I was wondering if any of you have happened upon classical texts put to Modern Greek pronunciation. I suppose I am looking for anything, including Koine, post-classical, Byzantine, but I would prefer ante-classical texts. Obviously, I have the NT covered-- though if you knew where to get some LXX audio, I would be grateful. Finding some Xenophon would be great.
Yes, this guy has recorded some Xenophon, Plato and Homer using Modern Greek Pronunciation.
I’m currently recording a few good anthologies and easy texts I’ve found around using Modern Greek but you’ll have to wait a while to see those.
isn’t that like wanting to hear Shakespeare read by someone with a heavy Brooklyn accent?
Shakespeare is perfectly intelligible with modern accents, and the poetry carries through just fine. In fact, I don’t actually know that Brooklyn accents are any farther from the English of Shakespeare’s day than the BBC standard English is, or the American Midwestern drawl. These accents are probably all closer to each other than to Stratfordian 16th-century English.
It depends what is meant by “perfectly intelligible”. Much is lost in Shakespeare with modern accents. The most obvious deficiencies are puns that don’t work in modern accents: in S’s time, for instance, hour and whore were pronounced the same (a pun in As You Like It). The same is true of lines and loins, a pun in play in Romeo & Juliet’s prologue (l. 5: “from forth the fatal loins of these two foes”). Possibly of lesser importance is that many a rhyme doesn’t work anymore. More on the subject can be found e.g. on Youtube, where I got these examples.
It’d be interesting to hear for what purpose modern pronunciation of classical texts is felt needed.
Your examples are true, but how in how many lines of Shakespeare can we identify a problem like that? 1 in 100? 1 in 500? I listen to a fair amount of Milton/Spencer/Shakespeare and rarely have problems. By the time we get to Gibbon/Johnson, the difficulties are very rare.
On the other hand, Chaucer is very difficult, and rarely completely intelligible to me.
Yes, yes it is.
You’re both right beyond any doubt in what you’re trying to imply. Modern Greek Pronunciation is not the most accurate way to pronounce Ancient Greek… BUT the way most people pronounce the reconstructed pronunciation is even less accurate.
And I’m not talking about a beginner’s clumsy attempt to read aloud like this one.
Ever heard of Stephen Daitz? As far as I know the guy was the only recognised authority of the reconstructed pronunciation (at least in the academic world cf. Allen’s Vox Graeca 3ed page 129 or page 118 of the 2ed, Dillon page 323). He was known for his The Pronunciation and Reading of Ancient Greek and some recordings like this one of Homer. Here’s a free sample.
I’ve never heard something so horrible, maybe you won’t notice just how American he sounds because English is your mother tongue. The same way I’ve heard brilliant German scholars pronounce Greek as if they were reading the Faust (typical to hear is Εὐρώπη with the Εὐ pronounced as [oi]). I can complain about the same problem with French scholars, Spanish speaking scholars and Italian scholars. They all pronounce one way or another the same way they pronounce their mother tongue and they DON’T notice.
In 2011 I met a Greek Scholar in a congress, it took me a while to get him drunk enough so that he’d agree to read some Thucydides using the reconstructed pronunciation (He was quite reticent about it, he actually took it as an insult at the beginning, so I had to explain that I was just curious about how it would sound). It was like reading Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum after watching the Da Vinci’s Code movie, or hearing Anna Netrebko after hearing your mad sister scream. After that I became convinced that any legitimacy that the reconstructed pronunciation may have is completely lost if you continue to speak as if Ancient Greek were your mother tongue.
My arguments are:
-
We can know beyond any doubt how Modern Greek is pronounced and we can consequently imitate it accurately without getting into endless (and often pointless) debates about it. Afterwards we can take it as a starting point to learn the Reconstructed Pronunciation.
-
All the inaccuracies and lacunas and points of dispute among the linguists and philologists would be perfectly forgiveable if those who use the reconstructed pronunciation were to have a basic common ground. But not only do they pronounce however they like. They never seem to reach an agreement on some basic stuff. I heard people pronounce the iota subscript others don’t.
Another example. Many Reconstructionists use a stress accent instead of a pitch accent despite knowing that the Greeks used a pitch accent. Allen himself (loc.cit. cf. Dillon 324) advises against using a pitch accent (“Melodic method”) despite his own evidence that Ancient Greek used a pitch accent. As we have seen the result is Daitz’… whatever that is.
And let’s not forget that
Not only were there many different varieties of Greek spoken at any given point in time, but those varieties changed through time. Thus the problem of determining how to pronounce ancient Greek is both diachronic and synchronic both horizontal and vertical
McNeal > page 99
If the argument to use the reconstructed pronunciation is not not lose whatever vocal qualities the language may have had, then I at least expect some coherence on its defenders and truly try and protect the language from “impurities” (I’m being sarcastic here) specially modern foreign ones.
Those and some other arguments have been discussed at length in an article by Matthew Dillon
Modern Greek must serve as the basis of any foundation for the sound of Ancient Greek. > It is the only universally available standard, and recent research suggests it is not so far from the pronunciation of Ancient Greek, at least in the immediate post- classical period, as is usually assumed> . This step is essential above all in order to master the art of συνεπέια, the flow and rhythm that is unique to any language, and in the case of Greek, very far from the cadence of English or most other European languages. If nothing else, the accentual pattern of Greek (which has remained absolutely stable over the millennia) will become instinctive, instead of remaining, as it does for many of us, a constant stumbling block. Even at the level of individual words, the problems presented by radically different phonetic values (e.g., iotacism, ευ, αυ, β, etc.) will be counterbalanced by a much improved pronunciation of other letters, especially “τ” and “π,” which are as a rule fatally overaspirated by English speakers. Indeed, on the whole, Greek sits in the mouth rather lightly compared to English, and we need to adjust our vocal apparatus radically to imitate the overall effect.
Few classicists who take the trouble to learn a little Modern Greek will be content to pronounce Ancient Greek precisely as Modern. We must compromise to produce something like “la lingua antica in bocca moderna.” The adjustments will vary from case to case and person to person; given the uncertainties and unknowns of Greek phonetics, we cannot expect general consensus. But the results should not be totally chaotic. > If Modern Greek is recognized as a valid starting point, our differences will at least emerge from a basic common ground. A number of models might well emerge, but the underlying standard will be recognizably Greek> .
Page 333
And notice that I’m not arguing AGAINST the reconstructed pronunciation (however much reticence and misgivings I may have about some of the evidence used to support it, or its interpretation), I’m arguing against those that either mispronounce it or are not coherent about their principles, and I’m offering a very valid alternative to teach an extant undisputed and available pronunciation that’s easy to learn, in order to better learn a hypothetical and disputed pronunciation.
And I believe that Prof. Richard A. McNeal is right in pointing that the whole pronunciation debate is not REALLY about the pronunciation but about underling biases.
What is at issue here is a basic difference of attitude, one which needs to be more widely understood than it apparently is. It is not simply a matter of different facts, but rather of an entirely different habit of mind. There will probably never be a rapprochment between the contending sides because each group talks in terms which the other refuses to understand. The Neo-Hellenist glories in the beauty of a long-established tradition. The Erasmian yearns for an antiquity unsullied by medieval accretions. There is the difficulty in a nutshell, and no amount of logic is apt to disturb one’s prior commitment to one of these two alternatives. It is really a matter for temperament rather than reason
Page 82
It is actually similar to the debate among German scholars about Goethe’s German pronunciation. Many refuse to accept the very real possibility that Germany’s iconic writer, born in Frankfurt, probably spoke the dialect of Hesse (Hessischer Dialekt) if not as his mother tongue at least as an everyday language and he also probably had a Hessian accent (the dialect of Hesse is the most hated of all German dialects and usually associated with poor rustic and uncivilised people), because, like all German aristocrats, he spoke French at court. It’s all prejudice of course, but you won’t meet any German that doesn’t twist in agony if you dare recite the Faust with a Hessian accent.
I think the same applies to most of the defenders of the reconstructed pronunciation, it’s not that they’re wrong in their facts and arguments, but they choose that pronunciation because of some prejudice against the Modern Greek. And to be fair the same applies to Modern Greeks and their nationalistic prejudices against Western (German-English) Scholarship.
I don’t have a problem with people sounding American or French or German or Modern Greek when they read ancient Greek, and I don’t exactly see why anyone would prefer one to the other. But I do have a problem with unintelligibility and non-expressiveness.
The unintelligibility problem with modern Greek audio: the vowel system has collapsed from about 23 phonemes down to 8. Here is how our modern Greek pronounces the start of the Anabasis:
Δαρίου κέ Παρισάτιδος γίγνοντε πέδες δίο, πρεσβίτερος μὲν Ἀρταξέρξις, νεότερος δὲ Κίρος: ἐπί δὲ ισθένι Δαρίος κέ ιπόπτευε τελευτίν τού βίου, ἐβούλετο τό πέδε ἀμφοτέρο παρίνε.
It can be difficult to work out the grammar unless you already know what it says. The information just isn’t there in many cases (famously, ὑμᾶς vs. ἡμᾶς are both just ιμάς in modern Greek pronunciation). It’s Timothée’s Shakespeare problem, but one that occurs every few words instead of once every few hundred lines.
And the non-expressiveness problem is just as bad for a modern Greeks as it is for Daitz. If you’re just reading the syllables off the page because you don’t understand the language well enough to understand them as you pronounce them, you’re going to sound horrible. Anyone who has sat through lay members reading scripture at Church knows what this is like (and I mean native English speakers reading the text in modern English translations like the NIV). I actually like Lombardo’s reading the of the Iliad for this reason, unlike some of the other members here. Yes he sounds like an American. Would it be an improvement if he sounded Belgian (or pick your favored nationality)?
(A Belgian friend of my acquaintance complains to me that when he visits Montreal, everyone switches to English as soon as they hear his accent. “But French is my native language!”)
–
Ancient → Modern Greek vowel phoneme collapse
a – ᾰ, ᾱ, ᾳ
(av) – αυ
e – ε, αι
(ev) – ευ
i – ῐ, ῑ, ῠ, ῡ, η, ει, οι, υι, ῃ
(iv) – ηυ
o – ο, ω, ῳ
u – ου
Actually I have no preferred national sound. I like all languages when spoken by their natives. But I’d be much more understanding and forgiving if those that condemned the Modern Greek weren’t so vocal and radical with their criticism of the “ungreekness” or “inaccuracy” of the Modern Pronunciation while they themselves are no more accurate.
It’s the incoherence what bothers, not their accent. I’m sure that I have a very strong Mexican accent when I speak English or German or French but I don’t go around reciting Shakespeare with a restored English pronunciation and nagging innocent English majors about how inaccurate their modern English pronunciation is.
“No more accurate” may not be a claim that could be defended in detail. The “restored” pronunciation – mostly Erasmusian with some fixes introduced in the late 1800s to Germany/England – really is more accurate in some important ways. If nothing else, it has enough phonemes. And the ability to be able to read Greek quantitive poetry aloud so that you can hear the metre by ear is no small thing, even if very few people seem to be able to do it.
And your example about harassing people about Shakespeare might have been more apt if you had said “Beowulf” – but also far less persuasive.
True, but like I said. I’m not saying we should abandon the restored pronunciation. I’m saying we should learn both pronunciations. First the Modern and then the restored one.
And you can still respect the metre with Modern Greek, it sounds a bit weird having so many long about but it’s not impossible. And like you said. What difference does it make if the reconstructed pronunciation has more phonemes if none is going to recite poetry with the metre, cadence and accent that it’s supposed to have? Isn’t it a valid alternative to do it according to an extant and available pronunciation that you can accurately imitate until you learn to do it “right”?
And I’m not really convinced about the whole unintelligibility argument. French is similar example, its orthography does not always correspond to its phonemes (at least from the perspective of another romance language), and even if it takes some effort people still manage to learn it pretty good. Modern Greek and even sometimes English has the problem that many words are not written the way they sound, there’s lots of orthographic rules that do not correspond with pronunciation, some even change depending on the variant you’re speaking (like primer: British [ˈpraɪmər] American [prɪməʳ]). Isn’t that the reason young children have spelling bees? In Spanish that is completely unnecessary, that’s why it takes us much effort to learn the phonetics of English and French but we have little trouble with the phonetics of German or Italian.
Was it anything like this reading of Plato’s Apology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcIvDUehsfE ? As far as I know, in the academia in Greece they use, when reading classical authors, Byzantine (=Modern) pronunciation only. It does not surprise me that they have no “unintelligibility” issues, as they perfectly understand each other’s everyday speech, in which what is written as “και” is pronounced as [ke], etc.
I heard, more than once, lay members reading even King James, and am not sure what you are referring to.
Count yourself lucky. μακρά τινος ἀναγινώσκοντος καὶ πρὸς τῷ τέλει τοῦ βιβλίου ἄγραφόν τι παραδείξαντος “θαρρεῖτε,” ἔφη, “ἄνδρες: γῆν ὁρῶ.”
I think I’m falling into a trap carefully set. Notwithstanding, a few points:
- It’s never been a good argument that because we cannot be perfect, we shouldn’t try at all.
- You are satisfied neither when tones are incorporated to the restored pronunciation nor when they are disregarded. Modern Greek has no tones, either. (E.g. Swedish has two, rising and falling.)
- There is dialect variation in Modern Greek, as well. If we make this a problem (it really isn’t), we cannot use Modern Greek, either.
- There is nothing wrong if, when pronouncing Ancient Greek, one can be recognised as, say, a Frenchman, Italian, Spaniard, or Englishman. If this is considered a problem, it won’t be solved with Modern Greek—they’ll still have an accent. This argument allows only native Greeks to pronounce Ancient Greek.
- I just read for my (dis)pleasure the first 21 lines of the Iliad in Modern Greek pronunciation. I cannot make it scan, simply because thus it cannot be made scan: there isn’t the long and short vowel (and consonant) difference needed in Modern Greek, particularly in non-stressed syllables.
Great thread. I can say this for an absolute fact: Only two people will ever like the way you read ancient Greek, yourself and your mother. (Unless you’re native Greek.)
I was taught Greek 101 in college using Crosby & Schaeffer. I suppose the pronunciation we used was “Erasmian,” though the professor wasn’t making a point of that. Before going on to graduate school, I read quite a bit of the Iliad on my own. I’ve always been an advocate of reading out loud, so as I orated impressively before the mirror, I suppose I was doing this in “Erasmian” too. On to graduate school, where, as I recounted in a different thread recently, I had quite a few native Greek friends. They found our pronunciations hilarious (they read ancient Greek the way I read Shakespeare). I learned the rudiments of modern Greek and for a while read my Homer with a modern Greek accent (such as it was). Later, I became a convert to “restored classical.” I even tried my hand at pitch accent, but couldn’t sustain it. More recently, I have had a friendly debate with a professor friend about how to read Greek poetry. I had bought into the argument that the ancient Greek would have, and we should, read the given accents, and that the underlying vowel quantities by their very nature produce the meter correctly. In other words, in Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεά, accent the initial α in ἄειδε; α is still short, ει long, and these by their nature produce the opening two dactyls. She won the debate on practical grounds. We were actually reading Sophocles, not Homer, and especially in the choral parts I simply couldn’t sustain the style of reading I was advocating.
The lesson in hindsight for me: I’ve been reading Homer all these years in the native language! With so much more appreciation than in translation. Second, I’m grateful for just about anyone else’s recordings. I personally still use my feeble attempt at “restored classical,” but I’d be a fool to reject Bedwere’s delightful recordings just because he happens to use Koine (he’s the best contemporary reader I know). As another example, I find it amusing that people find Daitz’s recordings “horrible” (do they mean by that “incorrect”?). Initially jarring, for sure. But for all we know, if Ion the rhapsode dropped out of the sky and recited Homer to us, we might find that jarring too. I’ve spent many a profitable 45-minute session on the elliptical at the gym listening to Daitz, and if someone else thinks they can do it better, or simply differently, I’ll welcome that too.
Vive la différence!
Once again you’re right. And I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try. All I’m saying is that IF the argument against Modern Greek Pronunciation is going to be “inaccuracy”, the “ungreekness” and even “impurity” (I heard that mostly from old professors). Then you have to be coherent and avoid sullying Greek with modern “impurities”.
Same as with point one. I’m not dissatisfied with the tones, I’m dissatisfied with the lack of coherence of those that want to hear and speak Greek exactly the way Homer or Plato spoke it and yet neglect the tonality of the language or their own imperfect rendering of the reconstructed pronunciation.
On this point, maybe you’ve not had shy pupils that are too afraid to mispronounce something to read aloud, even the bold ones would stutter and lose concentration if I became adamant about the accent, that’s why I first teach them the modern pronunciation where you do not have this problem, they can practice by themselves and hear some modern Greek on the radio, maybe we read a short Kavafis poem. Once they have some vocabulary and basic grammar under their belts I teach them the restored pronunciation. I explain the reasoning behind it and compare it to the modern one (like the Shakespeare example here mentioned). It’s a pedagogical win-win, they learn their basics without the uneasiness of lacking a fluid and secure model, then they learn the restored pronunciation easily because they know the reasons for it, they can compare it themselves whenever they’re in doubt, and most of them get rid of their native accent because they have the modern pronunciation as their starting point.
Same as with point one. IF accuracy is strong enough a reason to reject the modern pronunciation so decisively, then we should be careful not to recite Sappho or Alcaeus with an Athenian accent.
Once again you’re right, but as I said in point one. I’m not arguing against the reconstructed pronunciation, I’m arguing against the “accuracy” or “purity” argument of those that reject the modern pronunciation.
Actually I do believe that the only legitimate starting point we have available is the Modern Greek, but you do not have to be a native to do it. And like I said, I’m perfectly willing to turn a blind eye to native accents as long as people don’t go preaching about the “impurity” or “innacuracy” of modern pronunciation.
Just like in Latin the valid starting points of comparison are the romance languages, however they may changed phonetically, it’s still the closest rendering available to the original. A German friend once told me how jealous he was of my rendering of Cicero or Caesar (even when I used the German pronunciation), it didn’t matter how much he practised, how competent a linguist he was or how smarter than me he was, my Spanish gave me an insurmountable advantage that he dind’t have. He actually learned Spanish just to read his Cicero more fluently. And that’s the thing about dead languages, we do not have a native to teach us the general cadence and fluidness of a living language so we have to adapt and make do with what we have at hand. That’s why I find this whole “purity” or “accuracy” argument so unconvincing. It’s like being on the Titanic but refusing to get on a boat because its colour does not match your dress.
It does take a bit of stretching vowels that are not meant to be long. I’m sure it’ll come if you keep trying in good faith. But even if you don’t, this argument goes in my favour. If I have a pupil whom I previously taught only the modern Greek pronunciation, he or she will notice that there’s something in there that makes it odd to recite correctly with the pronunciation that he or she knows, I usually take that as a opportunity to teach them the restored pronunciation. Because I can then show them with clear examples that they understand how more accurate would it be to use the restored one.
As a teacher this kind of situations are invaluable for me, I cannot show them a recording of Homer himself and what’s available I find it very questionable, the next best thing I can offer in all academic honesty is a comparison of pronunciations where they’ll see why it would be more accurate to use the reconstructed pronunciation even for reciting purposes. Maybe they won’t like my imperfect rendering or Daitz’s but at least they’ll know and understand the reasoning for it.
I’ve been lucky enough to have groups where one half adopted the reconstructed pronunciation and the other the modern one. (I never force anyone to adopt anything, I simply show what’s available and let everyone do what they think best). You cannot imagine how well both pronunciations coexisted and how many interesting points of discussion were raised because of the comparison that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.
You get a good enough approximation pronouncing vowels and consonants as they are in Allen (much much closer than with Modern Greek, and easier). Tones can be disregarded (as they are in Modern Greek pronunciation). Attic pronunciation will do (nor does Mod.Greek pron. differentiate between Homer, Sappho, Herodotus, Plato and Plutarch). But as is clear from your reply, you’re indeed simply trolling. My last post here.
I think that everyone here is being serious and are making valid points. This is an easy subject to get heated about, unfortunately, as is appropriate for a subject that has been argued for generations can never go anywhere.
Familiarity with Modern Greek may well have pedological advantages for learning the ancient language, and if rmedinap and his students are finding success with that, wonderful. A number of educators have made the same claims over the years.
And if people can listen to recordings of Homer, Plato and Xenophon, etc., with a Modern Greek pronunciation, and understand them, wonderful. Personally, I’m somewhat skeptical of this, given that I’ve listened to a fair amount of Modern Greek recordings of these authors, and have found that too much information has dropped out for easy listening. This is due, I think, to iotaization and lost quantities, as I outlined above. But rmedinap may not share that experience, and my arguments may be wrong.
I would suggest, however, that instead of debating with the ghosts of his old Professors, who apparently insisted on purity, etc., that he will engage with the arguments that people are actually presenting here.
I do not mind if someone disagrees with me. But I find it remarkably odd that you’d think I’m trolling. I meant every word.
Would you say that people in high academic positions like the quoted Matthew Dillon (“The Erasmian Pronunciation of Ancient Greek: A New Perspective.” The Classical World, vol. 94, no. 4, 2001, pp. 323–334) are also trolling as well?
What about Prof. McNeal (“Hellenist and Erasmian.” Glotta, vol. 53, no. 1/2, 1975, pp. 81–101)?
Maybe I was not clear enough, I’m not saying we should reject one pronunciation in favour of another, I’m saying that a very valid alternative is to learn both, as Prof. Dillon thinks.
Allen himself (page 129 of the 3rd edition of his Vox Graeca) had enough humour to be sarcastic about those that took his suggestions too seriously. This I also find disquieting in most reconstructionists: they’re more papists than the Pope. They take Allen’s Vox Graeca as if it were divine word. Some of Allen’s claims have been questioned by Sven-Tage Teodorsson or even Allen’s own pupils like Geoffrey Horrocks (cf. Dillon page 326). In this case I actually side with Allen, the opposing arguments I find unconvincing but worth taking into very serious consideration.
But as jeidsath said we should concentrate on the practicality of what I say. He’s right in pointing that if one were to only learn the modern Greek pronunciation much grammatical information would be partially or totally lost in speaking, that’s why I argue that we should teach both pronunciations. Modern Greek themselves have a lot of misspellings and orthography problems with old words precisely because of the inconsistency between their phonetics and their written language, yet they still learn to write nicely.
My experience with French has taught me that you can have a language that consistently silences word-endings (even verb endings) but as long as there’s some regularity to it you won’t have a problem in understanding and speaking it. It’s just a matter of practice.
And I really think that we all agree on all the basic facts, I think I was clear enough every time I recognised someone was right. I’m really sorry if I offended anyone I did not mean to.