Greek Pronunciation |
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Grimm’s Law of Consonantal Shift which affects all Germanic languages shows that the consonants in modern English are pronounced differently to the ones in early Germanic and therefore they cannot be used as a guide to ancient Greek pronunciation.
The “Art of Grammar” written in about 100 BC by Dionysios Thraikos shows that ancient Greek was pronounced in exactly the same way as modern Greek because of the way he describes how the sounds of the Greek letters are constructed.
According to Dionysios Thraikos the ancient Greek alphabet contains 24 letters, 7 of which, α, ε, η, ι, ο, υ, ω are called Φωνήενταor Vowels because they are voiced of their own accord.
Two vowels are called Μακρά or Long η and ω, two vowels are called Βραχέα or Short ε and ο, and three are called Δίχρονα or Double α, ι, υ because they can either be stretched out or shortened. There are five προτακτικά or prefix vowels α, ε, η, ο, ω and two υποτακτικά or suffix vowels ι, and υ whereby υ only becomes a prefix in front of ι. Six Δίφθογγοι or Diphthongs also exist, αι, αυ, ει, ευ, οι and ου.
There are 17 Σύμφονα or Consonants β γ δ ζ θ κ λ μ ν ξ π ρ σ τ φ χ ψ which are so called because they do not have a voice by themselves. Eight of these are called ημίφωνα or semi-voiced, ζ ξ ψ λ μ ν ρ σ because they are voiced due to moaning or hissing. Nine Άφωνα non-voiced consonants exist, β γ δ κ π τ θ φ χ, which are so called because they are exceedingly more unnatural than the others and their song is unnatural.
Dionysios Thraikos continues by saying that the non-voiced consonants form into three groups. Three, κ, π, τ are called Ψιλά or Bare. Three, θ, φ, χ are called Δασέα or Rough and three are called Μέσα Δε Τούτων or Middle Of These, β, γ, δ. These sounds are called Middle because their sound is the middle value of the combination of two letters from each of the previous groups so that β is in-between of π and φ, γ is in-between κ and χ and δ is in-between of θ and τ.
Finally there are three letters ζ, ξ, ψ called Διπλάor Double because they are made up of two consonants, thus ζ is made up of σ and δ, ξ is made up of κ and σ and ψ is made up of π and σ.
From the above description it is clear that ancient Greek could only have been pronounced in the same way as modern Greek otherwise the combinations shown by Dionysios Thraikos do not make sense.
According to Grimm’s Law the hard consonantal sounds in all Germanic languages evolved from softer sounds which Grimm called “Voiced Aspirated” consonants. According to Grimm the “Voiced Aspirated” consonants changed into so-called “Voiced” consonants and the “Voiced” consonants then became so-called “Voiceless” consonants in Germanic languages. The “Voiced Aspirated” term which Grimm used was entity arbitrary and had no scientific meaning but Grimm decided that the “Voiced Aspirated”, labial, dental and velar sounds should be represented as bh, dh, and gh. It was up to individual linguists to decide what these should sound like but based on the description given by Dionysios Thraikos it is obvious that these are the sounds of the Greek letters beta, delta and gamma and this is why these ancient Greek letters were used in early Germanic Gothic script to represent the letters b, d and g which still retained their “Voiced Aspirated” sounds at the time this script was devised.
The following table can be constructed for English based on Grimm’s Law to make things easier to understand. Note that Labial sounds are made with the lips, Dentals with the tongue touching the teeth and Velars with the tongue at the back of the month. Aspirated sounds are made with a puff of breath. Grimm’s “Voiced” consonants can only be made if they are preceded or followed by a vowel and are thus the same as Dionysios Thraikos non-voiced consonants. Grimm’s “Voiceless” consonants can be spoken without use of a vowel if they are combined with s and are therefore the same as Dionysios Thraikos semi-voiced consonants. Grimm’s terminology differs from that of Dionysios Thraikos because by “Voiced” and “Voiceless” Grimm is referring to the requirement of a vowel to be in combination with the consonant to produce the sound of the consonant for “Voiced” and the non-requirement of a vowel to sound the consonant for “Voiceless” consonants whereas Dionysios Thraikos uses the term voiced to mean a pure vowel, con-voiced to mean a consonant and the terms non-voiced and semi-voiced to mean non-vowel and semi-vowel. Aristotelis uses exactly the same terminology as Dionysios Thraikos in part XX of his “Poetics” published in 350 BC which deals with Greek grammar.
The basic principle of Grimm’s law applies to all Indo-European languages so for Greek both ancient and modern the same table can be written as follows using Dionysios Thraikos linguistic terminology.
Where Ψ-Σ indicates the sound of psi minus the sound of sigma, etc.
The above tables show that Dionysios Thrakos description of the way the sounds of beta, delta and gamma are made corresponds to the “Voiced Aspirated” group of Grimm.
The next table equates the terminology used by Grimm with that used by Dionysios Thraikos and Aristotelis (“Poetics XX”).
Note that in English p, t and k tend to be aspirated whereas in most other indo-European languages they are un-aspirated and therefore sound closer to b, d, and g. Aspirated p is p as in print and un-aspirated p is p as in spin, sprain or suspend. Un-aspirated t is t as in stop, strain or register. Un-aspirated k is k as in sky, scrape or whisker.
Because non-Greek (mostly English) linguists deliberately ignored the native pronunciation of Greek when they formulated their theories concerning the origin of indo-European languages in the 19th century they made fundamental errors in reconstructing ancient Greek pronunciation and the way the so-called proto-indo-European root language was pronounced.
An analysis of ancient Greek texts by Dr. Chrys C. Caragounis has proven that ancient Greek was pronounced almost exactly like modern Greek since classical times and that by the time of Christ all of the vowels and consonants except for ita (η) were pronounced the same way as today by the majority of native Greek speakers. Overturning the claims of non-Greek linguists Dr. Caragounis has shown that ancient Greek words would be unpronounceable if the consonants β, δ, γ, φ, θ, χ were pronounced b, d, g, ph, th, kh as Erasmians claim.
Erasmian/English pronunciation of proto-indo-European, Sanskrit, Greek and Latin.
Greek pronunciation of proto-indo-European, Sanskrit, Greek (ancient and modern) and Latin.
Note that p, t and k are un-aspirated in all languages except English.
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Art of Grammar by Dionysios Thraikos |
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