Εφοεθα γιαμ χωλιασκεσε".

Have you found learning modern greek helped your ancient greek?

Thank you! I've taken down my older videos and am focusing on producing better content of higher quality. I promise that I will be revisiting many of the ideas of my older videos!

So if the distinction of long vowels and diphthongs is essential for proper rhythm, and such distinction was lost in the late Hellenstic period, then wouldn't that mean that Greek speakers during the Byzantine period were incapable of reading poetry with proper rhythm?

abbadonnergal It is very propaple.

Surely they must have been able to recite poetry (for hundreds of years) while respecting the rhythm, despite their pronunciation; since vowel length is subordinate to the meter in Greek hexameter. Besides, the scansion rules are flexible and allow vowels to lengthen or shorten whenever necessary. For example, synizesis contracts εω into one long syllable in Iliad 1.1 (Πηληϊάδεω) and into one short syllable in Iliad 1.15 (χρυσέῳ). And correption can shorten vowels and diphthongs before a vowel, as in Iliad 1.14, where the pre-vocalic ου of ἑκηβόλου is shortened. All things considered, I don’t see why Byzantine pronunciation should be considered inherently improper for poetry, since the meter and rhythm aren't necessarily broken by it. And to say that it isn’t “beautiful” is a subjective judgement, since some people (like myself) may consider it to be beautiful in its own right. Ideally, it should be a matter of personal preference, in my opinion.

abbadonnergal I agree that for hundreds of years some people could still recite poetry while respecting the rhythm because they kept the pronunciation, but slowly, during the Byzantine era, that changed. As for flexibility, it is one of the wonderful aspects of the Homeric language, because he uses whatever is appropriate for each hexameter (Achilles is also written with one l for example).

@Konos P - That may be the case for some regions and social strata (since the Hellenestic world was quite large and diverse). However, some long vowels (η in particular) were still distinct in the Roman period among educated, conservative speakers (especially in Athens). The process of itacism was gradual and was likely widespread enough to be deemed "complete" during the Byzantine era (by the 2nd, 3rd & 4th centuries A.D.). *See Allen's Vox Graeca, pg. 78; Horrocks' Greek, pg. 163; Caragounis' Development of Greek, pg. 350; Buth's Ἡ Κοινὴ Προφορά, pg. 222; Campbell's Advances in the Study of Greek, pg. 200

I don't know know what his point of view is, but I would argue its a different case. And latin deserves being learning in its classical form. The thing about the new latin is that it's been adopted to fit the needs of a church, and its not native to any country (the vatican doesn't count, even if it calls itself a country hahaha)

Excellent point, and I guess You are talking about the Ecclesiastical Pronunciation. The problem with that is that the audio/video resources even from Italian channels are far more abundant than the Ecclesiastical Pronunciation. I guess the same is the case with Modern Greek pronunciation of Ancient Greek texts, it simply haven't got popularity, all popular Ancient Greek RU-vid channels speak restored pronunciation.

Check out Καθαρεύουσα. That will be the rabbit hole of nightmares.

I think if you're just reading out loud, it doesn't really matter what system you use. Knowing the restored system is very interesting and is great for satisfying intellectual curiosity. If you are interested in speaking Attic Greek ex tempore, however, I think that using the Erasmian can be very helpful.

Sydney Allen's system is really not that different from Erasmian. It only differs in a handful of consonants.

deka glossai Its pretty different, imo. The main differences between Erasmian and restored pronunciation are: 1. φ, θ, χ, are aspirates, not fricatives. 2. ζ is /zd/, not /dz/. 3. ει and ου are spurious diphthongs, whose true pronunciation is long close-mid front vowel and long close-mid back vowel, respectively. 4. The iota subscript is pronounced. 5. Double consonants are pronounced. 6. There was a pitch accent, not stress. (There may be more differences) Anyway, Ioannis Stratakis (Podium Arts channel) has recordings with the restored pronunciation and it sounds just beautiful.

Do you honestly think that these minor points make them "pretty different"? East-coast and west-coast English in America differ far more than this.

deka glossai "Minor points"? Is the pitch accent really a minor point? This alone is a major difference. The accent had a *huge* role in ancient Greek. The poetry was designed to fit a pitch accent system. And does it really matter how different they are? The point of the restored pronunciation was to create a pron. as accurate as possible, not to sound different and exotic to one's ears compared to the Erasmian that was designed to make ancient Greek easier for students.

I think it's important to at least recognize that they are indeed different... i.e. erasmian != restored classical. While they are much more similar than Modern Greek, and Erasmus is truly the "father" of classically restored pronunciation, the differences are enough that they really are two separate things.

It is not a question of intelligibility. Even in the modern Greek dialects there is such a variety of pronunciations which are in different degrees understood by a standard modern Greek speaker. You can imagine how things could be in the ancient times without modern mass media. In my opinion the variety of the vowels spoken throughout the Greek realm, under the presence of the Attic dialect, lead to the "vowel collapse" where Koine was an intermediate stage. Attic dialect was influential because it had been considered as "perfect" by educated people, implying that the other ways of speaking Greek had imperfections. I guess the imperfections were the norm and lead to modern Greek. As long as the vowels could not help the use of the same expressions as those of the older generations, new expressions were created by the same grammar, which eventually lead to innovative grammar rules. Think of the way subjunctive in Greek has evolved. The endings became indistinguishable from the indicative so "ἵνα" clauses were employed which became the modern subjunctive with the particle "να". There are many Greek grammar evolution stories like that, about some classical ways of expression falling into disuse, while some others of late antiquity become overused. Afterwards almost nobody cared about spoken language, as in the medieval times the Koine of the church stylized by Atticism were the official language. The exact steps of the evolution are subject to research. Now for your final question, there are philologists who are trained to write down ancient Greek by dictation from a modern Greek pronunciation of the text. I also wonder how effective they are in "real time" speech.

We dont even need to go there. If it were the same, why would they have a consonantal H in classical inscriptions. Why was Perikles written with a epsilon long in the -es? not -is? and why would they use a rough breathing? When did they stop using it? How about the tonoi? Everyone just doesnt pronounce them, or pronounces them as a uno-stress like in modern. We additionally have tons of evidence that languages shange over time. Before the eucliedian alphabet, the genitive was written -o omikron long on ostraka. Just look at them. So weve plenty of evidence from these areas, and questions.

How do you read Shakespeare?

tos coba I read Shakespeare using period pronunciation. While it is technically not necessary, it does enhance one’s understanding of certain puns. The very character of some of the poems changes when you read it using the pronunciation that he himself used. This is particularly true for sonnet 15. The rhythm is also better because some words no longer rhyme in our time but did rhyme in Shakespeare’s time.

You slaughtered two languages in as many lines. That was painful to read. If you want to learn ancient Greek in let's say and American university, you will have to learn the Erasmian pronunciation. You can however find a Greek teacher who can teach you in the modern Greek pronunciation.

Thank you! In a future video I will go deeper into the evidence used for various reconstructions.

I can read my favorite authors for pleasure without a dictionary (Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Euripides, Thucydides, Herodotus). There are still words that I don't know, and some authors are definitely more difficult. The languages I know best are English, Ancient Greek, Latin, Russian, German, Italian, and Modern Greek. I can read French, Spanish, and Portuguese literature, but I don't really speak the languages. I also have studied many other languages, such as Polish, Czech, Ukrainian, Icelandic, Dutch, Mandarin, Japanese, and others. Finally, Sanskrit is a constant work in progress for me.

@@dekaglossai How about Xenophon, Demosthenes, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes, Pindar, and Theocritus?

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?

:)

Thank you!

Definitely

Purely a matter of taste. I think the Erasmian pronunciation sounds great when done properly. And I have absolutely no idea where you get the idea that ancient Greek "valued harmony".

@@devinreese7704 Actually there are six accents mentioned

@@devinreese7704 Mentioned by name (also that of the Greek grammarian from Samos who wrote more about them) in a Latin grammar (of antiquity). I don't have the text before me, but in general Latin grammarians made naturally many references to the Greek language in their treatises. Others name 3, 4, 5... I'm not sure if there were one giving even 7 accents. To me the accents' names made sense when I found the passage; one could clearly understand what the guy was describing only by their names and easily apply them (even if not written nowadays, if ever)

@@devinreese7704 Of course it was different. You can not only see that through transcriptions of words or names among languages or writing errors, but they are even described in ancient treatises. Modern Greeks (luckily with some exceptions) ignore these texts, automatically believing that the ancients pronounced as we do now, while the ancients spoke first and not we. For me as a Greek this is stupidity of tragic dimensions (as one can even read in the comment section of my channel) and I'll try to change it...

"I teach Greek students and one of the most difficult lessons they have is Ancient Greek" :-) Do you teach them the restored pronunciation?

@@miklosnemeth8566 I Teach then English and the vast majority of them find Ancient Greek one of their most difficult lessons, given the huge differences between Ancient and Modern Greek syntax .

@@teacherdude I see, this is especially interesting, I had a Serbian friend at the university, and he picked Russian as second language, while most of us picked English, German or French, and it was very easy for him, he was really a lazy guy, so definitely he wanted to learn a language the easy way. On the other hand, in my high school years the most dreaded subject was Hungarian Grammar and Literature for most of us, it didn't help that Hungarian was our mother language.

Do you say that vowel length has been lost with Modern Green pronunciation? There are a number of modern languages where vowel length is crucial: Hungarian, Egyptian Arabic, Finnish. On the other hand, a number of other languages can do fine without them, so I don't know any Indo-European language that has vowel length preserved. Very interesting. The Hungarian dialect, for example spoken in Moldavia possibly because of the heavy influence of Rumanian lost double consonants and vowel length. Really interesting.

@@miklosnemeth8566 many Germanic languages have vowel length in stressed syllables still, but lengthened vowels have very different qualities

In another comment I posted a link to this audio recording of the original New Testament (Greek Orthodox Byzantine Text-Type) read using standard Modern Greek Pronunciation: www.bible.is/GRKEPT/Matt/1/N I would point out that iotacism is itself very ancient phenomenon. And "over velarized" is a completely inaccurate way to classify any kind pronunciation. ᾽κ᾽, ᾽γ᾽ and ῾χ᾽ are all velars regardless of whether or not the last two are pronounced as stop consonants. I assume "your adored Ancient Greek language" is restricted to some iteration of Western Restored Pronunciation, with concessions to American English (or whatever variety you prefer). But Ancient Greek was never subject to such restrictions and has always enjoyed a polyphony of dialectical variety, as is the case in Greece today.

I think you are confusing classical greek with koine greek (the greek of the New Testament).At the time of the New Testament the pronunciation was already almost the same with the modern one.There is a reconstructed pronunciation specifically for koine greek from Randall Buth, which is basically the same pronunciation with Modern Greek with two or three differences (i don't remember exactly).So what abbadonnergal told you about iotacism being a very ancient phenomenon according to linguists is correct.And that's why reading koine greek with MG is pretty much accurate but reading it with erasmian or reconstructed for classical is completely wrong

According to Buth the only differences between koine and modern pronunciation is in the pronounciation of these three:υ,οι,η...In MG they are pronounced like /i/ while in koine Buth assumes that the first two are pronounced like the german /ü/ and the third like /e/(even though already from the second century it was pronounced as /i/) As for Pitch accent...are you talking about attic? Because there is not a pitch accent in koine. Ehhhh ....I can;t understand at all what you mean by that:''Is the logic, it existed long ago and must therefore have existed in Ancient Greek exactly the way as it does today Which, according to Buth,is not the case. '' ?Iotacism is the conversion of vowels and diphthongs into /i/.In koine era ΕΙ was already pronounced as /i/,H was pronounced as /i/ after the second century while those that haven't already conversed (υ,οι) were already in the process of becoming /i/... That's the koine pronunciation of Randall Buth : www.biblicallanguagecenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Greek_Pronunciation_2008.pdf

As for the pronunciation of "o" it's the same as today, I said that "οι"(όμικρον γιώτα , the diphthong) sounds like German "ü" according to Buth not the "ο" (ομικρον) ...The differences between koine and modern pronunciation is in one diphthong (οι) and one letter (υ),so I don't understand what you wanted to highlight,since the differences are almost non-existent..No I don't suggest to use two different phonological systems ,I agree with "deka glossai". I think the best is to use modern greek pronunciation (which if we take into consideration that is more or less the same for the last 2000 years is not exactly modern) and if someone is interested in linguistics can read the opinion of different linguists about how they assume the pronunciation evolved during the years. Today the students of greek (outside of greece) use the erasmian or the reconstructed attic (from Sidney Allen's vox graeca). Both are specifically for attic greek of the 5th century BC,so you can't use it to read homer,you can't use it to read a text from someone that is not athenian, and definitely you can't use it to read koine (which has almost the same pronunciation with modern greek). What I'm trying to say is that people started to use reconstructed pronunciations supposedly to achieve accuracy but at the same time they had no problem to use both of these systems of pronunciation for any kind of ancient greek text not caring if it was written in the 9th century BC,5th century BC,1th century AD or if it was written in the attic dialect,Ionic dialect, Aeolic dialect etc. So I can't understand why some people are opposing so strongly to the use of modern pronunciation, it's not like what they're using is more accurate... Reconstructions no matter how hard the linguists are trying will always be something artificial and incorrect. It's impossible to find the exact pronunciation of a language with so many different dialects and many different pronunciations from place to place all of which were evolving simultaneously and at their own pace through the passage of time. There is not only one ancient greek pronunciation as there is not only one modern greek pronunciation. Today in greece there are different dialects and even if we have a standard greek pronunciation if you travel you will notice that nowhere in greece the pronunciation is exactly the same with the standard athenian pronunciation...In each place the pronunciation differs from the standard one, to some places these differences are small while in others are bigger.And that is today, that people are travelling all over greece all the time, there is tv,phones etc., in ancient times this phenomenon would only be more intense. Since we won't ever be able to say with 100% certainty the exact pronunciation in ancient times I think the logical thing is to start from the thing that we know for certain and that is the modern greek pronunciation.I don't understand why outside of greece they are taking something that is purely theoretical and they put it into practice even though the result is something that sounds fake and artificial and lacks the natural flow of any real language...I don't understand why in a difficult language like ancient greek you must impose on the students to learn a pronunciation with which they will struggle to pronounce even one sentence and at the end we will never be certain how accurate it is. At the end of the day when you learn a foreign language you want to have some fun with it,to feel like it's part of real life not part of a museum...I think it's better to read different opinions from different linguists so you can see the matter of ancient greek pronunciation from different perspectives and when it comes to actually speak it's better to use modern pronunciation...Eh???Where have I said that greek aren't greek???

I think, if Modern Greek Pronunciation is predictable and consistent as for the written text (unlike English, where you have to learn the pronunciation of each and every word), just like German and French, then it's ok from a learner's perspective. Of course one letter = one phoneme concept would be ideal, but there are very few language that follow that rule, I think Finnish is the only one I can regard totally consistent, and periodically the Finnish Academy adjust the spelling to match the spoken language perfectly, amazing.

EXACTLY. I have yet to find a single sample of reconstructed Ancient Greek pronunciation that follows these rules consistently, if at all. Most readers presenting something purporting to be an accurate model of Ancient Greek are very inconsistent and frankly sound horrible. They would occasionally ignore the length of the vowels or have an inconsistent application of the pitch accent. The reader would pronounce, say, the acute accent sometimes with the pitch going up, sometimes down, sometimes he/she would ignore it; or read the vowel η sometimes long, sometimes short, etc.--- the kind of mistakes a beginning student of Chinese/Thai would make. All this with a very thick American/French or whatever accent.

@@simiyachaq have you heard of the lucian pronunciation of ancient greek? It was developed around a year ago by a latin language youtuber, Luke Ranieri, who takes great care to observe vowel length and the like.

Heres a recording of Milton you might like: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DFgoNgtxD4M.html. I'm not sure how exactly how accurate it is, though

@@weirdlanguageguy Yes, I have. That's what I'm going with, actually. Thank you for your suggestion ;)

@@simiyachaq that was a fast response. You're welcome, and good luck!

I’m not so sure. One is 400 years old, the other 2500 years old. Modern Greek doesn’t retain vowel length, which is already a loss. The different vowel and consonant pronunciation isn’t such an issue to me. With regard to Shakespeare, there is effort in reading Shakespeare in his own accent. One loses puns and assonances, and likely more, reading him in anything but restored pronunciation. There is academic research into the different accentuation of his time, too.

Many rhymes in Shakespeare don't work in modern pronounciation. Take sonnet 1, lines 2 and 4: "die"/"memory". That the pronounciation of a language shouldn't have changed in centuries when the vocabulary, morphology, syntax and spelling did so to a great extent is highly unlikeable.

I have to admit that even though I prefer the mod. Greek pronunciation and the ecclesiastical, the classical pronunciation which I learned is so deeply lodged in my head that I revert to it almost unintentionally. Gotta work on that.

deka glossai I still don't understand though if you support the modern Greek pronunciation in teaching or if you support that the modern Greek pronunciation was present in Classical times or both... Also, λαλεῖς δέκα γλώττας;

But Latin wasn‘t continuously used till today, right? And I don‘t think that the ecclesiastical pronunciation exists for such a long time

I'm new to learning Greek and I am taking the same approach as you are. I too am learning the Erasmian and modern at the same time.

Erasmian is a fake, made up pronunciation

Thank you!

South of Cyprus 😊

MakeAmerica GreatAgain , go fuck your self

@@lapsuscalami2252 go back to the abish you satanist

@@lapsuscalami2252 congratulations, you are an idiot.

@@lefterismagkoutas4430 This idiot's nation is about to take your islands... And also we are dominant the mediterrian sea at the moment so you can go fck yourself loser

If you think that the reconstructed pronunciation sounds ugly, that's fine, but it's just your personal and subjective opinion. It doesn't change the fact that the reconstructed pronunciation is much more accurate than a modern Greek pronunciation. I personally think that Ancient Greek sounds much more beautiful than modern Greek. I would find it odd to read Homer with Modern Greek pronunciation, that's like reading Chaucer and pronouncing it like Modern English, which is completely wrong and butchers the rhymes and the metre. I don't see how you can call something like that 'idiomatic consistency'. No one ever talked like that. Languages change, that's just a fact. You can either try and reconstruct the old pronunciation, which might not be completely accurate or you can just use the modern pronunciation, which is definitely completely inaccurate.

Hans I take your point but when using the modern Greek approach it should be applying intonation and tone only and read in line with the ancient like for example let's say an Italian for the vulgar and classical Latin or a Dutch person for old English. Granted the Greek has lost certain attributes and mutated somewhat but surely the inhabitants of the area hold more sway over their old glossa than the outsider. Besides the modern Greek is still quite old and dates earlier than a lot of european languages.

Well, it's possible that it might be helpful. On the other hand, these languages changed so much that it might be misleading. Italian for example is very distinct from Latin, in almost every respect. The loss of the distinction between short and long vowels for example gives it a very different flavor, so to speak. It's not even the most conservative Romance language, that would be Sardinian (the only Romance language that has preserved the 'k'-sound of 'c' before 'i' and 'e', among other archaic features). I don't really know what you mean when you say that the inhabitants of the area should hold more sway over their old language. In the case of Latin that would mean not just Italians, but also people from France, Spain, Romania, etc., and their languages are all very distinct from each other. They all pronounce Latin differently. The way I see it, nationality doesn't matter when it comes to science. And since we're talking about historical linguistics, it's definitely a scientific matter. Of course the Greek will feel more attached to their ancient traditions and that's fine, but it doesn't make their pronunciation of Ancient Greek automatically right.

Hans Mahr As a Greek and an active participant in the living (and ever-changing) social practice that we call "the Greek language", I cannot but stand in awe when some academic, or other language hypochondriac, thinks he knows what is best, or most beautiful. Sure, Homer may rhyme according to your theory, but it is still a theory and not reality. More importantly, you are missing the point completely: the beauty of our language does not come from using the correct pronunciation; a made up thing as our language has always varied through space and time. It comes from its diachronic practice even when it contains "mistakes", from the literature written in it through the millenia, from the concepts, thoughts and values it has carried from our fathers, and their fathers.

The restored system is "accurate" in relation to Attic Greek insofar as certain ancient texts (especially poetry in dactylic hexameter) play on distinctions between long vs short vowels/diphthongs that gradually became homophonous in the Hellenistic period (through iotacism/vowel shifts). So someone at some point in history may have used a similar pronunciation system. But throughout history Greek has always been pronounced with whatever pronunciation was standard for its time, region and class (education level). An analogy with English would be the silent letters that used to be pronounced (e.g. night), but are now only preserved in orthography. If people in some country were to learn English by pronouncing ALL of its silent letters, and by pronouncing vowels the way they sounded prior to the great vowel shift, it could have some benefit in learning how to spell correctly. But that's about all it would accomplish and nobody would ever argue that such a system is more "correct" for reading Shakespeare, for example (though Germanic philologists often employ the technique for older English texts). Erasmian pronunciation thrives because it's simply easier to understand exactly which vowels and diphthongs are being used when Greek is read/spoke out-loud; because every letter has a unique phoneme. It's an ironic preoccupation for people with no interest in learning the modern language, because they're admittedly only interest in reading comprehension, which doesn't really benefit from Erasmian pronunciation at all, IMO.

I would recommend that you read something about historical linguistics and the methods that are used in this field of science. For people who don't know much about this stuff it often seems completely unbelievable that we can know anything about the way ancient languages sounded, especially in the case of reconstructed languages like PIE. But the fact is that language is not random. There's a lot of stuff that can be predicted based on the evidence we have, that's why we can postulate sound-change laws like Verner's law for Proto-Germanic for example. You could start reading the Wikipedia page on Proto-Indo-European and continue from there. It will explain how it's possible to reconstruct languages and pronunciations. I'll just try to give a few examples on the kind of evidence that historical linguists use, but I'll use Latin as an example because I know more about it than about Ancient Greek. The pronunciation of the letter 'c' is probably most notorious when it comes to Latin. When we say 'Caesar' today we pronounce it as a kind of 's' sound but in Latin (at least in the Republican era) it was pronounced 'k'. The most obvious evidence for that can be found in Latin and Greek literature. Cicero for example writes his name in Greek with a 'k'. Plutarch does the same when he writes in Greek about Romans. Another type of evidence for the ancient pronunciation of Latin are graffiti written by people who made spelling mistakes (writing by ear). There are for example Latin graffiti from the early imperial period in which the word 'hic' (here) was written 'ic'. This implies that the 'h' was silent in Vulgar Latin at that time. There's however a list of corrections by a teacher that survived, in which he wrote down that it should be 'hic', not 'ic', so that we can assume that the 'h' originally wasn't silent. Another important source of evidence are the modern descendents of Latin, i.e. the Romance languages. By comparing them (Comparative Linguistics), we can draw all kinds of conclusions about the pronunciation of Latin because, as I've said, language change isn't random. Of course, there will always be a bit of uncertainty, especially when it comes to languages like PIE for which we have no records, but the amount of knowledge we have is still quite remarkable.

@Hans Mahr - You admit that "it's possible that (implementing Modern Greek Pronunciation) might be helpful...but also might be misleading". Nobody is trying to mislead anyone into thinking that Modern Greek pronunciation is more "historically accurate" than the Restored System. It's a question of whether or not historical accuracy actually contributes to foreign language acquisition. One could argue that Modern Greek pronunciation IS in fact more accurate for Biblical Greek in particular. But despite that, unfortunately, seminary students continue to use the Restored Pronunciation System, simply because it's the normative paradigm in Western academia. It's what all of the teachers use and students just tow the line by default. And most of them simply map their own accent onto the Restored Pronunciation (so Americans sound like Americans, Brits sound like Brits, Germans sound like Germans, etc). The result is most often grating to listen to, especially for those who speak Modern Greek, which is almost universally disregarded by teachers of Ancient Greek. In fact I've had Greek professors advise me NOT to learn Modern Greek at all because it would undoubtedly "confuse" me. It's an unfortunate double standard. Promoting the use of Modern Greek pronunciation is not about what is "right" and "wrong", or how much "sway the inhabitants Greece should have over their old language". You're missing the point; and you're in the overwhelming majority of people who miss the point. This video is about the pragmatism of leveraging the modern, living language as a tool for developing verbal skills that greatly enhance learning the ancient dialect. This works much more effectively for Greek than it would for Italian vs Latin, for example, because Greek has a much stronger continuity. This channel is all about foreign language acquisition. The author is a bona fide polyglot with a command of, presumably, 10 languages! So that should give him at least some credibility. He's promoting a diachronic approach to learning Ancient & Modern Greek in conjunction, employing Modern Greek pronunciation for Ancient Greek. I used the same approach and I can attest that it's actually VERY effective. I'm also perfectly comfortable using the Restored System whenever it suits me, either for poetry or for engaging with people who are limited to the Western system. It's important to be aware of it, and it even deepens ones understanding of Modern Greek. But historical linguistics shouldn't dictate norms of pronunciation in language pedagogy, IMO. In fact If it weren't for Erasmus (and for the fact that the Greeks were a stateless, subjugated, isolated people for so long) we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Modern scholarship of Ancient Greek has developed over a long period of time in a linguistic vacuum; resulting in this diglossia we experience today. Think about this: everyone out there reading and performing Shakespeare in modern British/American accents, from a historical linguistic perspective, are just dead "wrong". They're pronouncing the text incorrectly. They often don't adhere properly to the meter and don't rhyme words correctly. By your logic they should all be using a restored pronunciation system for Shakespearean English. But that's simply not practical for teaching, reading and performing Shakespeare. That paradigm is probably never going to shift. But perhaps there's still hope for a paradigm shift in Ancient Greek pedagogy.

abbadonnergal "It's a question of whether or not historical accuracy actually contributes to foreign language acquisition." It's certainly not harmful. And if you're learning Ancient Greek to read the Classics, it's definitely advisable to pronounce it like the Ancient Greeks pronounced it themselves, especially when we're talking about poetry. "One could argue that Modern Greek pronunciation IS in fact more accurate for Biblical Greek in particular. But despite that, unfortunately, seminary students continue to use the Restored Pronunciation System, simply because it's the normative paradigm in Western academia." Well, that's not the problem of the pronunciation itself but a teaching problem. When I read ancient texts, I definitely try to pronounce them like they were pronounced when they were written. I don't see why we should limit ourselves to one pronunciation. "The result is most often grating to listen to, especially for those who speak Modern Greek, which is almost universally disregarded by teachers of Ancient Greek." But is it really important how it sounds to Modern Greek ears? Old English sound really weird to Modern English speakers, that's just the nature of language change. And that people from other countries will have accents is completely normal, that's just a given. "This video is about the pragmatism of leveraging the modern, living language as a tool for developing verbal skills that greatly enhance learning the ancient dialect. This works much more effectively for Greek than it would for Italian vs Latin, for example, because Greek has a much stronger continuity." And I never said anything against learning Modern Greek to enhance your experience of Ancient Greek. But I don't see how it helps to pronounce Ancient Greek like Modern Greek. When I read Homer, I want to read Homer, not some modernized hybrid-version of Homer. I want to get as close to the original sound as possible. And while it's true that Modern Greek is more conservative than Italian for example, Ancient Greek is still very different from the modern language, especially when we're talking about Homer. "The author is a bona fide polyglot with a command of, presumably, 10 languages! So that should give him at least some credibility. He's promoting a diachronic approach to learning Ancient & Modern Greek in conjunction, employing Modern Greek pronunciation for Ancient Greek. I used the same approach and I can attest that it's actually VERY effective." I'm also a polyglot, I don't see what this has to do with anything. He's still pronouncing Ancient Greek wrong. As I've said: it may certainly help to learn both Ancient and Modern Greek at the same time (although from my experience, learning two very similar languages or two forms of a language at the same time almost always leads to confusion). But why does it help to pronounce Ancient Greek like Modern Greek? If you're able to learn 10 languages, you'll certainly be able to pronounce two different versions of a language in different ways. I've learned Old Norse and since Modern Icelandic is extremely conservative, this means I've also learned Modern Icelandic. While there's not been much of a change on a grammatical level, the pronunciation has changed dramatically. So when I read an Old Norse saga, I'll pronounce it differently than when I read an Icelandic newspaper. I just try to pronounce every language like it is or was actually pronounced by native speakers, even if they are all dead. "In fact If it weren't for Erasmus (and for the fact that the Greeks were a stateless, subjugated, isolated people for so long) we wouldn't even be having this discussion." That's not true because the modern reconstructed pronunciation, while very similar to that of Erasmus, is based on evidence gained through the methods of historical linguistics. "Modern scholarship of Ancient Greek has developed over a long period of time in a linguistic vacuum; resulting in this diglossia we experience today." No, the diglossia is a result of over two millennia of language change. "Think about this: everyone out there reading and performing Shakespeare in modern British/American accents, from a historical linguistic perspective, are just dead "wrong". They're pronouncing the text incorrectly." That's true, but when we talk about Shakespeare, we're talking about a slightly different form of Modern English, as opposed to the fundamental differences between Ancient and Modern Greek. A better comparison would be to Chaucer and in that case, modern English speakers actually use Middle English pronunciation when they read him. A native speaker of Modern Greek has to learn Ancient Greek if he wants to understand Homer. He basically has to treat it like a foreign language, even though it will be easier for him than for a native German speaker for example. And if he learns about new grammar and new syntax rules, he can just as well learn about the differences in pronunciation. You seem to draw an arbitrary distinction between the phonological component of a language and the other components, like morphology, syntax, etc. The student will learn about the latter components that are unfamiliar to him, but when it comes to phonology he should just use a completely wrong approach because it doesn't matter? Because it's more convenient? Those are not very good reasons.

Thanks for the thoughtful, cogent explanation. You have some good points and you're obviously very knowledgeable on the subject. It's an important discussion to have, even though we seem to be talking past each other a lot. You do have an objective, scientific standard for your definition of which system is "right" vs "wrong"; theoretical historical linguistic accuracy. And Modern Greek pronunciation is admittedly NOT historically accurate in relation to many earlier dialects; or, for that matter, in relation to all other non-standard modern dialects of Greek. So you have a totally valid position. Your comments reinforce the fact that the Restored Pronunciation in the West is a juggernaut of a paradigm that may never be dethroned. But is there really no middle ground? By your logic everyone in Greece who pronounces older texts with their native pronunciation is just "wrong". I'm curious, do you think they should correct this and start using Restored Pronunciation across the board? Or are they exempt somehow? Or does it even matter? What about all of the Greeks who lived between the classical and modern periods, before the advent of modern Historical Linguistics? From the Hellenistic period through the the Middle Ages the Greeks simply read ancient texts exactly the way they spoke? And they were all "wrong" the whole time, right? Or is it unfair to cast such judgement retroactively, since the modern standard hadn't yet been invented? It just seems like such a high horse that modern linguistics has provided for us to invent a new standard and then completely subsumed the longstanding tradition. So as soon as we were able to determine what Attic probably sounded like, we had to change the way Attic literature was read for over a millennium in Greece and Byzantium. Why is that the one and only solution? I know you probably see it as "progress". But that's what I can't seem to wrap my head around. When I (mis)used the term "diglossia" I was NOT referring to the actual differences between Ancient and Modern Greek; a natural byproduct of linguistic change. I was referring to the two competing systems of pronunciation inside and outside of Greece. That is the result of a historical, geographical and cultural disconnect from the Greek-speaking world. The Greeks got along just fine without Restored Pronunciation. For example, they've always managed to mark rough and smooth breathing without actually aspirating the vowels. There's nothing wrong with aspirating vowels with rough breathing marks. But I just can't fathom why it's WRONG not to aspirate, according to your logic. You didn't address my question about people who teach/study Koine Greek. But you did admit that it is a "teaching problem". So in your opinion, should Restored Pronunciation be employed for Koine Greek? Or should it be abolished in favor of a reconstructed Koine pronunciation? Or would Modern Greek pronunciation be acceptable for Koine? Should earlier Koine texts be pronounced differently from later Koine texts, to accurately represent the phonological changes that took place at each stage of the language's development? Should Restored Pronunciation be used for Homeric Greek? Should Homeric Greek be read with a proper, reconstructed pitch accent? Historical linguists have not been able to adequately reconstruct how the pitch accent is supposed to sound. So you still have to compromise and draw the line somewhere. True "accuracy" is untenable. You described it perfectly: "You can either try and reconstruct the old pronunciation, which might not be completely accurate or you can just use the modern pronunciation, which is definitely completely inaccurate." So if what you're describing is a lose-lose scenario, why should Modern Greek pronunciation be off limits or taboo? One thing you can say for certain, and I'm sure you'll agree, is that Restored Pronunciation is WRONG for Modern Greek. There's already a precedent for the universal application of Modern Greek pronunciation across the entire spectrum, whether you agree with it or not. Because that's what they do in Greek. So why should Restored Pronunciation be applied universally if it's no more suitable for non-Attic dialects than Modern Greek pronunciation? You said, "I don't see how it helps to pronounce Ancient Greek like Modern Greek" and "I don't see why we should limit ourselves to one pronunciation." I specifically said "It's important to be aware of (Restored Pronunciation), and it even deepens ones understanding of Modern Greek." So what I'm suggesting is that BOTH systems should be taught. But teaching should be anchored in one system for consistency; and, believe it or not, Modern Pronunciation CAN actually be more effective for beginning students of Greek. I know, from personal experience, that Modern Greek pronunciation promotes verbal fluency in a way that Restored Pronunciation does not. If you establish Modern Greek pronunciation as the basis, it's easy to switch over to Restored Pronunciation. But I think it's much harder for people to go the other way around. For a beginning student of Greek (especially autodidacts who aren't required to use a particular system) using Modern Pronunciation gives them a back door into the living language. Yes, it is convenient to use Modern Greek pronunciation and yes, that is a good enough reason to do it! Convenience is a very important, time saving component when learning a foreign language. As a polyglot, I'm sure you know how much time you need to achieve fluency in a language. And any method that cuts down on those hours should be taken advantage of; whatever facilitates the language acquisition process most effectively. At the end of the day the goal is to read and understand ancient texts. And if you're able to read them out-loud comfortably, it really doesn't matter what system you use. Because nobody is going back to Ancient Athens in a time machine to impress the locals with Restored Pronunciation. It's just a theoretical exercise. But Modern Greek pronunciation has a strong practical component. There are just certain practical things you can absorb from exposure to a living, spoken language that you can't get from a dead, written language using a theoretically reconstructed pronunciation. Just a few examples off of the top of my head: A student can actually listen to a native speaker to pick up subtleties in pronunciation, many of which are completely applicable to Ancient Greek (i.e. pronunciation of proclitic/enclitics and the resulting double accents on the words they lean against). Rising intonation for interrogative sentences is also very helpful to pick up from native speakers. Hearing and mimicking alternating voicing and de-voicing of consonants in various positions is also very helpful. The way the Greeks maintain vowel quality through multi-syllabic words, in all positions, is very helpful to pick up (for English speakers whose vowels often weaken in unstressed positions). There are certain phonemes, such as liquid consonants, that are really helpful to pick up from native Greeks. Λ is a perfect example: most people who use Restored Pronunciation simply use the approximate L sound from their native language. But the English L is simply not identical to the Greek Λ. A proper Greek L requires a degree of fronting and palatalization that most non-Greeks, using Restored Pronunciation, make little effort to achieve. For example, most people I know using Restored Pronunciation pronounce λόγος as if they were saying "log on" (in English) with an "s" at the end. It just sounds horrible! You just have to call a spade a spade sometimes and admit when people are butchering Greek because they just don't care to even try to pronounce to pronounce it as if it were a foreign language. Lastly, I'll just cite a few references for you, or anyone else interested in exploring the scholarship on this topic further: Constantine Campbell's "Advances in the Study of Greek" (Ch.9 - Pronunciation) Geoffrey Horrocks' "Greek A History of the Language and Its Speakers" Robert Browning's "Medieval & Modern Greek"

River Rejoices @ Nationalists with an identity crisis is hardly a none bias source.

The new modern Greek pronunciation is completely different from the ancient one. Besides Erasmus there was an ancient Greek (Διονύσιος αλικαρνασσεύσ) who has written about the pronunciation they had and it is the same as the Erasmus pronunciation, you can watch this video to hear the correct ancient Greek pronunciation (a Greek speaks in the video with the correct pronunciation of Διονύσιος αλικαρνασσεύσ) also modern greek is not nice at all compared to ancient greek pronunciation ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RNlzQ6Trr3Q.html&feature=shares

Thank you!

Actually most of the dialect is Byzantine Greek that used in the Greek Orthodox Church...use of Koine Greek by the church is limited to the Gospels.

knowing that christianity genocided the native Greeks to convert them we cannot trust that they took good care of our language !!!

Θεόδωρος Ράκκας sorry but katharevousa is not only an artificial modern dialect (that’s why they done away with it), it certainly isn’t Koine

@@69MindOverMatter69 The Slavic invasions in the VII - IX centuries killed and evacuated the original Greek speaking population, but after that almost two-hundred-year period the Byzantine emperors repopulated Greece with Greek-speaking people from Sicily and Asia Minor. Is this the era you are talking about?

I studied Modern Greek before Ancient Greek. It was like watching a movie where you see the story's ending, but then go back to the beggining of the story. Theres not much of a difference besides the dumb pronunciation.

I've heard that contemporary greek people cannot read attic greek at all. They need to learn it like a separate language. How much is that true?

cfroi08 Excuse me but you are very wrong.

Luis Emmanuel Thats is not true, we can easily read it. It's just that some words are changed, grammar and syntax is not the same so even if we read it we don't understand 100% of it.

@@cassiejms5431 the articles την and τον become τη and το unless its followed by a vowel. The rest of the articles are the same or identical (except for feminine plural accusative). All of the -ει, -ω, -ετε, αω, ας, εις verb endings remain the same. The common Nueter noun declensions follow the same rule as Modern Greek, as in the Accusative and Singular articles/endings are the same. Even the -των article and -ων plural genitive endings are the same like in Modern Greek. Besides the Dative and Vocative Case changes, there's really not much of a difference besides word order, which isn't an issue because of cases. What is your argument though? I'm curious because I'm sure the Neuter gender went through a lot of changes.

I guess you use Modern Greek pronunciation?

@@miklosnemeth8566 yes I do

*γλώσσες

restored is NOT erasmian, they are much different: for restored see here docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fv46XgPPJy-ky9FUSApiemOVmtc8i6q7ZL5XkqtmMWA/htmlview#gid=1076752684

Definitely.

Pakanahymni So I should use the Spanish or French pronounciation for Latin instead of Classical pronouciation just because they are attested? The people who created the reconstructed pronounciation were people who knew what they were talking about, and they understood that people can't pronounce a language in the same way for 3000 years. Pronounciation changes, get it.

Sure its attested - for the way people speak now, 2500 years later. Modern Greek pronunciation is not attested at all for the classical period.

Hi John, I suppose their pronunciation is correct for modern greek, but i agree its not how somebody in the classical period would have pronounced it

No it didn't use B in the same way as modern greek, nor was mp abundant in biblical greek. There is no such thing as "erasmian pronunciation". There is restored pronunciation and it has plenty of scholarship behind it.

Compared to English or French, Greek is still much more uniform and consistent in its spelling system. I think alot of people seem to forget that.

Thank you for your response and for the recommendation! I also don't think that the paradigm will shift anytime soon... I think that teaching both systems of pronunciation is a great compromise.

We've got a similar situation with Latin in Germany, where the restored pronunciation hasn't really caught on. So I'm now used to listening to, and can use to some extent, the German pronunciation, (Italian) ecclesiastical pronunciation, and restored pronunciation. While it is a bit annoying, I think getting used to several different systems is not actually that difficult. (You have to do the same when learning a modern foreign language, after all.)

Absolutely correct! It hurts my ears. My mother tongue is Greek and i love the way we speak now- to me it is beautiful.

@@Lars2249 In my country we use exactly the same traditional pronunciation as you have in Germany. Latin was an official language until 1844, yes, 1844, and even until around 1910 or so, Latin was the language of communication among the educated. On the other hand, if you look for on-line/youtube resources to learn Latin, the restored pronunciation is far outweigh both Ecclesiastical as well as Traditional pronunciation of Latin texts. So, if I started today, I'd pick Restored pronunciation, just because it is way more popular then the others today in 2022.

@@nexusanphans3813 Great reply :)

I think his point was that greek is a very conservative langauge unlike English so it didn't change that much

@@oussematrabelsi9429 it still did change quite a bit

Exactly! Maybe the restored pronunciation is totally wrong and useless, and totally artificial - still it has become the standard in Ancient Greek learning communities. Modern Greek pronunciation is only useful when visiting Greece, it is totally impractical when I want to talk to another learner of Ancient Greek. The talker on this video himself acknowledged that he is more fluent with restored pronunciation, since this was the pronunciation he had learned.

The title question is answered because it contains a recommendation to use Modern Greek pronunciation.