How long are "short diphthongs"?

Greek Learning Greek
1

Hello all! I’m a few weeks into learning Greek, and trying to develop good pronunciation habits early (by “good” pronunciation I mean something like - a pronunciation system that is historically plausible, will help me remember spelling and accentuation, and will allow poetry to scan). I’ve learned lots from various online tutorials, but one question remains unanswered:

For Attic Greek pronunciation, how long should I make the nshort diphthongs -ai and -oi?

I know that -ai and -oi “count” as short vowels for the purposes of determining where the accent lies.

But what about when they are pronounced - do they actually have the length of a short vowel? If so, would that mean they sound something like [ʌɪ] and [ʊɪ] respectively? (Those are the sounds I end up producing when I try to squeeze an ai/oi into “short vowel length”.) How do they behave in poetry - do they make a syllable long?

2

They are long in pronunciation, as evidenced by poetry, where they respond with long syllables. It’s only for the purpose of this rule that they “count as short”. (Textbooks should really phrase this better and refer to them only as an exception to the normal rule of accents rather than any “count as” talk.)

3

Thanks! I had suspected as much, knowing that most textbooks handwave over pronunciation.