In the process of habituating myself to the pronunciation of ancient Greek, I’ve realized that the best thing at the moment would be to memorize a few lines of verse, perhaps from the same work perhaps disparate, to get to know how the Greeks sensed the sound of their language. For example, I did not truly understand the natural scansion of Latin prose — that is, how to pronounce correctly normal Latin text with the proper fluency according to syllable length and elisions — until I became familiar with the poetry. I assume that the properties are quite similar to those of Latin, but I would like to know for sure.
I figure I could dive right into Homer or something, borrow of a few random lines of dactylic hexamter, but since Greek is still quite a vast and alien world to me, I thought it best to ask for recommendations from the experts on which lines I would be wise to memorize. Τί νομίζετε, ὦ φίλοι;
Χά?ιν ὑμῖν ἔχω.
P.S. I just noticed that χά?ιν has an accute accent there instead of a circumflex like I’d exspect if “-ιν” were short — is “-ιν” then considered a long syllable, like in Latin with all final ‘-m’ ? Or perhaps I don’t yet understand the rules of accentuation.
As for memorizing Greek verse, I’d actually not recommend starting with Homer, or any hexameter or iambic verses. The various substitutions (contraction, resolution, ancipites, etc.) complicate things. Rather you should start with verses that have a fixed and repeating rhythm. Sappo PMG 976 is the first poem I ever memorized in the correct rhythm — it’s short, simple, and the hagesichorean (the verse form) is a building block of the larger Sapphic stanza. Any other poems by Sappho or Alcaeus would be good for metrical practice, though you are then obligated to come to terms with the dialect a bit sooner than you might like.
If you can handle the overheated style, Ibycus 286 is regular and dactylic.
Finally, the Anacreontics are simple starting reading material if you can handle the general air of fluff about them. The anacreontic (x-u-u–) is quite easy to internalize. Anacreontic 7(W) is a good start.
After that I’d think about moving on to the Hexameter. For some reason I had a lot of trouble with the iambic trimeter. I basically had to read an entire Satyr play (well, the only one, the “Cyclops”) before I really started to grok the trimeter. The three ancipites were the big stumbling block for me. Perhaps others can weigh in on this, but I’d recommend you save the trimeter for last.
My memories are hazy, but I get the idea that Latin poets were a lot more regular in their treatment of the anceps position when they lifted lyric meters from Greek. Almost every Greek meter has positions where the syllable may be light or heavy, and I’ve found that dealing with that uncertainty is usually the biggest problem for internalizing verse forms.
I find that memorizing verses is easier once you know the vocabulary and grammar in the line - and having that line memorized helps you remember various word forms (of a particular verb, for instance). I have the first fifty or so lines of the Iliad memorized simply from studying them as I work through Pharr. All of the metrical effects that Will mentioned complicate things sometimes, but if you can work through them, the verse is very enriching.
I second this recommendation. This poem is, sadly, one of the only non-hexameter poems I know how to recite (which I can do in both its Aeolic and Atticized forms).
I also have the first poem from aoidoi.org’s Mesomedes 1 paper memorized. When I first read it, I was excited at how much of it I could understand at first sight, and decided to memorize it right away. The fact that the meter isn’t too complicted helped a lot with that, and now I have a decent familiarity with that sort of verse (enough for the rhythm to come somewhat naturally).
Thank you very much! I’ll be referencing this thread in the future when I become more advanced.
The Sappho poem is quite lovely; I’ve copied down into my libellus. The dialect seems truly fascinating — It looks to have lost a great deal of aspiration (κατεύδω, ἀ, ὤ?α), and of course the everywhere-but-Attica alpha for eta. Neat!
Actually it’s Attic-Ionic that has eta for original long alpha (mentioned here). Ionic carries the change even further than Attic, for example Attic νεανἰας versus Ionic νεηνἰης.
Will, by the way, amazingly beautiful site. This is the first I’ve inspected it; truly lovely and informative and well-organized. The gentium font, of course, gave it away. If only everyone had that lovely font …
Well, rather, I’ve kept a notebook (or rather still, many notebooks) for years, filled with personal notes on ideas of all sorts, from language to science to stories and poetry, you get the idea. My present one (the first of a Moleskine class) has the first few pages dedicated to the beginning of the Aeneid, some Catullus, and there’s another section, which follows this new Sappho I put in, for the poems at Viva Voce:
Apropos! I’d love to hear some recordings of Greek poetry, or even prose. My experience with hearing Greek has been limited to the Modern variety, with a few (in my opinion, poorly done) recordings of ancienter Greek. I’m pronouncing the Greek that I’m studying according to the recommendations (with minor exceptions) in Vox Graeca, yet I have not ever heard something similar, and to hear a truly expert speaker — and by that I mean experienced — would be just a priceless oportunity. I’m especially interested to hear the interpretation of the melodic Greek language with its pitch accents; I sing, and I can, from my point of view, credibily imitate the 5th interval jumps in pitch that have been spoken of, but it’s so hard to sound what cannot be heard but by my own simple φωνή.
My brother! I did not know you were also part of the Moleskine cult.
yet I have not ever heard something similar, and to hear a truly expert speaker — and by that I mean experienced — would be just a priceless oportunity.
I am not sure there are expert speakers.
credibily imitate the 5th interval jumps in pitch that have been spoken of,
I have doubts about that 5th.
I’ll try to make sure I start up skype regularly for the next few days. Send me a ping, and I can demonstrate a few things at least.
I could record some of my poetry recitations. I’m better with Homer than with the lyric poets, but I feel that I manage to combine the accent, pronunciation, and rhythm in a fairly accurate way.
I’m pronouncing the Greek that I’m studying according to the recommendations (with minor exceptions) in Vox Graeca, yet I have not ever heard something similar, and to hear a truly expert speaker — and by that I mean experienced — would be just a priceless oportunity.
Like Will said, I doubt there are experts in using the reconstructed pronunciation. Certainly there are those who are knowledgeable about Greek phonetics, but outside of autodidacts (such as us here at Textkit), I can’t think of anyone who’s actually very good at the practical implementation of it.
I need to get Skype - I’ve been wanting to go over a few things about Latin pronunciation with Lucus. And of course it’s handy for things like this.
Indeed! well why don’t you get Skype today, Hu? link I’ll be around tomorrow afternoon; I’m limited by a poor connexion at home, but fortunate to have a wonderful connexion at school, where I’ll be through the mid-afternoon. Up to four speakers can communicate with each other at a time on Skype; sounds ideal for us! And yes, I’d be delighted to share what I’ve learned and put into practice for Latin pronunciation with you; it’s been my favorite passtime.
Will, when will you be available? Specifically I’m free beginning at about 11:30 PM EDT, and then again in the early afternoon after 2 or so I exspect.
Wow, what amazingly helpful responses. It’s neat being a newbie again of sorts, with a new language, encountering this overflowingly helpful assistence that marks our beloved Textkit — thank you incredibly! Hu, I was not aware of that site, but I love these recordings! Goodness, the pulchritude of that rendition of the Odyssey! amazing! I lept for the recording before reading the performer’s name, and indeed his Austrian accent shows through with the gutteral ‘r’ and minor elements of intonation (I love the Austrian accent; I have a very good friend from there), but nothing at all to marr the experience. Wow! That’s what I was looking for, especially as regards my original post above; excepting the Erasmian interpretation of ‘ei’ as a diphthong, it really seems a remarkable and wonderful supposition. That Odyssey will make my next CD of Latin and Greek for the car!
And yes, cultores Molskini sumus certe. Thank you for enlightening me about the term “commonplace;” I hadn’t used it before, but now I will make a point of it. I wonder where I might write it down to remember …
Anyway, I hope to hear you both tomorrow afternoon. Χαί?ετε!
I’m on a 56k at home and it’ll take a while to download, but I’ll see about it tomorrow.
excepting the Erasmian interpretation of ‘ei’ as a diphthong
Is there any evidence of when that diphthong became monophthongized? Of course, nobody knows exactly when the Homeric epics were composed, but if we accept a likely date of sometime before 700BC, would it be reasonable to pronounce “ei” as a diphthong?
If I remember right, the Old Attic alphabet wrote E for the long close vowel [e:] and EI for the diphthong [ei]. And it was replaced, according to what I can find online, in 403 BC, so the monophthongization probably happened during the 5th century BC? But in the current spelling EI can refer to either an original diphthong or to an original [e:], but in the site you linked to, I read along with the reader and he does seem to distinguish between the two.
I don’t want to criticize the pronunciation because I have my own troubles producing anything even half-decent, but does anyone else think he has an aversion to voicing? It’s especially noticeable with σ before μ, but I believe that too is a characteristic of southern German dialects.
This is a bit off-topic but listening to him, I wonder if anyone could tell me how independent were words? I notice when he reads ἄγγελος ἦλθεν, e.g., he’ll put the ς with the ο. Now my understanding is that that would make that syllable heavy, but it’s light and the ς should be read with the following η. Do I got this right? I’ve been trying, and failing, to make myself ignore word boundaries when I’m reading (sometimes I think I would love an edition written without spaces), but I should be aiming to do this, right?
I think you’re quite right about the word connection; Italian, Latin, Spanish, even in our own language words elide and glide together in the manner you’re exspecting and attempting to emulate. And yes, though voicing is quite common in German, he appears to be avoiding that vice, imitating the Latin mode of not voicing σ ever, even with μ. And as for the digraph ει, I might have to doublecheck Vox Graeca, I wasn’t aware of it ever representing anything but [ē] of the normal variety at first, becoming ever closed towards [ī] towards the 4th century or later.
I just glanced in Vox Graeca (p. 71); apparently there are some ει forms that represent the diphthong, like in the English word eight, he writes, but that the majority ει represent long, close ‘e’. In any case, both classes merged by the 5th century — I realize this is not helpful to our Homeric discussion.
The two classes are distinguished by their older representation; namely, ει used to be just for the diphthong, and even the long close [ē] was just written with ε. Then later in the 6th century the sounds merged into close [ē], and were written ει. However, I can’t imagine we have enough inscriptional evidence to distinguish between the two from an earlier period; and since it would be wrong to pronounce a monophthong as a diphthong, we may do more harm than good by pronouncing ει as a diphthong in every position.
An example here given for the ancient diphthong is ΤΕΙΧΟΣ; and he says both classes are exemplified by the ancient form ΕΙΠΕ?, later εἰπεῖν.
Most of the time historical linguistics will let us distinguish what’s going on. For example, -ει- from contracted -εε- is the long vowel, but based on the pattern λείπω ἔλιπον λέλοιπα we know that the -ει- in λείπω is a diphthong. Things like that.
If only everyone had that lovely font …
