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About My Pronunciation
I've roamed the Net high and low trying to find out how other people pronounce ancient Greek. With very little success as far as convincing advice is concerned. So
phth
Since there are no Ancient Athenians of the Pericles era alive to show me how they pronounced:
7777o(7fqo&ggoj7the sound
(as in our word di-phthong = two-sounds combined)
I decided to pronounce it the English way:
- ph = f (and not p-h as in up-hill)
- th = th (and not t-h as in pot-hole)
for the simple reason that, unless someone shows me how it is done, I have no idea how to achieve any kind of fluency in uttering
p-h-t-h-ongos
And while we are at it, what about the letter xi= ?
- Some say pronounce it the German hard ch way (of Loch Ness).
- Others say: Oh no, k-h like in block-house or -head
And I'd be tempted to agree with this last pronunciation, because we DO pronounce ch in words derived from Greek as k:
chorus, chaos, chronic, chrysanthemum (from xruso&j = gold) etc.
If it weren't for the little word ou) :
ou) changes to ou)k in front of unaspirated vowels and is pronounced ouk.
Fine. For ease of pronunciation we add a k-sound at the end of ou) .
So far, so good. But why should that simple k sound be spelt ou)x in front of aspirated vowels but still only be pronounced ouk. It is not the k, but the following vowel that carries the h-sound, as indicated by its diacritic. There would be no need for this change from k to x.
Furthermore, in modern Greek the letter xi= is still pronounced like German ch. Maybe because the ba&rbaroi , i.e. anybody not Greek, just could not pronounce ch and therefore gave one more proof of their uneducated, non-Greek character and ways.
When learning a language we've got to avail ourselves of all the help we can get. And what is better than actually hearing the words, structures and stories, not just reading them. We learn by ear, by hearing as much as - if not more than - by seeing the foreign words written, to top it all, with strange-looking letters. So, as far as I'm concerned, any pronunciation we are comfortable with, be it f or p-h is just fine. It's up to us, each of us personally, to choose and get pronouncing.
As for the letter7z7.....
Reasons
Once upon a time, long ago and far away, when teaching myself modern Greek (I was going to Greece to spend my very first holiday as a newly baked teacher with a regular income) I became curious about the difference in pronunciation between ancient and modern. And, in both the French and German sources I consulted was told that7z7was pronounced dzêta. Which made sense. The Germans still pronounce the letter Z as "ts". And since they have a tendency to invert soft and hard sounds:
"dzoo" becomes "tsoo". Logical!
I'm now told that dzêta is supposed to have been pronounced sdêta. And for a while I accepted this and actually pronounced Dzeus as Sdeus. On the evidence of 7'Aqh&naze. Apparently pronounced Athênasde on the pattern 7oi1kade.7
Well, I quickly stopped believing that.
On principle I only believe what I can see, hear, smell or else find logical. And for me, as long as no-one comes up with better proof to the contrary, sdêta is illogical for many reasons:
- There are special letters for ks
There are special letters for ps
Why should there be one for sd rather than dz? Especially when there are lots of words including the 7st7letter combination:
77777a)gwnisth&j,7dikasth&j kai\7ta_7loipa&7
But there is no 7ts7or7ds7combination to be found. Why not?
- In everyday speech letters get dropped. Hardly ever 2nd letters, always either first or last. So why did the "d", coming second, disappear?
We pronounce
- xylophone as zilofone (we dropped the 1st letter k sound)
- psychic as saikik (we dropped the 1st letter p sound)
- sdoo as zoo (did we REALLY drop the 2nd letter d sound?)
It doesn't make sense!
I did say hardly ever, because I do believe that the 2nd letter z was dropped in:
77777ma_7to_n7Di/a7
77777tw~|7Dii\7qu&omen7
77777o(7tou=7Dio_j7kerauno&j7
Why? Try saying them fast and you'll see: in my opinion Sdií would have stayed Sdií whereas Dzií lends itself to become Dií.
- Now to the 7'Aqh&naze7proof. Why stop accepting that as proof? Since we have 7oi1kade7homewards bound. Fine.
So what about7e0kei=se7 to there, bound for there?
Obviously there is no hard and fast rule that states: "bound for" is7de7appended to the location.
To my mind we use 7de7as long as there is no confusion (in oral communication)
possible between: "bound towards" and "as for, and, but, on the other hand".
777e0kei=se7poreu&omai:7e0kei=7de\ oi0kei=7o(7fi/loj7mou.
On a map:7Xalki/da me\n ou0x eu(ri/skw, 'Aqh/naj de\ ble/pw.
Now try this:7'Aqh/naze7de\7e0panie/nai7e0qe/lw7
777Do you really want to pronounce it: Athenasde de?
So, unless Dikaiopolis comes back and tells me otherwise, I shall pronounce 7z7dzêta. But I let everybody else pronounce it any way they like. Because that is their good right.
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