how to prouounce attic greek

Greek Learning Greek
1

Hi there! I just made up my mind to learn attic greek, but i have problem with the pronouciation. i’ve visited the page below but the pronounciation on that website is awful.
http://atticgreek.org
Is there any good resource online i can refer to?

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As yet I can’t suggest a solution to Vera but I would like to post in this thread for asking a question, related to this thread title.

I had been studying for some time in this thread ( Vowel / Diphthong length ) and I ended up to the wikipedia “correption” site where I read an example:


Homer uses correption in dactylic hexameter:

Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ
πλάγχ> θη> , ἐπεὶ Τροί> ης > ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσε·
— Odyssey 1.2

Tell me, O Muse, of the man of many devices, who wandered full
many ways after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy.
— translation by A.T. Murray

Here the sequence η ε in bold must be pronounced as ε ε to preserve the long—short—short syllable weight sequence of a dactyl. Thus, the scansion of the second line is thus:

πλαγχ > θε> , ε | πει Τροι | > ης > ι ε | ρον πτο λι | εθ ρο νε | περ σε

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/correption

I know that this is most likely not to be attic dialect.
Nevertheless I would like :smiley: to ask anyone that mastered attic dialect pronunciation or is certain about her/his pronunciation skills in this dialect to explain to me why eta once is marked like pronounced as “ε”(“Ae” e.g. Aegean) and the second is marked as “ης”(implying that the two syllables containing the same vowel are to be pronounced differently)?

Truly, I hope this is not another typo ! :unamused: :blush:

3

@Damian, you’re asking why this couldn’t be συναλοιφή? I don’t know if there is a better answer than that the ancient grammarians described it otherwise. This correptio epica is very old, goes back to Vedic, and doesn’t much happen outside of epic.

Allen discusses this line of Homer on pg. 97 of Vox Graeca (which would be a good resource for Vera as well, combined with forvo.com).

When the final element is a diphthong (like the second break in ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε), it’s easy to interpret this as the second element becoming a semivowel [-aya-].

However, Allen doesn’t describe what is going on for non-diphthongs. My guess is that you really have two options: pronounce -η ε- like you would -ει ε- or -ευ ε- (ie., [-eye-]). Or shorten η to ε and use a glottal stop for hiatus. I go with the first, but I don’t know that I’ve found the solution exactly.

To further confuse things, there seems to be evidence that ει has a better claim to being long ε than η does, which may have differed in quality from ε as well as in quantity. And to further further confuse things, there are two types of ει by etymology.

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^^ Thanks
I ll see to it.


I found ioannis6 youtube channel :slight_smile:

https://youtu.be/LkxmGuE4ae8
https://youtu.be/Q5FHZx0oOqs
Credits Ἰωάννης Στρατάκης

At some points of his reading, in my ears ‘η’ sounds differently subject to what syllable is in. When ‘η’ is in ultima sounds more like alpha and less like epsilon. [Edit(9 DEC 15): I watched those videos couple more times and now I think that I was mistaken. ‘η’ truly sounds like ‘εε’ not ‘αα’ !]

I am also surprised of how he pronounces ‘χ’ , ‘θ’ and diphthong ‘ει’. About the last one I thought that it would be more like ‘a’(in make) rather like ‘ee’(in see).