Learning ancient-greek with modern-greek pronunciation?

Greek Learning Greek
41

Thanks for the comment! Indeed. That’s what a responsible linguist would do. But unfortunately linguistic reconstructions of Ancient Greek are not purely scientific, but are marred by ideological commitments and the repetition of discredited 500 year-old dogmas.

I believe that if one looks at the evidence objectively with no preconceived notions, the inscriptions and the allusions in classical literature would lead us to reject the Erasmian values, just as noticing that “night” rhymes with “write” would lead an unbiased observer to conclude that modern English spelling is not phonetic. Honestly, I find it ridiculous that so much effort has been expended over this issue simply because a handful of Western Europeans in the Renaissance had a distaste for the sound “i”.

42

Where does Thucydides mention that λοιμός and λιμός sound the same?
I believe Εὐάγγελε that you either didn’t read the passage in the original, or you didn’t understand what is written there.
Modern Greek translations have the… tendency to avoid exactness on this very place. Just read the original, will you?
To make it easier, it’s in book 2, chapter 54, par’s 1-3.
Please have a look and try to understand what exactly is been described there.
Then we can comment on it.
Ciao.

43

Quoting the section that Ioannis6 mentions:

Τοιούτῳ μὲν πάθει οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι περιπεσόντες ἐπιέζοντο, ἀνθρώπων τ’ ἔνδον θνῃσκόντων καὶ γῆς ἔξω δῃουμένης. ἐν δὲ τῷ κακῷ οἷα εἰκὸς ἀνεμνήσθησαν καὶ τοῦδε τοῦ ἔπους, φάσκοντες οἱ πρεσβύτεροι πάλαι ᾄδεσθαι ‘ἥξει Δωριακὸς πόλεμος καὶ λοιμὸς ἅμ’ αὐτῷ.’ ἐγένετο μὲν οὖν ἔρις τοῖς ἀνθρώποις μὴ λοιμὸν ὠνομάσθαι ἐν τῷ ἔπει ὑπὸ τῶν παλαιῶν, ἀλλὰ λιμόν, ἐνίκησε δὲ ἐπὶ τοῦ παρόντος εἰκότως λοιμὸν εἰρῆσθαι· οἱ γὰρ ἄνθρωποι πρὸς ἃ ἔπασχον τὴν μνήμην ἐποιοῦντο. ἢν δέ γε οἶμαί ποτε ἄλλος πόλεμος καταλάβῃ Δωρικὸς τοῦδε ὕστερος καὶ ξυμβῇ γενέσθαι λιμόν, κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς οὕτως ᾄσονται.

44

I’m sorry, since when did sarcasm replace making an argument? If you had the patience to read my previous comment a bit higher up, I provided a link to Perseus with the relevant passage. I’m fully capable of reading the original. Perhaps you should do the same. Μὲ γιά.

45

Precisely. Why would there be an ἔρις if the words were pronounced differently? It would be like arguing that someone actually said “bead” when everyone heard him say “bed.”

Some context:

  • we know that historically, οι and υ merged into the same sound, possibly [y]. We see this clearly in Hellenistic papyri where υ often takes the place of οι

  • in Ionian, there existed a variant to the word κοινός spelled ξυνός. This form is found already in Homer, showing that the οι~υ coalescence is of great antiquity

  • Several classical-era inscriptions (6th and 5th centuries BC) show οι and υ alternating with ι, e.g. MIΡΑΙ for MOIΡAI, ΠΕΡΙAΛΙΦΗΝ for ΠΕΡΙΑΛΟΙΦΗΝ, ΛΙΣΙΚΛΕΣ for ΛΥΣΙΚΛΗΣ and ΔΙΟΝΙΣΙΓΕΝΕΣ for ΔΙΟΝΥΣΙΓΕΝΗΣ

  • In the Aeolic dialect, ι stood for υ in the words ἴψος (standard ὕψος) and ἴπαρ (standard ὕπαρ)

  • Several words written with an ι have a variant υ before labials: μόλιβος~μόλυβδος, βίβλος~βύβλος. In Aeolic, this applies to ο as well, e.g. ὄνυμα for ὄνομα. A similar phenomenon occurs in Latin with the so-called sonus medius, cf. manubus~manibus and lacruma~lacrima.

So the most reasonable explanation of the Thucydides passage is that λοιμός and λιμός were homophones pronounced [lymos].

46

Perhaps the ancients never argued about misheard lyrics in the days before sound amplification and music recording and playback. It’s probably a sign of human decline that we do so often today, devoting whole websites to it even.

47

Isn’t it convenient that the lyrics were “misheard” in just such a way as to create confusion between two sounds which (1) historically coalesced and (2) alternated in contemporary inscriptions and dialects? What a coincidence indeed.

Imagine someone saying the following phrase in English:

“A wonderful clime.”

Another person might hear this as “A wonderful climb.” There might even be a debate (ἔρις!) between people who argue over whether the correct interpretation should be “clime” or “climb.”

Fast-forward to the future: linguists are trying to determine what English in 2020 sounded like. One researcher notices that there was disagreement over whether a certain person said “clime” or “climb.” Looking at parallel evidence, he sees that final b was silent in similar words during that period: numb, dumb, comb. He concludes that “clime” and “climb” were homophones. But the other researchers dismiss him. They claim that the b was not silent, and that people simply “misheard” clime as climb. Of course, they offer ZERO evidence to back up their claims.

I wonder which approach is more scientific.

If you guys want to talk serious linguistics, I’ll be here. But if all you want to do is indulge in this infantile self-congratulation of your own intellect - which frankly is all you seem capable of - I’ll leave you to it. You don’t need my help for that.

48

‘ἥξει Δωριακὸς πόλεμος καὶ λοιμὸς ἅμ’ αὐτῷ.’

This thread has become rather ill tempered. There seems to be a lot of shouting and not much listening. All these “thought experiments” about some future reconstruction of English pronunciation seem a waste of time. English is pronounced in a very great variety of ways based on geographical location and In the UK at least on class and education. It seems to me that the same was probably true of Ancient Greek.

Turning to the Thucydides it seems clear that nowhere in the text does it say that “T. states λοιμός and λιμός are pronounced the same way”. One might draw that conclusion as an explanation of the disagreement about the oracle. But that would be to take the passage at face value and ignore its rhetorical force.

As Marchant notes the antecedents of these lines lie in

“εἰ δὴ ὀμοῦ πόλεμός τε δαμᾷ καὶ λοιμὸς Ἀχαιούς.”

“if indeed war and pestilence alike are to subdue the Achaeans.” Il.1.61

"τοῖσιν δ᾽ οὐρανόθεν μέγ᾽ ἐπήγαγε πῆμα Κρονίων,
λιμὸν ὁμοῦ καὶ λοιμόν· "

“Upon them, Cronus’ son brings forth woe from the sky, famine together with pestilence..” Hesiod W. D. 241-2

West in his commentary on Works and Days notes that malnutrition reduces resistance to disease and then lists other places in Greek literature where “λοιμός and λιμός” are coupled. Hdt. 7. 171. 2 , Thuc. 1. 23 3 (and of course 2. 54). He gives other references too if you want to follow them up.

So it seems to me that Thucydides is using a well worn worn rhetorical trope here. Clearly he introduces the whole story as a peg on which he hangs his moralising observation about human nature:

ἢν δέ γε οἶμαί ποτε ἄλλος πόλεμος καταλάβῃ Δωρικὸς τοῦδε ὕστερος καὶ ξυμβῇ γενέσθαι λιμόν, κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς οὕτως ᾄσονται.

But if ever another Dorian war should visit them after the present war and a famine happen to come with it, they would probably, I fancy, recite the verse in that way. 54.3

49

I’m not sure that a belief in the synchronicity of wars famines and pestilences is something limited to cultures that read Homer though.

The story could be understood as an argument over meaning rather than utterance, but that “οὕτως ᾄσονται” makes it hard for me to hold the idea that Thucydides was saying that there was only one way to ἀείδειν this.

50

The stereotypical nature of the phrase takes nothing away from what I’ve said. If anything, it’s the homophony between the words (as suggested by the evidence I provided further up), that led to their being associated in the first place.

In Orthodox Christian prayers (the δοξολογία and the παράκλησις), λοιμὸς is also paired with λιμός, both being pronounced limos:

Ἔτι δεόμεθα ὑπὲρ τοῦ διαφυλαχθῆναι τὴν ἁγίαν 'Εκκλησίαν καὶ τὴν κώμην ταύτην, τὴν νήσου ταύτην, καὶ πᾶσαν πόλιν καὶ χωράν, ἀπὸ λοιμοῦ, λιμοῦ, σεισμοῦ, καταποντισμοῦ, πυρός, μαχαίρας, ἐπιδρομῆς ἀλλοφύλων, ἐμφυλίου πολέμου καὶ αἰφνιδίου θανάτου…

I see no reason why this couldn’t have been the case in Antiquity also.

I think I’ve been quite congenial during this whole discussion, and have provided evidence that at the least raises serious doubts that the historical Greek spelling inherited from the Archaic Age is sufficient proof for how Greek was pronounced in the so-called “Classical” Period. If someone wants to disprove this, I believe the burden of proof rests now with him. I’m all ears.

P.S. To date, we’ve really only concentrated on the vowels. My position is that the diphthongs were primarily a feature of Archaic, not Classical Greek. The Erasmian values for the consonants, however, are pure fantasy.

EDIT: Your explanation of λοιμὸς also doesn’t account for why κοινὸς had a variant form ξυνὸς in Ionic.

51

Ok, let’s say Classical Greek was spoken in a variety of ways just as in modern English. Given that the Athenians were writing ΠΙΣΙΣΤΡΑΤΟΣ, ΔΙΜΟΣΘΕΝΙΣ, ΑΘΙΝΑ, ΠΕΡΙΑΛΙΦΗΝ, ΛΙΣΙΚΛΕΣ, and ΠΙΑΙ from as early as the 6th and 5th centuries BC; given that this pronunciation, as attested by the more abundantly surviving papyri, was the current one in Hellenistic times (a mere few decades later); and given that this pronunciation is furthermore corroborated by literary puns, don’t you think that this pronunciation should be accorded at least equal validity as the Erasmian? On what grounds can you say that this pronunciation was “demotic” and the Erasmian was “standard”?

English might have different dialects, but on the whole it’s not pronounced orthographically. What proof do you have that Classical Greek was?

52

I’ve stayed out of this discussion, mainly because I don’t care much. My beginning Greek professor used what he called “modified Attic pronunciation” and I’ve been happy with it ever since. However, I don’t remember anybody mentioning transliteration? So Terence transliterates Ἁδελφοί as Adelphoe. Were they using a standardized transliteration or does that actually reflect the pronunciation of the Romans in the 2nd century BCE? At any rate, it should give us some sense of how the Romans heard the language.

53

Apparently, the Romans also heard I when the Greeks said EI, that’s why Greek EI is consistently transliterated as I in Latin, e.g. Ἀριστείδης → Aristides.

Interestingly, if the manuscript tradition is correct, Livius Andronicus transliterated the Ὀδύσσεια as Odisia.

The Septuagint, translated a generation before Plautus, is also revealing:

Bethel → Bαιθήλ (Genesis 12:8)
Teman → Θαιμάν (Genesis 36:15)
Pithom → Πειθώμ (Exodus 1:11)

Τhe plural suffix -im is sometimes rendered -ιμ and sometimes -ειμ, as in Χερουβίμ~Χερουβείμ (Cherubim).

54

The essence of language is sound. How a word sounds is just as important, if not more, than what it means. With dead languages like Akkadian, philological speculation is necessary. But in the case of Greek, we have an unbroken tradition going back millennia. Why deprive ourselves of this? I refuse to accept that a pronunciation in use for 2,500 years, declaimed by the Caesars, consecrated by the centuries, and employed by the most erudite men of Europe should be so easily dispensed with to serve our modern ends. The result of that can only be a cacophonous Babel of un-Greek.

55

That’s disputable, like many of your assertions. I’m glad you’ve made the case for continuity of Greek pronunciation, however. You make it much better than most Greeks do, and I admire your persistence.

I would guess you’re Greek.

56

I don’t know if I totally agree, but I really like the way you said it.

57

I guess I should have waited for Barry to compound his self-centered fatuity before making my post, now forever buried.

58

I love you Michael, and I want to be just like you when I grow up.

59

Thanks. I am Greek-Canadian, and this is a topic I do feel passionately about. Firstly, because there is simply so much misinformation on the subject. It seems that every nation is granted the dignity of having its language pronounced after the manner of its native speakers except the Greek. Most importantly, though, Erasmian compounds the artificial divide between the “Classical” period and everything that came after it. It might be convenient for the historian to draw a line in 323 BC, but in actual fact there was a lot more continuity than disruption.

My linguistic views are very close to those of Professor Tolkien. I believe that on a fundamental level there is such a thing as “phonetic symbolism”: different sounds have different aesthetic qualities that render them more or less apt to represent certain ideas.

In our modern world, we’re under the dominion of the written word so much that it sometimes seems that language is an arbitrary system of codes. We forget to step back and “hear the music.” Take Gertrude’s Stein’s famous phrase “a rose is a rose is a rose.” By repeating the word “rose,” Stein wanted to create a disconnect between sound and meaning to show that words are essentially meaningless. But depending on how one sees things, Stein’s experiment could have a different effect. By disconnecting sound from meaning, it allows us to rediscover the purely phonetic aspect of language, to hear words as if we were hearing them for the first time, in all their freshness and mystery.

Classical literature is full of beautiful ideas. Let us also be open to hear its beautiful sounds.

60

Another famous quote: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Or not?

Every nation is granted the dignity of having its language pronounced after the manner of its native speakers except the Greek.

Isn’t this a tad disingenuous? Of course modern Greek should be pronounced as modern Greeks pronounce it. That’s not in question. But how did ancient Greeks pronounce ancient Greek? In a wide variety of ways, obviously, all of which changed over time and place as all languages do. You’re intent on minimizing the degree of change over time, and as you say, you’re passionate about it. Nationalism tends to foster passion. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

—I find rather to my surprise that I already contributed a post to this thread, back in 2016. Naturally I don’t expect you to agree with what I wrote there, Evangelos, before you came on board, but that’s the way I look at it. Have you addressed the erasure of the binary differentiation of quantity originally operative in the vowel system, or how do you deal with that? I gather you want to take the collapse back as far as possible—back into “classical” times somehow? I’m not sure how you can do that, given the nature of ancient Greek verse. I mean this as more of a phonemic question than a phonetic one. I apologize if I’m asking you to go over ground you’ve already covered piecemeal.