before anything I would like to say thank you because you are really helping me in this learning adventure:
now, I have a question about pronunciation: I’ve seen that many times the double τ was changed in the modern greek for a double sigma,
θάλαττη /// θάλασση
γλώττα … γλώσσα
just to mention some of them, but I would like to know what it the pronunciation on classic greek for this double consonant,
I tried to find out in this forum in previous threaths but I could not find anything, also in the books… nothing…
This is a dialect difference. Homer and Herodotus would have used the double sigma, too. The double tau is characteristic of Attic. But Koine, upon which modern Greek is based, used the double sigma.
As for the pronunciation, probably as written. The variation may go back to something like the ch in “church”, or perhaps some /ts/ variation, and there are even signs of this in some dialects.
I was always curious to know why people came with writing some consonants double. In the above example, is /t/ or /s/ spoken double? It’s somehow difficult to do this. There are also other examples like “gramma” or “alla”, but I don’t know any example with double /k/ or /χ/.
Thomas, is there any linguistic quirk you will not attribute to the mischief of perverted grammarians?
Because the pronunciation of ‘octo’ became ‘oto’, and to keep the historical records, you write it as ‘otto’, but I don’t think one speaks any double /t/.
In the case of Italian you would be very much mistaken. Double consonants are distinctly pronounced. Nono and nonno are different words, with different meanings, differently pronounced.
The same goes for ‘ekklesia’, it’s an invetions of grammarians to remind people that it is actually coming from two words ‘ex’ and ‘kalw’>‘exkalw’>ekkalw’>‘ekklese’>‘ekklesia’. But before the grammarians, did they spoke it as double /k/?
Yes. It is metrically guaranteed. Doubled consonants were pronounced doubly in ancient Greek.
Where people of the 5th century aware that some clusters /ts/ ot /tS/ are reduced to ‘tt’ or ‘ss’, or that any sound /j/ is missing in ‘alla’?
Maybe it’s due to my stubbornness, but I have great incapability to pronounce a double /t/ or /k/ without putting a (glottal?) stop in-between. Though I can imagine a double /n/, /m/ only as lasting longer than usually.
Did not thalatta and glotta become doubled consonants from the loss of the /j/ in Greek? I don’t believe that was the case with either gamma or ekklhsia though, nor was it with the Italian examples. But the premise is there - a loss of a consonant to a doubled consonant. octo = otto.
And of course it’s pronounced doubly, in Italian, in Greek, even in English. If not two full consonants, you at leat do one consonant aspirated, no?
I am convinced that the grammarians dictated the reasons for writing some consonants double without taking into consideration the real pronunciation. I am thinking of German words like “tag” (spoken “tak” or “ta/ch/” (/ch/ as in scottish Loch)), zug (=tsu/ch/), but they write it with g because in the plural form and other declensions its spoken as /g/, and we have “tage” (=tage) or “zuege” (=tsuege). Another example is “wald” (valt), “waelder” (velder). In the example for “wald” notice also the quasiumlaut “ae”. I could say the same for Greek if there weren’t some cases like “glotta” or “thalatta”, were almost from beginning these words were written with double consonants. For modern speakers it’s a tongue twister to speak /t/ twice without using a stop or aspiration in-between, but than the aspiration will be clearly auditive and will distort the euphonics of the word.
That’s exactly right for doubled /n/ and /m/, and is how other doubled stops work.
The doubled consonants are not rearticulated! Here, in fat alpaca the /t/ is single. In fat tom cat the /t/ is doubled, at least at a normal speaking pace.
Bert, I must confess that to this day I have no idea what a “trilled” lambda would be or sound like. I suspect he’s using the word in a sense I don’t know.
I can understand how a ‘trilled’ /l/ sounds. /l/ is one of the consonants one can “sing”, that’s keep it sounding as long as one wishes, like /s/ or /m/. Something is not possible to do with /t/ or /g/ and other consonants. Sorry, but I tried to keep /t/ and /k/ sounding double and was not able to do it. Ancient Greeks must have had a fine ear to distinguish the duration of these consonants so as to keep them recorded correctly. I doubt that they were at such an early stage such great linguists and keen to record the sounds perfectly. Now I am thinking more if there was another sound they wanted to write, like a ‘harder’ or ‘louder’ /t/ than usual, where the plosive part is more forced than usual, but without resulting to an aspiration (like in theta) or to a voiced one like in delta. Just my thoughts.
For those who speak languages with geminate consonants — the Italians, the Japanese — the distinction differentiates words. I doubt they regard it as subtle.
I’ll see if I can find some sound files contrasting single from double consonants.
