Some days ago I found out this game for practicing chinese tones and I’m wondering if the way they are pronounced may be the same as greek tones should be pronounced. In the intro page there are four ma’s, if you put the cursor over every of them you will hear the pronunciation. There is a flat tone, an “oxytone”, a low tone, and something that may be contrary to a circumflex. I’d apreciate someone’s suggestions about the relation between the tones in the two languages.
-Manú
That’s cool. I’m no expert on the subject, but I would guess that a rising tonal accent would have to be pretty much like the one on the site. The falling accent was harder for me to hear, but that might be what would occur on the syllable after an acute accent in Greek. I agree that the other one sounds like an inverted circumflex. Of course there is no relationship between Greek and Chinese, but that doesn’t mean these things couldn’t be similar.
I am wondering, how do scholars know the accents were tonal in ancient Greek, since this has been lost in modern Greek? Does it say so somewhere in the ancient literature? Also, I wonder what it sounded like spoken. When I try to say short phrases with the rising and falling pitches, it does give a kind of Chinese effect (Its also really hard). I wonder, though, if the actual sound was more like an Indo-European language with a lilt to it, like Welsh or Swedish or even Hindi. Does anybody actually try to read Greek out loud with these tonal accents? Are there any recordings, for example, of someone reading ancient Greek poetry and trying to recreate the way it was actually spoken? Or does everyone just use stress accents because its so much easier?
There are some people on this forum who are very knowledgable about reading Greek poetry, and I hope they’ll respond to this, because I’m interested in what they have to say (especially William, who knows some Chinese, I think–?).
Here are two websites dealing with Homeric recitation that were suggested in another discussion:
http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/sh/index.htm
http://arts.anu.edu.au/linguistics/People/AveryAndrews/Homer/
That’s fun! I went around reciting those very four syllables when I first studied Chinese. Of course, the third tone is rarely actually realized in the dip and swoop-up given in the application.
I’m wondering if the way they are pronounced may be the same as greek tones should be pronounced.
The second tone - the rising tone - is probably okay for an acute, though I’ve always doubted the reports that the pitch rise in Ancient Greek was a (musical) 5th! I suspect that was for oratorical performance only.
Some interpret the circumflex as indicating not a rise-and-fall, but simply a fall over a long vowel. If you follow that, the 4th tone might work, but I’m used to the Mandarin 4th tone being fairly abrupt.
hi, i definitely use the pitch accents. i’ve only ever heard the stress accents used in greek twice and it was horrible. i’m guessing many people ask this question after reading Professor Harris’ articles about it here:
http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/SubIndex/classics.gen.html
i can only say that i follow this (imperfect) pitch system, i see no problem at all with the accents ranging over a 5th or even more: from what i remember reading dionysus of hal he said that it was a 5th in either direction: the span of an octave or more is not that much for normal to animated speaking (unless you speak greek in that really sombre deep-voiced un-greek church/university recitation style), and that the accents might have worked like mandarin tones for normal speaking: bending between the intervals: but in poetry there was no “bending”, you just hit your notes (says aristoxenus). 
Thank you all for your replies!
I don’t know much about music, so when you talk about 5ths and octaves…
So… if the rising one can be like the mandarin rising tone, and the circumflex a longer falling tone, then what about the greek falling tone? Is it supposed to mark just a flat tone?
Another thing… whenever I try to pronounce anyone of those tones, I can’t get them in the right lenght. For example, the rising and falling I can only get them on a duplicated lenght, and the circumflex, if made like a rising-falling, only in 3, or even four.
It’s a very fun example indeed. But that’s only the main page
Me too!
Regards
-Manú
hi yhevhe, i think getting the lengths right is more important than the pitches, and also it can be determined with much greater accuracy since, apart from a few strange results like scanning the diphthong ei short, dionysus of hal’s scansion of prose, e.g. of the start of demosthenes’ de corona, simply uses the quantities of poetry. i.e. if you can scan poetry (which doesn’t take long to learn) you can scan prose and read it with the right lengths.
i recommend that you learn to pronounce poetry first, using the pitch and lengths together. the repetitive nature of greek poetry means that you automatically concentrate on the length of verbs. then later, experiment with reading prose, i.e. doing the same thing as poetry but bending your pitch between the syllables like normal speech. you can use my tentative attempts at blending pitch and length in some documents here:
Eureka is currently studying these and thankfully noting errors and judgment calls I’ve had to make. he will be able to answer your questions on reconstructed pitch as well
…then what about the greek falling tone? Is it supposed to mark just a flat tone?
Supposedly, you can ignore the grave accent. However, the latest research says it’s like a lower acute --in isolation (It gets very messy when pitches interact in sentences.). Meaning, it’s just slightly higher than your vocal baseline.
I found studying Italian intonation helps as well.
Thanks for the links swiftnicholas and chad. Excuse my newbie enthusiasm, but I think its very exciting that people can reconstruct ancient music and the sound of the language. And thank you Yehveh for starting this topic. Everybody’s replies have been very helpful, and I’m definitely interested now in learning to pronounce the accents properly.
Where can I look to find arguments about the grave being pronounced like a lower acute?
Thanks,
Adam
Where can I look to find arguments about the grave being pronounced like a lower acute?
http://arts.anu.edu.au/linguistics/People/AveryAndrews/Homer/pitch.htm
It’s derived from this book:
A. M. Devine / L. D. Stephens, The Prosody of Greek Speech
Hagel use that book as well. His rendition is still my favorite so far:
Grr. I don’t believe there is any justification for sticking a glottal stop between non-diphthong vowel sequences.
Grr. I don’t believe there is any justification for sticking a glottal stop between non-diphthong vowel sequences.
He didn’t mention anything about a glottal stop in that page. You probably are refering to his performances. I haven’t listened to them for a while. Is it that all unjustified? Although, I don’t prefer them myself, I remember latin might have some glottal stops…? It is tempting to insert glottal stops because of some chunky vowel clusters in Greek, but for some reason I unconciously chose not to use them.
Yes. And he’s not the only one who does it.
I haven’t listened to them for a while. Is it that all unjustified?
For the middle of a word, I believe so.
Although, I don’t prefer them myself, I remember latin might have some glottal stops…?
As may have Greek in various contexts, probably like most languages - at the beginning of phrases starting with a vowel, after a pausel.
It is tempting to insert glottal stops because of some chunky vowel clusters in Greek,
It is, but I believe the temptation should be resisted.
As may have Greek in various contexts, probably like most languages - at the beginning of phrases starting with a vowel, after a pausel.
Actually, that’s not what I had in mind. I was thinking about awkward vowels, epescially close ones. Example: ii, iimus, etc --asuming that the first i isn’t a Y semi-vowel.
http://discourse.textkit.com/t/your-pronunciation-of-ii-iit-ierunt-etc/2031/1
Oh yes, I did not contradict myself whatsoever when I said I prefered to use glottal stops in that thread. 
I will use the hormonal imbalance excuse for my linguistic mood swings.
I suppose vowel situations like that are probably too rare in Latin and renditions of Latin with glottal stops might warrant another Grr.
If I understand right, a glottal stop is a definite break between two vowels rather than let the one glide into the other, is that right?
I have been doing it that way but I’ll stop if it is considered wrong.
I’ll blame my Dutch background.
In Dutch the name Aaron for instance is pronounced A-aron.
So when I pronounce ἐάν I pronounce it E-AN.
Wouldn’t that be a problem if you stress one of the two vowels?
The second ‘A’ has the emphasis. A-a/ron
I am pondering what is being said about length and pitch in order to aproximate the pronunciation. I’m one of those losers that uses a stress accent when reading out loud to myself.
I guess it’s hard for me as an English speaker where pitch functions very differently. An accute is a 5th you say? That’s the first 2 notes of “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean”, which does seem like a lot? But you (chad) mention an octave wouldn’t be too much? Wow. What would the intervals be for circonflex and grave accents?
Another question to chad: When you say the length is more important than the pitch, how do you do that? Are you counting in your head, or saying that a long vowel is worth 2 short vowels? Do you figure that syllables that are long because of a vowel + consonant combination take care of themselves in pronunciation?
hi oistos, i don’t know “my bonnie…”, but since dionysus of hal says a fifth i don’t see how we can re-read this as a smaller interval without other conflicting evidence. my point about the octave is that the “pitch peak” moves around, so while each accent on a lexical word might drop a fifth or so afterwards (but it’s more complicated than this, different types of words drop differently… e.g. non-lexical words drop less) you might have a range of an octave or more over a whole clause.
i don’t know if this helps others but i think of the ancient greeks as fiery southern mediterranean sailor-type people speaking a passionate language, you know with their brightly-painted temples in red and green and blue, rather than as a sage community of scholars pontificating in slow and deep shakespeare-soliloquy clauses in church-quiet pure-white-marble temples. the idea of 5th intervals in their speaking, and a range of over an octave, doesn’t seem strange to me
re “how do you read lengths”, you learn it for each word as you go (i.e. whether doubtful vowels are long or short). you don’t count in your head, it’s just how the word is. the best way is to read poetry before you read prose. if you get draper’s iliad 1, it has notes on each page for each doubtful vowel scanned long. lsj also has good notes at the bottom of its entries for certain words, talking about how it scans in different types of poetry, e.g. for kalo/j:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2352841