I want to take a poll of all Greek studiers (this will determine which is the best method of pronunciation for me to study), about whether or not you use the CONTINENTAL (which I have used so far) or the ENGLISH way of pronouncing the dipthongs in greek. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here are examples:
Continental
ai = “eye”
au = the “ow” in “now”
ei = the “ay” in “say”
oi = the “oi” in “oil”
ou = the “oo” in “food”
eu = the “eu” in “neuter”
ui = the “ooey” in “gooey”
English
ai = ay as in aye
au = au as in naught
ei = ei as in height
oi = oi as in oil
ou = ou as in out
eu = eu as in neuter
ui = wi as in wine
As you can see: au, ei, ou, and ui are different in English when compared to Continental.
Does this matter? Even if I pronounce the Continental (which sounds more “European”, myself having known Spanish), am I still light-years away from pronouncing it as the “True Greek of the Ages”?
Does anyone here use or prefer the English system?
Sure, the English system is easier for me to pronounce, as I am an anglophone, but is it healthy?
hi xon, i would choose continental. all of the diphthongs represent what vox graeca and smyth’s grammar show to be the ancient greek pronunciation of around 400 BC, except for eu, which kept the diphthong sound (i.e. the “e” didn’t work as a consonantal “y”, as in “you” or “neuter”).
looking through the english list, only oi seems to mirror the ancient pronunciation.
prior to 400BC though, there were some slight differences: ei and ou were pronounced as true diphthongs, i.e. a glide between 2 sounds, except when they were spurious (i.e. resulting from contraction or lengthening). i remember that smyth talks about this at the start of his grammar, let me find it… sections 6 and 25:
My teacher did spend a while telling us how to pronounce the diphthongs, so I must assume that this is the system he was taught at uni in Germany (University of Mainz):
ai = ay as in eye
au = the “ow” in “now”, but he did say that they were probably not pronounced quite like that, that the a and u sounds were not quite so contracted, more like a-u
ei = the “ay” in “say”
oi = oi as in oil
ou = ou as in too, but not quite as far forward as in English, the sound comes from a bit further back in the throat
eu = eu as in toy, but again really e-u
ui = u-i is pronounced u-i
Basically au, eu, and ui are seen as half diphthongs, two vowels which are sort of spoken separately, but because you have two vowels next to each other you’ll always end up with the sound being contracted a bit. Eh… like say a and then u after each other really quickly and then you’re sort of there.
Again, this is just what I learned, not sure it’s ‘right’, but I think it might be sort of close.
It’s difficult to list English equivalents, because many typical words are pronounced differently on different sides of the pond. Over here, the vowel in the first syllable of “neuter” is usually not a diphthong.
My Greek teachers told us to try to pronounce “eu” as “eh-oo”, which diphthong has no real equivalent in English (American English, anyway).
Same story with “ui”. I guess “gooey” is a good approximation.
Eye and aye sit the same with my ears (quite unrefined I’m afraid). However, for the most part I use the continental system and it seems to be what I find in most of my grammars.
eye and aye - are those not “ah” + “ee” either way? Is that not how it is supposed to sound? Those diphthongs, except o+u, sound exactly like they should in Continental. I mean, naught? Ah + ooh. I thought this stuff was obvious.
Ok, maybe the systems with different examples, it may just be a US/UK problem:
Continental
ai = “I” (I am)
au = the “ow” in “now” or “how”
ei = the “ay” in “say” or “play”
oi = the “oi” in “oil” or “toil” or “soil”
ou = the “oo” in “food” or “rude” or “crude”
eu = the “eu” in “neuter”
ui = the “ooey” in “gooey”
English
ai = ay as in “say” or “play”
au = au as in "naught " or “taught”
ei = ei as in “height” or “I” (I am)
oi = oi as in oil
ou = ou as in “out” or “shout”
eu = eu as in neuter
ui = wi as in wine
As you can see they English and continental are different. The English just get it all mixed up.
“eye” and “aye” sound the same to me, like “ai” in Greek
I think with the English system they wanted the Greek dipthongs to correspond with traditional English pronunciation for dipthongs that were spelled the same. Actually it appears to have been put together arbitrarily because English has many different pronuciations for just one way of spelling a different “dipthong”. For example, the “ei” in the perfectly english word “eight” is pronounced in the “Continental” way.
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