Somewhy, there is a conflicting data on the ancient greek pronounce of the [size=150]ζῆτα
My sources say “dz, as in adze,” the seeming ambiguity may be nothing more than the same sound represented in slightly different ways by people who hear sounds differently. If you use zeta in a word, and say it to yourself all three ways, not slowly and properly, so that you can actually hear the sound, but quite quickly, the differences between the three sounds are almost indistinguishable. Maybe someone just had a habit of talking too quickly. ;D
[quote author=fladiv link=board=2;threadid=619;start=0#5761 date=1063262551]
So I wonder, which case is closer to the truth, and why is this ambiguity exist at all?
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This isn’t an ambiguity, there is a debate. Scholars are still arguing about this. I personally think it was pronounced ‘dz’. I’ll spare you the linguistic details of why. Some scholars insist, with equally good evidence, that it was pronounced ‘zd’. The data isn’t conclusive either way.
It was not however just pronounced like an English ‘z’. It was definitely either ‘dz’ or ‘zd’ since in scanning poetry it is pronounced as a double consonant.
Final confusion: different dialects almost certainly pronounced zeta differently.
I think you’re safe pronouncing it ‘dz’.
I was going to make a new post but I found this old one. I see that there is conflict about how zeta is pronounced, but how about what letters make it up: do the combination d-s and s-d both create zeta? This came to my attention because in most cases zeta seems to come when an s is added to a stem with an existing t, th, or d, creating d-s or a similar sound - yet I recall the compound Athenaze (Athenas-de) where it seems to be the reverse, s-d. Do both letter combinations always result in zeta?
Really?! Where are you seeing this? In the usual course of dental + s in Greek phonotactics I expect the dental to become another s, or to evanesce away entirely.
Zeta is usually from s-d (as you saw) or the result of historical linguistic developments of gy and dy .
Since I last replied to this thread I have changed my mind, and I now favor the zd and only zd interpretation for zeta.
Since I last replied to this thread I have changed my mind, and I now favor the zd and only zd interpretation for zeta.
Ok, how or why did you change your mind? Sidney Allen (Vox Graeca) concluded this as well and I think Sturtevant sort of agrees with you too, but I haven’t encountered an argument for dz and wanted to find some…
Sihler amassed a convincing array of arguments in New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin and I was forced to concede. 
Especially since he addressed the oddness of the dy > zd development, and was able to cite precedent in other languages. Before that I was annoyed by the idea that the natural change, dy > dz, was being tossed out the window.
Damn that Sihler! 
I’ve been meaning to get that book, but now I might have to put it up higher in my books-to-buy list.
All these debates about pronunciation of Greek letters, I find very ridiculous.
The truth is only one, we will never find out how they did speak. NEVER.
Letter are used only as a signs for some sounds, but signs never can reveal the real sound. It’s like trying to speak English using only the alphabet, but never hear an English speaking it. How will one in this case render the difference between “S” and “SH” to a different alphabet and to a foreigner? It is impossible!!!
All that thing about “zeta” brings only one arguement that is valid. It (“z”) was similar to “delta”, as pronounce in modern English, like in “this”. (th). Foreigners often will substitute “th” with “z”. Both in the English langauge and modern Greek. That makes it a valid arguement for both that “zeta” was “z” (not! dz! or zd!) and that “delta” was “th” as in “this”.
But, does it matter how they spoke? Not at all!
So better stick to modern Greek pronunciation, you’ll probably are nearer to truth than all those frankenstein-articulations that some academicians use!
Otherwise, I will ask you to pronounce “zd” or “dz” as one sound!
It is impossible to do it, except if you split it in two sounds, like speaking “z” and then followed by “d” (or vice versa for “dz”).
But by taking a closer look at languages we can find out how they probably pronounced it. If we just sit around and say we won’t ever know anything about anything ever and that it’s irrelevant then what is the point in science?
You’ve got to at least try to get closer to the truth and by trying to get closer to it - guess what, you do often get closer to it. So although we will probably never pronounce things exactly the way they used to we’ll be able to pronounce it in a very similar fashion. It’s not exactly the most important thing to find out how to pronounce that zeta maybe, but these phonetical rules don’t just apply to Greek, but to all other languages as well.
All that thing about “zeta” brings only one arguement that is valid. It (“z”) was similar to “delta”, as pronounce in modern English, like in “this”. (th). Foreigners often will substitute “th” with “z”. Both in the English langauge and modern Greek. That makes it a valid arguement for both that “zeta” was “z” (not! dz! or zd!) and that “delta” was “th” as in “this”.
I don’t think these arguments are very valid ones. In modern English ‘th’ is often pronounced as an ‘f’ not only as a ‘d’ for example. How foreigner’s pronounce the English ‘th’ depends on their native language and if they have an ‘th’ or not.
You do know that the ancient Greeks also had ‘teach yourself classical Greek for barbarians?’ (well something like that 
) and through poetry it’s also possible to find out how words used to be pronounced too. Also you can see how letters were contracted by reading Homer and then Attic Greek.
I’m not expert on this subject, but if the ancient Greeks during the time of Homer pronounced the delta as a th, then how did they pronounce the theta? They had just recently ‘borrowed’ another alphabet and it’s unlikely they would have bothered to include irrelevant letters. In modern Greek the delta is pronounced as a th as is the theta, but that’s because over time pronunciation changed. nt now represents a d in modern Greek. It is unlikely that the ancient Greeks while pondering their new alphabet would have said: ok, we need two letters for the ‘th’ sound and let’s use nu + tau for the ‘d’ sound. That alone is enough to convince me that they didn’t always used to pronounce the delta as a th. Plus many vowels in modern Greek are pronounced as an ‘i’ or ‘e’ sound. So should I read Homer and pronounce nearly all the vowels and diphthongs as ‘i’ or ‘e’?
I don’t think it’s that important for everyone to pronounce things exactly, but it’s good to know some people are looking into it so that when the next textbooks come out people will have better guides on how to pronounce these letters.
If 500 years from now people notice that ‘impossible’ was often misspelled as ‘imposhible’, they would have a good indication that the double S probably was pronounced as sh.
We can see that in the misspelling of tough as touff or tuff.
We also have a good indication from the spelling that tough was probably pronounced differently in the past than it is now.
I think that William’s argument that at least Zeta was a double consonant, is hard to argue with.
It was not however just pronounced like an English ‘z’. It was definitely either ‘dz’ or ‘zd’ since in scanning poetry it is pronounced as a double consonant.
Then, how did the English spoke “tough” in the past?
Did they speak “t”+"o’+“u”+“g”+“h”?
About the vowel diphthongs, one may say that the last vowel was over-stressed and longer, to the point that the “barbarians” heared almost only the last owel, which prevailed and than today they speak only this, eg. “eI”–> “I”.
Eh… what? Imposhible? 
It’s not pronounced like that here but with an s 
. But it shows how pronounciation changes, but the words retain their original spelling from when they were pronounced differently. The fact that there are two letters for ‘th’ in modern Greek shows that originally these two letters were pronounced differently, but that over time they took on the same sound.
Maybe they pronounced it like we pronounce thought?
That’s what studying phonetics of words is all about, to understand what it might have been pronounced like before and why that changed .
I should rephrase my statement as a proper -contrary to fact conditional sentence-:If 500 years from now people were to notice that ‘impossible’ was often misspelled as ‘imposhible’, they would have a good indication that the double S probably was pronounced as sh.
In other words, they are not going to notice that because impossible is not often misspelled as imposhible.
However, tough is misspelled as touff or tuff.
I quess by trying to make a point, I caused confusion.
well you’ve got to take into account that I’m quite stupid…
For example, the word [size=150]ε#ζομαι[/size], root “sed-”, I assumed an S had been added between the stem and the personal endings (for some reason…). This is the only example I can think of at the moment (I am a newbie as you know)… perhaps there is another explanation for this word?
This was a question about which letters make up zeta, not how it sounded. Nonetheless, I find your dismissal of the entire field of historical linguistics to be radical and I will not be taking your advice . I have found many merits to that study and to suggest that whatever pronunciation you choose at random will be more accurate than a scientifically reconstructed one sounds quite crazy to me. χαῖρε
Then, how did the English spoke “tough” in the past?
In Old English it was spelt: toh. If I remember correctly, the h in that position represent the “ch” sound in German, like “noch”.
Maybe they pronounced it like we pronounce thought?
In Old English: gethoht, thoht. So you’re pretty much right on that.
I am not a linguist but I am going to hazard a guess.
If tough used to be spelled toh and pronounced with the ch sound of “noch”, then my guess is that the spelling changed from ch to gh to correspond to the pronunciation.
I am not a linguist but I am going to hazard a guess.
If tough used to be spelled toh and pronounced with the ch sound of “noch”, then my guess is that the spelling changed from ch to gh to correspond to the pronunciation.
You mean h to gh right? Well, your guess is as good as mine because I’m not a Germanic linguist either. I haven’t delved into Middle English very much. The evolution of the ch sound is one of softening to complete disappearance. Another possiblity is that it’s just just another variation in spelling. There are tons of dialects in England.