quick modern greek pronunciation question

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gnomonstyle
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quick modern greek pronunciation question

Post by gnomonstyle »

Lately I have been using a "Byzantine" pronunciation for reading Greek (in which everything is the same as Modern Greek except that οι and υ are pronounced like Attic υ). I've been having very few problems with this method until I came across this ending: -ευνται. How do you speakers of Modern Greek pronounce it? -ev-n-de with 3 syllables? Or am I missing something? Thanks!

ThomasGR
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Post by ThomasGR »

I think there is a vowel missing.
-ε?ονται
e/vonde
e/-vo-nde

gnomonstyle
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Post by gnomonstyle »

No missing vowel in this case. I noticed it with some verbs in the perfect middle. Ex: πεπό?ευνται; similarly πέπαυνται.

ThomasGR
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Post by ThomasGR »

Is it possible that this ypsilon is a vowel? Like an omega or omikron? It is very weird to have an "evnde". "eonde" is quite usable. If it is still an "evnde", than the syllabes are "ev-nde".

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IreneY
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Post by IreneY »

Ah, the elusive pronounciation of ευ and αυ in modern Greek :)

Well ypsilon in these combinations (when we are talking about a diphtong that is and not in cases such as άυλος) is pronounce either as a "v" or an "f".

The rule is simple: Before θ, κ, ξ, π, σ, τ, φ, χ, and ψ they are pronounced as [af] and [ef]. In all other cases they are pronounced as [av] and [ev]. It's really simple to remember which way you should pronounced? Remember how ypsilong used to be pronounced? A sound only not completely "rounded" right? Well if you try to pronounce a word containing either αυ or ευ the... old fashioned way, you'll notice that a faint [v] or [f] sound follows the dipthong.

so it's for instance
pepavme
pepafse
pepafte
pepavmetha
pepavsthe
pepavde (which I usually pronounce pepavnde but that's a different issue altogether :D)
Last edited by IreneY on Tue Oct 16, 2007 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Aristoklhs
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Re: quick modern greek pronunciation question

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