I watched Polymathy’s video (https://youtu.be/Dt9z5Gvp3MM) on the Lucian pronunciation and decided to use it for my Greek learning. However, the video didn’t go through the pronunciation of two diphthongs (I don’t know whether these are true or spurious diphthongs) and two consonants, and I was wondering if anyone could clarify them for me.
Diphthongs:
υι - My textbook says this is a diphthong that is pronounced as “we” in English.
ηυ - My textbook says this is pronounced simply as η + υ.
Consonants:
ψ - p + s in my textbook.
ξ - k + s in my textbook.
*** In my textbook, γγ, γκ, γξ, and γχ are all pronounced as ng + second consonant. In the video above, however, only γγ and γκ are mentioned. Can I just assume that γχ and γξ are also pronounced that way?
The important thing about υι and ηυ is that they are monosyllabic.
υι- is sometimes reduced to υ- (e.g. ὑός for υἱός) and ηυ to ευ.
ψ = ps and ξ = ks, yes; they’re double consonants. And you’re right to suppose that γγ, γκ, γξ, and γχ are all nasalized (cf. Anglo, ankle).
This is not just the so-called “Lucian” pronunciation (punningly so dubbed by LUKE Ranieri), but is more or less standard ancient Greek, though of course that varied considerably over both time and place. For more on classical Greek pronunciation see W.S.Allen, Vox Graeca (in English, thankfully!).
υι becαme long-υ during the classical period in Attic, and had reverted back by the Roman period, per Allen/Threatte.
Herodian, as quoted by Threatte even says this explicitly: οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι … τὸ τετυφυῖα καὶ γεγραφυῖα τετυφῦα καὶ γεγραφῦα λέγουσιν.
Allen suggests that before this development, in Attic, it was short-/υ/ followed by a glide, /yy/. The glide is doubled as it always occurred before vowels.
Here is my understanding of how to pronounce these. First the (easy) Attic pronunciation ὑός, demonstrated with a metrical inscription from Threatte:
