Timotheus wrote:how close do you think this reading is to the real accent of the ancients?
http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/iliad1.htm
I am trying to learn but I don't sound anything like this fellow, and I am trying to stress the accents.
PeterD wrote:This so-called "modern" Greek pronounciation has been around for a couple of millenia. That is very convincing evidence.
eliliang wrote:I don't think the accents should be be stressed if you are trying to use a reconstructed pronounciation. They should be pitched as in Chinese.
Modern day Greek scholars completely disagree with the reconstructed accent, and it has never been clear to me why Greek scholars are held in such low esteem by other classicists when they are the direct descendents of the ancient greeks of which we are learning!
Timotheus wrote:how close do you think this reading is to the real accent of the ancients?
http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/iliad1.htm
why Greek scholars are held in such low esteem by other classicists when they are the direct descendents of the ancient greeks of which we are learning!
Patriotic and nationalist Greeks disagree with the reconstructed accent.
annis wrote:eliliang wrote:I don't think the accents should be be stressed if you are trying to use a reconstructed pronounciation. They should be pitched as in Chinese.
Pitch accent and a tone language like Chinese are completely different things.
annis wrote:Modern day Greek scholars completely disagree with the reconstructed accent, and it has never been clear to me why Greek scholars are held in such low esteem by other classicists when they are the direct descendents of the ancient greeks of which we are learning!
Patriotic and nationalist Greeks disagree with the reconstructed accent. Greek scholars of Greek, while still using the modern pronunciation they were raised on, know perfectly well that language changes over the centuries. There are some hold-outs of course, but opinion is hardly unanimous that the Anglo-Saxon world is afflicting the Greeks with some plot by promoting the reconstructed pronunciation.
PeterD wrote:Hi.
This so-called "modern" Greek pronounciation has been around for a couple of millenia. That is very convincing evidence.
First, there was the awful Erasmian pronounciation -- even Erasmus, himself, didn't buy into it. Now, we have the "new and improved" -- Klingon-sounding -- reconstructed pronounciation. What will these non-Greek native speakers come up with next?
annis wrote:Timotheus wrote:how close do you think this reading is to the real accent of the ancients?
http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/iliad1.htm
I have never been a fan of Daitz's pronunciation. I find the pitch contours way too wide.
eliliang wrote:I'm not a philologist, but I am a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese. Please explain your comment to me. You seem to be making a distinction without a difference.
OK. Not unanimous. But there is definitely Greek scholarly thought that the non-Greek scholars are off-base. e.g., http://www.bsw.org/?l=72081&a=Art06.html
eliliang wrote:What evidence exists that the original Classical Greek pitch contours were narrower? I am just asking because I don't find very much scientific information on the Internet about the classical Greek pitch accent (only descriptive information), and would be much obliged if you could directly me to some more detailed scholarly description.
annis wrote:eliliang wrote:What evidence exists that the original Classical Greek pitch contours were narrower? I am just asking because I don't find very much scientific information on the Internet about the classical Greek pitch accent (only descriptive information), and would be much obliged if you could directly me to some more detailed scholarly description.
...
The second matter is his pronunciation of the circumflex. He uses a rise and fall. It seems more likely to me to be a simple high-falling contour (this is the view in Sihler's comparative grammar, too).
His rise and fall circumflex combined with the wide pitch variation makes it seem too wide to me.
annis wrote:eliliang wrote:OK. Not unanimous. But there is definitely Greek scholarly thought that the non-Greek scholars are off-base. e.g., http://www.bsw.org/?l=72081&a=Art06.html
I have talked about that article on Textkit before. It is useless (near the bottom).
annis wrote:Patriotic and nationalist Greeks disagree with the reconstructed accent. Greek scholars of Greek, while still using the modern pronunciation they were raised on, know perfectly well that language changes over the centuries. There are some hold-outs of course, but opinion is hardly unanimous that the Anglo-Saxon world is afflicting the Greeks with some plot by promoting the reconstructed pronunciation.
PeterD wrote:Hi, Williamannis wrote:Patriotic and nationalist Greeks disagree with the reconstructed accent. Greek scholars of Greek, while still using the modern pronunciation they were raised on, know perfectly well that language changes over the centuries. There are some hold-outs of course, but opinion is hardly unanimous that the Anglo-Saxon world is afflicting the Greeks with some plot by promoting the reconstructed pronunciation.
It's not a question about patriotism and/or nationalism. Greeks, in general, passionately disagree with the reconstructed pronunciation because it sounds beastly. Truly beastly! The Greeks did not care for the awkward Erasmian pr. (and how right they were!). Why should they close their ears and acquiesce now?
eliliang wrote:PeterD wrote:Hi.
This so-called "modern" Greek pronounciation has been around for a couple of millenia. That is very convincing evidence.
First, there was the awful Erasmian pronounciation -- even Erasmus, himself, didn't buy into it. Now, we have the "new and improved" -- Klingon-sounding -- reconstructed pronounciation. What will these non-Greek native speakers come up with next?
As a non-philologist, the only supporting evidence which I have found for the reconstructed pronunciation, which seems indisputable to me is:
Cratinus, in Dionysalexandros: [face=spionic]o d' hliqioj wsper probaton bh bh legwn badizei[/face]: the fool goes about like a sheep saying "ba ba" (vs. "ve ve").
I don't know how nationalistic Greeks could explain this one away, but other than that, the rest of the evidence I've seen doesn't really move me.
elis wrote:why Greek scholars are held in such low esteem by other classicists when they are the direct descendents of the ancient greeks of which we are learning!
not so direct.. not so direct.. some greeks might be phantasizing they are though.
modern greeks are more or less a mixture noumerous people: latins, slavs and so on.
I would consider myself more of a balkan.
elis wrote:Patriotic and nationalist Greeks disagree with the reconstructed accent.
that would be quite right.
I would connect it also with the mighty orthodox church tradition.
elis wrote:I, being a modern greek,
eliliang wrote:He's not a professional philologist, but seems to be quite a scholarly chap:
http://www.teol.lu.se/nt/forskning/caragounis.html
I would not be so quick to dismiss him as being outside the mainstream, as his other academic work does not seem to brand him as an intellectual outlier.
PeterD wrote:It's not a question about patriotism and/or nationalism. Greeks, in general, passionately disagree with the reconstructed pronunciation because it sounds beastly. Truly beastly!
The Greeks did not care for the awkward Erasmian pr. (and how right they were!). Why should they cover their ears and acquiesce now?
Greekness (or, if you prefer, Hellenism) had never to do with race. Race, per se, was an alien concept to the Ancients. It had to do with language, culture/religion, and education.
While it is true that through Greece's long history many migrations and invasions occurred, all these foreign inhabitants who stayed behind were eventually -- within a generation or two -- Hellenized. This Hellenization process was a noble and progressive act by the Greeks. Would you rather have had the Greeks slaughter all foreigners in the name of racial purity?
If you want to call yourself a Balkan, it is your prerogative to use a Turkish word to describe your heritage. I prefer the attribute Greek to describe my heritage.
Do me a favour: Leave the Greek Orthodox Church out of it
I thought you said you were a Balkan? Or was it Vulcan?
Bardo de Saldo wrote:Mr. Daitz sounds like a bad actor trying to be histrionic who has trained himself to do a little yodel every time he sees an accent mark.
Bardo de Saldo wrote:Mr. Daitz's Greek sounds wrong. I've never heard a language for the first time that sounded wrong. My English sounds as coming from a foreigner, but it doesn't sound wrong. My Mexican neighbor's English is terrible but it doesn't sound wrong. Will Annis' recitation of poetry in Mandarin doesn't sound wrong (he claims his Mandarin is not very good, and I can't judge).
Mr. Daitz sounds like a bad actor trying to be histrionic who has trained himself to do a little yodel every time he sees an accent mark.
chad wrote:hi elilang, as a side point there is evidence for category 2, it's called catathesis (devine and stephens, the prosody of greek speech 1994)
eliliang wrote:chad wrote:hi elilang, as a side point there is evidence for category 2, it's called catathesis (devine and stephens, the prosody of greek speech 1994)
I understand how vocal fold tension and subglottal pressure contribute to physiological constraints on prosody - for example the 0.1 sec response-time limit on the four laryngeal muscles governs the interaction of pitch change on neighboring morphemes. Loss of subglottal pressure means that it is difficult to maintain pitch level in an untrained voice (this is the "downdrift" effect). etc. How does catathesis work, and what physiological limitation relates to it?
eliliang wrote:eliliang wrote:chad wrote:hi elilang, as a side point there is evidence for category 2, it's called catathesis (devine and stephens, the prosody of greek speech 1994)
I understand how vocal fold tension and subglottal pressure contribute to physiological constraints on prosody - for example the 0.1 sec response-time limit on the four laryngeal muscles governs the interaction of pitch change on neighboring morphemes. Loss of subglottal pressure means that it is difficult to maintain pitch level in an untrained voice (this is the "downdrift" effect). etc. How does catathesis work, and what physiological limitation relates to it?
Aha! I should have done a google before posting.
catathesis = downdrift
So this is exactly what I mentioned about Classical Greek without having read Devine and Stephen, that Classical Greek (just like any tonal language such as Chinese) would experience "downdrift" (or as you say, "catathesis") due to loss of subglottal pressure over the course of an utterance.
Bardo de Saldo wrote:"Where can I find Will Annis' recitation of Mandarin poetry?" ~Elilang
I'll tell you if you promise not to make fun of him. (, Will.)
Bardo de Saldo wrote:"What is wrong with [Daitz's Greek]?" ~Elilang
I said it sounds wrong, not that it's wrong. It sounds unnatural, even for a histrionic performance. I've heard many different languages in my lifetime, all of them once for the first time (that is, without a baseline) and they never sounded wrong to me. I've seen kabuki on television, and knowing no Japanese, I could tell the actors used an affected voice, and yet it didn't sound wrong to me. Even Chewbaka from Star Wars didn't sound wrong to me, so go figure how lenient my ears are.
Bardo de Saldo wrote:"Personally, I would judge right or wrong in the following three different ways: [...] So on what basis do you judge Daitz' pronunciation effort?" ~Elilang
Artistes like me have a fourth way: their sensitivity; in this case, honed by long meditation and practice on Homeric performance.
Bardo de Saldo wrote:"Personally, I don't allow myself ..." ~Elilang
Everyone is different, Eli.
Bardo de Saldo wrote:"... interesting email exchange with Prof. William Harris ..." ~Elilang
Let's hear it.
Bardo de Saldo wrote:"Did Devine and Stephen write a whole book about this obvious fact ... ?" ~Elilang
I don't think the sarcasm was neccesary, Eli.
eliliang wrote:Bardo de Saldo wrote:"... interesting email exchange with Prof. William Harris ..." ~Elilang
Let's hear it.
OK. I'll dig it up and post the more interesting bits here. It has to do with Chinese and Greek pronunciation and even the movie "Troy".
W. Harris wrote:E. Liang wrote:W. Harris wrote:E. Liang wrote:W. Harris wrote:E. Liang wrote:W. Harris wrote:E. Liang wrote: I've read your essay on musical pitch accents in Greek (http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Classics/Greekaccents.html), but have been at a loss to find a good example of that accent which fits the description in your essay. In listening to them, the question of plausibility comes up. It doesn't seem that there are any examples on the Internet of you demonstrating the accent, so I have instead found some examples by others. Some of the ones which I have found include:
- Stefan Hegel's musical accent: http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/agp/
- Stephen Daitz's musical accent: http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/Greek.htm
- Alan Shaw's musical accent: http://www.prosoidia.com/odys.html and http://www.prosoidia.com/trg.html
- Angelo Mercado's musical accent: http://caelestis.info/sauvagenoble/media/2004/0121/Sappho_Fragment_31.mp3
Do any of these approximate what you had in mind when you wrote your essay? Is there a better example of the musical pitch accent?
Actually your note came at a critical point for me.
No I have not been happy with the various recordings, but will go over the ones you url'd to me next few days and start thinking about doing my long overdue recording.
TRoy was a Mid Near Eastern city, and no one there GReek or native very thought of speaking like our academic scholars. I plan a short recording in a semi-Near Eastern style..... will drive the Classicists wild of course. The don;t even like pitches which sound Chinese or Bergman. Did you notice the Arabic sounding interludes in the TV TROY? Very sensitive and well worked into the plot.
I am, at a momentary standstill in my piano recordings, perhaps I can take the hint from your email to get myself in gear (music gear..).
If I do, I can let you know from your printout, or just check the website in a month.
Thanks, encouraging...
Bill
Certainly, I look forward to your upcoming recording, and I think a middle-eastern flavor would be very interesting indeed.
If you don't mind, I'd like to share your interesting reply/comments with a small group of classical greek learners.
Glad to have these too, will get to a faster terminal and listen again.
Interesting how many people are doing Ancient Greek on their won or in small groups, shows that educationis personal and not tied to colelge enrolment and paid (expensive) coursework.'
Bill
I forgot to comment on one of your statements. Actually, I am Chinese so naturally, I find pitch-based languages such as Chinese to be pretty easy and obvious. One difference might be that instead of a rising and lowering pitch of the perispomena and properispomena, Mandarin Chinese has a lowering and rising pitch (tone). However, there are many ways that pitch may be done and the pitch glide performed. For example, Chinese has a pitch change per morpheme/syllable which gives it even more of a sing-song quality that probably Greek had - the reconstructed Greek pitch seems to want acute pitch changes to be held until the end of the word. Also, is it by a musical fifth (3:2) that the Greek acute gets pitched up? That seems to be a lot! Mandarin Chinese's rising tone is only a rise of a minor third (6:5). If Classical Greek's acute tone is a rise by a musical fifth, that probably explains why some find it strange. Anyways, all this may explain why I am interested in the pitch accent and why I think I can learn it well, if I can properly find it done right.
I agree that a real musical fifth is hard to maintain. Especially at this remove from classical period, "intonation" may well embody other variables as well. Never thought before it before, but the Greeks were certainly able to deduce halftones by listening to some of the scales (modes). COuld they have been thinking of five halftones, e.g. a major third?
OF course people will say there was no diatonic scale then, but from Vitruvius' 30 BC discussion of amphitheater acoustics in Book V it is clear that there were subtle refinenemnts in the tuning jars, or that acoustic system would never have worked. I have a notice about that on the site under I Corinthians 13, a short statement of something I once wrote for the Acoustic Soc Amer. I am stretching the point now, but your Third sounds much better to me.
The Greek pitches have IE background in Skt and Lithuanian, but not exact word for word. And they are rarely phonematic, perhaps just a few dozen words in common use at most. Then the MSS tradition has a wide variety of ptich markings, Chandler 2 ed l884 Greek Acentuation is the master study of the variants. And Aeolic was always reecessive in the poetry we have..... another thing to consider, since Iliad must have been initially Aeolic. And l9 th c. editors establishd their own printing preferences...... more in there than weeks to eye.
My wife is Korean but I have never noticed pitches in her telephone talk with family, lots of stresses and certain rising intonations at the end of a phrase. Being Chinese you are in a much better position to think about Greek, it is hard for Americans who are really monotone by preference and annoyed by traditional Brit speech patterns, to think of musicality in their languages. Maybe part of the reason we write poorly, compared to the best British.
Bill
If classical greek acute pitch was a rise of a major or minor third, this would make more sense to me. It is as you say. Even as a native Chinese speaker, I have trouble imagining how one could sustain pitch changes of a musical fifth, and hold them for the duration of a word, word after word. Also, pitch changes take a certain amount of time, and larger pitch changes take more time than small pitch changes.
Probably why you don't hear much in the way of tones when your wife talks in Korean is that while Chinese is a tonal language, Korean is largely atonal. Korean uses pitch, but as in English, pitch contours over the sentence, not over the individual words, syllables or morphemes.
By the way, a few days ago, when I was researching the Greek pitch accent, I found reference to some research which argued that even a grave accent originally indicated a rise in pitch, although smaller. While this research was not new (from 1993), its conclusions definitely run counter to what is taught in the greek textbooks I have access to - that the grave accent is either a lowering pitch or, at the very least, not a rising pitch: http://arts.anu.edu.au/linguistics/People/AveryAndrews/Homer/pitch.htm
About the grave, aside from the ridiculous western practice of pronouncing it with a stress exactly like an acute, there are statements from the Greek Metrical writers that the grave or baru represents a tonal base line. This is corroborated by some of the papyri used in schools which put a grave over every syllable not otherwise marked. In othr words, the msg to readers was DOWN, keep your pitch down........
Exactly which of the various speakers in that polyglot Near East this instruction was aimed is not clear. I thin the unnecessary smooth breathing must have been aimed at the Roman tendency to aspirate initial vowels, e.g. Catullus' poem "Arrius".
Bill
eliliang wrote:So one what basis do you judge Daitz' pronunciation effort?
Vox Graeca, W.S. Allen, 3rd ed. wrote:Regarding the range of variation between low and high pitches in speech, there is a well-known statement by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (De Comp. xi, pp.40 f. UR) to the effect that 'the melody of speech is measured by a single interval, approximately that termed a "fifth", and does not rise to the high pitch by more than three tones and a semitone, nor fall to the low by more than this amount'. This statement is generally understood in its most obvious interpretation, but an alternative suggestion merits notice --- namely that the interval of a fifth may refer not to the total range but rather the variation from the mean. Dionysius does not always express himself clearly, but this interpretation would save the latter part of his statement from tautology; and the total range then implied need not be excessive, at least if, as it appears, it is intended as a maximum. Descriptions of the melodic range of Norwegian, for example, average around a sixth, but these are generally based on a more or less formal rendering and 'in everyday speech the size of the interval can vary greatly, from nothing to an octave, according to the age, sex, temperament and emotional state of the speaker; whether he is speaking quickly or slowly, with or without strong emphasis and according to the position of the word in the sentence. The length of the word can also influence the size of the interval.'
Bardo de Saldo wrote:"I am perhaps too analytical as I always look for the rationale behind feelings. A feeling or judgement is composed of a myriad of smaller details, some of which a person might not put a name to. When I hear a judgement, it is always interesting for me to dig a little deeper and see if there is anything there I could "hang my own hat" on - that I could adopt for myself. The way I work, if there is no rationale for something, then I just can't believe it." ~Elilang
Have you considered the rational possibility that for hearing human speech nothing beats a human ear?
Bardo de Saldo wrote:If someone sounds worried, do you have to hang your own hat on what inflection of which morpheme, perispomena or properispomena caused you to come to that judgement before saying "that person sounds worried"? You sound like the kind of person who needs a seismographer and a gas spectrometer to ascertain whether she has farted or not.
You very well might. How's about sending us a URL for one of your recordings?Bardo de Saldo wrote:Thanks for bringing us the Harris interview, Eli. The Middle-Eastern accent part sounds interesting. As Tim said earlier, Greeks from neighboring islands in the time of Homer must have sounded as different as a Texan, a Scot and an Australian; so who's to say that when I sing my hexameters Gypsy-style (vowels athwartships, consonants fore-and-aft) I don't sound just like a Myrmidon?
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