I have been watching a YouTube video made by what ought to be a very reliable source, since I wanted to ensure that I am pronouncing Greek letter names correctly. It occurred to me that this might be a good idea seeing as I am teaching myself Greek from a book and have never really heard these names pronounced.
Anyway, I have now come across a real anomaly which I would like to put to the kind folks on here to clarify, if they would be so decent: My book (Hansen and Quinn) tells me that the letter ζ ought to be pronounced ‘dz’, as in adds or gadzooks; on my video however, which is a product of the ‘Joint Association of Classical Teachers’ (as far as I can tell, an association of classical teachers at schools across the UK)we are told that in fact the letter is pronounced in precisely the reverse manner, that is to say ‘zd’ as in wisdom, instead of ‘dz’.
Could somebody please tell me what’s going on here? Am I simply encountering two different methods of pronunciation which are favoured respectively on two different sides of the Atlantic? If so, do we know how the Greeks themselves would have pronounced this letter?
The pronunciation of Greek has varied greatly over time, and there are also different dialects. Even if you knew that you wanted to imitate the speech of a particular time and place, there would be considerable uncertainty about many things. Different people today pronounce ancient Greek in different ways, and in most cases the pronunciation system they choose is actually not the same as any attempted reconstruction of any specific time and place. My suggestion would be to try to identify any audio materials you’re likely to be using in the future, and imitate those. Otherwise when you listen to those materials, there will be an additional mental barrier when you listen to them.
Another thing to think about is whether you will ever want to visit Greece and and use basic modern Greek to do things like ordering a beer or asking when the bus leaves. If so, then you might want to work on the ancient language using the modern pronunciations, so as to reduce the barrier between the two.
Allen is good, but makes the state of the argument look nicer than it is. He is mostly taking his arguments from Sturtevant (2nd edition, but see the radically different first edition for an earlier less committal take). For an idea of how crazy things get, Teodorsson’s “The pronunciation of zeta in different Greek dialects” is well worth a read, with some decent arguments for absolutely crazy things like zdz, etc. And Hinge’s opinionated argument for dz is extremely good. ( http://alkman.glossa.dk/zeta.html ). For even more fun, you can look up all the statements of the grammarians in TLG, not always in agreement, and try to deconstruct the Aristotle comment about ζα, noting the manuscript variance.
Still, I think that the arguments overall are mildly in favor of [zd] for Attic before Aristotle. But some points:
The pronunciation dz definitely existed in various dialects, and continued for a very long time among the Italian Greeks
The demolition of the Ἀθήναζε argument by Hinge is convincing to me. What about Ὀλυμπίαζε, indeed?
A number of words show what looks like some sort of “historical” d termination (ἐλπίζω ἐλπίς stem ελπιδ; καθέζομαι ἕδος ; ὄζω ὀδμή ; στενάζω στεναγμός ; οἰμώζω οἰμωγή). Allen calls this “an original dy or gy”, and it’s really extremely common. Also, this glide disappearing before ι but not ε would easily explain the Ζευς irregularity (Dyeus, Dios, Dii, Dyeni, etc.)
And in fact, it’s a little more than just historical to Attic. The following quote from the Deinosophists (and I have not see anyone else make this observation, so take the source – me – with a grain of salt, of course) indicates that the etymology of τράπεζα (four feet) is at least accessible enough to the audience to make a good joke for Aristophanes:
The punchline, “where do I find a three-footed four-footed-table” only makes sense if πεζ- was close enough to πεδ- to be intelligible. But there is dialectical interference here (πέζα), meaning there’s hardly an open and shut case.
But despite the arguments for dz, I’m struck by the lack of τ or δ stem words showing a ζ anywhere when a σ termination gets added. So I still think that Allen is right, on balance.
You may joke, but in this 3rd cent. B.C. Boeotian inscription (mentioned in the LSJ entry for τρέπεδδα), Western Union is given as τρεπέδδας, from τρίπεζα:
Tom, since you say that you are using H&Q and you are learning alone, you should also be aware that the pronunciation quide given in H&Q Section 2 of the Introduction should not be used. This is aside from the ζ discussion.
H&Q only uses English words in the guide, and thus there are some extremely bad recommendations, the worst being for η, υ, and ω.
I’ve listened to the youtube video, and it is entirely correct for 5th c. Attic. That is what you should be following for every letter.
If you want a good written discussion of pronunciation, you can use Mastronarde or W. S. Allen.