benissimus wrote:I was going to make a new post but I found this old one. I see that there is conflict about how zeta is pronounced, but how about what letters make it up: do the combination d-s and s-d both create zeta? This came to my attention because in most cases zeta seems to come when an s is added to a stem with an existing t, th, or d, creating d-s or a similar sound
Since I last replied to this thread I have changed my mind, and I now favor the zd and only zd interpretation for zeta.
1%homeless wrote:Ok, how or why did you change your mind?
All that thing about "zeta" brings only one arguement that is valid. It ("z") was similar to "delta", as pronounce in modern English, like in "this". (th). Foreigners often will substitute "th" with "z". Both in the English langauge and modern Greek. That makes it a valid arguement for both that "zeta" was "z" (not! dz! or zd!) and that "delta" was "th" as in "this".
ThomasGR wrote: Letter are used only as a signs for some sounds, but signs never can reveal the real sound. It's like trying to speak English using only the alphabet, but never hear an English speaking it. How will one in this case render the difference between "S" and "SH" to a different alphabet and to a foreigner? It is impossible!!!!!
ThomasGR wrote:
All that thing about "zeta" brings only one arguement that is valid. It ("z") was similar to "delta", as pronounce in modern English, like in "this". (th). Foreigners often will substitute "th" with "z". Both in the English langauge and modern Greek. That makes it a valid arguement for both that "zeta" was "z" (not! dz! or zd!)
It was not however just pronounced like an English 'z'. It was definitely either 'dz' or 'zd' since in scanning poetry it is pronounced as a double consonant.
Bert wrote:If 500 years from now people notice that 'impossible' was often misspelled as 'imposhible', they would have a good indication that the double S probably was pronounced as sh.
ThomasGR wrote:Then, how did the English spoke "tough" in the past?
Did they speak "t"+"o'+"u"+"g"+"h"?
About the vowel diphthongs, one may say that the last vowel was over-stressed and longer, to the point that the "barbarians" heared almost only the last owel, which prevailed and than today they speak only this, eg. "eI"--> "I".
Emma_85 wrote:Bert wrote:If 500 years from now people notice that 'impossible' was often misspelled as 'imposhible', they would have a good indication that the double S probably was pronounced as sh.
Eh... what? Imposhible?It's not pronounced like that here but with an s
.
annis wrote:benissimus wrote:I was going to make a new post but I found this old one. I see that there is conflict about how zeta is pronounced, but how about what letters make it up: do the combination d-s and s-d both create zeta? This came to my attention because in most cases zeta seems to come when an s is added to a stem with an existing t, th, or d, creating d-s or a similar sound
Really?! Where are you seeing this? In the usual course of dental + s in Greek phonotactics I expect the dental to become another s, or to evanesce away entirely.
Zeta is usually from s-d (as you saw) or the result of historical linguistic developments of gy and dy .
Since I last replied to this thread I have changed my mind, and I now favor the zd and only zd interpretation for zeta.
ThomasGR wrote:All these debates about pronunciation of Greek letters, I find very ridiculous.
The truth is only one, we will never find out how they did speak. NEVER.
Letter are used only as a signs for some sounds, but signs never can reveal the real sound. It's like trying to speak English using only the alphabet, but never hear an English speaking it. How will one in this case render the difference between "S" and "SH" to a different alphabet and to a foreigner? It is impossible!!!!!
All that thing about "zeta" brings only one arguement that is valid. It ("z") was similar to "delta", as pronounce in modern English, like in "this". (th). Foreigners often will substitute "th" with "z". Both in the English langauge and modern Greek. That makes it a valid arguement for both that "zeta" was "z" (not! dz! or zd!) and that "delta" was "th" as in "this".
But, does it matter how they spoke? Not at all!
So better stick to modern Greek pronunciation, you'll probably are nearer to truth than all those frankenstein-articulations that some academicians use!
Otherwise, I will ask you to pronounce "zd" or "dz" as one sound!
It is impossible to do it, except if you split it in two sounds, like speaking "z" and then followed by "d" (or vice versa for "dz").
Then, how did the English spoke "tough" in the past?
Maybe they pronounced it like we pronounce thought?
1%homeless wrote:Then, how did the English spoke "tough" in the past?
In Old English it was spelt: toh. If I remember correctly, the h in that position represent the "ch" sound in German, like "noch".Maybe they pronounced it like we pronounce thought?
In Old English: gethoht, thoht. So you're pretty much right on that.
I am not a linguist but I am going to hazard a guess.
If tough used to be spelled toh and pronounced with the ch sound of "noch", then my guess is that the spelling changed from ch to gh to correspond to the pronunciation.
annis wrote:Since I last replied to this thread I have changed my mind, and I now favor the zd and only zd interpretation for zeta.
Should array indices start at 0 or 1? My compromise of 0.5 was rejected without, I thought, proper consideration.
--Stan Kelly-Bootle
benissimus wrote:For example, the word [face=SPIonic]e#zomai[/face], root "sed-", I assumed an S had been added between the stem and the personal endings (for some reason...). This is the only example I can think of at the moment (I am a newbie as you know)... perhaps there is another explanation for this word?
benissimus wrote:...
For example, the word [face=SPIonic]e)/zomai[/face], root "sed-", I assumed an S had been added between the stem and the personal endings (for some reason...). This is the only example I can think of at the moment (I am a newbie as you know)... perhaps there is another explanation for this word?
Bert wrote:If 500 years from now people notice that 'impossible' was often misspelled as 'imposhible', they would have a good indication that the double S probably was pronounced as sh.
We can see that in the misspelling of tough as touff or tuff.
We also have a good indication from the spelling that tough was probably pronounced differently in the past than it is now.
ThomasGR wrote:It-s true that "s" before voiced consonants becomes (iat least n most cases) also voiced, and in some cases the previous or following consonant is ommited, but please do not pronounce it "zd" or "dz". It's an insult to the ears. Be sufficient speaking it "z".
I can, with effort, read Chaucer in Middle English. If I want his verses to scan, however, I have to do all sorts of things my native English doesn't do. For example, "pierced" will have two syllables. If I don't make these concessions to the changes of just under a millennium, the verse is ruined.
ThomasGR wrote:]We don't have sufficient data as to how English sounded in those days,
and your try will be an insult to those poets.
Any other attempt is fruitless.
annis wrote:I don't understand why you're dismissing the use of all the scholarship that has gone into this question, even if you're not interested in using a reconstructed pronunciation yourself.
ThomasGR wrote: Simple, we don't have data to do this,
and saying we may make this and that assumption and agree that "?" is "??" is totally wrong.
Bert wrote:William, has your pronunciation changed along with your opinion how Zeta should be pronounced?
I happen to know that both Bert and Benissimus are reading Homer, so I can either recommend a pronunciation that is known incorrect, or one that is possibly correct. I'm going to recommend the possibly correct version.
ThomasGR wrote:http://www.bsw.org/?l=72081&a=Art06.html
The impossibility of pronouncing the diphthongs in diaeresis (i.e. each vowel distinctly) becomes obvious also from a word such as Eu0aoi=oi (see IGA 110, 2, early VIth c. B.C.). This word, which consists of seven vowels, pronounced in the Erasmian way, would give the comical sound: ‘E-u-a-o-i-o-i’ — as if it were an exercise in vowel mnemonics. Surely the correct pronunciation was between ‘Eva-ü-ü’ and ‘Eva-í-i’.
Greek pronunciation cannot be determined by what is possible or acceptable in other languages.
Since accent as stress is integral to all speech, its existence in Greek must be as old as the language itself.
However, the form of the circumflex only indicated that it was the result of the contraction of two vowels, one o0cuno&menon the other baruno&menon, but it had no rising and falling tone in pronunciation — an impossibility in actual speech,
When the Greeks in time came to use the monographs [face=spionic]Q, F, X[/face] in place of the digraphs, the Romans had no equivalents for these letters except for [face=spionic]F[/face], hence Latin F is usually transcribed with [face=spionic]F[/face]!
(1) Stress need not exclude pitch, and in fact no pitch is conceivable without stress. (2) All Indo-European languages are based on stress accent. In Swedish, for example, which is the most ‘musical’ of the Scandinavian languages, stress-accent is clear and important. If Greek were different in this respect, it would have been unique.
(4) If the accent was essentially musical, why was it then disregarded by meter, which chose its own syllables — often unaccented — to express the pitch?
(6) Greek meter therefore must have been based on rhythm, which consisted in thesis (ictus) and arsis (fall) represented by the acute and the grave, the only proswdi/ai known in early times.
ThomasGR wrote:And last I wonder if the Erasmic promunciation is of the 5th centuries, then why do you read Homer who lived some centuries prior using the Erasmic pronucniation?
Do you than adopt another pronunciation when reading Plato, another when reading the Bible and even another one when reading the Church Fathers?
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