eu and eu

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mingshey
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eu and eu

Post by mingshey »

lesson 95

This might be too obvious for a question. But just to make it sure, in lesson 95 of Pharr ἐύ is breathed at ε, while accented at υ. And this Homeric form of εὖ means it is pronounced like eh-ü(u with Umlaut) rather than eh-oo?
And ἐυκνήμιδες like eh-ü-kneh-mi-des?

chad
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Post by chad »

hi mingshey, that all looks right to me at any rate :) e)u/ is 2 syllables, and upsilon on its own like this had the sound of u in tu (i write it ü like you), but upsilon as the final vowel of a diphthong kept the original oo sound: smyth talks about this in s24:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/pt ... ut=&loc=24

mingshey
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Post by mingshey »

Thanks, chad. I've been sleeping on this thing and now I have listened to Homeric recitals that are once or more times posted on the "Outside Links of interest" board. Both in Stanley Lombardo's Iliad reading and a nearly-anonymous recital of the Demodokos' song in Iliad 8.267-299 υ sound is rendered like "oo" as in too. They pronounce θ[b]ύ[/b]γατρα like t-hoo-ga-tra, for example. Pharr also says its original pronunciation was like that. And I'm wondering if I shoud unlearn my ü and relearn it as 'oo' when I practice and learn the Iliad clips in Pharr. :? It's not a problem and I'm feeling eh-ü is quite a tongue-twister when I try to read Iliad in proper meters, but my tongue is already used to ü it needs time to change the old habit.

annis
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Post by annis »

mingshey wrote:It's not a problem and I'm feeling eh-ü is quite a tongue-twister when I try to read Iliad in proper meters, but my tongue is already used to ü it needs time to change the old habit.
When the upsilon was the final part of a diphthong it wasn't fronted, that is, it was u not ü (the last is /y/ in SAMPA/IPA).
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

mingshey
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Post by mingshey »

annis wrote:
mingshey wrote:It's not a problem and I'm feeling eh-ü is quite a tongue-twister when I try to read Iliad in proper meters, but my tongue is already used to ü it needs time to change the old habit.
When the upsilon was the final part of a diphthong it wasn't fronted, that is, it was u not ü (the last is /y/ in SAMPA/IPA).
Indeed, William. I used to pronounce ευ as in φεῦ like e+u. But there are ἐυκνήμιδες and ἐύ stuff, in which the breathing suggests they are not diphthongs but a series of separate monophthongs. But, if they are the ancestors of diphthongs and its time is so ancient as the time υ was always pronounced u rather than ü, it would make almost no difference. :)

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Post by ximo »

Hello you all. I would like to explain something about the pronounciation of the ypsilon in Ancient Greek. If the sound is used as a vowel, that is, not formig a diphtong, it is pronounced similar to a French u, a sound between the u and the i /ü/. But if the ypsilon forms a diphtong, it sounds like a u, so eu /eu/, au /au/ and the exception is ou /u/. In Homer the diphtong eu can be pronounced in two different sounds, if there's diaeresis and not a diphtong. The situation of the spiritus and the accent indicates when the two vowells are pronounced together or separately.

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