I am a new student of Ancient Greek. I am interested in reading poetry as well as prose in this language. I am bewildered though by the complex discussions of pronunciation and linguistic evidence that seem to be the norm regarding the pronunciation of it. So my question is, as interesting and worthwile as these discussions may be, how valuable is it for me to actually try to understand this before proceeding to more grammatical material?
I voted “Somewhat important” - while a beginner doesn’t need to follow all the points of argument in those debates over pronounciation, knowing something about the pronounciation from the beginning is important because a) it makes it easier to remember the morphology (morphology is declensions, conjugations, and all of that exciting stuff) b) the Greeks of old were a very orally based culture, and it is important to do a lot of Greek work out loud to appreciate that part of the culture. Besides, reading out loud makes it easier to learn. And you need to know something about pronounciation in order to read out loud. And the sooner you start, the sooner you become competent.
I voted the same for the same reasons. Reading aloud while learning a language–any foreign language–is a great help…primarily because it provides audible reinforcement. It’s probably even more important in learning an inflected language like Latin or Greek. So, learning a basic set of rules for pronounciation up front is a great idea…and better to learn the correct ones so you don’t have to un-learn anything later on.
Chris
I chose “somewhat” but that’s assuming someone interested in Greek in general. For someone interested in poetry, including drama, it is vital. For someone only interested in, say, history or philosophy, it’s a matter of indifference.
I have tried to take the results of this poll seriously. I decided to learn the reconstructed pronunciation because it seems to be the one preferred by alot of people here. I have checked out Vox Graeca and tried to read it. I have to say though it seems pretty thick going. The only thing that I would say that I have gotten out of it is that I now know something about phonetics terms and how they apply to the Greek sounds. This is useful in as much as it has given me a way to describe certain facts such as the fact that the reconstructed pronunciation uses aspirated instead of fricative sounds for theta and phi. (though I guess I can’t think of many more ‘facts’ than this one to express!) I also read through the material at the back of the book about the history of the effort for a reconstructed pronunciation which helped me understand more clearly what this book was meant to accomplish. I also read the brief essay on the pitch accent which was interesting, but seemed more a pleading for people to follow it than any concrete specifications. That topic seems both complex and as he himself admits, doesn’t allow specific recommendations at this point beyond some basics.
Beyond this I have checked out as many links to pronunciation web sites as I could. I found this one the most useful: http://turdpolish.com/greek.html
The reason I liked this one best is that it is clearly in the vein of the reconstructed pronunciation that seems to be the favored here but beyond this, it he says the names of the letters with this pronunciation also, whereas Daitz uses the other (Erasmian I guess) pronunciation which seems pretty inconsistent. Also, these aren’t Real files, so I was able to convert them to itunes and load them in my ipod, plus his files of recordings of the Iliad.
I think at this point I have a basic understanding of the notion of pitch accent though I can see I will have to study it alot more to have even a rough notion of how it fits into the actual poetry.
I guess I don’t know much what to do beyond this point. My questions now would be:
- Are these above efforts basically what people meant by some?
- Is there really much need for me to continue studying Allen at this point in my studies?
- Does anyone think I am doing my ear irreparable damage by listening to the recordings I linked to above?
I say you have studied enough if you can read Greek out loud at some level. You’ll only get good at it if you practice, and while you’re practicing you might as well plow through learning the grammar and vocabulary.
If you’re finding Allen too dense now, you can give it a break, and return to it every now and then to let thinks sink in.
As for your ears, headphones are known to destroy hearing due to the proximity of the speaker to the ear. However, I don’t know whether you are listening to your iPod with earbuds or with traditional, non-headphone speakers.
The turdpolish recordings are good, but his unaccented vowels are pretty lazy, and he seems to be using English short ‘i’ where he should be using Italian short ‘i’, IPA: .
Daitz though, whom Will cites on his site, is quite good, and is the prime guy for the restored pronunciation, not Erasmian. If his Greek sounds a bit affected and strange, it’s because his English is a bit affected and strange. 
Still, his execution is very thoughtful, though his vowels also need a bit of work in elevation and natural exsecution.
Oh yes, and he often mispronounces a lot of his vowels; for example, Greek ‘ou’ is the same as Latin long ‘u’; this guy’s pronunciation of this digraph is just wrong. Otherwise, his metre and rhythm are good.
Come to think of it, though I’m not sure if this is the right place for such a request, do you have any recordings of ancient Greek available at your website, care Luci? I would like to hear your take on it; whenever I do my Greek homework and pronounce it out loud (restored pronunciation), it sounds very unnatural to myself.
Chaîre, ô phÃle mu! Unfortunately I do not as of yet, and even more unfortately my computer is temporarily out of commission, so we can’t just go to Skype. Hopefully we’ll both be able to get tà s aporÃas hemôn tà s technologicâs in order before too long.
By the way, how does one say “computer” in Greek?
ο υπολογιστής, that’s modern Greek though.
Chárin soi écho, ô Adalheid. Is there in fact a resource for modern Classical Greek vocabulary, or does one merely resort to the standard Modern Greek (with Classical pronunciation, of course)? The dhimotikà is still fairly new; surely a good deal of more classical language (however artificial) is at hand from the last century.
I’m not sure what you mean with the Lucus. To begin with Demotike is not all that new since demotike is the language of that the people spoke. Granted, since the Greeks were not only illiterate during the past centuries but there wasn’t even any educational system for centuries (and then we had Katharevousa) there was no standardisation. We can say that Demotike as it is today is sort of the Koine of MG.
An ambulance in demotike is ασθενοφό?ο which, as you can imagine is a pretty new word but “created” using ancient Greek (we don’t use “φέ?ω” all that much in Demotike). (PS this time no diacritics on purpose since we ditched subscript centuries ago and the rest in the '80s)
When we “create” a new word we don’t go for colloquialisms but for the more “formal” words of MG and sometimes all the way to AG that is no longer used (i.e. people is λαός in MG; bus is _λεω_φο?είο though). In other words, if you try for a word for something that didn’t exist in AG, it’s a safe bet that, creating using Attic types of the Classical Greek will give you the MG word.
Those who dabble in this do a variety of things, to be certain. The old British school of compositional thought was generally to transform the modern idea into an ancient analogue and then use that word. Thus, for example, “the bullet” might become τὸ βέλος. Perhaps an ancient analogue to the modern computer could be the Antikythera Mechanism, much in the news of late. But I don’t really think that’s what you’re looking for.
Here is another approach: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~clas0078/vocabulary.htm The Akropolis World News site is quite entertaining and I recommend it to those who are interested in this sort of thing. I imagine the Harry Potter book also did quite a bit of innovative vocabulary. (But this is only imagining; I’ve read the Latin version but not the Greek.)
You can see AKWN’s word for “computer” matches what was mentioned earlier in the thread.
I prefer the MG σφαί?α
I wonder what they did for airplane. Something out of Daedalus-Icarus story perhaps? 
You can see the vocab for the AG Harry Potter at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/greek_harry_potter/vocabulary/vocabulary.htm
The translator explains how he dealt with modern vocabulary at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/harry_potter.htm under “special vocabulary” and “modern terms”.[/url]
Our missed Eureka gave me the solution a long time ago for reading Greek poetry: Sing it; that way you don’t have to worry about pitches.
“[…] it sounds very unnatural to myself.” —Iulianus
If you read your Greek sentences as if they were English questions, you’ll hear that the pitch of your voice will rise at the accents naturally. The resulting intonational curve won’t be very kosher, but it’s a good start.
I love singing Ancient Greek poetry to improvised tunes. Anybody who hasn’t done so should try it.
Chárin hymîs écho. It would then seem to me that, when composing modenly in Ancient Greek and lacking the proper contemporary idiom, using the term as employed in the Demotike would be both classical and fitting.
Ho dè gà r hypologistés mou kakôs échetai. 
Please ignore my post.