Talk:Ancient Greek phonology/Archive 1

Archive 1

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Archive 3

"greek view" of historical sound changes - no sources, original research

The historical sound changes of the Greek language have been thoroughly studied by non-Greek and Greek scholars alike and to my knowledge there is little disagreement. The changes introduced by 81.178.253.113 on Oct 26 are not backed by a reputable source and therefore have to be removed as original research. Andreas 19:47, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

The aforementioned changes made by 81.178.253.113 are credited to Dr Chrys C. CARAGOUNIS http://www.bsw.org/?l=72081&a=Art06.html and Filología Neotestamentaria 8 (1995) 151-185 and are more than adequately backed up by cites to published papers etc. They are not original research but a summery of what Dr Chrys C. CARAGOUNIS has stated along with his conclusions. There is also a translation in quotes of the ancient Greek text of Dionysios Thrax (with the original text cited) referring to the construction of the "mediae" which are mentioned by Dr Chrys C. CARAGOUNIS and the letter z. So again this is not original research.

What baffles me is where did the claims attributed to non-Greek scholars came from. No sources for these are cited and no references are given. --Thrax 01:19, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The reference to a single source, that in addition is controversial, does not justify the addition of several paragraphs to an encyclopedic article. Also, the labels "greek view" and "non-greek view" are misleading and are not backed by the sources. It would be nearer to the truth to oppose the "views of Caragounis" and the "views of other linguists". The only way to conclude this controversy is to have reviewed this article by academic linguists with international reputation. I therefore propose to declare this article as needed comments. Andreas 01:45, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Request for comment

Is the theory that the letters β, γ, δ were voiced fricatives in classical Greek a mainstream theory or a controversial theory? In particular, is the voiced-fricative theory a "Greek view" in the sense that it is shared by the majority of Greek linguists? (We agree on the fact that the voiced-fricative view is very common among Greek laypoeple). We would especially welcome scolarly sources regarding both views. Andreas 02:05, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Dr Chrys C. CARAGOUNIS provides 113 cites of mostly independent scholarly work in his paper at http://www.bsw.org/?l=72081&a=Art06.html therefore the contention that demotic pronunciation has always existed in Greek since classical times and even earlier is a mainstream theory.

If β, δ, γ are not voiced frictives and φ, θ, χ are not fricatives then Dionysios Thrax account of how these sounds are made does not work http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/graeca/Chronologia/S_ante02/DionysiosThrax/dio_tech.html and the terminology of mediae which he uses to call β, δ, γ does not make sense either. The sound you get from the transition between un-aspirated P followed by aspirated P (which the same sound as the English letter P in pot) does not give the sound of the letter B but gives the sound of the letter P again, therefore the English (scientific) pronunciations of the of the mediae and the dasea cannot be right. On the other hand the transition between un-aspirated Greek P and fricative Greek F can give no other sound but V which is a voiced fricative the sound of Greek Beta. Furthermore comparative linguistics shows that in Latin all of the dasea are rendered as fricatives f, f, h respectively where the symbol for F was originally the symbol for digamma which was pronounced W or V by the ancient Greeks so the Latin dasea cannot have evolved from aspirated P or aspirated T but must have always been fricatives from the time the Latin language was written down. Once that as accepted it is clear that Dionysios Thrax account of zeta being produced by s combined with delta ie. σδ, gives the sound /z/ whereas the combination zdzd as Caragounis states is unpronounceable using the English pronunciation for D so why would the ancient Greeks have misspelled Byzantium with two z's ?

Its not Caragounis you should be questioning but the Erasmian/English dogma. --Thrax 10:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

For an example of scholarly support for the "non-Greek" view (by a Greek) look at http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/farg/harry/lan/grkphon.htm and consult the compiled evidence on the ancient pronunciations of individual Greek letters. Not to dismiss Caragounis' work, but there are enough fringe "scholars" bent on proving that ancient pronunciations of Korean/Chinese/Cyrillic etc. were much closer to modern pronunciations (of what are invariably the mother tongues of these scholars) that I think one should approach it with caution. --Anonymous 5 November 2005

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Unaccredited original research which seems to contradict itself in most places.

To begin with any reference to Dionysios Thrax to support Erasmian/English pronunciation of Greek is highly dubious if not untenable since Dionysios Thrax account supports that ancient Greek was pronounced like modern Greek.

Dealing with http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/farg/harry/lan/phipro.htm Dionysios Thrax makes it perfectly clear the φ etc. could never have been pronounced as aspirated p etc. as in English otherwise he would be talking utter nonsense. In the first example the term used by Aristotle "prosblolis" does not mean contact, it means onset or attack. Aristotle states that these letters maintain no sound after onset unless a vowel is inserted. He is not using terminology which could possibly be associated with the modern linguistic term labial nor do any Greek grammerians. In the second example on this page the quote from Dionysios Thrax constitutes evidence that the desea are fricatives so I wonder why it has been cited. Once again the linguistic terms aspirated and fricative are never used by ancient Greek grammarians since they are a modern Germanic invention. When they refer to the dasea or roughly breathed sounds they are taking about the fact that the articulation of these sounds causes turbulence in the air stream by forcing the expelled air through a small aperture. This is the method by which theta, fi and hi are made as fricatives. If Dionysios Thrax is not using modern Greek sounds then the way he describes the construction of the sounds of the mediae cannot possibly make any sense and is completely unworkable. The rest of the examples are refuted by Caragounis.

The evidence for the pronunciation of z at http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/farg/harry/lan/zetapro.htm is refuted by Caragounis. The claim the z was not double is refuted by Caragounis who cites inscriptions where it is and since zd is unpronounceable zz cannot possibly be z-d-z-d. The examples using comparative linguistics are based on the dubious presumption that D in Persian and ancient Hebrew was pronounced as it is in modern English. There is equal justification to presume that D in these languages was originally pronounced as modern Greek delta since this best explains why it is dropped in Greek transliterations if it is preceded by an s or z. The use of comparative linguistics which was devised by deliberately excluding the pronunciation of modern Greek from it, but instead was based on the pronunciation of modern English being artificially imposed on all other languages, in order to claim that modern Greek sounds did not exit in other languages is highly unscientific, and academically fraudulent and thus completely untenable.

The evidence for the pronunciation of χ at http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/farg/harry/lan/chipro.htm and θ at http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/farg/harry/lan/thetapro.htm is refuted by Dionysios Thrax own account which cannot be interpreted as implying any pronunciation other than the modern. Herodotus was half Carian so did not speak perfect Ionic dialect. The rendering of χ into Latin as kh has been cited by Caragounis as a reason why it was pronounced h as in modern Greek since the letter ita is used in the same manner as h in th in English. The use of comparative linguistics based on English pronunciation being artificially imposed on the alphabet instead of native Armenian and Georgian pronunciation is again highly dubious. Georgian is not even an Indo-European language. That Armenian did not have a symbol for χ until the middle ages whence it was used for χ is an argument in favour of χ always being pronounced h and k' in Armenian possibly changing its sound or being of dual value. The cites of the perfect tenseness where the first aspirated syllable loses its aspiration in accordance with Grassmann's law is clearly evidence for χ, θ, φ having always being fricatives since fricatives are all aspirated by nature, so it baffles me why it is being cited as evidence for the opposite point of view.

What is looks like to me is that non-Greek linguists especially the English who took up the Erasmian cause after is was completely abandoned by the Erasmians themselves have started out with the presumption that ancient Greek was pronounced like English and then have "discovered" "evidence" to support this argument retrospectively, and most of the so-called "evidence" has been manufactured by misconstruing ancient Greek grammarians accounts to say something which they do not (and in fact actually refuted) and by deliberately misinterpreting inscriptions and other evidence so that it fits into the theory. In fact a whole field of comparative linguistics has been invented where all other languages sound like English instead of how they sound to their native speakers.

When Erasmus made up his theory he in fact attributed the sounds of th, f, h to theta, fi and xi which existed in Dutch and since Dutch had no sounds for beta, delta and gamma he used the Dutch sounds b, d and g instead and that is exactly how he taught ancient Greek to his students as stated by Caragounis, ie. using Dutch pronunciation through and through. The English then latched on to this Erasmian ploy and used English pronunciation through and through and since the Dutch sounds th, f, h were not Englsih enoungh for them they used English aspirated t', p' and k' sounds instead. If there had been any scientific basis to the so-called scientific prononciation is would have started with modern Greek pronunciation and the evidence for it first but the English school started with English pronunciation of Greek first and then looked for evidence (more like manufactured evidence) to support this later.

And to finish off with let me deal with the use of animal sounds, especially sheep going bah or vee, to determine the sound of ancient Greek beta. Firstly the species of sheep that existed in ancient Greece is not the same species that exists today. Ancient sheep had brown or grey wool but modern sheep have white wool so they are a different species. Whereas frogs in America go rabbit frogs in Europe go creak or croak since they are a different species. Thus we cannot know what ancient Greek sheep sounded like.

Are there indications in the literature of a separate species of sheep (other than Ovis aries) herded by Ancient Greeks? The different species for frogs in Europe (e.g. Rana esculenta) and North America (Rana catesbeiana) is a well-known fact. Andreas 20:33, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Secondly a sheep is not capable of making any labial sounds at all by reason of its build so the sound b cannot be attributed to a sheep. Ancient Greek sheep sounded like they were saying vee to the ancient Greeks. If they had sounded like they were saying bah then the ancient Greeks would have used the digraph mp to represent the b souund. Thus the clam at http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/farg/harry/lan/betapro.htm is easily refuted. --81.178.235.58 16:53, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I wish to remind the contlributors to this dabate the following two points:

• Wikipedia is not the place for a scientific debate. This should be done at scientific meetings and in scholarly journals.
• The question here is not which theory is nearer to the truth, but which theory can be considered as mainstream.

An important concern is the opposition of a "Greek" to a "non-Greek" view. This would mean that there is a schism within the scientific community along ethnic lines. If this is really the case, then it should be documented and described in a neutral fashion. If such a schism cannot be documented, then it should not be mentioned in Wikipedia. In my opinion, the arbitrary association of a specific scientific theory with a nation is not compatible with Wikipedia's strife for neutrality.

Andreas 19:35, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I think the contribution by 81.178.235.58 is rather confused in talking about English people assuming that Ancient Greek was pronounced like English. Certainly it was the practice at one time to pronounce Ancient Greek as if it were English, but this has nothing to do with what is now the accepted view about the pronounciation of Ancient Greek (for instance χ φ and θ being aspirated stops). Indeed the old-fashioned "English" style of pronunciation of Greek pronounced φ and θ like English ph and th, in other words very much the same as modern Greek. For an English speaker, the aspirated and unaspirated versions of the stops are allophones, and it's not easy for an untrained native English speaker either to hear the difference, or to maintain the difference consistently, so I think it's quite clear that the aspirated/unaspirated distinction between κ π τ and χ φ θ has nothing to do with the way English is pronounced. In fact there's a great deal of evidence from comparative linguistics that χ φ θ were aspirated plosives in classical times. See for instance Sidney Allen, Vox Graeca - the pronunciation of Classical Greek (ISBN 0 521 20626 X). The idea that the ancient Greeks would have used the digraph μπ to represent the /b/ sound is pretty absurd, since the use of this diagraph in this way did not occur till much later. More generally, the writer seems to think that Greek pronunciation has remained unchanged since classical times. But given that no other language's pronunciation has remained unchanged for such a long period, this would be extremely surprising. --rossb 19:44, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

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Caragounis (who is a lecturer in ancient Greek)

His web page says he is a "Professor in New Testament Exegesis", i.e. a theologian. Not the same thing. -M

has already pointed out that outside of Greece ancient Greek is not taught using Eramnian pronunciation or the so-called "scientific" pronunciation but is taught using local pronunciation. In Italy it is taught using Italian pronunciation, in Sweden it is taught using Swedish pronunciation and in England it is taught using English pronouncation.

There are two issues here: 1) what is a good reconstruction of actual ancient pronunciation? and 2) what is the practical pronunciation that should be taught to those who want to read ancient texts? -M

Now it just so happens that Italian pronunciation of ancient Greek sounds closer to Greek pronunciation than does English pronunciation so on the basis or true comparative linguistics in the field so to speak English pronunciation cannot possibly have been the way ancient Greek was pronounced, but amazingly the "scientific" pronunciation of ancient Greek which as it happens was invented in Oxford and Cambridge is identical to modern English pronunciation.

I have no idea what you mean by this. The reconstructed pronunciation has been developed by scholars from many different countries, including, by the way, Greece. -M

I wonder why ? In fact lets admit it, the "scientific" pronunciation is not scientific at all but it is English pronunciation as used by the English using modern English inflections of all the consonants and is taught only in English speaking universities and is not an internationally or universally accepted system at all.

Again, what is taught as a practical teaching pronunciation and what is a fully accurate reconstruction are two different things. In the case of modern languages, obviously pronunciation is very important. In the case of ancient languages, it is more important to follow the structure than to get the details right. Thus, both the Modern Greek pronunciation and the pronunciation used in teaching outside of Greece pronounce φ as [f]. -M

Caragounis has stated that at all the conferences on ancient Greek that he has attended is almost impossible for anyone to comprehend what is being said by any of the non-Greek speakers because no one uses a commonly accepted standard pronunciation but instead everyone speaks ancient Greek differently using their own native inflections.

Yes, that is a good argument for standardization -- though it doesn't address the question of which standard to use. Note, too, that Caragounis, as a New Testament scholar, would naturally want to use a New Testament-era pronunciation, which is much closer to modern pronunciation than to classical. -M

Caragounis has also stated that because of the use of un-Greek pronouncation his non-Greek students are making simple spelling mistakes by confusing pi with fi, tau with theta and so on which no native Greek speaker would ever make.

The reconstructed classical pronunciation clearly distinguishes between τ and θ, as a difference of aspiration. Unfortunately, this is not a familiar distinction in modern European languages (I don't think any have it), so a practial compromise in this case is to use /t/ and /θ/. Unfortunately, again, not that many European languages have /θ/, so the French, Germans, etc. end up pronouncing them as /t/, just as they have the same difficulty in pronouncing English and Modern Greek. This has nothing to do with the reconstructed pronunciation for the classical period. -M

As for the digraph mp. This digraph is commonly written in Classical Greek and in Koine so the claim that it was not in use until later is ridiculous. Aeschylus used this digraph in the 5th century BC and even Homer uses it.

What's your point? -M

As for other languages changing their pronunciation. Greek has been recorded from between 1000 to 2000 years longer than any other European language so Greek is less likely to have suffered from pronouncation changes than other languages.

Although it is true that writing tends to make languages more conservative in many ways, it certainly doesn't freeze their development.

Greek is a phonetic language were everything is spelled as it sounds and pronounced as it is spelled.

Yes, this certainly must have been true when the alphabet was first used. No one would have been so perverse as to write the sound /i/ in 6 different ways if there was no pronunciation difference. However, it is not true today. Though the mapping from spelling to pronunciation is unambiguous except in a few cases, the mapping from pronunciation to spelling is not at all unambiguous. By the way, "phonetic" is not a property of a language but of an orthography. -M

If the pronunciation of a Greek word changed then it was spelled differently to account for the different phonetics and there are many examples of this. The sound of the alphabet on the other hand remained fixed since changes in spelling kept it fixed.

You are begging the question here. -M

English on the other hand has never been a phonetic language but English linguists always pronounce Old English in the same way they pronounce modern English using the same sounds of the alphabet as if English has never changed it sound in the past 3000 years so they are being hypocritical to say the least.

This is untrue. Look at any decent reference on the history of the English language. -M

English was in fact probably the last European language to be recorded alphabetically

Not true. -M

so modern English pronunciation is hardly likely to be closer to ancient Greek pronunciation than modern Greek pronunciation is.

This is a straw man. No one claims that modern English pronunciation is close to ancient Greek pronunciation, or even for that matter to Old English pronunciation. -M

As for schisms. Yes there is a schism, a schism between Greek pronunciation and un-Greek pronunciation on the grounds of laziness.

Again, you are begging the question. Why aren't Greeks learning the reconstructed pronunciation (which is not at all English!)? -M

This question is easy to answer: Because it is our language, and we will not have anyone dictate to us how we use it. That's why. End of story.

There is a much simpler reason. see Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in teaching#Greek. Most language communities do this, including the English one: Shakespeare's plays are always performed using the modern pronunciation of English. Andreas 17:04, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Please, elaborate on this. I see that you put Greeks in italics. Does this imply that Greek philology students do not study the reconstructed pronunciation? Is it not tought in Universities? This is part of the question that I am trying to resolve. Andreas 23:17, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Non-Greeks are not inclined to learn how to pronounce Greek correctly and the English are the laziest of everyone at pronouncing other peoples languages correctly. The English pronounce French like English, Italian like English and even German like English.

Again, this has nothing to do with the question of reconstructed pronunciation. -M

They use aspirated p, t, and k where most other Europeans use un-aspirated p, t, and k which are closer to b, d, and g in sound so how could ancient Greek ever have sounded like the so-called "scientific" pronunciation which is in fact the local modern English home counties pronunciation which no other European country uses.

Huh? -M

p, t, and k are spoken aspirated in England whereas aspiration is much less in North America (they even become voiced between vowels) Aspiration is also heard in German, especially with Northern speacers.Andreas 23:05, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

The main schism is therefore between the English (including the Americans) and the Greeks and everyone else in caught in the middle. --81.178.235.58 20:56, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Let me also add that Caragounis makes an interesting point that there are many instances where the so-called "scientific" pronunciation is compleatly unworkable even according to the people who invented it (ie. the Englsih). In referring to Sidney Allen Caragounis states that even Allen has had to advise his readers to use modern Greek pronunciation in some instances were the so-called "scientific" pronunciation is unworkable. --81.178.235.58 21:03, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

What is this obsession with the English? The pronunciation of ancient Greek has been studied by Germans, Dutch, Italians, Greeks, English, Americans, etc. etc.

The reconstructed pronunciation is 'unworkable' in the sense that it includes distinctions that are not current in European languages -- including modern Greek. --Macrakis 22:16, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

81.178.235.58 here brings in a different aspect which is related but not identical to the one I am referring to. Pronunciation of Greek by scolars in classes, scientific meetings etc. is determined by convention and does not necessarily reflect the scientific opinion of how classical Greek was acutally proncounced. For example, in many schools ει is pronounced as [ei] although the mainstream view is that this digraph was proneounced as [e:] (close-mid front unrounded vowel) in classical times. One could argue that it would be preferable to use a contemporary pronunciation for an ancient form af a living language. For example, Shakespeare's works are read today in modern pronunciation, although English was pronounced quite differently in Shakespeare's times. But this is a separate question that is unrelated to WIkipedia's mission and to what is the issue here.

Opposing Scientific Views

So let me clarify the points that I think should be discussed here:

• What is the accepted mainstream scientific view of the pronunciation of the letters β, γ, δ in classical times? (other issues such as diphtongs etc. can be discusses separately, lateron)

From the discussion presented below it looks like there isn't an accepted mainstream scientific view.

• What is the accepted mainstream scientific view of this same question among linguistic scientists at Greek universities?

That the ancient Greek vowels and diphthongs were already taking on their modern sounds in late Archaic times and that by the time of Christ they more or less sounded like they do today.

That the Greek consonants were always pronounced the way they are today since the time of the first inscriptions (8th Centry) otherwise these inscriptions would be un-pronounceable.

That the Greek accent was a stress accent thus the Homeric texts are read like modern Greek as are Mycenaean inscriptions.

• Is there a difference in scientific opinion along ethnic lines?

Yes. English speaking countries follow the Oxford/Cambridge invented system. Germans follow an adapted version of the Erasiman system that differs from the British, French, Italian systems etc. It is all based upon ethnic lines rather than scientific methodology. The proto-Indo-European theory works just as well using modern Greek pronunciation for ancient Greek or proto-Indo-European as any other language. Every nationality pronounces it their own way.

A good idea would be to consult recent textbooks of Ancient Greek grammar published by reputed Greek academic linguists and compare those with recent internationally reputed textbooks. (Secondary school textbooks would be interesting but do not necessarily comply to scientific standards).

See below --81.178.235.58 23:26, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Please refrain from further debates on the validity of the various hypotheses. These do not help to improve the article because we already know what the differend views are. Andreas 22:04, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

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The following conference took place at the Pan-Macedonian "Alexandreon" building at the feet of Mount Olympus near Litohoro and Dion. It was organized by the Hellenic Society PAIDEIA which is headquarted at the University of Connecticut in Stors, CT (see http://www.paideiaonline.org/index.html) and which has many chapters throughout the USA.

The Erasmian Pronunciation of Text Documents of the Greek Language Preliminary Program of Conference Friday July 19, 2002, time 9:30 a.m. Building of Alexander the Great Dion, Prefecture of Pieria Chairman: Professor Panagiotis Christopoulos

REPORTS

Observations on the Erasmian Pronunciation (Professor Kariofilis Mitsakis).

The Educational Segment of Discarding the Erasmian Pronunciation (Professor Napoleon Mitsis).

Discussion About the Correct Pronunciation of Greek and Latin Speech (Professor Nicholas Petrohilos).

Erasmian Pronunciation. Truth or Lie (Anna Tziropoulou-Eustathiou).

Erasmian Pronunciation: One More Falsification of History (Professor Dionysios Karvelas).

The Erasmian Pronunciation of Ancient Greek: A New Prespective (Professor Matthew Dillon).

The Erasmian Concept: A Lengthy Philological Problem (Professor Panagiotis F. Christopoulos).

Discussion - Conclusions

The Problem of the Erasmian Pronunciation of the Ancient Greek Language

One of the activities that were organized by Paideia on July 19, 2002 in the magnificent International Building of Alexander the Great, was the conference to examine the problem of the so-called erasmian pronunciation of the ancient Greek language. The International Building of Alexander the Great is located by the foot of Mount Olympus.

Seven scientists gave their reports and their expertise raised strong interest to the audience and became the source of further discussions by everyone present. As it is known during the Renaissance (15th century AD) in Europe, a question was raised about the pronunciation of ancient Greek texts. The problem at that time was the established pronunciation used by the Greeks during the Renaissance epoch, in opposition to the ancient Greek pronunciation during the high point of the classical era in Greece. During the 15th century AD the pronunciation of Greek was very similar to today's modern pronunciation of the Greek language. The difference between the classical and modern Greek was in the prosody of classical Greek, in other words in the use of long and short vowels and the treatment of diphthongs. As time passed the historical spelling was preserved but the prosodic meter was progressively altered by the accented intonation of the voice.

The discussions that took place during Renaissance were of a theoretical nature and some works were publicized about the issue. The well-known Dutch classicist Desiderious Erasmus Roterdamus (1494-1553) researched the topic systematically in 1528. His research incorporated Latin as well. Erasmus believed that if one wishes to quench his thirst in the fountain of wisdom he has to learn Greek. In the writings of Roman authors we might find some constricted streams and muddy torrents, but in the writings of the Greeks there are clear fountains and golden rivers.And the most perfect Roman education is bent and imperfect without the Greek".

The observation however, of the history of the Greek language's changes and modifications was not only useful, but also necessary so a plethora of language phenomena could be explained. This on the other hand did not imply an intention of a specific realistic method of pronunciation based on a hypothetical character of elocution in the past. The evolution of any language cannot be defined in statistics; it is rather a matter of fruition and development. This is especially true about the Greek language, a language with a history of four thousand years of written documents; the concept of change therefore, is easy to be comprehended. We can easily refer to the works of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) which cannot be effortlessly read and understood by contemporary, common speakers of the English language after only four centuries since Shakespeare's era.

Erasmus did not write his thesis about the pronunciation in order that his hypothetical views of a system of pronunciation (which in reality never existed as a complete system) can be used so Greek can be taught viably. Erasmus himself never actively used the pronunciation that he wrote about and at the end he discarded it.

Contrary to all these, a movement was formed, which has created considerable problems amongst supporters and opponents of the so-called Erasmian pronunciation. The main purpose of accepting the Erasmian pronunciation in the first place, was the simplicity that it offers to the reader when classical Greek is read, since all the letters can be uttered, just the way they are written. The diphthongs are separated and the vowels are also affected. Simplicity however, is not science. What is worse, it isn't even simple. The Erasmian pronunciation was modified dissimilarly for each language and each country. Therefore the Erasmian pronunciation of the Germans differs from the Erasmian pronunciation of the British, French, Italians etc. Thus the classicists of various countries and their students cannot communicate and cooperate since their pronunciation differs from each other.

We can say that a similar phenomenon occurs between the scholars of the Hellenistic era, Byzantine and Modern Greek eras. Moreover there is no contact between the classicists and Modern Greek philologists. The solution to all these problems lies in the acceptance by all of today's traditional Modern Greek pronunciation. After all the Modern Greek pronunciation was the natural evolution of the language, the queen of languages, the Hellenic language.

The scholars who presented reports during the conference approached the issue diversely, such as:

1. Observations on the Erasmian Pronunciation (Professor Kariofilis Mitsakis).

2. The Educational Segment of Discarding the Erasmian Pronunciation (Professor Napoleon Mitsis).

3. Discussion About the Correct Pronunciation of Greek and Latin Speech (Professor Nicholas Petrohilos).

4. Erasmian Pronunciation. Truth or Lie (Anna Tziropoulou-Eustathiou).

5. Erasmian Pronunciation: One More Falsification of History (Professor Dionysios Karvelas).

6. The Erasmian Pronunciation of Ancient Greek: A New Prespective (Professor Matthew Dillon).

7. The Erasmian Concept: A Lengthy Philological Problem (Professor Panagiotis F. Christopoulos).

The forthcoming publication of the minutes of the conference will be a significant contribution to further analyze the problem. The following will be included in the minutes:

Simos Menardos (Professor of Oxford University and Athens University and member of the Academy of Athens, 1872-1933), Evolution and Pronunciation of the Greek Language. Four Oxford Lessons (ci. 1910).

Dr. Chrys C. Caragounis (University of Lund, Sweden), Does it Make a Difference?.How We Pronounce NT Greek.

Professor Caragounis was unable to personally attend the conference, he however sent us his written topic, accompanied by an excellent CD, titled: How to Pronounce New Testament Greek Pronunciation (2001). --81.178.235.58 23:26, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

81.178.235.58's report on the conference is an excellent contribution and allows us to progress versus a balanced presentation of the debate in Wikipedia. I would suggest that we close the debate for the time beeing until the minutes of the conference are available.

Since the conference was in 2002 the abstacts should be avalable somewere. The link provided points only to the hosting organization, and did not find any reference to the conference. Is there a publicly available source for the contents of the various contributions? If yes, it would be useful to privide it so we can

I don't know. I obtained this information through academic contacts.

all assess them. It would be also useful to know how the text Discussion - Conclusions was obtained (by consensus?). Andreas 01:37, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Nevertheless, I would prefer that in the meantime, the the main article be reworded in a way that the possible ideological/ethnical issues connected with this scientific debate are presented in a more neutral manner, avoiding the (in my opinion) mildly provocative opposition of "Greek" and "Non-Greek". These sensitive issues can be addressed at a later point of the development of this article. Finally, I propose that the whole issue of classical pronounciation is moved to a different article, e.g. the one about Ancient Greek, because it is irrelevant to the post-classical era (starting with the New Testament). Andreas 01:23, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, it is good to have a solid source here, rather than just the article of Caragounis, which may reflect a broad consensus, or perhaps just an idiosyncratic position. It would be interesting to know who these scholars are, and why they presented at a symposium organized by an American university's summer-abroad program rather than a conference organized by one of the major Greek universities. Have the proceedings been published?

I get the impression that the main disagreements here are about when exactly the transition from the inherited Indo-European forms to the modern Greek forms happened. Everyone (including Browning, Allen, et al.) agrees that the modern pronunciation was essentially established by the 10c AD, and indeed most of it by the 1c AD. Caragounis is most interested in the New Testament, which of course was 1c+ AD. Dionysios Thrax, often cited by User:Thrax, was 2-1c BC. So perhaps everyone agrees about the 5c BC??? ... which is the usual referent of 'Classical Greek'. --Macrakis 02:17, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

No they do not agree. The general consensus in Greece

"General consensus" among whom? Among scholars of ancient Greek language? If so, then that is a position worth reporting in WP. If among the general public, worth only a brief mention. -M

is that only the vowels and diphthongs changed and that this change was already apparent in the 5th C BC. Nobody in Greece (or hardly anyone) accepts that the Greek consonants, β, δ, γ, φ, θ, χ have ever changed or could have been pronounced any differently than the way they are today since the time Greek became a distinct language (otherwise it would be un-pronounceable and unintelligible).

Unpronounceable and unintelligible to whom? By this argument, no language can ever change its sounds, but there is ample evidence that every language changes its sounds over time. And what is the magic of "becoming a distinct language"? That is not how languages evolve. -M

As stated above the Erasmian (Dutch) pronouncation of φ, θ, χ is different from the English pronunciation of these letters and the German pronunciation differs from the French, which differs form the Italian etc. True Erasmian's pronounce φ, θ, χ as f, th, h whereas the English pronounce them as p', t', k'. This disagreement is based entirely on ethnic lines and has never been justified scientifically.

Again, you are confusing the pronunciation used in teaching with the reconstructed pronunciation. Both are worth discussing, but they are different things. -M

The English started off with English pronunciation of Greek and then looked for evidence to back up their preconceptions. They did not start with the evidence first most of which is either inconclusive (ie. it can work both ways) or is categorical in supporting the Greek view, in order to see where it led.

This is an amazing accusation: that all English scholars are dishonest! -M

Indo-European theory works just as well using modern Greek pronunciation for ancient Greek.

Yes, it is true that Indo-European theory doesn't tell you when various sound changes happened. -M

On top of this there is the argument between the English (and they may be alone in this) who claim ancient Greek had a musical-pitch accent and the Greeks who say it had a stress accent.

I believe that the pitch accent is the mainstream linguistic/philological position. But it is often possible to analyze the same phenomenon in different ways: cf. the analysis of tone in Serbian or Japanese. What does seem clear (and I believe even Caragounis agrees here) is that long vowels in ancient Greek had two different stress/tone patterns, not one as in modern Greek (which of course doesn't have long vowels). -M

Finally statistics offers no reason why the un-Greek pronunciation

Again, you are begging the question by calling the mainstream scholarly reconstruction of ancient Greek "un-Greek". -M

should be adopted over Greek pronunciation since even if the vowels and diphthongs were pronounced differently, statistically all prononcation follows a random scatter so before the modern era of mass communication there would have always been at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the population which always pronounced the vowels and diphthongs as they are today otherwise a transition could not have taken place between one form and another because there would be nothing to change to.

Yes, there are often multiple pronunciations co-existing. But this doesn't prove that any particular one existed at any particular time. -M

This justifies the use of modern Greek pronunciation for all Greek since modern Greek is the natural evolution of ancient Greek.--81.178.235.58 15:09, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

All in all, the above is not only not consistent with the mainstream position on ancient Greek pronunciation, but with the mainstream view of language change in general. --Macrakis 19:06, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Consider the following passage cited from an essay by G. Babiniotis, prytanis (rector) of the University of Athens and reputed linguist: "Ως προς την προφορά ο [Greek linguist] Γεώργιος Ν. Χατζιδάκις, ακολουθώντας τα διδάγματα της γλωσσικής επιστήμης, έδειξε ότι ανάμεσα στην προφορά της αρχαίας και της νέας γλώσσας υπάρχουν σημαντικές διαφορές, αναμενόμενες στην εξέλιξη κάθε φυσικής γλώσσας." (Γεώργιος Ν. Χατζηδάκης (1848 - 1941), θεμελιωτής της γλωσσικής επιστήμης στην Ελλάδα, πρώτος καθηγητής της Γλωσσολογίας στο Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών) http://www.mesogios.gr/arxeio/2001/10/17/g01.htm http://abnet.agrino.org/htmls/H/H006.html Could somebody who has access to the literature find out what exactly Hatzidaki's conclusions were? Andreas 16:23, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

---

Can we all decide what everyone agrees on and what they don't agree on.

What is agreed is that there may have been a change in the sound of the vowels and diphthongs but that the time during which this occurred was before classical times according to the Greek view and after classical times according to the English view with everyone else being in between.

As Andreas points out, we don't yet have a good reference for the "Greek view". Describing the "Greek view" based on one article by a theologian (not even a linguist!) of Greek origin working in Sweden seems a bit much. -M

Caragounis has stated that there is a Greek view and an un-Greek view. The two sides did battle at the beginning of the 19th century as to what was the correct pronunciation of ancient Greek and there was a stalemate which is stall present toady. The Greeks do not accept (and I don't think have ever accepted) that the Greek consonants have ever changed their sounds but they accepted that the vowels and diphthongs may have change their sound but they did this before the classical period.

Caragounis says many things. But so far I have seen no evidence that his is a widespread, reputable position among scholars of ancient Greek in Greece. -M

Since there is a 50/50 split (and there are also hardliners in Greece that insist the vowels and diphthongs never changed as is implied by the Greek reaction in the above article)

I don't know where you see a 50/50 split. I see you taking one position and everyone else here taking the other. Anyway, what the distribution of opinions is among Wikipedia editors is not relevant. What matters is the distribution of opinions among scholars of the Greek language. Even if we accept Caragounis as such (though his paper is full of linguistic howlers, and complete disregard for the vast literature on the subject), that doesn't tell us what other Greek scholars believe. -M

The 50/50 split I referred to is among academics. There is a stalemate as Caragounis explains. The Greeks are on one side and the English on the other and everyone else is in between.

I don't understand this bizarre obsession with the English. As far as I know, the consensus on the reconstruction of ancient Greek pronunciation is pretty much universal. Except -- possibly -- among Greek scholars, but as I said before, I still haven't seen evidence for that! Of course, that wouldn't make it 50/50 (because there are many fewer Greek scholars than non-Greek), but it would still be worth noting. -M

I suggest that all references in Wikipedia to so-and-so being the classical Greek pronunciation or the reconstructed classical Greek pronunciation are removed completely since the consensus is that changes took place but not when. Instead what should be stated should be something like, at an unknown time in the evolution of Greek a change may have taken place in the sounds of the vowels and diphthongs from so-and-so to this-and-that.

That is not the way the Wikipedia is supposed to work. It is supposed to reflect the major accepted positions on a topic. Please find us articles by professors of ancient Greek at the universities of Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Crete, etc. which talk about what the correct reconstruction of ancient Greek pronunciation is and we will include that position in the article. I think it would also be worthwhile to mention that different pronunciations are used as practical compromises in various places. -M

The English scientific view is not universally accepted. There is a stalemate between that and the Greek view.--Thrax 21:00, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Please provide evidence for this besides Caragounis. -M

What is not agreed to are the sounds of the consonants in ancient Greek except for ksi, psi, pi, tau, kappa and sigma and even then there is still some degree of dispute about pi, tau and kappa which are not the same as aspirated p, t and k in English but closer to b, d and g.

No one claims that π, τ, and κ were aspirated in ancient Greek, especially not the mainstream scholars who hold that φ, θ, and χ were their aspirated forms!! -M

It is clear that every country pronounces the Greek consonants differently. In Erasmian Dutch pronunciation fi, theta and hi are pronounced like they are in Greek, ie. f, th and h but in English scientific pronunciation they are pronounced as aspirated p, aspirated t and aspirated k and that this pronunciation is not accepted by anyone except the English.

You are again mixing up the reconstructed pronunciation with the practical pronunciation that people use for convenience. -M

Everyone accepts that the proto-Indo-European letters that became fi, theta and hi in Greek became f, f and h in Latin so the voiced-un-aspirated sounds attributed to these letters by the English have no precedent in Latin and are peculiar to English thinking.

Alas, there were no 'proto-Indo-European letters' (that would make life easier for Indo-Europeanists, wouldn't it?). I think you mean the sounds. I am not sure why you are mentioning the IE correspondence between Gk ph/th/kh and Lat f/f/h. The same IE sounds (bh/dh/gh) became p/t/k, bh/dh/h, b/d/z, b/d/g, etc. in various other IE languages. Latin and Greek are not the only IE languages, you know...! and in fact are not even particularly closely related among the IE languages. -M

The Italians were obviously more forceful in getting their point of view about their own language by the English than the Greeks have been.

Huh? I believe the Italians still pronounce Latin in the Italian way, e.g. 'cena' is pronounced chena, not kena. -M

Therefore since the ancient Greek consonants are disputed along ethnic lines

I think you mean 'national' (εθνικο) lines. -M

what I suggest that the best course of action is to accept the Greek view of their own language

a) we still haven't established the 'Greek view'; b) Wikipedia isn't in the business of privileging one point of view over another. -M

ie. that they have always been pronounced the same way as in modern Greek and that since this is an article entitled Greek Language, and not Erasmian Greek or scinetific Greek,

So you would like to have it reflect an unscientific view of Greek pronunciation? :-) -M

then the only evidence that should be presented for ancient Greek pronunciation is the evidence and the interpretation of this evidence as given by the Greeks themselves and nobody else. The evidence for Erasmian Greek or English Greek belongs elsewhere.

The article should present all widely-accepted scholarly positions on the matter. -M

If anyone wants to describe Erasmian or any other pronunciation system is should be placed on its own separate page and any reference to it on other pages should always be credited as Erasmian Dutch, or Erasmian English or English or German pronunciation or whatever it is in all instances of its use so that the reader is not mislead into thinking that the system portrayed is universally accepted since it is based solely upon ethnic lines. --Thrax 19:24, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

You are asking for special treatment of ancient Greek pronunciation based on what some Greeks today believe -- and we still haven't established what the modern scholarly position is in Greece! WP doesn't work that way. --Macrakis 20:31, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I think there is some misunderstanding here. The question is not whether we agree or not. In any case, we will never agree, and is our right as human beeings to disagree. I am not a professional linguist, so my opinion does not count anyway. The issue here is which is the mainstream theory. Please read the paragraph on "Undue weight" in Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Undue_Weight. The points to discuss is whether Caragounis' theory is believed to be true by a large number of specialists. This cannot be done by giving arguments in favor of his theory (we already have pletny of them, we have only to read his article).

The other point that I want to stress is that if there are prominent Greek scholars like Babiniotis or the founder of Greek linguistics, Hatzidakis, who disagree with you, then it is not justified to classify the mainstream theory of reconstructed classical pronunciation as "non-Greek". Andreas 20:37, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Hatzidakis was condemned by his fellow countrymen for even daring to suggest that ancient Greek could have been pronounced differently from today and he was just talking about the vowels. You will find it extremely difficult to find anyone in Greece who accepts that the ancient Greek consonants have changed their sound.

If you'd read the 1999 Babiniotis article Andreas cited, you will see that it says clearly that Hadzidakis was attacked by non-linguists — "ο Χατζιδάκις δέχθηκε σκληρές επιθέσεις από αγλωσσολόγητους επικριτές" — Babiniotis, professor of Greek language at the University of Athens, explicitly supports Hadzidakis's positions and explicitly condemns the theory that the sound changes were complete in classical times (though this article doesn't say which sound changes). I don't doubt that most Greeks don't believe this; but most Greeks aren't qualified to judge; after all, most Americans don't believe in Darwinian evolution, either :-( . --Macrakis 04:46, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

This would be the same Babiniotis who was publicly attacked in Greece for publishing a dictionary which defamed the Greek language. His views are not mainstream. As for being qualified I would think that other professors would be in a good position to refute the un-Greek schools of linguistics. "One More Falsification of History" is what Professor Dionysios Karvelas calls Erasmian pronunciation. --Thrax 15:29, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

George Demetrius Babiniotis, Rector of the University of Athens http://www.uoa.gr/uoauk/html02/rector_uk.htm

Λεξικό της Νέας Ελληνικής Γλώσσας του Γ. Μπαμπινιώτη (Α' έκδοση Μάιος 1998, Β' έκδοση, αναθεωρημένη και συμπληρωμένη, Ιανουάριος 2002): http://www.lexicon.gr/

For a review, see: http://www.sofiatimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=114&Itemid=95 Andreas 17:03, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

As for what is a mainstream theory and what is not. The fact that there are only 18 million native Greek speakers compared to 300 million native speakers of English does not make what English academics say about how ancient Greek was pronounced mainstream. The debate began at the start of the 19th century and is still in stalemate. The English scientific pronunciation has never been proven. Every argument the English have used has been countered by scientifically valid arguments against it in favour of Greek pronunciation. Everyone else who is neither English or Greek is somewhere in between. --Thrax 22:56, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I looked through Caragounis's article to see what secondary sources he relies on, and if there is a difference between putative English, Greek, and 'in-between' schools of thought. In fact, he has very very few references to modern discussion, despite the existence of an extensive literature on ancient Greek phonology (see the references in W.S. Allen's book), much of it covering the same epigraphic evidence that he discusses. He places German scholars such as Blass and Schwyzer in the same group as American and British scholars. His only reference to a Greek author is Papadimitrakopoulou, dated 1889 (!!). So I see no evidence here that Caragounis's position is widely held among serious Greek scholars. Thrax, can you provide such evidence? --Macrakis 22:29, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I should think that entitling a presentation at a scientific debate "Erasmian Pronunciation: One More Falsification of History" by Professor Dionysios Karvelas, would clearly indicate that Greek academics do not accept the Esasmian pronunciation or any of its derivatives. Falsification of history is how the un-Greek reconstruction of Greek is viewed in Greece and by serious Greek scholars who have obtained the position of professor.

If you want a copy of the minutes of the conference referred to above then you could try contacting Paideia President Mr. Tomazo at paideia@snet.net. --Thrax 22:56, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

It really doesn't sound like Thrax has any evidence for what he calls the "Greek position" being held by anyone for a century before Caragounis published in 1995. Septentrionalis 05:51, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Evangelos Petrounias is a professor of linguistics at the University of Thessaloniki. He wrote the introduction to the Λεξικό της Κοινής Νεοελληνικής (Thessaloniki, 1998), the competitor to Babiniotis's Λεξικό τής Νέας Ελληνικής Γλώσσας (Athens, 1998). In his article "The pronunciation of 'Greek' words in English" (http://www.philology.uoc.gr/conferences/6thICGL/ebook/c%5Cpetrounias.pdf), presented at the 6th International Congress on Greek Linguistics at the University of Crete (2003), he lays out comparative tables of ancient and modern Greek pronunciation, which clearly reflect the same conclusions as those of non-Greek scholars for both the vowel system and the consonant system. (He has also written an article on the modern pronunciation of ancient Greek, but it does not appear to be available online.) So we now have linguists at the two top Greek universities, closely involved with the two major dictionaries of modern Greek, agreeing with non-Greek scholars about the pronunciation of ancient Greek. So what exactly should we be calling the "Greek" position in this matter? The position of a theologian in Sweden publishing in a Spanish journal? ... or the position of two leading linguists at the two leading universities of Greece? --Macrakis 07:06, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

The only matter that Evangelos Petrounias agrees on with non-Greek linguists is on the vowels and I have freely admitted this. He categorically does not agree with non-Greek linguists on the sounds of the constants at all. The equivalence tables he shows clearly define theta, fi and hi as th, f, and h and it is clear from his description that he is only using a convention to transcribe delta, beta and gamma as d, b and g because there are no symbols for the specific Greek sound in American English. On top of this the fact that he uses American "a" to transcribe alpha clearly shows that even for the vowels his transcription is not based on sounds but is based on orthography alone (as he also states himself) since it is universally known that the American letter "a" is pronounced the same way the British pronounced "e" and the Greeks pronounce epsilon.

Please re-read his article more carefully. You are looking at the English pronunciation of English words of Greek origin, such as 'chaos', 'theater', etc. You need to look at the first column of table 9.1, labelled "ancient Greek: sound/phoneme", which clearly shows the following correspondences:

θ = [tH]; φ = [pH]; χ = [kH], etc.

--Macrakis 21:44, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

In table 9.1, the sounds for the letters β, γ, δ are represented as [b], [g], [d] for Ancient Greek and [v] [γ] [ð] for Modern Greek. These are standard symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet and their exact meaning can be looked up there. This is unequivocal evidence that Petrounias conforms with the internationally recognised theory and is in contradiction with Caragounis regarding the classical pronunciation.

No it isn't. Petrounias clearly states at the start that the basis of the contrast is orthography. He is writing in English so he is using the English orthography. He is not endorsing it and the fact that he says he is using American pronunciation contradictis the entire purpose of using the IPA which does not use American pronounciation.

The fact that Allen is being quoted as a source for both ancient Greek and Latin (ie. English sounding ancient Greek and English sounding Latin) makes the entire articles' credibility highly dubious on pronunciation grounds. The Italians certainly don't accept that Latin was pronounced like English since the pronounce it like Italian.--Thrax 14:51, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

This is not an article on what ancient Greek sounded like but why ancient Greek words were pronounced differently in English. Since words like Television didn't even existing until the 20th century and words line Drama were not even known in English until the middle ages by which time it is universally accepted that modern Greek pronunciation existed the reason why the English pronounced delta as d and not "the" is down to orthography alone. It does not imply that delta was pronounced d in ancient Greek. --Thrax 14:53, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Andreas 22:49, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

May I also remind you that the Greek view was fully developed in the early 1800's long before Caragounis and the argument between that view and the English view ended in a stalemate and this Greek view remains to this day. I suggest you dig up the papers from that era and look at the arguments. --Thrax 11:16, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Let me correct something I said above.

In the equivalence tables Petrounias defines ancient Greek theta as th in English and represents in with the IPA symbol [θ] and the sound th as in "thing", he also represents fi with the English/IPA symbol for [f] but represents hi with the English symbol for [k] which he also uses to represent kappa. Petrounias may not know what "k" actually sounds like in English or it may sound like h in the American dialect he learned otherwise he would not have equated ancient Greek kappa with ancient Greek hi. As I have already shown above Petrounias is using orthography not sounds otherwise he would have not made the elementary mistake of using American "a" to represent alpha when everyone knows that the American pronunciation of "a" is actually the same as English pronunciation of "e" and the Greek pronunciation of epsilon and sounds nothing like alpha.

It may be possible that a printing or scanning error caused the IPA symbol [x] (which is an h sound) to be transcribed as k. Therefore the text should not be trusted until it is ascertained independently what Petrounias is saying.

Please re-read the article more carefully. The [k] in question refers to the English pronunciaton of words like 'chaos' -- roughly ['kejos], not to the reconstructed ancient Greek pronunciation. --Macrakis 21:44, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

If that is the case then Petrounias is not claiming that the sounds of ancient Greek have ever changed at all. What he is doing is comparing ancient Greek with English on the basis of orthography alone. His use of "ph" to symbolise ancient Greek fi does not imply that it was pronounced as aspirated "p" but he is merely indicating as Caragounis has done before that the symbol φ was introduced into the Greek alphabet fi was written as pi eta.

See Table 9.1 in Petrounias' article: the sound for φ is represented in ancient Greek as [pH] and in modern Greek as [f]. Andreas 02:52, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Caragounis has already shown that the h in this combination was not acutely pronounced but was there to indicate that the letter before it should be pronounced as a fricative ie. f. In the examples Petrounias gives from Englaih is is clear that f is how ph is pronocunced in English. In Latin f is also how ph is pronounced based on the evidence of inscriptions given by Caragounis therefore on the basis of comparative linguists f is the most likely pronunciation for fi. --Thrax 23:03, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Anyway Petrounias states the following which indicates that he is fully aware that there is a schism between Erasmian and Greek pronunciations of Ancient Greek.

"4. Reasons for the divergence in pronunciation between modern Greek and English. The difference in pronunciation between related (congener) words is due to four factors: 1) The phonological rules of Latin. 2) Difference in evolution of the languages concerned; an evolution that in modern Greek may take a different form between words of popular («inherited words) and those of learned origin. In English, as in the other European languages, no difference between popular and learned phonology is observed in the case of internationalisms. 3) Difference in pronunciation of ancient Greek today in Greece vs. the West: On the one hand, pronunciation sometimes called «traditional» or «oriental» and on the other pronunciation called «Erasmian». (Drerup 1930, 1932; Petrounias 2001). 4) Different conventions prevalent in the orthography of the two languages, a difference witnessed also between the western languages themeselves." --Thrax 14:03, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

No one denies that there is a difference between the "oriental" and "Erasmian" pronunciations. But that has nothing to do with the present discussion, which is about what modern linguists believe the ancient Greek language actually sounded like. --Macrakis 21:44, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Petrounias is saying nothing for or against either view and is certainly not endorsing the un-Greek pronunciation of Greek.

As I have said before the arguments on either side were presented in the early 1800's and there was stalemate. Nothing has changed since. English linguists have not and cannot prove that their claim of un-Greek pronunciation of Greek is true (proto-Indo-European theory certainly doesn't support it) nor can they prove that even if it were true that it had not been replaced by modern Greek pronunciation in classical times or even Mycenaean

times and just because there are more English speakers than Greek speakers does not give them the right to impose their view on everyone else.

If you want to refer to the English view then you should label it as the English reconstructed pronunciation not as "the" reconstructed pronunciation because it is not the only reconstructed pronunciation and it is not even internationally accepted and I do not see any evidence presented in this thread which shows that its is. Furthermore this should be balanced out by noting the English pronunciation is challenged by the Greek reconstructed pronunciation. --Thrax 23:03, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

End of discussion

First I'd like to point out that the "phonology changes" section is already described in detail in Koine Greek, where it belongs. I removed all ignorant edits from the "sounds" section of Ancient Greek, not only because they were reaching ridiculously polemic overtones, but mainly because like User:Andreas said, they belong to a different article. I'm not only referring to the edits made by User:Thrax, but also the edits from other supposedly neutral editors from the opposing party who literally tried to fight fallacies by adding more fallacies. I found particularly insulting and childish the constant remarks of the type "Non-Greek scholars have concluded...blah, blah...and yet the nationalist, stupid and insignificant (->implied) Greek scholars continue the propaganda... blah blah blah). I really wonder whether the person who wrote this has actually read one single page of a Greek linguist's works. Since this person is ignorant of the fact that Greek scholars does NOT mean Caragounis, such claims and generalisations on "Greek" and "non-Greek" scholars is nearly propaganda material. For the record, it is Greek linguists who are considered as the expert sources on the history of the Greek language, not because they are genetically constructed to know better, but because they have been historically more interested and therefore made more research than the others. For those who doubt this and yet are too lazy to read two different books on the same topic in order to find out, they can directly skip to the "sources" section of a random book on the history of Greek. Miskin 19:16, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't see anyone in this discussion opposing Greek to non-Greek scholars except Thrax, who seems (incorrectly) to think that Greek scholars all agree with Caragounis. Scholars should be judged on their arguments, not their nationality. Greek linguists are neither more nor less expert as a group on the history of the Greek language than non-Greek linguists. Babiniotis does point out, though, while discussing the many important contributions of Greek linguists to Greek linguistics, that:

Φαίνεται περίεργο, ωστόσο είναι γεγονός ότι η αρχαία Ελληνική και η βυζαντινή μας γλώσσα, για το κύρος που είχαν διεθνώς - και ιδιαίτερα στην Ευρώπη - οι κλασικές και, λιγότερο, οι βυζαντινές σπουδές, μελετήθηκε περισσότερο από ξένους γλωσσολόγους και φιλολόγους . (http://www.mesogios.gr/arxeio/2001/10/17/g01.htm)

--Macrakis 15:36, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

As for User:Thrax's claims, they can be easily refuted (or rather explained), as he seems to be highly confused on the topic. He's basically manipulating historical facts in order to draw false conclusions. For example it's true that the Modern Greek pronunciation was formed in Hellenistic Greek (whether that was 1st or 3rd century BC is unknown and irrelevant) with the only exception being the letter Υ that was pronounced as ΟΥ until the 10th century AD. In that respect, sure one can safely claim that the Modern accent was shaped in Ancient - yet Post-Classic times. The detail here (which I tried to point out in the very first paragraph of Ancient Greek, is that the word "ancient" in "Ancient Greek", doesn't cover the exact time length that the term "Ancient History" does. For example Galen and Plutarch would be referred to as "Ancient Greeks", so would Aristotle and Plato, but only the last two were speakers of "Ancient Greek". Similarly, Achilles and Odysseus would not be speakers of Ancient Greek either, hence it all comes down to a matter of terminology. A better descriptive title of the period would be "Archaic and Classical Greek", but fortunately wikipedia is not powerful enough to have an opinion of its own on such matters. Anyways, as the phonology section in Koine Greek clearly states, a significant number of the sound changes between Ancient and Hellenistic/modern pronunciations, took place in the Classic period. So again, someone can safely claim that the Modern Greek accent started taking place already in the 5th c. BC, i.e. during the proper Ancient Greek period. This is pretty much a given fact for any evolution between any consequetive period of any given language. People can't just wake up one day and say "ok let's speak differently" (well not in those days anyway). So careful, as the "started shaping in" is miles away from "was spoken in"'. So to sum up:

• Modern phonology is indeed historically "ancient" in origin, as it was established in Hellenistic times.
• However Modern phonology was NOT established in Ancient Greek, because in Greek linguistics "Ancient" and "Hellenistic" are different periods.
• Modern phonology did indeed start shaping already in Classic times.
• However it is definitely NOT implied that Classic Greek used Modern phonology.

Any further analysis from this point would be an insult to the reader's intelligence. As many "non-Greek scholars" have stated, it is irrational to try to compare the differences of Ancient and Modern Greek without examining the entire period of the language. The reason for this is the fact that Ancient and Modern Greek are not two distinct languages with a common origin, but two different periods of the same language which is known as "Greek". Regards. Miskin 19:16, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Bibilography

For a bibliography of the history of the Greek language see: http://www.philology.gr/bibliographies/glo_ist-glos.html Andreas 15:14, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

• A History of Ancient Greek - From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity. Edited and translated by A.-F. Christidis, University of Thessaloniki, Greece http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521833078 Biography: http://www.greeklanguage.gr/christidis/pubs.htm
• N. Andriotis, Greek Language History: Four essays, reprint, 1995, pp. 168 (€ 6). ISBN 960-231-058-8.

A new approach

I've started re-working the article, on what I hope will be a less contentious but more systematic approach, discussing the vowels and consonants separately. There's still quite a bit more to be done, particularly on the consonants, but maybe this could be a place to state both the generally received theory and the alternatives, without some of the misinformation and confusion that still characterises much of this article. I'm also trying to make it clear that the classical (5th century Attic) pronunciation is one stage in a continuous history. --rossb 23:07, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

More arguments

The pronunciation of zeta is described by Dionysios Thrax as the two consonants sigma and delta lying together. [1] Therefore by definition they are pronounced simultaneously on top of each other not separately and must give only one sound. The only sound that Dionysios Thrax can reasonably be interpreted as referring to is a pure [z] sound. The sounds of [sd] or [zd] are both precluded by Dionysios Thrax definitions since they are THREE sounds. [sd] is only pronounceable as "stu" as in stuff and [zd] is only pronounceable as "zdu". If the vowel "u" is not added to the end of this combination then it is un-pronounceable as a hemiphonon which is what Dionysios Thrax describes it as. Hemiphona are defined such that they do NOT require a vowel to be added in order to be projected. [sd] and [zd] cannot be hemiphona but [z] clearly is. This implies that delta could only have been pronoced as "the" as it is in modern Greek. In fact all of Dionysios Thrax descriptions imply modern pronunciation of the consonants. Delta is described as the middle sound of tau and theta. This sound can only be "the". The middle sound of the combination t and tH (ie un-aspirated t followed by aspirated t) is t therefore ttH cannot by any stretch of the imagination justify the title of mediae for the group that it is part of. Grimms Law also precludes the combination t and tH being anything but t. It cannot possibly be b unless Grimm's Law is violated since the combination MOVES WAY from un-aspirated t towards aspiration of t and b is not aspirated as all, so theta CANNOT have been pronounced as tH. Theta could only have been th as in "theatre". This not only satisfies Dionysios Thrax definition but it also satisfies Grimm's Law (the movement is from un-aspirated t which is close to b towards total aspiration as θ or th in "theatre") and the in-between sound or meson sound gives the sound of modern Greek delta. --Thrax 14:34, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

More evidence for zeta as z since Mycenaean times.

Its orthographically z and pronounced [z] in all other European languages. Its zayin pronounced [z] in Hebrew and ze pronounced [z] in Arabic. Its also zayin in Phoenician script and Proto-Sinaitic script. Its represented as za, ze and zo in Linear B. In none of these languages and scripts is it represented orthographically as [sd] or [zd] therefore it is one single sound. Linear B has unique symbols for both s and d but the combination sd is never used for z. --Thrax 15:44, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Thrax: Please do not provide us with more arguments in favor or against a certain hypothesis. Your opinioln is already well documented. Moreover, I want to remind you that Wikipedia is the wrong place for this discussion, since this would constitute own research. What we would possibly need here would be statements like: According to author soandso, published in the following scholarly journal/encyclopedia/publicly available proceedings etc., pronunciation is suchandsuch.Andreas 16:31, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I am not going to get involved in a competition on who can cite the most authors that agree with them. I have already cited my sources and that is enough. The Erasmain/English (Oxford/Cambridge) pronunciations of Ancient Greek are disputed, period. Wikipedia should not be engoraging its readers to follow a system which has been disputed for over two centuries and it should not be portraying this systems conclusions as if they were internationally accepted which they are not since they were adopted by English speaking countries on nationalistic grounds alone on the basis of dogma not scientific grounds. Wikipedia should present the evidence on both sides for the disputed letters beta, gamma, delta, zeta, theta, fi and hi and not favour one side or the other until both sides including classicists and linguists agree which I doubt will ever happen as long as the English continue with their nationalistic arrogance against modern Greek pronunciation. --Thrax 17:12, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Reverted to "not entirely conclusive": it is non-NPOV to omit an opinion held by a majority of scholars worldwide. Andreas 17:07, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Labelled zeta as disputed therefore Erasmain point of view deleted. It is POV and academically fraudulent to portray an opinion held by native English speaking linguists which has been adopted by the more numerous English speaking world purely on nationalistic grounds as if it were the majority view of scholars. Greece is a small country so cannot produce as many linguists and does not have the economic clout of England or America to set up as many universities teaching the Greek pronunciation as there are ones teaching the Eramain/English pronunciation. --Thrax 17:37, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

The reconstructed zeta (and the rest of the reconstruction of Ancient Greek sounds) is as far as I can tell an international consensus, including among Greek scholars. What's more, the consensus of Wikipedia editors here, after looking over the evidence you present, is that the Caragounis line is very marginal -- perhaps worth mentioning, but certainly not worth presenting at length as a mainstream position. Now, who knows?, perhaps in 20 years the scholarly consensus will have changed and Caragounis will be vindicated, at which point of course Wikipedia should report that. But that is not the case today. Please stop pushing the Caragounis position. --Macrakis 20:27, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

There is no international consensus based on scientific grounds on this matter. There is a consensus in the English speaking world to adopt the known to be disputed English scientific pronouncation based on nationalistic lines alone not scientific grounds. With a few exceptions such as the Swedish based Cargounis if any academics do not tow this line then they will find it difficult to obtain employment in English speaking institutions. This is a clear situation of academic bigotry.

If the scientific evidence were studied alone on its own merits it is clear that there is a stalemate so there can be no consensus except accepting the stalemate and teaching both points of view with equal merit.

You are free to describe the Erasmian pronunciation and the English scientific pronunciation just as long as you state that is the pronunciation you are describing and mention that it is disputed. You can even state in the article that there is a consensus on the matter but you cannot say that so and so is how theta is pronounced and so and so is how gamma is pronounced at such and such a time without saying who is making these claims ie. the Erasmians are making the claims or the English school is making the claims and that there are other schools. --Thrax 21:14, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Vox Graeca

I recommend Vox Graeca by W. Sidney Allen. It's readable and it lays out the modern state of knowledge on the issues - including those that are controversial - in an accessible way. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 20:15, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I recommend "THE ERROR OF ERASMUS AND UN-GREEK PRONUNCIATIONS OF GREEK" by Chrys C. CARAGOUNIS Filología Neotestamentaria 8 (1995) 151-185 which is accessible here [2]. --Thrax 20:57, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

This does not appear to be a text written by a linguist. Take sentences like this:

Here one should bear in mind that Greek, basically a polysyllabic, vowel-loving language, avoids the concentration of unnecessary, difficult-to-pronounce consonants so characteristic of German, cf. e.g. Nietzsche and other words with six or even seven consecutive consonants.'

Why is he counting consonant letters when discussing phonetics? The name Nietzsche may be written with 5 consecutive consonants but as near as I can tell the cluster is pronounced as a single affricate. This whole Caragounis text just reads very weird to me. What are the credentials of the author? - Haukur Þorgeirsson 14:00, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleted a couple of points from the article

I've deleted a couple of point from the article, which seem to make no sense:

• "The spelling εκ stays the same in front of κ, τ, π, but often becomes εχ in front of θ, φ, χ which indicates that θ, φ, χ must be fricatives".

This does not indicate this at all: it's an established fact that Ancient Greek favoured groups of dasea, for istance φθ, χθ. This has no bearing as to whether they were pronounced as aspirated stops or as fricatives.

• "The κ of εκ before Β, Γ, Δ as well as Λ, Μ and Ν regularly changed to Γ indicating that Gamma could not have been pronounced as G but as /GH/".

This does not indicate any such thing: it's merely that the κ is partially assimilated by changing to the voiced equivalent — γ — before a voiced consonant — a very common phenomenon in languages. If anything this is confirmation that γ was a voiced stop, rather than the reverse. --rossb 20:17, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

That is your point of view based on your preference for the Easmian system and you are entitled to it but that is not the interpretation of this evidence when dealing with Greek pronunciation of Greek so I am reverting it. If you want to state the Easmian view using the same evidence then place the evidence in the Eurasian section and leave the Greek section alone. --Thrax 20:42, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

"Finally, the fact that the preposition e0k does not change before k, t, p, but before q, f, x it actually often becomes e0x (e.g. e0x Qettali/aj 64, e0x qhtw~n 65, e0x fulh=j 66, e0x Xalki/doj) 67, which would be impossible to pronounce as ek+h-K+h-alki/doj, etc. (i.e. aspirating the X as k+h and the F as p+h, which would necessitate the resumption of the original position of the tongue after the utterance of the first aspirate) shows that there is no question of aspiration, and that these letters were pronounced monophthongally as th (like Eng. "thin"), ph = f and ch (like Germ. "Bach" and "Ich" [as pronounced in North Germany]) 68. Q and F had taken just these sounds in Boeotia already in the Vth c. B.C." [3]

No, it's not impossible to pronounce two aspirated stops one after the other. This is a regular occurrence for instance in Armenian and Georgian. --rossb 21:48, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

But were are dealing with Greek phonology and Georgian is Caucasian not indo-European and Armenian is extremely archaic indo-European which only just slips into the classification of being indo-European. Anyway I've tried to pronounce kHpH and its impossible for me to do so. --Thrax 22:27, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

"The pronunciation of B, G, D as v, gh, and th (as Eng. "then") becomes clear from the following considerations:

1. The k of the preposition e0k before B, G, and D as well as before L, M, and N is regularly changed to G for euphonic reasons 69. This circumstance clearly supports the sound gh rather than that of g." [4] --Thrax 20:55, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Removal of the above evidence for the Greek pronunciation based on preference for the Erasmian interpretation is academically fraudulent. The reader can make their own mind up. If you want to cite the same evidence in favour of the Erasmian pronunciation then do so in the Erasmian section. --Thrax 20:55, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

The so-called scientific pronunciation of Greek is "nothing but a chaotic democracy of un-Greek pronunciations of Greek, each conceived according to what is deemed natural in the speaker’s own tongue." E. Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1967) 5 [5] --Thrax 21:43, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

The exact quote (from Caragounis) is: "[...] hence the so-called scientific pronunciation of Greek is —to paraphrase Hirsch’s phrase — nothing but a chaotic democracy of un-Greek pronunciations of Greek, each conceived according to what is deemed natural in the speaker’s own tongue." - E.D. Hirsch Jr., Linden Kent Memorial Professor of English Literature and University Professor of Education and Humanities [6] (not a specialist in Greek phonology) Andreas 02:00, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

On the "Western School" of classical studies A. Jannaris puts the matter pertinently when he says: "The first act of this school, still in its infancy, was to do away with the traditional pronunciation —which reflects perhaps the least changed part of the language— and then to declare Greek a dead tongue". A. Jannaris, "An Historical Greek Grammar Chiefly of the Attic Dialect As Written and Spoken From Classical Antiquity Down to the Present Time" (London: MacMillan & Co., 1897) Preface viii. [7] --Thrax

1897! --Macrakis 22:04, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Do you have a problem. Grimm's Law dates to 1822. Does that mean that it is no longer valid or applicable ? --Thrax 22:16, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

We are looking for evidence that contemporary Greek scholars support Caragounis's putative "Greek Pronunciation". An 1897 book does not demonstrate that. --Macrakis 22:23, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Caragounis did not invent the Greek historical pronunciation anymore than Allen invented the English reconstructed scientific pronounciation.

I would think that the following reported by these academics would constitute evidence that Caragounis is not alone in qustioning the English pronounciation. --Thrax 23:04, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

"REPORTS

Observations on the Erasmian Pronunciation (Professor Kariofilis Mitsakis).

The Educational Segment of Discarding the Erasmian Pronunciation (Professor Napoleon Mitsis).

Discussion About the Correct Pronunciation of Greek and Latin Speech (Professor Nicholas Petrohilos).

Erasmian Pronunciation. Truth or Lie (Anna Tziropoulou-Eustathiou).

Erasmian Pronunciation: One More Falsification of History (Professor Dionysios Karvelas).

The Erasmian Pronunciation of Ancient Greek: A New Prespective (Professor Matthew Dillon).

The Erasmian Concept: A Lengthy Philological Problem (Professor Panagiotis F. Christopoulos)."

Each to his own

Advocates of the Erasmian system can edit the "Evidence for Erasmian Pronunciation" while leaving the section title "Evidence for Greek Pronunciation" intact. I will not touch the Erasmian section any further as long as the title includes the term Erasmian or Scientific Pronunciation to distinguish it from the Greek Pronunciation section. --Thrax 22:09, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

This is not a solution. The Caragounis position is not the Greek position, as Andreas and I have shown with quotations from Babiniotis (prof. at U. Athens) and Petrounias (prof. at U. Thessaloniki). Caragounis is a professor of theology (not of linguistics) in Sweden who published your favorite article in Spain. Perhaps we should call it the Hispano-Swedish pronunciation. --Macrakis 22:23, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Babiniotis does not represent the Greek position. He has been castigated by his own people. I have already posted details of a conference where the Erasmian position was castigated as a falsification of history. Caragounis has already shown evidence of both Greek and non-Greek academics who advocate the historical Greek pronunciation of Ancient Greek. Where is the evidence for the Erasmian/Scientific pronunciation that dates any later that the 19th century. There isn't any is there. You certainly have not provided any and Allen does not count since he is regurgitating 19th century research so is no different to Caragounis. You can't have it both ways. --Thrax 22:37, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I have now relabled Erasmian as Reconstructed scientific pronunciation and reinstated Macrakis writeup. --Thrax 22:19, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

The Mediae

Is there agreement on Dionysios Thrax description of the Mediae. If so can it be moved to the section on Aphona in a neutral manner. The same thing goes for Dionysios Thrax description for the pronunciation of Zeta. Can that be moved to the Hemiphona in a neutral manner. Neutral meaning a basic translation that we can all agree on and nothing more. Does everyone agree on the translation given or can they suggest another ? --Thrax 22:45, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Dillon

I have corresponded with Prof. Dillon, one of the presenters at the Litohoro conference Thrax mentions. Dillon's paper was primarily about how to pronounce Ancient Greek in the classroom, not about the scientific reconstruction of ancient Greek, and he advocates what he calls a "Hellenistic" approach, "clearly post-classical" in his words. He went back to Erasmus's original paper, and has read both Caragounis and Allen. He does question some of the standard reconstruction (documented by Allen), but his primarily goal is practical: what to teach. He also said: "there was more heat than light shed at the Litochoro conference". --Macrakis 20:12, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

questions

How did the ancient Greeks speak? Did they have idioms like we have in Modern Greece? Which theory is the majority view and who support it?

The field of linguistics has always been devised mostly along racial grounds rather than scientific grounds. The majority view is not necessarily the most accurate or the correct view. --Thrax 16:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

If it is Erasmus theory, has it changed during the last centuries?

Erasmian and "scientific" pronunciation is different in every country. The majority view in English speaking countries is the English scientific view which pronounces ancient Greek and Latin like English. In Germany ancient Greek and Latin are pronounced like German "scientifically" justified. In Holland they are pronounced like Dutch "scientifically" justified. In Italy Latin is pronounced like modern Italian and in Greece ancient Greek is pronounced like modern Greek with equal scientific justification. --Thrax 16:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Who support (or supported in the past) a different theory? Does the two theories have things in common? Until when (2nd century AD, 3rd century BC) those theories disagree.

The so-called "scientific" pronunciations (and every country has their own specific variety) have no scientific credibility whatsoever. Linguists cannot even agree on how proto-Indo-European was pronounced. According to one theory the unvoiced stops were p, t, k and the voiced stops were b, d, g and the voiced aspirates were bH, dH and gH. According to another theory, the Glottalic theory these same stops were pH, tH, kH and t', k', g' and bH, dH and gH in that order. Note that all of these theories are the work of Slavs and Germanics not Greeks. If Greece had as many linguists then no doubt the proto-Indo-European stops would be π, τ, κ and β, δ, γ and φ, θ, χ pronounced like modern Greek. --Thrax 16:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Neither Germanic nor Slavic have phonemic aspiration, so by your logic, it is strange that they would reconstruct it for PIE.... And, by the way, your terminology isn't quite right: the modern Greek pronunciations of β, δ, γ, φ, θ, χ are not "stops" at all, but fricatives.... --Macrakis 03:18, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

It is interesting to note that the German pronunciation of final G (ie. Guh) is pretty close to the Greek pronunciation of Gamma whereas the English pronunciation of G is not. On the basis of comparative linguistics it is clear that German final G is a relic from proto-indo-European pronounced like modern Greek. Now all I need is to do is to sponsor enough academics to agree with me or set up enough universities and professorships supporting my point of view and this will become scientific fact. After all isn't that the way the English pronunciation became scientific fact in England and America. It was all paid for. --Thrax 16:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Thrax: do not bring further own-research arguments in favor of any theory. concentrate on providing sources. Also, this belongs to the article Indoeuropean languages. (There is no German word Guh and there is no sound in the standard German language resembling the modern pronunciation of <γ>, see German phonology#Consonants.) Andreas 16:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

That is not true. Boris Becker gave a lecture on the German pronunciation of G in "They Think its All Over" yesterday night on BBC1 and the pronunciation he gave for the name of football manager Arsen Wenger was Vengher (ie. Venγer) where the G was pronounced gutturally almost like gamma and not g as the English pronounced it. --Thrax 17:08, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I took a glance at Vox Graeca and it seems interesting, Hatzidakis was the first linguist in Greece and had done some related work. Bambiniotis has written a study about the word "Mediae" (I haven't seen it yet). All these should be analysed in this article, and when I find time, I'll check what more can I find about it and read Caragounis work too. +MATIA ☎ 12:52, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

We are trying to agree on a translation of Dionysios Thrax [8] definition of the Mediae and the dasea and psila and the hemi-phona and aphona. Do you have any suggestions ? --Thrax 16:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

The Greek view on ancient pronunciation

In the Συνοπτική ιστορία της ελληνικής γλώσσας (Summary History of the Greek Language, Αθήνα 1986), Γεώργιος Μπαπμινιώτης (George Babiniotis) describes the transition from ancient to Koine Greek as involving structural transformations at all linguistic levels (p 114), and goes into some detail on the phonological changes, starting with the vowels (p 115), diphthongs (p 116), and then consonants (p 120). There is an 8-page discussion of the transition from ancient to Koine sounds. There is a table of the ancient sounds and spellings (p <π> / b <β> / pH <φ> etc.) and the late Alexandrian sounds and spellings (p <π> / b <μβ/μπ> / v <β> / f <φ> etc.) with some detail about the different times and dialects when these changes happened (not all simultaneously). All this should sound familiar, as it is just what Allen and other sources say.

Babiniotis's bibliography mentions 24 Greek, English, German, French, and Italian sources on the history of Greek dating from 1892-1973, and nowhere does he mention a "Greek view" (minority or otherwise) claiming that ancient Greek consonants or vowels were pronounced like modern. --Macrakis 04:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

He's just regurgitating the dogma of the English pronunciation as a historical guide to how it was concocted. The English pronunciation is still unproven and is not accepted by the majority of Greeks. Linguists cannot even agree on how the so-called voiced aspirated stops were pronounced in proto-Indo-European so how can anyone make claims that the Greek letter hi was pronounced kH and not h which is how Greeks pronounce it and how it is pronounced in Latin and Sanskrit. Caragounis has provided the evidence for the historical Greek pronunciation (Development of Greek & the New Testament) and the debate between that and the English pronunciation ended in stalemate in the 19th Century since there is no evidence that proves that archaic Greek was pronounced any differently from Koine. Just because the English pronunciation has been adopted by most English speaking universities purely on nationalistic grounds rather than scientific grounds (since there are none to support it) and because academics are forced to teach it if they or their students want posts at these universities does not make it correct and does not mean that alternatives do not exist. --Thrax 05:29, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Thrax, as Andreas has pointed out several times, we understand that Caragounis argues a certain position, which you have characterized as the "Greek view". But so far, we have seen no evidence that Caragounis's view is the Greek view, and not just the view of one theologian in Sweden (which wouldn't warrant more than a footnote in the Wikipedia). Indeed, we have found quotations from professors of linguistics (not theology!) at both the University of Athens and the University of Thessaloniki (are you calling them "English speaking universities"?!) which show clearly that they do not agree with the Caragounis position. You, as an individual, have every right to believe that these professors are incompetant, that they are "regurgitating" a fallacious dogma, that they are traitors to the Greek nation, etc. And as I've said before, perhaps Caragounis will be vindicated at some point. But today, it seems clear that Greek specialists in the history of the Greek language take the same view as non-Greek ones. And so the Wikipedia must report that position. --Macrakis 05:54, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

You have not shown that any Greek professors disagree with Caragounis at all, whereas I have shown plenty including Anna Tziropoulou-Eustathiou "Erasmian Pronunciation. Truth or Lie" and Professor Dionysios Karvelas "Erasmian Pronunciation: One More Falsification of History" that question the English view. If I published a book on purely on Newtonian physics that does not mean I disagree with Einstein. Newtonian physics is taught to more students of physics than General Relativity because its what they witness every day (and its easier). Does that mean the Einsteinian view does not exist. Of course not. Does that mean that Einstein is wrong. No. It is Newton who is wrong. Einstein had the insight to show that the assumptions of Newtonian physics did not correspond to the observable universe since the speed of light is a universal constant. Caragounis, Anna Tziropoulou-Eustathiou and Dionysios Karvelas have all published books and papers that show the equivalent of Einstein's relativity and the experimental observations that preceded it. It might not be what is taught to most students and what is witnessed every day in the English speaking word but it is what is observed in the real universe looking at all the evidence.

The English pronunciation is the equivalent of the Earth centred universe. It is nationalistic political dogma which excludes all other evidence not science and is perpetuated to satisfy the English speaking world which insists on pronouncing every other European language Italian, Greek, German, Spanish and Russian like English. It is tantamount to the perpetuation of British colonialism through academia and that is why the lie is perpetuated just like the like of earth centred universe was perpetuated by the Popes. If you did not perpetuate the lie then your employment prospects and funding would be forfeit. The lie that all other European languages are pronounced like English is easily shown to be false by comparing these languages. English pronunciation is the most un-Greek pronunciation of all European pronunciations so how can it be right. Why is modern Greek pronunciation almost completely ignored by English linguists. How can ignoring Greek and other European languages that sound like Greek be scientific. Wikipedia is here to show all points of view and all the evidence in order to enlighten people. It is not here to show just one view to the exclusion of all others especially when this view is disputed. --Thrax 16:39, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Could you please supply affiliation information about Anna Tziropoulou-Eustathiou and Dionysios Karvelas? Where are they professors, and what are they professors of? Have you read their papers? Have the papers been published somewhere where the rest of us can read them? I did find one article by Tziropoulou on the Web, "The Power of Greek Words"[9] (you'll need to set your character encoding to Windows-1253 to read the Greek), but it doesn't give any institutional affiliation for her. It also endorses a variety of extravagant claims (the English word 'sheriff' comes from Greek κορέω; that Basque is derived from Greek; etc.). According to [10], she also denies the Phoenician origin of the Greek alphabet. --Macrakis 17:40, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

From her biography [11]

"Anna Tsiropoulou-Efstathiou was born in Piraeus.

She studied Greek and French Literature at the University of Athens, Italian at the Casa d'Italia and Spanish at the Institute of the Spanish Embassy.

She is a member of the Literary House of Piraeus (Philologiki Stegi) and the Society of Piraeus for the spreading of the Greek language, of which she has been the Vice President for two years.

The Greek Academy of Vaskoni which has its seat in Bilbao, chose her as a regular group member for her general contribution to the advance of classical studies, for the spread and the study of Ancient Greek and especially for her book "How Greek fertilised the European word" (How Greek fertilised European languages")

She is the first woman on which the Academy of Vaskoni has bestowed such a title.

She is Director of Studies of "Greek Culture", in which she also teaches ancient Greek. For the needs of the school she has compiled the book "Lessons in the ancient Greek language" volumes 1 and 2."

It sounds like "Greek culture" is not a university. In English, the title "professor" is normally reserved for university professors. --Macrakis 20:14, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

And where did you get the idea that the Greek alphabet was of Phoenician origin. The present Greek alphabet is of Proto-Sinaitic origin as is the Phoenician alphabet. The Proto-Sinaitic script evolved in Egypt 4000 years ago during the time of the Hyksos or foreign kings.

You are quibbling. Anyway, check out [12] and look over the shapes. --Macrakis 20:14, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Before this alphabet there were other Greek alphabets such as Linear A/B and Cypriot Script. And remember that Albert Einstein was a patent office clerk when he came up with Relativity. --Thrax 19:29, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Irrelevant. --Macrakis 20:14, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

WOW!!!

This must be a huge dispute, according the many tags!!! Bomac 22:08, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Mediation

I'm willing to help out in mediating in this conflict since the article right now is a pretty bad shape. The debate here on the talkpage has cleraly spilled over in the article too much. I won't promise perfect neutrality, but I can guarantee that I won't favor any kind of national allegience of my own. I've never studied Greek, so I'm not influenced by any national school.

Could everyone involved in this conflict try to summarize their views as briefly as possible? Please avoid any statements that don't have anything to do with the facts. I.e. rants about Greek purism or Oxford phonetic hegemony. If you cite sources (without going into overly minute detail) and avoid incivily and personal attacks, I think we can solve this issue.

Peter ^Isotalo 14:29, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

The pronunciation of ancient Greek is under dispute. There are 3 main points of view on this matter, The Erasmian pronounciation, The English (so-called scientific) pronounciation which is a derivative of the Erasmian and the Historical Greek pronounciation. Since these are all points of view and none of them has been proven (nor can be without aid of a time machine) Wikipedia should not be claiming that ancient Greek was pronounced in such and such a way without first qualifying the claim by stating the point of view that the claim accords to. Further more Wikipedia should describe the differences between all of these points of view and the evidence for and against them for the benefit of the reader. --81.178.246.24 16:49, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Chrys C. Caragounis, "Development of Greek & the New Testament" and Chrys C. Caragounis, "THE ERROR OF ERASMUS AND UN-GREEK PRONUNCIATIONS OF GREEK" describes the Historical Greek pronounciation and claims that ancient Greek was pronounced almost identically to modern Greek since classical times and that the Greek consonants have never changed their sound. Caragounis is supported by other linguists, classicists and academics including those cited above and by the majority of native Greek speakers. The Greek historical pronunciation is taught to all students of ancient Greek in Greece stating from secondary school. The Erasmian and English pronounciations are considered to be nothing more than linguistic conventions for the purpose of convenience and that is the manner Greeks are acquainted with them (i.e. no justification for them is given). --81.178.246.24 16:49, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

W. Sidney Allen, "Vox Graeca: the pronunciation of classical Greek" describes the Erasmian and English pronounciation. The English pronunciation which was established in the mid 1800's is taught as dogma in most of the English speaking world. --81.178.246.24 16:49, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

The pronunciation which the preceding contribution describes (misleadingly in my opinion) as the "Erasmian and English pronunciation" is in fact the accepted view held by almost all experts on the subject.

Exactly. The reconstructed pronunciation is the view held by almost all experts on the reconstructed pronunciation. Correct. --81.178.246.24 20:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

It should be made clear that the pronunciation in question is that of the Attic Dialect (spoken in Athens) of the 5th Century BC, in other words the period in which some of the most notable works of ancient Greek literature were written. The accepted view is documented in not only Allen quoted above, but also (for example, quoting only those books which I happen to have to hand):

• Leonard R Palmer, The Greek Language, Faber and Faber, "The Great Languages" series, 1980.
• Robert Browning, Medieval and Modern Greek, Hutchinson University Library, 1969.
• George Thomson, The Greek language, W Heffer and Sons, 1972.
• Leslie Threatte, "The Greek Alphabet", in Daniels and Bright, The World's Writing Systems, Oxford University Press, 1996.
• Carl Darling Buck, Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, University of Chicago Press, 1933.
• E H Sturtevant, The pronunciation of Greek and Latin, Aries Publishers Inc, 1940.

All of the above works support (with minor variations) the "Erasmian and English pronunciation".

Are you sure that its not that they support it but its that they repeat it. --81.178.246.24 20:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Sturtevant in particular considers an alternative pronunciation like that proposed by Caragounis, only to reject it as not cogent. His reasons interestingly include the testimony of the ancient grammarian Dionysius Thrax, whom Caragounis relies on to support his particular viewpoint. I have not come across any books that support the Caragounis view.--rossb 19:52, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Lets deal with Dionysios Thrax shall we. Going by Thax beta is the middle sound between the sound of pi and that of fi. If we use the sounds of these letters corresponding to the reconstructed pronunciation then we must find the middle sound of the combination of p and pH (ie. ppH) which obviously can only be p. If we use the Historical Greek pronunciation then beta is the middle sound of p and f (ie. pf) which is obviously v which is the modern Greek pronunciation of beta. Dionysios Thrax is talking nonsense unless ancient Greek was pronounced in the same way as modern Greek. --81.178.246.24 20:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Dionysius Thrax's description of beta as intermediate between pi and phi is puzzling, but it doesn't favour the Caragounis view,

It favours modern Greek pronunciation and that alone. It is completely unworkable any other way. --81.178.246.24 02:04, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

which would imply that a voiced fricative was intermediate between a voicless stop and a voiceless fricative, which doesn't make much sense.

It makes perfect sense using modern Greek pronunciation . P followed by F is V. P followed by PH is P again which is ridiculous. Gamma is K followed by H which is modern Greek gamma and Delta is T followed by Θ which is modern Greek delta. --81.178.246.24 02:04, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

A much clearer statement from Dionysius Thrax is the grouping of all three as "aphona" which surely means what we would nowadays call "stops". --rossb 23:11, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

There was no such term as stops in Ancient Greek linguistics. Aphona are defined by Thrax as being of an unnatural sound. The term Dasea means rough breathing and that can only imply fricatives for fi, hi and theta. --81.178.246.24 02:04, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I will not go into the details of content in the debate because, as I have said many times, this is not the issue. Wikipedia is not a forum for debating scientific theories. The place to do this are scientific journals and scientific conferences. Our only task, according to the guidelines, is to report on the prevailing theories and to inform the reader which ones are mainstream among experts, which ones contested, and which ones are marginal. See: Wikipedia:Guidelines for controversial articles, Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial#Expertise.

My conclusions are the following: All sources from non-Greek scholars accept the scientifically reconstructed theory introduced by Allen. So do all sources from prominent Greek scientist teaching at Greek universities, including the rector of the University of Athens.

That is not strictly true. Can you tell me where these Greek scholars you refer to have stated that they accept the so-called scientifically reconstructed theory as being the correct pronunciation of ancient Greek as the ancient Greeks pronounced it, correct being the operative term rather than accept. I do not remember you citing research papers by these scholars weighing up the arguments of both sides and coming to any conclusions (and anyway all the so-called research was done in the 1800's and nothing new has been added since then). All that they have done is repeated the known historical dogma of the English pronunciation (because lets face it, its not scientific if it ignores modern Greek pronunciation in comparative linguistics) because that is what they are teaching their students so that they can be in communion with the English speaking universities which are more numerous. --81.178.246.24 05:18, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

There is a dissident theory based on one original publication by a non-expert (a theologist) who lives and teaches outside Greece.

Caragounis is a classicist and that makes him more of an expert in ancient Greek than any linguist. A linguist is a jack of all languages and master of none whereas a classicist is a master of ancient Greek. Caragounis has cited primary evidence relating to ancient Greek usage and fully understands the meaning of ancient Greek texts. I doubt that even Professor Babiniotis could do what Caragounis has done or that he can read Homer and understand it in the original text or write prose in ancient Greek, because he is a linguist not a classicist. He is an expert on theroy that was invented by Germans to explain the evolution of the Germanic languages and I doubt that this linguist Babiniotis can speak fluent German either. Is Allen a linguist or a classicist. Can someone remind me ? --81.178.246.24 05:18, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Therefore, the mainstream scientific theory is the reconstructed pronunciation. Caragounis's theory could be mentioned as a marginally accepted theory. The division into Greek and non-Greek scientists should be abandoned because it is not backed by the sources. The use of a certain pronunciation for teaching is a different issue that is already described in a satisfactory manner.

I am yet to be convinced that the reconstructed pronunciation is actually scientific. It sounds more like conjecture than science and conjecture relating to a humanities based subject like linguistics is nothing more than point of view like the recording of history for example as anyone who has read Herodotus will tell you. By the way Herodotus says that ancient Greek has never ever changed its pronunciation in its entire history. (Herodotus 1.58.1) --81.178.246.24 05:18, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

An additional point here is the popular belief among Greek laypersons that in classical times Greek was pronounced the same way as it is today. Although it might be desirable to make such a statement, we do not have any sources that corroborate it. I doubt if there are any opinion polls published on this question. We cannot ask our friends or judge from our own experience because Wikipedia does not allow own research. Any ideas?

The paragraph on "Historical sound changes" should be shortened and renamed to something like "Development of the current theory and the role of Erasmus".

What do you mean by current theory. Do you mean the English pronunciation ? There were other theories at the time the English pronunciation was devised such as the Historical Greek pronunciation and the Erasmian and they should also be included for ballance. The existing heading "History of the reconstruction of ancient pronunciation" describes what's in the box so to speak. --81.178.246.24 05:18, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

It should be edited to remove such non-NPOV statements like "a trick that was played on him by [...] Glareanus who lied to Erasmus", and "concocted". The Glareanus story is an opinion of Caragounis who himself does not give any historical sources for this anecdote. Reference to the "English-speaking world" is also not backed by sources; the fact that Allen was teaching in Cambridge does not make this an English theory (is Einstein's theory of relativity a German, a Swiss, or a Jewish theory?). Science is an international endeavour. Andreas 02:16, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Obviously you have not read Caragounis references and notes. The Glareanus story is fully documented bellow.

"5 The story of the fraud (fraude) to which Erasmus fell victim is related in an account dated 27 October 1569, and cited in one of the fervent supporters of Erasmianism, in Gerardi Ioannis Vossii, Aristarchus, sive de arte Grammatica libri septem etc., (Amstelædami: I. Blaev 1635, Editio secunda 1662) 106f. My thanks are hereby due to de heer Martin Engels, Conservator of the Provinciale Bibliotheek van Friesland at Leeuwarden, Netherlands, who kindly send me photocopies of the relevant pages of this book. The text runs as follows: "Ac Erasmus quidem quâ occasione ad scribendum de rectâ pronunciatione fuerit impulsus, paucis cognitum arbitror. Itaque visum hâc de adjicere, quod in schedâ quadam habeo, scriptâ olim manu Henrici Coracopetræi, viri egregiè docti, doctisque perfamiliaris. Ea ita habet: ‘Audivi M. Rutgerum Reschium, professorem Linguæ Græcæ in Collegio Buslidiano apud Lovanienses, meum piæ memoriæ præceptorem, narrantem, se habitâsse in Liliensi pædagogio unà cum Erasmo, plus minus biennio eo superius, se inferius cubiculum obtinente: Henricum autem Glareanum Parisiis Lovanium venisse, atque ab Erasmo in collegium vocatum fuisse ad prandium: quò cùm venisset, quid novi adferret interrogatum, dixisse (quod in itinere commentus erat, quòd sciret Erasmum plus satis rerum novarum studiosum, ac mirè credulum) quosdam in Græciâ natos Lutetiam venisse, viros ad miraculum doctos; qui longè aliam Græci sermonis pronunciationem usurparent, quàm quæ vulgò in hisce partibus recepta esset. Eos nempe sonare pro B vita, BETA: pro H ita, ETA: pro ai æ, AI: pro OI I, OI: & sic in cæteris. Quo audito, Erasmum paulò pòst conscripsisse Dialogum de rectâ Latini Græcique sermonis pronunciatione, ut videretur hujus rei ipse inventor, & obtulisse Petro Alostensi, typographo, imprimendum: qui cùm, fortè aliis occupatus, renueret; aut certè se tam citò excudere, quàm ipse volebat, non posse diceret; misisse libellum Basileam ad Frobenium, a quo mox impressus in lucem prodiit. Verùm Erasmum, cognitâ fraude, nunquam eâ pronunciandi ratione postea usum; nec amicis, quibuscum familiariter vivebat, ut eam observarent, præcepisse. In ejus rei fidem exhibuit M. Rutgerus ipsius Erasmi manuscriptam in gratiam Damiani à Goes Hispani pronunciationis formulam (cujus exemplar adhuc apud me est) in nullo diversam ab eâ, quâ passim docti & indocti in hac linguâ utuntur’. Henricus Coracopetræus Cuccensis. Neomagi. CI I LXIX. pridie Simonis & Iudæ." " --81.178.246.24 05:18, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Request for postponement

I ask for a postponement of the mediation until we have consulted more sources. I am trying to get hold of the following ones, in order to have a clearer picture of the point of view of Greek scholars:

Ανδριώτης Ν., Ιστορική γραμματική της αρχαίας ελληνικής. Μέρος Α': Φωνητική (πανεπιστημιακές παραδόσεις), Θεσσαλονίκη 1969

Συμεωνίδης Χ., Ιστορική γραμματική της αρχαίας Ελληνικής. Μέρος Α': Φωνητική (πανεπιστημιακές παραδόσεις), Εκδοτικός Οίκος Αφών Κυριακίδη, Θεσσαλονίκη 1989.

Because I live in North America, I could not get hold of these publications and I urge those of you who have access to Greek University libraries to look up these sources as Macrakis has done for Babiniotis. The proceedings of the conference in Litohoro are also not yet publicly available and should be exploited more carefully before anything is decided. It has to be reiterated that only publicly available sources that can be verified by anybody can be used to substantiate statements in Wikipedia. I have received a message from the organizer that the proceedings are out of print and will be reprinted in early 2006, and that university libraries will be sent copies. (the above written by user Andreas)

---

I do not think postponement is necessary. We have overwhelming evidence that scholars world-wide agree with the 'scientific reconstruction', including scholars in Greece (professors of linguistics at Athens and Salonica, who are also editors of the two main dictionaries of modern Greek). There is one paper by a professor of New Testament exegesis in Sweden in a Spanish journal of New Testament philology (not of Ancient Greek language or of historical linguistics) maintaining that the pronunciation of Greek has not changed in 2500 years. This paper relies on novel interpretations of primary sources (a good thing) but does not reference and address the extensive secondary literature which is based partly on these same sources (a bad thing). The paper also uses unscientific arguments such as "this is an un-Greek sound" or "this is impossible to pronounce" -- but Caragounis apparently doesn't have the necessary comparative linguistics background to understand (for example) that the so-called musical accent of Ancient Greek is actually pretty much the same as the modern Serbo-Croatian pitch accent, for example. The conference cited by Thrax was convened by a U.S.-based summer program, not a research institution. We don't know the institutional affiliations of most of the attendees, though we've established that at least one with the title of "Professor" is in fact a teacher in a school, not a univerisity. One American professor whom we have contacted about his paper is not primarily concerned with reconstructing ancient pronunciation, but with choose a practical pronunciation for teaching -- which is an interesting, but distinct, issue. Most of the assertions by Thrax about the 'English' nature of the scientific reconstruction are incorrect, as linguists from many countries, notably Germany, France, the U.S., and Greece, have also contributed to this work.

Besides the historical/linguistic question of the reconstruction of the ancient pronunciation, there is the separate, and also interesting, question of the pronunciations used in pedagogy. Here, the arguments are mostly pragmatic. So, for example, none of the modern European languages have a phonemic aspiration feature, so it would be difficult to teach (though, interestingly, some dialects of Chinese have both phonemic aspiration and phonemic voicing: p, ph, b, bh are all distinct).

In summary, it seems very clear to me that the Caragounis position is far from the mainstream among scholars, though it is perfectly possible that many laypeople in Greece believe it (a fact worth mentioning, but not as a scientific theory!). --Macrakis 03:13, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

This is not a bureaucratic process, I'm not an official representative and nothing is being put on hold. My offer of mediation was not an invitation to another round of debating of minutiae, but an attempt to summarize the debate. I will not help out if you just keep trying to batter each other into submission. This is especially, though not exclusively, aimed at the anon IP-user; let people have their say without being challanged by dissecting their posts. I want one brief (I can't stress this enough) summary from each party involved for now, nothing else.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:47, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

The summary: there is a consensus among all the editors (both Greek and non-Greek), and a consensus among the scholarly community, with the exception of one editor (User:Thrax) and one scholar (Caragounis) who is primarily a theologian, not a linguist, and who has not published his theory in a mainstream classics or historical linguistics journal. The consensus position has been supported by citations from Greek and non-Greek scholars. The Thrax position has been supported by repeated quotations from the same source (Caragounis) and a conference for which proceedings are not available, as well as his own accusations of intellectual dishonesty and bad faith among English scholars to suppress the truth. --Macrakis 16:21, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

The debate here is not how many people agree with Caragounis or how many people agree with Allen. The debate is whether the positions that has been attributed to the English pronunciation and to the others (Erasmain, historical Greek) is accurate. I have already demonstrated that the positions attributed to the historical Greek pronunciation are accurate by citing Caragounis and sources that can be verified and which prove that there is such a position and the arguments for that position are such as they have been described and that they derive from the schism between linguists, classicists and academics from both points of view that occurred in the 19th century. I have also provided the history of the Erasmain pronunciation and the original from of that pronunciation. What is now needed are details on how the Erasmain pronunciation has been adapted by other counters, (ones other than Brittain and America, such as Germany, France, Italy etc.) and what the differences between them are and we also need a verified description of what the English pronunciation actually is, weather it has any variants, which aspects of it are still in dispute by its own advocates (Caragounis mentions that there problems with it and that Allen advises his readers to use historical Greek pronunciation in these places etc.). What there will not be in this article is an attempt to portray the disputed consonants, β, γ, δ, ζ, θ, φ, χ, the disputed vowels η, υ, ω and the disputed diphthongs from one point of view alone to the exclusion of all others. This is an encyclopaedia not a teaching manual for the English pronunciation and all opposing theories must be documented equally. --Thrax 18:52, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't see how the actual realization of Ancient Greek in countries like England etc. is relevant at all. This article should be about what scholars reconstruct for the old pronunciation (tonal accent etc.), never mind what of this is then actually realized in schools or wherever. You can understand and reconstruct a language's phonology also without being able to realize it fluently yourself. Allan in Vox Graeca (ISBN 0521335558) makes a clear difference between (a) reconstructing ancient pronunciation, and (b) realistic recommendation for contemporary courses in Ancient Greek in Britain. Pronunciation of consonants is not disputed at all. the difficult bit is the tonal accent. You may also dispute when exactly Ancient pronunciation collapsed into Koine 'itacism' etc., but it is undisputed that this happened post-400 BC. I suppose it's possible this began around 200 BC, but that's post-classical "Ancient Greek". Thrax may be mistaking this article for "phonology of Hellenistic Koine" or "pronunciation of Byzantine Greek", which are very much different animals. dab (ᛏ) 20:37, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Here we go again. The pronunciation of the consonants , β, γ, δ, ζ, θ, φ, χ, the vowels η, υ, ω and the and diphthongs is under dispute and they have been under dispute since the time of Erasmus who incidentaly was a theologian not a linguist. According to the English school their pronunciation changed in Hellenistic times. According to the historical Greek school the pronunciation of the consoants has never changed from that of modern Greek in over 3000 years and the pronunciation of the vowels and diphthongs was virtually the same as that of modern Greek in archaic Greek long before classical times. Further more the historical Greek school claims that ancient Greek had a stress accent whereas the English school claims it has a pitch accent as if it were some Slavic dialect. The English school has never been able to prove its claims scientifically and to say that you can reconstruct the pronounciation of ancient Greek without even considering the pronunciation of modern Greek is completely ridiculous and unscientific. I am not confusing anything with Byzantine Greek or Koine. Caragounis makes it perfectly clear that he considers the claims of the English school to be totally unfounded in their entirety. As far as Caragounis and the proponents of the historical Greek pronunciation are concerned ancient Greek has always been pronounced almost identically to modern Greek in all respects since records began and any modern Greek would be able to recognise the sounds as those we know today. --Thrax 22:32, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

The adoption of the English pronunciation by the English speaking world is not on the basis of proof or scientific research but on the basis of dogma. It is nothing more than a literary convention among linguists for dealing with ancient Greek and Latin not a scientific theory since both of these languages have been reconstructed to sound exactly like modern English deliberately ignoring two millennia of unbroken tradition where the Greek church has always pronounced ancient Greek like modern Greek and the Italian church has always pronounced Latin like modern Italian. A native Italian speaker when speaking ancient Greek will sound almost like a modern Greek speaker and a native Greek speaker speaking Latin will sound almost like a modern Italian speaker whereas an English linguist trying to speak these two languages will sound like a modern English tourist. --Thrax 22:32, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Modern linguistics was constructed by Germans for one purpose alone and that was to explain the evolution of Germanic languages. That is the only basis for which modern linguistics has any credibility. It has no basis or credibility in either the evolution of Greek or of Latin because the same rules do not apply. Greek and Latin have never been pronounced like German. --Thrax 22:32, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Thrax on one point only: to "reconstruct the pronounciation of ancient Greek without even considering the pronunciation of modern Greek is completely ridiculous and unscientific". Obviously the pronunciation of Modern Greek is an important indication (but not the only one) of how Classical Greek was pronounced: no theory of ancient Greek pronunciation would hold water that did not provide a coherent explanation as to how the modern pronunciation developed from the ancient one. But of course all serious attempts to reconstruct Ancient Greek do very much take the modern pronunciation into account. On the Caragounis theory generally, if the true summary of it is that Greek, alone of all languages throughout the world has unergone virtually no phonetic changes for three thousand years, impartial observers may wonder whether this theory might be based on some form of special pleading rather than a disinterested look at the evidence. I'd just add that the idea that the reconstructed pronunciation sounds "exactly like modern English" is so ludicrously far from the truth as to hardly warrant debating. --rossb 10:27, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Thrax, your reply is so much bullshit dodging the issue. This is like the Hungarians who came here saying Finno-Ugric must be false because it was supported by the Soviets. Attacking Erasmus is a ridiculous red herring. Erasumus was just the first modern scholar to make a suggestion, nobody believes Erasmus was 'correct', that was 500 years ago for Christ's sake, and attacking him is like attacking Tycho Brahe in a dispute over Quantum Field Theory. Ancient Greek is not the direct predecessor of Modern Greek, so while it is good to have an idea how the modern pronunciation evolved (which we do), it is not true that it evolved directly out of "Ancient Greek". With "Ancient Greek", we mean mostly 5th century Attic, but there are of course other dialects, so, yes, there will always be room for dispute, just not along the lines you propose. Your "historical Greek school" is just a cooky nationalist fad not worth spending five minutes of discussion on. I've had it with the linguistic crackpots on Wikipedia for the moment, so I'll just thank everyone who has been making the effort of protecting this article, and leave the cranksitting to others. dab (ᛏ) 14:30, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to show that alphabetic characters change their pronunciation once an alphabet is established. Greeks were using Linear B over 3500 years ago and the Semitic Proto-Sinaitic script over 3000 years ago, whereas Germanic was not a written language until 500 AD and Slavic was not written down in its present script until about 800 AD. Greek had a 2000 year head start over Germanic as a written language so whereas Germanic changed its pronunciation the most of any European language in the Centum group Greek did not, and Latin which became a written language within a couple of hundred years after Greek did not either because the alphabet combined with the fact that Greek was written as a phonetic language (whereas modern English is not) kept changes to a bare minimum or almost none at all. A linguistic theory invented by Germans to explain the evolution of Germanic when applied Greek and Latin whose pronunciation by their native born speakers it deliberately ignores, to use your own terminology "is just a cooky nationalist fad not worth spending five minutes of discussion on". All the differences in pronunciation in the Greek dialects Doric, Aeolic, Ionic, Attic, Arcado-Cypriot (ie. Mycenean) were recorded in the script itself by virtue of spelling since everything was spelled as it sounded (not how it was written in a dictionary as in modern English). If Doric, Aeolic, Ionic, Attic and Arcado-Cypriot did not use a common alphabet and most importantly fixed pronunciation of the alphabet then what we know about these dilates is meaningless. Compare Shakespearian English to modern day English and the first thing you notice is that almost every word is spelled differently because the spelling reflects the way these words were pronounced by Shakespeare. If you compare Attic Greek to modern Greek the spelling is exactly the same thus modern Greek is the direct descendant of descendent Greek. Thats 2500 years where Greek has not changed one iota compared to 400 years where English is almost unrecognisable. It is to Greek the oldest recorded Centum language that you should be looking at for the original pronunciation of these languages. Since modern Greek pronunciation most closely resembles modern Italian pronunciation of any other Centum languages it is clear that ancient Greek could not have sounded like English. There were no hard g's, d's and b's in ancient Greek and there were no aspirated kH's, tH's and pH's which only exist in English because these sounds do not exist in Italian or Latin where the proto-indo-European gH, dH and bH, became H, F and F whereas in Greek they became H, Th (modern theta) and F. --Thrax 16:27, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

You seem to put too much store in the belief that once a language is fixed into writing, the phonology of the language also stabilises. The alternative possibility probably never occurs to the majority of people. I am saying this because of the way you referenced Shakespearean English and the way the words (not almost every word as you claim, but certainly a lot) are spelt differently from Modern English. In this case it is transparent that some sort of changes in the language occured since the days of the Bard. But linguists also believe that the changes that occurred run much deeper than can be seen in the different spellings—not all sound changes are captured as differences in spelling, particularly regular sound changes that effect whole phonemes at a time. Even a phrase in Shakespearean English that uses the same spelling as Modern English like "To be or not to be, that is the question" would have been pronounced in a way almost unrecognisable to modern ears—in a positively "un-English" way, you could say. As one linguist has put it, the probability that a modern English speaker and someone from Elizabethan England could hold a meaningful conversation is virtually nil. Why is this? It is because English, like all languages, goes through sound changes (see History of the English language). Think about this for a moment, because the significance of this is often lost even on amateur linguists. Just because you can read something using your usual pronunciation and have it be perfectly intelligible to you, you can't conclude that it was the way it was always pronounced. Greek is blessed not only because of its long and glorious recorded history but the fact that speakers of Greek today can "read" Homeric Greek with little training and take a lot out of it. However, that fact also has the effect of obscuring to non-specialists thousands of years' worth of sound changes. --Iceager 14:16, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Thrax, re: "There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to show that alphabetic characters change their pronunciation once an alphabet is established." So you believe that 'H' in English, Italian, and Greek is pronounced identically? That 'J' in English, French, and German is pronounced identically? That 'C' in Italian, French, and Turkish is prounounced identically? You are contradicting yourself.... Please take a course or two in linguistics! --Macrakis 02:36, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Once a script is established is what I said. Where is the evidence that Italian C has changed its pronunciation. As far as I'm aware its an artificial letter invented by the Italians themselves to replace K thus the script was not established and C denotes a sound different to K which is why it is pronounced Chi in Italian Shi in French and S in English. This proves that Latin C was pronounced like Italian C not like English K. Turkish is not an indo-European language so any discussion about it is completely irrelevant. J is another artificial letter to replace I so the script was not established. When the English adopted it they gave it a sound different to everyone else who gave it a Y sound. Even H is an artificial letter invented by the Greeks as a compensatory mark and then used as a vowel. Its use in Latin and English reflects its use as a compensatory mark. So where is the evidence once a script is established that letters change their sounds. The evidence you have provided in all instances shows that new letters or compensatory marks are invented or used to denote sounds that the original script did not have the capacity to portray. For example Th is used to denote the sound of Theta in English because it has no letter for Theta of its own and neither did ancient Greek before the letter Theta was invented. --Thrax 04:09, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the Latin C was pronounced like the Italian C regardless of position? The Italian C has two different sounds depending mainly on the following vowel—the "hard" sound in come is different from the "soft" sound in ci. You are suggesting that the "Italians" invented C to replace K and to apply to two different sounds. This is certainly not the mainstream position in phonology. Or perhaps you are thinking about the qualitative difference between the Italian hard C and the English K, in which case you are probably right about the Latin C sounding closer to the Italian hard C and the English K. But that does not serve your argument, which is that once a script is established letters don't change in sound value. Linguists agree that the letter C originally denoted something like the hard C sound in Italian, but due to sound changes, it came to be pronounced differently in front of certain vowels. Because this was a regular sound change, this didn't necessitate any introduction of new letters—the letter C continued to be used, with two roles depending on the following vowel (with novel ways to indicate instances where the variety of C sound used is not the one expected). Such things go on in written languages all the time. The changes occur too slowly to be observed in most cases, but there are exceptions. In Korean, the pronunciation of certain vowels are undergoing a minor shift so that people of different generations pronounce them differently. But the letters for the vowels in question remain unchanged, and someone looking at Korean texts from the early 20th century and comparing it to contemporary Korean texts would get no indication that the vowel represented by a certain letter has undergone a sound change. How would you account for this? --Iceager 08:29, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

On the basis of comparative linguistics (which has been totally ignored by modern linguists who only look at Germanic pronunciations since they ignore modern Greek and Italian pronunciation) the Latin C was most probably pronounced like the C in modern Italian which is pronounced Chi in front of certain vowels. I have already said that in French this letter is pronounced Sh as in the Frecnh name for Cyprus which is Shipre and in English it is pronounced S which renders Cyprus as Syprus. In Cypriot Greek dialect the name of the country is pronounced Jibros, with the J sound being that of the English J (ie. tz). Just like Italians, Cypriots and Cretans pronced Kappa as J or TZ in front of I, Y and E. Further more in Cypriot dialect the Greek letter Hi, (X) is pronounced as Sh in front of certain vowels, thus Xeria (Heria) is pronounced Sherka by Cypriots and Ximona (Himona in Greek) is pronounced Shimona. Now if you go back to the original orthography of Hi (X) in Greek it was represented by the digraph KH and this along with the examples of comparative pronunciations of K/C which I have shown indicates that in Archaic Greek the K sound was not always pronounced as k but infront of the vowels I, Y and E its was pronounced J (English J) or Sh. Similarly the letter Hi (X) was also pronounced J or Sh in front of the same vowels. This indicates that both Kappa and Hi had dual sounds in Greek and that K which later became C had a dual sound in Latin as it does in modern Italian. In fact Cypriot kappa in front of a and o is pronounced G thus Kappa originally represented three or four different sounds, Sh, J, G, K and Hi (X) preserved the Sh sound of Kappa which explains why the digraph KH was used to represent Hi (X) which was also pronounced H. In Italian the K sound became assoicated with the mainland Greek pronouncation of Kappa as unaspirated K or G thus an new letter C evolved to dentate the pronunciation of Kappa as Ch which was equivalent to its pronouncation as J in Cypriot (which is actually a development of Mycenaean dialect and therefore the oldest Greek dialect recorded). Needless to say all the Ethnocentric linguists are blissfully unaware that modern Italian and Cypriot pronunciations even exist because the are fixated on Germanic. --Thrax 17:42, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation in Western countries

It seems to me that part of the trouble with this article is a confusion between on the one hand the question as to how Greek was pronounced in ancient times, and on the other hand how ancient Greek has in practice been pronounced in schools, which are two very different matters. I've created a new article Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in western countries to address the latter point, including the history of western pronunciation of Greek from the Renaissance onwards, and covering the publications by Erasmus and others. So I now propose that we delete all the stuff about Erasmus from the Ancient Greek phonology article, which would then deal only with the question of how Ancient Greek was pronounced (which is surely what people looking at this article would want to know). rather than the history of how the current views have been arrived at. --rossb 18:24, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

No. The dispute still remains and Erasmus is at the centre of it. There is no agreement whatsoever that the English pronunciation (which masquerades as being the reconstructed scientific pronunciation, but is far from being scientific) was the way ancient Greek was pronounced. The dates are totally disputed, the accent is totally disputed and the pronunciation of the dasea and mediae consonants is totally disputed and will continue to be disputed since the English pronunciation was concocted in the mid 1800's and is now taught as dogma not as sciecnce outherwise other pronunciations such as the historical Greek pronouncation (which is documented since at least the early 1800's) would be taught to the same students with equal merit. The history of Erasmus is essential to understand the arguments of both sides. --Thrax 18:49, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes. The two issues - Ancient Greek phonology and Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in western countries -are separate issues that have to be dealt with separately. Andreas 19:04, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

The Erasmian pronunciation belongs on Pronunciation of Ancient Greek (aka. Ancient Greek phonology) along with the historical Greek pronunciation and the so-called reconstructed pronunciation. Those are the 3 main opposing points of view as far as the reconstruction of ancient Greek pronunciation is concerned and all must be included in order to comply with NPOV policy. --Thrax 19:34, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes to rossb; No to Thrax. The practical teaching pronunciations are one thing; the reconstruction is another. For better or worse, almost no one teaches the reconstruction in teaching, for the practical reasons that have been discussed above and in the new Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in western countries article. If the Caragounis pronunciation were accepted by mainstream scholarship (which it is not), it would belong in the phonology article. But the modern Greek pronunciation certainly belongs in the teaching pronunciation article. --Macrakis 19:47, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

The historical Greek pronunciation is accepted by mainstream scholarship and is not the modern Greek pronunciation. You have not even read the article on the main page. --Thrax 20:49, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Huh? I believe what you are calling the "historical Greek pronunciation" is the Caragounis position. You have presented no evidence that the Caragounis position is accepted by "mainstream scholarship" and others have presented much evidence that it is not. --Macrakis 02:22, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Secondly the Ancient Greek phonology article is not about the reconstructed (English) pronunciation but about all attempts to reconstruct ancient Greek. Restricting that article to just one point of view is why NPOV notices have been plastered all over it and on anything connected to it. You are not going to solve this problem and get the notices removed by trying to impose your point of view on that article. You will have to accept that there are opposing points of view and that they have an equal right to be documented. With the article as it now stands the only matter of debate is weather what has been said about the reconstructed (English) pronunciation, the Erasmain pronunciation and the historical Greek pronunciation is accurate. The Erasmain pronunciation and the historical Greek pronunciation can be verified from Caragounis article. If you do not think that what has been said is an accurate portrayal of the views of the historical Greek pronunciation then say so. The claims of the reconstructed (English) pronunciation have not been verified. Someone needs to verify them and cite sources just as I have done with the other two and then we might have this dispute resolved. --Thrax 21:16, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Thrax, this is enough. You are just repeating the same arguments that have been refuted multiple times. Please stop wasting our time. --Macrakis 02:22, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Diphthongs

It is apparent that the use of the term "diphthongs" by modern linguists does not correspond to its meaning as used by ancient Greek grammarians such as Dionysios Thrax. Thrax states catagorically that there are only six diphthongs αι, αυ, ει, ευ, οι and ου. Other vowel followed by vowel combinations that he referes to are not classified by him as diphthongs therefore there seems to be some confusion created by modern linguistics terminology as to what diphthongs actually were. Until it can verified what the Ancient Greeks actually defined diphthongs as I suggest that the western linguistic term diphthong not be used to refer to vowel followed by vowel combinations other than those mentioned by Dionysios Thrax. --Thrax 21:42, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Is the existence of diphthongs testified to by other Greek writers before Dionysios Thrax and if so what do they say and do they give examples and the quantity of them ? --Thrax 21:44, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

De recte graece loquendo

I've been following this dispute for a whilen then i saw on article an historical distortion of a latin text the one of Henricus in wich is told of the born of the erasmain pronounce, The joke was that B was like V H as I Oi As I and Ai As E while in this article is stated the opposite, in my talk page there is the latin text, and in the andreas user page there is the translation both in italian and english, so saying that i mean that the erasmian pronounce was correct, simply becasue the joke told how the modern was pronounced not the ancient one. I hope I was clea enough go see mytalk page with tha latin text and translate it . F.S.S.D Philx Philx 22:02, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

What this means it that in reality, Glareanus did not lie, he said the truth. In reality, Frobenius was lying, because he told Erasmus that Glareanus was making jokes whereas in reality Glareanus was telling the truth. Andreas 22:08, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

If the translation Philx made is correct then this is probably the conversation in which Glareanus revealed to Erasmus that he had lied to him in their previous conversation and is now setting the record straight, but it was now too late for Erasmus to withdraw his book. --Thrax 22:22, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Thrax has an explanation of everything... Caragounis wrote: Later, however, he found out the trick played on him, so he desisted from using the pronunciation he had concocted, abiding by the received pronunciation, so it is clear that Caragounis meant that Erasmus's meeting with Glareanus incited him to write his Dialogus, and he explicitly refers to Henricus's text to Gerardus Ioannus Vossius's text quoted above. So either Cargounis did not know Latin or he twisted the arguments in his favor. So far for the quality of Caragounis's work. Andreas 01:10, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Ανδρέας 100% on this. If the latin translation by Philx is confirmed to be accurate, then Caragounis loses a lot of credibility (in my eyes at least). It appears that Thrax has pretty much hijacked this article. Remember also that we do not need to decide who is right and who is wrong but merely which view is mainstream and which is marginal - and the answer to that question is clear.

Sorry Trhax, carogounis did not know latin, as you can see, erasmus was joked by frobenius in reality, because greek spoke MODERN greek as told by glaranus, as for my translation ask someone to check it, i'm pretty sure of it, excuse my presumption. Latin is clear, the text says: Advocatus fuit glarenus [...] commentus in itinere erat, quod sciret erasmum credulum [...] dixisse, wich means that glarenus told a joke, on what the greek spoke ANCIENT GREEK, knowing that erasmus was a gullible one. F.S.S.D

I repeat if the translation Philx made is correct then this is probably the conversation in which Glareanus revealed to Erasmus that he had lied to him in their previous conversation and is now setting the record straight, but it was now too late for Erasmus to withdraw his book. The quote proves that either a trick was played on Erasmus by Glareanus or Erasmus concocted his pronunciation in totall and utter ignorance of the actual pronunciation of ancient Greek by the Greeks themselves. Either way Erasmus was made to look a fool ! --Thrax 16:39, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Thrax, you repeat yourself all the time. Do you have any sources for your hypothesis that "Glareanus revealed to Erasmus that he had lied to him"? Andreas 17:16, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Thrax, well unless you have some grasp latin i suggest you to check my translation and see whit your eyes the truth if you wish and you know some italian i have posted the italian translation on andreas talk page , please chechk it and see the truth. F.S.S.D Philx Philx 19:43, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry Philx but I've checked through the Latin and your translation is totally wrong. The text says what Caragounis says it does. Here is my literal translation of it into English. Its not very good English but it proves you wrong. The basic jist of it is that Erasmus soon after hearing the lie where instead of B (vita) this letter was pronounced beta (pro means instead of) etc, he wrote his dialogue and rushed it to the printer who being too busy to verify the validity of Erasmus argument put it straight into print and Erasmus then sent it to his friends for comment. In the following spring Erasmus found out he was lied to and never used this pronunciation again not did his friends. --81.178.214.51 00:13, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Ea ita habet: ‘Audivi M. Rutgerum Reschium, professorem Linguæ Græcæ in Collegio Buslidiano apud Lovanienses, meum piæ memoriæ præceptorem, narrantem, se habitâsse in Liliensi pædagogio unà cum Erasmo, plus minus biennio eo superius, se inferius cubiculum obtinente: Henricum autem Glareanum Parisiis Lovanium venisse, atque ab Erasmo in collegium vocatum fuisse ad prandium: quò cùm venisset, quid novi adferret interrogatum, dixisse (quod in itinere commentus erat, quòd sciret Erasmum plus satis rerum novarum studiosum, ac mirè credulum) quosdam in Græciâ natos Lutetiam venisse, viros ad miraculum doctos; qui longè aliam Græci sermonis pronunciationem usurparent, quàm quæ vulgò in hisce partibus recepta esset. Eos nempe sonare pro B vita, BETA: pro H ita, ETA: pro ai æ, AI: pro OI I, OI: & sic in cæteris. Quo audito, Erasmum paulò pòst conscripsisse Dialogum de rectâ Latini Græcique sermonis pronunciatione, ut videretur hujus rei ipse inventor, & obtulisse Petro Alostensi, typographo, imprimendum: qui cùm, fortè aliis occupatus, renueret; aut certè se tam citò excudere, quàm ipse volebat, non posse diceret; misisse libellum Basileam ad Frobenium, a quo mox impressus in lucem prodiit.

Translation

It goes like this "I have heard M. Rutgerum Reschium the teacher of the Greek language at Collegio Buslidiano at Lovanienses, if my memory serves me right, narrates himself that living in Lilienisi the slave that took children to school of Erasmus, more or less two years or longer, himself below the bedroom got hold of: Henrucus also Glareanus of Paris Lovanium came as well as Erasmus in the midst of the collage called to have been about the lunch: of which might have come, asked one who might bring to know, to have said (which in his journeys feigined this, which might know Erasmus, much sprung of the things new the student bring to miraculous and credulous) was in the City of Light, to have come a man of wondrous learning, who gave another rumour of Greek pronunciation to which the common utterance was received. They truly said instead of B (vita), BETA, instead of H (ita), ETA, instead of ai (ae), ΑΙ, instead of OI (I), OI and thus in its derivatives. For which reason when Erasmus heard this not long after he wrote his dialogue the right Latin Greek way of pronunciation to see of this thing himself the inventor and to have offered Petro Alostensi the printer to be printed, which came to be having other occupation, declined to certify this himself so cited it to be printed out, and himself was whishing to be able to hear what others might say sent the little book to Bassileus at Frobenius and by which soon impressed in the light that came forth. In the spring Erasmus became aware of the fraud and at no time did he use his pronounciation afterwards, nor did his friends who he had told. In faith M. Rutgeru had written of Erasmus in esteem Damiani of Goes Hispani of the concocted pronunciation (of which the model thus far takes off) in no one oppositie by which everywhere taught and untaught of this language to use. Henricus Coracopetræus Cuccensis. Neomagi. CI I LXIX. the day before Simonis & Iudæ. --81.178.214.51 00:13, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Here is a better translation by Flauto Dolce

And I believe that the reason why Erasmus was prompted to write about correct pronunciation is known to few people. So I have thought it proper to add on this subject what I have in a paper, written long ago by the hand of Henricus Coracopetraeus, an eminently learned man and a close friend to learned men. It reads thus: "I heard M. Rutgerus Reschius, professor of the Greek language in the Collegium Buslidianum at Leuven, my teacher of blessed memory, tell that he lived in the Liliense School along with Erasmus for two years, more or less. Erasmus occupied the upper bedroom; he, the lower one. Now Henricus Glareanus came from Paris to Leuven and was invited to the college for dinner by Erasmus. When he came and was asked what news he brought, he said (he had made this up on the way, because he knew that Erasmus was excessively fond of new things and amazingly credulous) that certain native Greeks had come to Paris, wonderfully learned men, who used a pronunciation of Greek different by far from what was accepted in these parts. 'Why, they say "beta" instead of "vita" (β), "eta" instead of "ita" (η), "ai" instead of "ae" (αι), "oi" instead of "i" (οι), and so forth.' Shortly after hearing that, Erasmus wrote the Dialogue on the Correct Pronunciation of Latin and Greek, so that he himself would appear to be the discoverer of this fact, and presented it to the printer Peter of Aalst to be printed. When Peter, perhaps busy with other things, refused, or at least said he could not print it as quickly as Erasmus wanted, Erasmus sent the pamphlet to Froben in Basel. It was soon printed by him and published. But Erasmus, when he had learned of the deception, never thereafter used that method of pronunciation, nor did he instruct the friends with whom he lived on intimate terms to adhere to it. As proof of this, M. Rutgerus displayed a rule of pronunciation, no different from that which learned and unlearned men everywhere use in that language, written by the hand of Erasmus himself as a favor to the Spaniard Damião de Góis, a copy of which is still in my possession." Henricus Coracopetraeus Cuccensis. At Nijmegen, 1569, Eve of St. Simon and St. Jude [i.e. October 27].

Facit: Caragounis based his fraud hypothesis on this anctode reported 33 years after Erasmus's death by somebody who did not know Erasmus personally. Note that the text was quoted by Caragounis from a text by Vossius who himself quotes Cuccensis, who heard the story from Reschius. There are reasons to doubt the veracity of this anctode. In particular, I cannot imagine that Erasmus based his theory on a single conversation at a dinner party. Also, he must have known personally some Greek scholars that had come to Italy and Paris after the fall of Constantinople. In any case, it is not up to us Wikipedians to research the motives that led Erasmus to write his De recta Latini Graecique sermonis pronuntatione. If this anectode is included (which I think should be not), it should be labeled as such, citing the source. Andreas 02:58, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I will spare this talk page my opinion of the Caragounis position, and instead direct Thrax to Wikipedia policy: Wikipedia#Policies. Note the sentence "The policy states that views should be given weight equal to their popularity" (by popularity is meant popularity among the specialists in the field; the sentence used to read equal to their standing, but the wording was changed sometime around July 2005). The Caragounis view has only enough standing to merit a brief mention as a very marginal dissenting opinion in the Ancient Greek phonology article, if that. This is a simple matter of policy. Alexander 007 05:18, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

why is this still about "Erasmus"? Erasmus was roughly right, but attacking his opinion in detail is attacking strawmen (which Thrax doesn't do, he simply pretends that there is a dichotomy of two opinions, one of which is "Erasmian", a ridiculous simplification). But if we must discuss questions that were settled 500 years ago (rather than genuinely interesting questions of accent), Aristophanes' sheep say "βη βη". Now, even in Greece, do sheep go [vi vi], or rather [bæ: bæ:]? enough said. But even if Thrax was to maintain that Greek sheep say "vi vi", Alexander is entirely correct: Caragounis has no standing at all in the scholarly discussion of the matter, and we are being generous if we mention him briefly. This debate clearly doesn't warrant an "NPOV" tag. dab (ᛏ) 11:54, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Well my translation is correct, because is senso de senso not verbo de verbo as ypu translated, secondly the meaning is the same, erasmus was still rigth check the sentences MOX IMPRESSUS IN LUCEM PRODIIT Does not means, he printed IT BUT PRODIIT WITH LUCEKM MEANS RECOVER THE TRUTH. Philx Philx 12:02, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

from a dictionary: "impress, imprint; press upon; stamp;" (it might help). +MATIA ☎ 13:21, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

MATIA part 2

From the few things I've seen so far, the one way is the Erasmian (or Erasmic), which has probably evolved during the last centuries, and the other one is Reuchlinian. I think the Erasmian (or reconstructed?) is the majority view, and the Reuchlinian (or traditional?) is the minority view. I've seen Aristophanes "βη βη" while glancing at Vox Graeca, and it's very interesting (Caragounis tried a not very good counter-argument with dogs and frogs at his online paper). On the other hand Allen's claim that "τον πατέρα" is pronounced as "tombatéra" and not as "ton patéra", isn't very convincing (subnote 32 of Caragounis, page 22 of Allen). +MATIA ☎ 12:17, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Some web links: Kalvos, 1, 2, 3, Hadjidakis, Vox Graeca ISBN 0521335558 toc, 2004, προφόρα και προσωδία. +MATIA ☎ 12:35, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

The softening of π after μ and ν is well documented, see Greek language#Sandhi rules. It comes naturally, therefore most speakers are not aware of it. It is not observed with speakers from Northern Greece and in the Pontian dialect. In formal speech, the letters ν and π are pronounced separately. Andreas 13:05, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

The same example (about "the father"), that's interesting. Does this mean that Allen isn't the only one who supports that in modern greek, you might hear someone say tombatera? It still seems very strange to me, but let's leave it for now. +MATIA ☎ 13:28, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

More web links: argyropoulos, about erasmic pronunciation at elia, review of a greek translation of the Dialogue. +MATIA ☎ 13:58, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Lil'bit of confusion

In making my translation in english i made several errors, in fact i omissed some parts that are translated in the other version of the translation, and then in reanissance latin, in lucem prodiit means print as well, while i instead i wrote as recovering the truth, thinking that was a classical latin text in wich should be understood as " Impress on light things" so REcovering the truth. Philx Philx 13:48, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Do everyone agree with one of the translations? (and which one) +MATIA ☎ 20:46, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Ancient Macedonian article

The article reference The question of mediae in Ancient Macedonian Greek reconsidered was added to the article by Matia.gr with the comment "that might be a relevant book but I haven't gotten my hands on it yet"; I removed it as not relevant to ancient Greek phonology; anon 81.178.214.51 restored it with the comment "Babiniotis book/paper reinstated on the grounds of comparative linguistics". Apparently neither Matia.gr nor the anon have actually read this article; neither Matia nor the anon even know that it is a 12-page paper (in a 1992 festschrift), not a book. Its title clearly says it is about "Ancient Macedonian Greek", which presumably refers to Ancient Macedonian, a dialect or language (still a controversial issue, though Babiniotis is apparently coming out on the dialect side of this) one of whose salient characteristics is that it apparently treats what would be mediae in Greek dialects idiosyncratically, so it is only very indirectly relevant to Ancient (sc. Attic) Greek pronunciation.

Of course, the evidence from Ancient Macedonian is relevant to the reconstruction of ancient Greek phonology, as is evidence from other Greek dialects, from Linear B, and for that matter from other Indo-European languages. But this Wikipedia article is not (and cannot and should not become) original research, an original scholarly contribution bringing together an extensive array of primary and secondary sources to argue for a conclusion. There is after all a vast literature on Ancient Greek phonology in the 19th and 20th centuries, nicely reviewed in Allen's book, though there is also more since Allen. --Macrakis 14:35, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Have you read that study? I thought it may be relevant (supposing Babiniotis wrote there his opinion about mediae in general and compared it with XMK), while reading the comments about Dionyssius Thrax and "mediae". By the way, this study is in the book "Historical Philology: Greek, Latin, and Romance" ISBN 1556191448. +MATIA ☎ 15:57, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

No, I have not read it. But apparently no one else here has, either, which is one reason I don't think it should be included. It may be relevant in the sense that you mention, but we already know what Babiniotis's position on the mediae is from his Συνοπτική ιστορία της ελληνικής γλώσσας, which I have read and summarized above. But Thrax somehow believes that Babiniotis, professor of linguistics and dean of the University of Athens, is not as reliable a source for the 'Greek position' on ancient pronunciation as Caragounis, a theologian in Sweden (!!!). Bizarrely, it is now Thrax who is re-inserting the Babiniotis ref into the article. So maybe he is not after all just a linguistically naive POV-pusher, but a simple troll, whose only goal is to sow confusion and discord. --Macrakis 16:51, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Babiniotis book/paper is relevant to ancient Greek pronunciation so has been reinstated again. It is not original research and the only purpose of removing that article that I can see is to give the false impression that the view of Allen is unchallenged by other linguists and that Caragounis is isolated which he is not. +MATIA has provided links which show that the so-called scientific pronouncation is still and has always been in doubt. It is our duty to show this. The so-called scientific pronunciation has never been proven scientifically. It is nothing more than an ethnocentric model for Germanic extended to encompass Greek and Latin by deliberately ignoreing pronunciation by native born speakers in Greece and Italy. The argument of sheep going vi or bah is ridiculous as the people advocating it have never heard an ancient Greek sheep bleating. Ancient Greek sheep were not even of the same species as modern sheep. American frogs say Rabbit and ancient Greek frogs say Ko-Ko-Korax (see Aristophanes Frogs) so how do we know that ancient Greek sheep did not go vi. --Thrax 16:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

There has been no new research done by linguists in support of the so-called scientific pronunciation since it became dogma in the 19th century and was taught as such. In fact most of the research done today is to show that the so-called scientific pronunciation is actually un-scientific and is built on shaky foundations so if this page were to reflect modern research it would give no more than a paragraph to the so-called scientific pronunciation and the majority of the article would be devoted to the parts of the so-called scientific pronunciation that have been challenged and those that that have challenged it starting from Reuchlinian to Caragounis. Even Allen admits that the so-called scientific pronunciation is shaky and advises his readers to use modern Greek pronouncation in certain areas. Let us list the problems with the so-called scientific pronunciation so that future researchers can become aware of them and solve them. --Thrax 16:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

As for the Latin. I take it we now agree that Caragounis translation is correct. --Thrax 16:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

As for Babiniotis position on the Mediae in ancient Greek, apparently he doesn't have one since regurgitation of the dogma of the so-called scientific pronunciation in teaching does not imply that he has actually conducted any of his own research on it. The only reasearch that we know that Babiniotis has conducted is on the Mediae in Macedonian dialect. Until someone produces original research by Babiniotis on Attic Greek which he claims supports one view or the other then we must assume that Babiniotis is neutral like most other linguists. The majority view is neutrality and that is what this article must be, neutral. --Thrax 17:07, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I think ancient Greek sheeps said bah and not vy, and Aristophanes quote is highly relevant (about β being μπ) and I think it was shown before that Babiniotis and Hatzidakis (the first greek linguist) are "pro Erasmus".

Erasmus is probably still challenged today, probably Allen/Erasmus/Bambiniotis is the majority view (check WP:NPOV) and I think that the criticism of the erasmic pronunciation (for example Allen's "shaky", some quotes from Caragounis or Johann Reuchlin) have a place in this article. +MATIA ☎ 17:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Can sheep pronounce other labials such as p as well as b and can they pronounce dentals such as t and d and how about velars and labiovelars and fricatives and resonants and nasals ? I don't think they can pronounced either b or any other sound of the alphabet. They are sheep not people and bah is an English convention where as vi is a Greek one, like korax for frogs instead of rabbit and niaw for cats instead of miaw. --Thrax 17:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

However Aristophanes was a person (in Greek we use μπε for the sheep, and Aristophanes had used βυ). I must repeat that Caragounis argument about frogs and dogs is weak. +MATIA ☎ 18:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

more details about b and v

I can't believe I am reading this. Beta was pronounced as a b in ancient Greek, as a rule. Aside from sheep and frogs, we have words like bombos (a booming, humming), bombeo (to make a booming, humming), which would lose all their onomatopoeic effect without the deep bass sound provided by the b, not the v sound. Indeed, bombos was transliterated into Classical Latin as bombus (a Greek loan). There is also Doric boa (a loud-cry, shout, battle-cry), Attic boe (this has a Latin equivalent, not a loan: boo, booare, "to shoat, roar, echo"). Again, this word would lose all effect without the bass provided by the b sound. As a war-cry, boa had to be articulated with an initial burst of bass. You aren't going to intimidate a flea unless you put some bass in your voice. Alexander 007 18:45, 23 November 2005 (UTC) (note also English boo!, when you want to scare someone, not voo!; boom! when a bomb goes off, not voom!; this isn't even worth debating)

Have you ever heard a cannon or a gun firing at a distance. They do not go boom nor is there any overwhelming bass (the barrels are not even resonant to bass sounds). They both go crack. There is overwhelming mid range and treble to the point of deafening you therefore the Greek word Βομβος pronounced Vomvos better describe that sound than the English boom. That you have been convinced that these sounds denote bass is a result of the fake soundtracks Hollywood movies which don't sound like the real thing. As for battle cries, they are screams and yells and screams and yells are mid range and treble and nothing to do with bass. Therefore it is clear that the Greek Voa best denotes the cry of war and not The English boo. --Thrax 19:21, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

As for Aristophanes, the argument for using animal sounds to signify pronunciation is weak. Has there ever been any research done on the subject. Has the species of ancient Greek sheep been identified. Has the cry of every species of sheep been recorded and put through a computer speech processor to wore out what the sound actually is ? --Thrax 19:21, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

No, boa is more likely with a 'b'. The equivalent Latin form was even used by Romans, with a 'b'. By the way, bombos was for booming and humming sounds, not for the sound of actual bombs and cannons, which weren't invented yet. Alexander 007 19:24, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

The Romans are using a transliteration convention based on orthography not sound. Hebrew has two pronunciations for the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Veth or Beth so how do you know that when the Romans adopted the Greek alphabet beta was not Vet and B was not V. Humming is the sound of a bee or a wasp so if the ancient Greeks said Vomvos denoted humming that indicates that beta was pronounced V and not B since V can be sustained whereas B cannot. --Thrax 19:38, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't see why the Romans would have represented the v sound with the letter b. When a word actually was pronounced alternately with a b or v sound, this was represented in Latin. See batillum, alternate form vatillum. On the other hand, when it was invariably a b sound, there are no variants. Alexander 007 19:50, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

But Latin U was not pronounced V until Christian times so since the Romans did not have a different symbol for V when they adopted the Greek alphabet would they not have used B instead. The fact that two versions of the same words existed with B or V indicates that when beta was introduced into Latin is was with a V sound which later changed to B or had a duel sound as in Hebrew and when B became dominant U took on a dual nature instead. --Thrax 19:58, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay. Let me rewind a bit. The Latin word boo!, booare! ("roar, shout, battle-cry") was not a loan from Greek, rather a kindred expressive form. And it proves that such a cry/shout can indeed be with a b sound. There is no reason why the Romans would have written it with a b, if it was pronounced as a v or Classical w (represented by v, according to references). I still don't see support for your apparent claim that Latin would have represented "woo" "wooare" or "voo" "vooare" as boo, booare. Alexander 007 20:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC) (If you can bring a clear example of the v or w sound being represented by b in classical Latin, you might have something for this one point; otherwise, no need to doubt it was a b sound in boo; I never heard of classical Latin having 'b' for 'v')

DIVVS, Divus, latin didn't make distinctio between V and u, latin b is a labial not fricatrive, in plauto and other archaic latin writers for example, the verb boao,wich is used thanks to a contaminatio(insertion of entire greek scenes and text) from a menader comedy wich appears in the aulularia, is written with B not v, so, verb Βοαω sounded boao. othe examples of translitterting words of greek word in latin are, βασιλεα, used still by plauto who wrote Basilea not vasilea, thus basilica, not vasilica. F.S.S.D Philx Philx 20:57, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Why we don't need to argue

These are all interesting discussions (vivi vs. bebe etc.), but Talk pages are not the place to resolve issues like this. As Wikipedia's official policy states:

• If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
• If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
• If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.

I believe it is well-established that the pronunciation described by Allen is the one described in "commonly accepted reference texts", both Greek and non-Greek. So far, no one has named a "prominent" contemporary adherent of the Caragounis position, nor a single reference work (not a research paper) using it. So it seems that the Caragounis position falls in the third category, and I will reemphasize: regardless of whether you can prove it or not. --Macrakis 20:48, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Absolute rubbish. This is not a debate about Caragounis view verses the Erasmian or English scientific view or how many people support one side of the other. It is about the existence of the theory of the HISTORICAL GREEK PRONUNCIATION which has been documented since the time of Erasmus and whose advocates fought with their opponents since Erasmus time and who reached a stalemate in the mid 19th century. No one denies this. There is 100% agreement by all sides that there is a historical Greek pronunciation and it is for Wikipedia to document this theory of pronunciation and the evidence for it. Anyone who tries to deny the existence of the theory of the historical Greek pronunciation or eliminate the evidence for it from this article is guilty of trying to falsify history and academic fraud. --Thrax 22:24, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Does Allen agree with Erasmus? +MATIA ☎ 20:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Allen's system is the modern continuation of the Erasmian system. That said, no one today agrees with Erasmus in detail; scholarship has moved on in 500 years! Similarly, no one today agrees with Copernicus in detail. In both cases, people use "Erasmian" or "Copernican" as a shorthand, in contrast to Reuchlinian and Ptolemaic. "Erasmian" as a description also has the practical disadvantage that it is often used loosely to refer to various pronunciations used in teaching. --Macrakis 21:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

So far so good. I think that Erasmian can be called reconstructed but not scientific (Reuchlinian is scientific too). I thought that in this article we should discuss (among other things) the evolution of the Erasmian system, do you agree with that? +MATIA ☎ 22:12, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Here we go again. This is not about how many people agree with Erasmus. It is about the EXISTENCE of an Erasmain view (infact many) and this view must be documented. There is 100% agreement that the Erasmian view exists. People here are trying to hijack this article and turn it into a one sided POV rant in favour of the so-called reconstructed pronunciation and exclude everything else. Wikipedia is NOT a guide to how to pronounce ancient Greek but a repository of knowledge. --Thrax 22:32, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Please Thrax, be patient and avoid phrases that might be considered as personal attacks. Do you agree that the Erasmian system is the majority view even in Greece? If you do, we could search for the "evolved Reuchlinian system", that is the traditional pronunciation system (I think traditional sounds better than historical, I'd like to know what the rest editors think) and write it in a proper way, as minority view. After we gather up everything and do a little clean up, this would be a very interesting and neutral article. +MATIA ☎ 22:54, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

The Erasmian system is not accepted in Greece at all by the majority of Greeks including academics if you want to talk about majorities. The Erasmian system is a point of historical reference and should be given equal merit with the historical Greek pronunciation (which is the majority view in Greece) and the so-called reconstructed pronunciation. This article is not about choosing one over the other but about documenting them all. If you want a better name for the historical Greek pronunciation then call it the "Greek pronunciation" since that is exactly what it is. Its the way the Greeks pronounce their own language not the way the foreigners pronounce it. If the Greeks pronounced the mediae and the dasea and zeta like the Germans then why did they call the Germans barbarians meaning they could not speak Greek properly ? --Thrax 23:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Bambiniotis and Hatzidakis are the two most known greek linguists, and it would benefit the discussion if you accepted that they are the majority view in Greece. I do believe that, as Allen supports an evolved Erasmian system, there must be some academics (if they are greek or not it doesn't matter) who support the Reuchlinian system better than Caragounis (that means we need more modern scholars who support Reuchlinian/traditional/historical/whatever system, to document it properly here). And we also need to find what aspects of the modern/evolved Erasmian system are disputed - I doubt that everyone agree 100% with Allen. For example what Dillon exactly thinks about it? +MATIA ☎ 23:26, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Bambiniotis and Hatzidakis are teachers of linguistics and that's about it. They are neither scientists, classicists nor historians. They are no different to teachers of languages, who are not scientists, classicists or historians either. If they are teaching the so-called reconstructed pronunciation then they are teaching it as established dogma since this pronunciation is taught is as it was concocted in the mid 1800's. It is nothing more than a patronising convention used by the English speaking world. It is not even scientific and has never been scientifically proven. It is a convenience which is not accepted by the majority of Greeks. In Greek universities ancient Greek is taught using Greek pronouncation, not Erasmain nor reconstructed. What does that tell you. Where are the scientific proofs of the reconstructed pronunciation, where are the research papers on native born speakers of the various Greek dialects (well we apparently have a reference to one paper on Macedonian that some people are trying to suppress), where is the documentation of these dialects, where is the statistical correlation of all of this and the mathematical relationships. It neither exists today nor did it exist in the 1800'a when the reconstructed pronunciation was concocted because the reconstructed pronunciation is pure conjecture based on personal interpretations of ancient texts (that even a classics novice can show that they have misinterpreted or have dissembled choosing only the parts that suit them) and speculations on comparative linguists where the modern pronunciation of Greek and Italian has been deliberately excluded. Anyway this is not about who agrees with whom and what is the majority view but about documenting all the opposing theories equally. It is only in this manner that we can enable Wikipedia to be used as a research tool, otherwise people will just search the web for what they want somewhere else. --Thrax 00:24, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll take that "but about documenting all the opposing theories equally" as a yes. +MATIA ☎ 00:34, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

a specific question

Somewhere amongst the above I've seen a statement supporting the Caragounis view of the letter Zeta, to the effect that if it is pronounced sd or zd then a double zeta — ζζ — would be difficult to pronounce. This seems somewhat persuasive, but I've been racking my brains to think of an ancient Greek word including ζζ (in its standard Attic orthography of course). Can anyone suggest any examples, please --rossb 06:51, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Azzeioi (CIA I, 238, 12, 442 B.C.), Buzzantioi (CIA I, 230, 10 b, 450 B.C.) [13] --81.178.214.51 12:53, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Both of these appear to be misspellings of proper names: certainly neither appears in Liddell and Scott. I'm inclined to think that ζ was never doubled in standard Attic orthography, which would be very consistent with its reconstructed value of sd or zd. --rossb 18:19, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

You are missing the point. If Zeta was zd then the misspelling would never have occured. It is obvious the someone thought that Byzantioi broke down into the following syllables Byz and zyanti. This mistake would never have occurred if Zeta was zd and can only have occurred if Zeta was z. Nobody would ever consider repeating zd twice in a word like Byzantioi but since Zeta is actually pronounced z which is a sound that can be sustained it is likely that people would make the simple mistake of pronouncing it as Byz-zantioi and this is shown by the inscriptions. --Thrax 19:11, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Sounding authentic

This may not be directly relevant to the debate but I wish to add my personal experience with the reconstructed pronunciation. My native language is Greek. I studied classical Greek in an anglophone university (McGill) and as a result I had to learn the reconstructed and so called scientific pronunciation which was used in class. Let me tell you this: Forcing myself to read Greek text this way was painfull and quite frankly moronic.

Indeed, the words were immediately accessible to me in their modern pronunciation but I had to "convert" them in my mind in the braindead pronunciation before uttering them. As a result, the sound was contrived, artificial and did not sound like a normal human language at all (more like an infant babbling I would say). Neither did it sound like I was conveying any meaning, even when I understood the text perfectly. In fact, more often than not I couldn't read it like that with a straight face and found myself trying not to laugh out loud (especially when another fellow greek student smirked at me, making it perfectly plain that I sounded like a 2 year old with a speech impediment). I took some comfort in the fact that the anglophones in the class sounded even less authentic. They pronounced theta's and tau's the same way, ditto for phi's and pi's and k's and khi's. I remember laughing out loud when someone read the present optative 3rd person singular of the verb poieo as p--o-i--o-i--e-i. Whatever.

Anyway, I am not saying that Allen, Daitz and the other learned scholars are wrong. It might very well be true that the reconstructed pronunciation is closer to the classical attic pronunciation than the modern is. But I am sure that our greek ancestors did not sound like this when THEY were speaking it. The only authentic pronunciation of Greek possible today is the modern greek pronunciation, because it is a pronunciation of native speakers of the language. People often forget that Greek is not a dead language but is alive and well. In its evolution it came to be spoken like today. I suggest we try to imitate the native speakers for more authenticity.

Your contribution is welcome and I agree with your arguments. Your remarks reflect the feelings of many Greeks that are confronted with the "Erasmian" pronunciation, and partly explains why it is regarded as unacceptable by poeple like Caragounis and his followers. This issue is the subject of the article on Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in teaching. Also, it is wrong to assume (as it is often done) that the pronunciation used in western universities is identical to the reconstructed pronunciation. It is not. Notably, ει was not pronounced as a diphtong in classical times. Andreas 02:41, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I think part of the problem is that it's always difficult (at least for adults) to achieve correct pronunciation of a foreign language, and almost impossible to do so from just a written description. Any teacher of modern langauges would ridicule the idea that you could speak a language properly without being able to hear it spoken, but this is just what people attempting to reproduce Ancient Greek pronunciation have to do. Added to this, some of the sounds and distinctions in the reconstructed pronunciation are quite different from what most European (including Greek) people are used to, so it's not surprising that attempts to produce an authentic pronunciation are inconsistent and unconvincing. I'm sure that if I read every book available on say Portuguese and practiced the pronunciation for a long time based on the written descriptions only, I would not get anwhere near sounding correct to a native speaker. Trained linguists can with some effort overcome the influence of their native language and speak almost without an accent in a foreign language, but normally this requires immersion for some time in a community of speakers of the language. Added to this, of course, classicists have no real incentive (at least until we invent time travel and can transport ourselves back to ancient Athens) in being able to produce a totally convincing pronunciation, since most of their communication with their fellows in other countries will be in writing. On the specific point of theta's and tau's (etc), English speakers are under a severe difficulty that the aspirated and unaspirated versions are context-specfic allophones of the same phoneme, and producing (or even hearing) the distinction is difficult. None of this however invalidates the reconstructed pronunciation as an attempt to describe what the ancient pronunciation was like. It may sound strange to us, but many languages have much stranger sounds. By the way for another viewpoint on modern Greeks confronting the reconstructied pronunciation, Harry Foundalis, Greek Alphabet and pronunciation, quoted in the main article, is interesting. --rossb

I agree with you saying that the modern greek pronounce it's the more natuaral of all, but this makes me think " if they pronounced without difference when speaking H And U as I , how the could make difference between ημεις kai υμεις? they would spoke in ancient greek you as we and vice versa? how they could understand each other when they were speaking if h u ai ei sounded as i? When the said H KALH KORH they could have been thinking ,if the pretty girl , or the pretty girl, or, the pretty girl,or, you are pretty girl? if ei, sounded like h?

Please someone reply, because having studied for years ancient greek appears to me impossible to hear that . Philx Philx 13:01, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Infecltion. Modern Greeks can hear the difference between all the i sounds because they are inflected differently. H kali kori is inflected differently from (ei kalos yios,) ei kali kori and these infections would have also existed in ancient Greek. The same for hmin and ymin. Different inflections were used. --Thrax 18:04, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

No, I disagree, the inflection of HEMEIS AND UMEIS is the same.in fact nominative: Hmeis , umeis, genitive hmwn umwn, dative umin hmin. KALH KORH is inlfected in the cases that i have quested,(ei, kalh korh, h kalh korh) the same and will be sounding the same way. So i have to think that at the period of ancient greek H as to be sounded different from U, how they could understand each other if not? P.S thrax Yios is not girl, is son. F.S.S.D Philx Philx 22:59, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

And last but not least, if the modern greek pronounce is the more natural for ancient greek, should we consider italian pronounce of latin the more natural as well? Philx Philx 13:04, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Correct. Latin was pronounced exactly like modern Italian. I have explained the evolution of the Latin C above and the only way why C would have evolved from G in Latin would have been is if has a dual pronunciation as it has in Cypriot and Cretan dialects and modern Italian and if the original G in Latin was pronounced like Gamma in modern Greek. Modern linguistics is an ethnocentric theory based solely on the pronunciation of Germanic languages. The pronunciation of other European languages such as Greek and the Romance languages is totally ignored as a point of reference. Ancient Greek pronounced using the totally unscientific reconstructed pronunciation sounds like English not Greek. Latin pronounced in the totally unscientific reconstructed pronunciation sounds like English not Italian. If the cat doesn't meow, hiss and purr but barks and yelps then its not a cat. If a Greek speaks Latin in a modern Greek accent then he will sound Italian. If an Italian speaks Greek in an Italian accent then he will sound Greek. If an Englishman tries speaking either Greek or Latin using the reconstructed pronunciation which is based on English then he will sound like an English tourist. --Thrax 15:53, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Well , i must admit that, you made a point thrax, the "scientis" who reconstructed latin and greek pronounce "started" from their own national pronouonce not from descent languages. F.S.S.D Philx Philx 16:09, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Ancient Greeks pronounced the laters in an unknown to us way. From what I've read, Erasmus had Byzantine teachers that used the "traditional" system. His research led him to suggest the "erasmian" or "reconstructed" system. After some time, Erasmus' system was adopted, and the "traditional" (that the Byzantines had used and modern Greeks use today in teaching) was refered to as "reuchlinian" (after Reuchlin). What we have to do, is to present the theories about "Ancient Greek phonology". +MATIA ☎ 18:55, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

What could be more insulting than referring to the way Greeks historically pronounce Greek by the name of a German. Ancient Greeks pronounced their letters in the same way as modern Greek otherwise they would not be speaking Greek. --Thrax 20:49, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Insulting? Neither I, nor the scholars who had used in the past the term Reuchlinian did it to insult the Greeks. The term Erasmian also isn't that good, and I've mentioned that before (perhaps the terms traditional and reconstructed are better). Let's keep our minds in improving the article. +MATIA ☎ 21:05, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

articles that we need to check

Please use this section only for things that we need to look up, that might be relevant to this article +MATIA ☎ 20:34, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

• George Babiniotis, The question of mediae in Ancient Macedonian Greek reconsidered (this study is also at ISBN 1556191448).
• A History of Ancient Greek - From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity. Edited and translated by A.-F. Christidis, University of Thessaloniki, Greece http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521833078 Biography: http://www.greeklanguage.gr/christidis/pubs.htm
• N. Andriotis, Greek Language History: Four essays, reprint, 1995, pp. 168 (€ 6). ISBN 960-231-058-8.
• Ανδριώτης Ν., Ιστορική γραμματική της αρχαίας ελληνικής. Μέρος Α': Φωνητική (πανεπιστημιακές παραδόσεις), Θεσσαλονίκη 1969
• Συμεωνίδης Χ., Ιστορική γραμματική της αρχαίας Ελληνικής. Μέρος Α': Φωνητική (πανεπιστημιακές παραδόσεις), Εκδοτικός Οίκος Αφών Κυριακίδη, Θεσσαλονίκη 1989.
• E. H. Sturtevant, The Pronunciation of Greek and Latin, Philadelphia 1940.
• F. T. Gignac, A grammar of the Greek papyri of the Roman and Byzantine periods. Vol. 1: phonology. Milan 1976.
• L. Threatte, The grammar of Attic inscriptions, Vol. 1. Berlin 1980.
• Sven Tage Teodorsson:
  • "The phonemic system of the Attic dialect 400-340 BC" (Göteborg, 1974);
  • "The phonology of Ptolemaic Koine" (Göteborg, 1977); and
  • "The phonology of Attic in the Hellenistic period" (Göteborg 1978).

• Geoffrey Horrocks: "Greek: a history of the language and its speakers" (London, 1997); or
• Randall Buth: Η κοινή προφορά: "Notes on the Pronunciation System of Phonemic Koine Greek"

• nice question by Philx
  • "Think these simple sentences: Η καλη κορη, meaning "the nice girl" and ει καλη κορη with ei meaning if "If the nice girl" would sound as I Kali kori, how can a normal person perceive the difference or another example HMEIS And UMEIS , would sound as imis. so i think " who are you and who're we" ?"
    • note: iotacism and etacism

• list by rossb
  • The accepted view is documented in not only Allen quoted above, but also (for example, quoting only those books which I happen to have to hand):
    • Leonard R Palmer, The Greek Language, Faber and Faber, "The Great Languages" series, 1980.
    • Robert Browning, Medieval and Modern Greek, Hutchinson University Library, 1969.
    • George Thomson, The Greek language, W Heffer and Sons, 1972.
    • Leslie Threatte, "The Greek Alphabet", in Daniels and Bright, The World's Writing Systems, Oxford University Press, 1996.
    • Carl Darling Buck, Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, University of Chicago Press, 1933.
    • E H Sturtevant, The pronunciation of Greek and Latin, Aries Publishers Inc, 1940.
      • All of the above works support (with minor variations) the "Erasmian and English pronunciation". Sturtevant in particular considers an alternative pronunciation like that proposed by Caragounis, only to reject it as not cogent. His reasons interestingly include the testimony of the ancient grammarian Dionysius Thrax

The psila, mediae and dasea in proto-Indo-European, Greek and Latin.

The pronunciation of all of these groups of letters in proto-Indo-European is totally disputed. The bottom line is that anyone's personal theory is as good as anyone else's. The standard theory is where the psila are un-aspirated p, t, k and the mediae are b, d, g and the dasea are bH, dH and gH, but even in the standard theory the prononcation of the dasea is disputed by the proponents of the theory itself who suggest that these might actually be spirants [14]. Since spirants are the same as modern Greek fi, beta, theta and delta the idea that the dasea in ancient Greek were pH, tH and kH is completely ridiculous. If this were so then the dasea would go from being spirants to aspirated plosives to spirants again. Further more the dasea in Latin are never described as aspirated plosives but as fricatives, f, f and h and even in Sanskrit the dasea are given the sounds bH, dH and h so why should Greek be any exception. It is obvious that the claim that the dasea were aspirated plosives is totally unfounded and is based on nothing more than a deliberate academic fraud where all the evidence of modern Greek pronunciation, the account of Dionysios Thrax and the evidence of inscriptions was either deliberately ignored became it did not suit the reconstructionists point of view or it was dissembled to make it fit that view. --Thrax 03:54, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

If the dasea in Proto-Indo-European could be spirants I see no reason why Proto-Indo-European could not have originally been pronounced very close to modern Greek and that being the only language to have kept close to the original pronounciation. In fact most Greeks do not accept the Proto-Indo-European theory at all but claim that all other European languages evolved directly from Greek and the work by Babiniotis and Hatzidakis that has been quoted so far about Greek words which entered into the English language seems to support that point of view. --Thrax 04:04, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

We cannot put popular misconceptions (such as the idea that all languages derive from Greek) on the same level as modern scholarship. As for Dionysios Thrax it is quite possible that /b/, /d/ and /g/ had become fricatives by his time - but that does not prove that they were in Attic or Homeric Greek. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 11:09, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

The evidence of proto-Indo-European theory clearly indicates that no change took place since the dasea in proto-Indo-European may have been spirants and therefore the dasea in ancient Greek must have always been fricatives. All the weight of proto-Indo-European theory is against the reconstructed pronunciation. --Thrax 14:04, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

If the proto-Indo-Europeans existed then they were clearly not blond Germanic people. That only stands to reason since Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, Persians and Indians are all dark haired. The Germanic people were therefore not native speakers of proto-Indo-European and Germanic languages should not serve as a guide to the pronunciation of Greek or any other Indo-European languages since the Germanic languages have undergone changes and corruptions that are not present in other Indo-European languages such as Greek and Latin. --Thrax 14:04, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with hair-colour. And the reconstructed pronunciation of Ancient Greek is certainly not based on the reconstructed pronunciation of Proto-Germanic. In the standard reconstruction of Proto-Germanic the consonant system is in fact very similar to the Modern Greek one - with fricatives aplenty. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 14:13, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Let's leave PIE and it's relation with evolved languages out of this article. We have a big enough "to do" list already :) +MATIA ☎ 12:23, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Proto-Indo-European theory is totally relevant to this debate and there is evidence that the so called reconstructed pronunciation is inconsistent with it. The reason for that is obvious. The reconstructed pronunciation was concocted in the mid 1800's and has remained unchanged since then and is uninfluenced by modern development in linguistics and discoveries of new evidence and inscriptions because it is dogma not science. The reconstructed pronunciation is out of date and is nothing more than an ethnocentric theory based on Germanic languages and English pronunciation of Greek. It is inconsistent with proto-Indo-European theory and the pronunciation of other Indo-European languages such as Latin and Sanskrit which have the dasea as spirants or fricatives because it takes no notice of them. It is clear to any objective reader that the reconstructed pronunciation is wrong because it is totally unscientific and the result of an academic fraud. --Thrax 14:04, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 14:13, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Explain why ? What are you disagreeing with. Where is the evidence that the reconstructed pronunciation is consistent with modern developments in linguistics. As far as I am aware it is frozen in the past for dogmatic reasons. --Thrax 14:16, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

You think that the reconstructed pronunciation of Ancient Greek is an ethnocentric theory and that your theory that the pronunciation of Greek has never changed and that Greek is the mother tongue of all Indo-European languages is an objective theory. I think the reverse is true. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 14:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

But you haven't answered my question. Where is the evidence for the reconstructed pronunciation being consistent with modern linguistics or has taken into consideration new evidence ? Where Allen takes into new evidence into consideration he comes out in favour of modern Greek pronunciation. --Thrax 14:42, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

You answered your own question. Allen is my idea of the modern reconstructed pronunciation and he takes new evidence into consideration as you just said. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 18:20, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Babiniotis and Hatzidakis are the ones arguing that Greek is the mother of all European languages. Proto-Indo-European has only around about 600 word steams. Most of the words in other European languages came directly from Greek and Latin not Proto-Indo-European. --Thrax 14:42, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Conclusion

The discussion is again veering into (fascinating) substantive issues, and though I'd love to chat about the over-influence of Sanskrit on the reconstruction of PIE, etc. etc., Wikipedia is not the place for that. Wikipedia's official policy states:

• If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
• If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
• If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.

Sources such as Dionysios Thrax, Erasmus, and the letter about Erasmus are primary sources. Caragounis's paper is a research paper, not a "reference text", and Caragounis is just one researcher, not a "prominent adherent". Thrax, could you please find a "reference text" or a "prominent adherent" that supports the Caragounis position? Otherwise, it seems to me that strictly on procedural grounds, the Caragounis position needs to be minimized in this article. If I'm not mistaken, every editor of this article besides Thrax agrees with this position. That is: Alexander 007, Andreas, dab, Haukur Þorgeirsson, Iceager, Macrakis, +MATIA, Miskin, Septentrionalis, rossb (I am not sure about Philx). Is that correct? --Macrakis 21:40, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I fully endorse this view. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I endorse your view. Can I ask you mackrais why you are unsure about my position? Philx Philx 22:40, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

It has already been explained to you that Caragounis represents the position of the Historical Greek Pronunciation which has existed since the time of Erasmus and is therefore not his own personal theory. The prominent adherents have already been named and existed since the time of Erasmus. This is not disputed. The position exists and therefore must be doccumented with exactly the same detail as the so-called reconstructed pronunciation and the Erasmian pronunciation. This is not a popularity contest to agree on a POV article about the so-called reconstructed pronunciation but about all the theories on the subject. Caragounis has published a book on the subject so that can be taken as a reference text along with his article which also documents the history of the subject. Since no one is trying to portray the Historical Greek Pronunciation as the same thing as the Reconstructed Pronunciation both theories can exist side by side on the same page along with the Eurasian theory. The only time there would be a dispute is if someone claims something about the one particular theory which others say it does not claim or if there are any factual errors made about any of the theories being outlined. Since we are not arguing about what the reconstructed Pronunciation does or does not say or what any of the other theories do or do not say the Wikipedia rules above are not applicable and cannot be used in order to turn this page into a POV rant in favour of one of these theories to the exclusion of others. I repeat this page is about the pronunciation of ancient Greek NOT about the reconstructed pronunciation which is just one theory on the subject. --Thrax 22:34, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I fully agree with Macrakis. Andreas 22:43, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Macrakis as well. Wikipedia policy does not specify that we must present all views on a subject as if they are of equal standing among the specialists.

And we are not doing that. Each view has got its own section and it has been stated who supports what. --Thrax 23:57, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Rather, the views with greater standing are given much more prominence. That's the policy. Alexander 007 22:55, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I haven't taken the time to look through your edits to the article in detail Thrax, but from reading this Talk Page it is obvious that the views you are adding are very fringe, and you are giving more prominence to them than is acceptable according to policy. The views you add may even be so fringe (regardless if they are correct or not, this is about how much standing the ideas have among the specialists), they do not merit to be discussed at all in the article, but I cannot verify this at the moment. The Thrax material perhaps should be discussed in a different section at the bottom because these views are somewhat common among Greeks, though apparently not among Greek scholars. In other words: because the claims may resurface, perhaps they should be discussed in a specific section in the proper WP manner. Alexander 007 00:18, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Overall, I agree with Macrakis. I will not comment on the merits of the theories themselves. However, I am not sold that the Caragounis position can be accurately summed up as the "Greek position". Throughout this talk page Thrax has framed the debate in odd terms, criticising the "English" position or the supposed "Germanic" bias in historical linguistics. Through these attacks, Thrax has done little to dispel the notion that the Caragounis position is very much a fringe view, when instead he could have provided works of prominent specialists supporting the view. If a book by a theologian and instinctive support of the theory by many people unfamiliar with the history of academic research in the discipline are all we have to go on, the Caragounis view really does not go beyond Graham Hancock status, and does not ordinarily merit inclusion (let alone prominence) in an encyclopedic treatment.

However, I also tend to agree with Alexander 007 that the Caragounis view does merit mention, as it seems to be a common one among Greeks. I myself prefer to use the modern Greek pronunciation for ancient Greek names (and would support such a standardisation in teaching ancient Greek), and cannot help but laugh along with Greeks at most attempts by non-Greeks to pronounce ancient Greek. From a Greek's point of view, it must be galling to be told how the ancient Greeks pronounced their language from these barbarians, especially as the reconstructions take away many of the features of pronunciation that distinguish modern Greek from, say, Germanic languages. The resistance is quite understandable and that is why I believe Thrax is not a troll but someone who sincerely believes his position is correct; I've heard smart, erudite Greeks (albeit unfamiliar with historical linguistics) repeat similar views. Due to the nature of Wikipedia, such views are bound to resurface, and perhaps we should at least mention the Caragounis position in the article in a way that makes it clear that it is very much a fringe view. But then again I can see that it might do little to prevent similar debates flaring up again, as it would take just one editor to take exception to that comment. I guess we just have to trust the community to defuse such situations each time. --Iceager 02:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I would modify my statement to say: perhaps this fringe idea can even be given its own article (but it will have to kept in check). I have some experience dealing with pseudo-scientfic beliefs and their expression in Wikipedia. Often, I find that the simple fact that a pseudo-scientific belief may be popular makes it notable, worthy to be mentioned somewhere in some way in Wikipedia. Or maybe we should just delete the stuff and not discuss it in WP at all. You guys decide. The policy is clear that it is too fringe to be represented with any degree of prominence in the main body of the Ancient Greek phonetics text. Alexander 007 03:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Macrakis is obviously right. You have shown enough patience, some people will just not take an answer for an answer no matter what. Wikipedia does have room for fringy views, but they need to be put in proper perspective. Maybe it is time for Category:Pseudolinguistics. We have articles on individual books, so hell, why not on Caragounis' book (as 'ancillary article'), I won't AfD it. Just because the book has an ISBN doesn't make it respectable among experts, and yes, in a sense this is a popularity contest, not popularity among WP editors, but popularity in the academic community. Iceager's analysis is spot on, this isn't about linguistics, but about childish nationalism of Greeks with no background in historical linguistics. dab (ᛏ) 09:36, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

While my personal opinion for Caragounis isn't very good, the traditional (in comparison with the reconstructed) system is one of the two theories, and according to NPOV (probably as minority view) we should analyse both theories that exist about how ancient greeks spoke. I believe that, while the reconstructed theory is the majority view, there are criticisms about it (even if Thrax has only provided Dionyssius Thrax and Caragounis, as far as I can tell). Let's keep our minds in gathering all relevant information and work towards NPOV. +MATIA ☎ 11:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I fully agree with Makrakis's point. The article should merely state the accepted (ie reconstructed) position, possibly adding at the end a single sentence to the effect that some Greek writers think that it was pronounced like modern Greek. The references to historical debates from Erasmus onwards should be removed, as should the arguments pro and con (many of which are currently very poorly expressed). --rossb 18:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with the Greek vs non-Greek scientists discrimination and I strongly disagree with the proposal to remove the historical debates of the Erasmian system. I have tried (with minor edits) to clarify the things a little bit (and I'll continue that effort) and I believe this is the article where we need to analyse how the reconstructed system has evolved from Erasmus through Hatzidakis to Allen. Because none of us know if there is a different view (than Allen's) on the reconstructed (aka evolved erasmian etc) system, it doesn't mean that such a view doesn't exist. No need to analyse why I disagree with the proposal to remove "pro and con arguments" (those arguments are essential in understanding the reconstructed system). +MATIA ☎ 19:15, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

a note about user Thrax

I've checked his contributions in the article, and the two problems are that they aren't exactly NPOV and he needs to bring more than just Caragounis. Beside my disagreement with that POV I can verify that some of his edits are acurate (for example Thrax had said that in Germany the reconstructed system was rejected for a longer time than in England, and as I've said before that has something to do with Reuchlin). I encourage anyone to check my previous comments here and I still believe this article should cover the answers to those questions (and more evidence for each disputed letter etc). +MATIA ☎ 11:44, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Kwami's 2 bits

Macrakis asked for my opinion. I'm not the expert some of you wish for, but I'll add my two cents. My opinion is already pretty well summed up in the discussion. I haven't read it all, but have skimmed through parts of it.

The article currently reads as an attempt to disprove the conventional conception of Ancient Greek by showing the superiority of Caragounis' idea. This is not the purpose of an encyclopedia. I don't know whether C's views find enough support in the scholarly community to be worth including at all (perhaps they do), but they would have to find substantial support to deserve the prominance given them in this article. At first glance, they strike me as nationalism motivated by an inferiority complex, much like the claim that Hungarian is a Turkic language, or that Hindi and Urdu are not dialects of Hindustani. Also, C dismisses the reconstructed pronunciation with false or misleading statements such as: no one knows how they came up with this; there were wackos who thought Greek was pronounced like runes, so this must be a wacko idea too, etc. When a self-professed "scholar" has to misrepresent the opposing side in order to make his own claims look reasonable in comparison, we must suspect that he is spouting nonsense.

Thousands of people get their degrees every year in the Classics. All of these people need research topics for their theses. What better topic than to revolutionize the presentation of the Classics by revealing how they were actually pronounced? If there were any reasonable evidence that the current conception were substantially wrong (I mean other than details such as whether zeta were [z], [dz], or [zd]), then people would be jumping all over it. Maybe I'm overestimating people's intelligence or integrity, but I'd think that the lack of enthusiasm for ideas such as C's in the field is reason to suspect there isn't much to say for it. At the very least it should be a divisive issue, and it doesn't appear to be.

The Greek Wikipedia entry on Classical Greek defers coverage of pronunciation to this site[15] at the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (bilingual in German and English).

The standard pronunciations should be returned to the article, with the disclaimer that these are reconstructed and therefore inherently uncertain. Alternate views like C's can be given at the end, if justified.

Talk page arguments:

• Sounds unnatural to Greeks: irrelevant. Any reading pronunciation is going to sound unnatural. Old English (Beowolf) is difficult to pronounce and sounds unnatural to native English speakers, and that's not as far back in time as Ancient Greek.
• Greek as the origin of IE languages: ridiculous. When IE was proposed, people would have loved to find the original language. They wanted to find the original language. Even better if it were an honorable language like Greek. The reason it isn't thought to be Greek is because Greek appears to have changed as much as any of the other IE languages.
• Imposed pronunciation: Old English wasn't pronounced as modern English. Old French wasn't pronounced like modern French. Same goes for Old Chinese, Old Japanese, Classical Arabic, Sanscrit (vs. Hindi), Latin (vs. Italian), Old Church Slavonic, Coptic (vs. Middle Egyptian), etc etc etc. Languages change. It would indeed be extraordinary if Modern Greek were pronounced as Ancient Greek. And as Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
• The sounds of the letters of the alphabet remain fixed: a common fallacy. The shape of a letter on paper has nothing to do with its pronunciation. The phonemes that the letters represent change in pronunciation, and this affects the names of the letters of the alphabet as much as any other words in the language. The phonemic spelling of words will remain the same, despite drastic changes in pronunciation, if there are no phonemic splits or mergers, additions or deletions. English /r/ used to be a trill, and English /b d g/ were voiced stops (they're now close to [p t k] at the beginning of words), but such changes will not be reflected in the orthography. Greek β could have gone from [mb] to [b] to [β] to [v] to [w] to [hw] to [kw] to [gw] to [b] to [mb] again, and as long as it remained a distinct phoneme all this time, there would be little evidence for any of this in the orthography. (Note I'm not claiming that this happened!)
• English pronunciation: well, yeah. English speakers are going to have an English accent. Since there are no native Ancient Greek speakers around to correct them, and it's all reading pronunciations anyway, where's the motivation to do better? But this has nothing to do with the argument here.
• Greek pronunciation: Greeks are justifiably proud in having an ancient literature that is still accessible, more so than Beowolf is to an English speaker. Greeks trying to pronounce the classics with a reconstructed pronunciation would be ridiculous. It would destroy one of the great benefits of their literature: its accessibility. And it doesn't matter if the modern pronunciation would be comprehensible to Plato, because Plato is dead. What matters is that giving the classics a modern pronunciation makes them comprehensible to modern Greeks. But that has no connection to how they were pronounced at the time, or whether Plato would be understandable if we had sound recordings of him.
• Modern Greek pronunciations work just as well with *PIE: True. The only question is when the changes took place, before or after the Ancient period. However, Modern Greek pronunciations may not work as well with ancient borrowings to and from Latin and other languages. This is one of two primary lines of evidence for when sound changes took place. (The other is the timing of spelling changes and spelling errors in Greek.)
• Sheep saying baa: I would hardly rely on this as primary evidence for the pronunciaiton of β (it could just as easily be [m]!), but it is supporting evidence. The fact that English dogs bark bow wow tells us that something has changed in English, and reconstructed Middle English [bu wu] sounds much more like a dog than modern [bau wau]. As for sheep not making labial sounds (neither do parrots (they have no lips), but they can still say "Polly"!), onomatopoeia is impressionistic. Coins don't make bilabial sounds either when they "plunk" into water, but that's a reasonable approximation of the sound they do make.

Well, I could go on like this, but what's the point? My opinion is irrelevant. There is broad consensus around the pronunciation of Ancient Greek, given the inherent uncertainties of reconstruction. There will always be fringe ideas whenever a subject touches people's hearts. And there will always be linguistic chauvinism, with the idea that my language/pronunciation is the proper one. There is going to be substantial debate over when sound changes actually took place, since writing (our primary source of evidence) is conservative. But thousands of people have studied these issues for over a century. If C's claims can be substantiated, it's gonna be in the lit. You should be able to justify it without referring to C at all. kwami 02:19, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Kwami that parts of the article are POV and I must note that the relevant tag exists in the article. +MATIA ☎ 11:37, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I've read a bit more of the discussion here, and of Caragounis. The editors on the consensus view have expressed themselves cogently, while Thrax does not appear to understand the subject, and has been pampered more than long enough. Caragounis either doesn't understand even the most basic linguistics, or else is being obtuse. With examples like Nietzsche for "difficult consonants", I can only assume he's actually being dishonest.

This isn't worth the time being devoted to it. There will be no end of crackpots pushing bizarre POVs. If quality editors, as most of you appear to be, devote this kind of energy to palliating them, I'm afraid you will tire of the whole effort, and drop out of Wikipedia, leaving the ignorant to write the articles.

My recommendation is for editors like Andreas to revert the article to the concensus version. (I'm assuming that the current version has been compromised wherever Thrax objected to standard scholarship.) The anon linguist who writes the "New Ideas" section below might like to touch up the dating of when elements of modern pronunciation got started. If Thrax objects, he can go to Wikipedia dispute resolution. Put your energy into defending your work there, where it will actually do some good. It seems apparent that you're not going to convince him with logic or evidence, so we're all wasting our time on this talk page. kwami 19:11, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Prove it

Prove that the reconstructed pronunciation is nothing more than pseudo-science concocted in the 19th century. Where is the evidence for this theory ? Name the present day linguists who have done research on this theory and what do they say. Prove that this theory is not sterile. You say Caragounis says no one knows where this theory came from. Ok then, you tell me where it came from if you think he is spouting nonsence. Since you are going to write an article about it I'd expect to see some scientific evidence and not wacko conjectures like sheep bleeting.

Where does the idea that ancient Greek zeta was prononced like zd come from. Caragounis has cited his sources. Where are yours, the primary sources I mean and even some secondary ones that can be verified. Would it be Dionysios Thrax ? If its not Dionysios Thrax then tell me who or has it all been made up.

Where does the idea that the dasea were aspirated plosives come from. Why aren't they aspirated plosives in Latin and Sanskrit ?

How can Dionysios Thrax account of the mediae and their very name which says that they are midway between the psila and dasea in pronunciation be reconciled with the reconstructed pronunciation. It can't be can it and you know it because Dionysios Thrax can only be describing fricatives. Tell me how in only 200 years these aspirated plosives suddenly become fricatives. Where is the statistical evidence (I do hope you have some) which shows that such a rapid change is possible simultaneously all over the Greek speaking world.

Is it not true that the reconstructed pronunciation is nearly 200 years out of date and is taught as it was in the 19th century after all the evidence against it was ignored. Is it not true that the reconstructed pronunciation ignored and still ignores the pronunciation of both Greek and Latin by their native born speakers so the statement you made about the pronunciations of borrowings to and from Latin cannot be justified since the reconstructed pronunciation presuppose that Latin was pronounced like English and not modern Italian which sounds closer to Greek. Is it not true that reconstructed pronunciation could not be proven in the balance of probabilities let alone beyond reasonable doubt (and still cannot) and the only reasons it was adopted by the English speaking world was solely because of nationalistic lines. There were more of them than us and that's what it all boils down to. The reconstructed pronunciation is an academic fraud.

But don't tell me Professor Dionysios Karvelas is a nationalistic bigot along with Anna Tziropoulou-Eustathiou and Professor Chrys C. Caragounis and Professor Kariofilis Mitsakis, Professor Napoleon Mitsis, Professor Nicholas Petrohilos and Professor Panagiotis F. Christopoulos. Tell me, is every Geek who supports the historical Greek pronunciations a nationalistic bigot. I put it to you that the same can be said of the creators and supporters of the reconstructed pronunciation. --Thrax 03:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Old English was not pronounced like modern English for a very good reason. English is a mixture of Saxon German and Norman French and is completely inhomogeneous. That's why its pronunciation changed as the different proportions in the mix of speakers changed. Ancient Greek and modern Greek on the other hand are not mixture of two different languages but are one and the same language and one people so why should the language change its pronunciation. Prove that I am not correct and that Geek should behave like English a language that it has no relation to. If that is one of the arguments of the reconstructed pronunciation then it is hardly scientific. Prove that Greek should change. --Thrax 03:44, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

If the dasea were pH, tH and kH why were they not confused with the psila p, t, k as one of the contributors above has stated was the case with all of the non-Greek students pronunciations in his class. Caragounis has noticed exactly the same thing with his students as well but I doubt that any linguists are even aware of this phenomenon because the don't even speak a word of the languages they claim to be experts on. So tell me in 1000 years between Linear B and classical times why weren't the dasea and psila confused but continued to maintain the same distinctions as in other Indo-European languages. What is the mechanism suggested by linguists by which this distinction was maintained. Would it be because the dasea were always f, th and h and if not why not. --Thrax 03:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Both theories are scientific methods and both theories have pros and cons. WP:NPOV, WP:CITE and WP:NOT are related to our discussion. +MATIA ☎ 11:39, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

That is not strictly true. The advocates of the reconstructed pronunciation can not provide one iota of scientific evidence in support of their view because it is all based on a publication by Erasmus in which he presented all of his arguments in a dialogue between a bear and a lion. That is the equivalent of using Aesop's fable to prove that the sun is more powerful than the wind which is hardly scientific but wholly conjecture. Erasmus did not provide any scientific proof for his argument but only conjectures and the reconstructed pronunciation is based not on scientific evidence but on Erasmus conjecture alone. --Thrax 12:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Allen, Bambiniotis and before a century Hatzidakis support scientificaly the reconstructed method. While this article needs someone better than Caragounis who supports the traditional method, and surely needs NPOV and cleanup (keeping what we know so far), the traditional method will also be analysed. +MATIA ☎ 12:45, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Grimm got it wrong

Dealing with kwami's following statement.

"English /r/ used to be a trill, and English /b d g/ were voiced stops (they're now close to [p t k] at the beginning of words), but such changes will not be reflected in the orthography. Greek β could have gone from [mb] to [b] to [β] to [v] to [w] to [hw] to [kw] to [gw] to [b] to [mb] again, and as long as it remained a distinct phoneme all this time, there would be little evidence for any of this in the orthography. (Note I'm not claiming that this happened!)"

So you say that beta could have gone through all of these changes just as long as it remained a distinct sound, by that I take it that you means that is meaning it remained distinct from the other sounds in other groups of letter such as the psila and dasea. I agree with you but why don't we apply this rule to English as lets see what we get. Grimm's Law states that the psila, mediae and dasea in all Germanic languages started out as p, t, k and b, d, g and bH, dH, gH and these became f, th, h and p, t, k and b, d, g in English respectively. But if all of these sounds have to be distinct then this change cannot have possibly taken place using the initial start values because there would have been total and utter confusion of the dasea with the mediae when for example the daseon bH became b which is also a meson. This confusion would also have occurred when the meson b started to became p which is also a psilon. Since change is an entirely random process there is no way that a confusion between the psila, mediae and dasea in all Germanic languages could not have occurred. Unless Grimm provides statistical evidence of a substantial confusion of Germanic of psila, mediae and dasea compared to other Indo-European language then his initial start values for the psila, mediae and dasea cannot be right. In fact the only way for a confusion of the psila, mediae and dasea not to have taken place in Germanic is if the initial values for the psila, mediae and dasea were pH, tH, kH and v, the, gh (ie. modern Greek β, δ, γ) and bH, dH, gH. If these start values are used then even if half the population start pronouncing bH as b it cannot be confused with the sound of β. Similarly if half the population start pronouncing β as p (unaspirated) it cannot be confused with aspirated pH and aspirated pH can alternate quite safely between pH and f without any confusion taking place. It is blatantly obvious from the above examples that Grimm was wrong and it is time for linguists to admit it and when they admit it they must also admit that the mediae in ancient Greek were always pronounced β, δ, γ and that the dasea in ancient Greek could never have adopted the transitional values of pH, tH, kH because they would have been confused with the psila. If Grimm had not been deceived by the academic fraud of Erasmus and the totally unscientific conjecture of the reconstructed pronunciation of ancient Greek he would have never made this basic error which invalidates his work and would have concluded that the initial start values of the psila, mediae and dasea in proto-Indo-European were pH, tH, kH and v, the, gh (ie. modern Greek β, δ, γ) and bH, dH, gH. Thank you kwami for your suggestions because without them I would not have been able to prove my initial hypothesis which I initially suggested to Andreas on my talk page as a compromise. Now I have proven it beyond any reasonable doubt. The reconstructed pronunciation is wrong and I have now satisfactorily proven it. --Thrax 12:33, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Please consider reading the article on the High German consonant shift before advocating this theory any further. Stefán Ingi 14:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

That article explains that the evolution of the psila into fricatives took place over 400 years and then the change of the mediae into voiceless stops took place. What about the change of the dasea of proto-Indo-European into voiced stops. When did that happen. I do not see any statistical evidence in that article that proves the evolution of the psila into fricatives took place over the 400 years claimed and neither do I see any statistical evidence that the change of the mediae into voiceless stops was not coeval with that time. Provide the statistics and prove that there was no confusion between psila and mediae. If there is no statistical evidence I will assume that this theory is pure conjecture and is therefore not scientific at all. Also provide an explanation for why the dasea were not been confused with the mediae during all of this thim when they became voiced stops. Also note that nothing in that article contradicts my theory about Gimm being wrong. My theory works better than Grimm's and it does not require time limits or ordering. --Thrax 17:26, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

New Ideas

Hello folks, I'm not sure if I can be the "expert" the page is requesting, but at least I'm a professional historical linguist with some experience with Greek. Anyway, I'm also an absolute Wikipedia newbie, so I won't actually be making any changes myself (yet), if you can bear with me.

Just some ideas for now: As a more reliable reference for the hypothesis that at least some of the "modern" pronunciation elements entered Greek rather early, we should mention the work of Sven Tage Teodorsson: "The phonemic system of the Attic dialect 400-340 BC" (Göteborg, 1974); "The phonology of Ptolemaic Koine" (Göteborg, 1977); and "The phonology of Attic in the Hellenistic period" (Göteborg 1978). Teodorsson gives a far more informed and better argued treatment of much the same topic and much the same data as Caragounis. He also comes to the conclusion that many of the "modern" changes in vowel quality happened early during the classical period. However, he stresses that elements of the older system are likely to have persisted in the speech of the elite for quite a while longer. Also, unlike Caragounis, he sticks with plosive values for the consonants, dating the shifts to fricatives much later. And, unlike Caragounis (whose discussion on that particular point is just flat-earth science, without any scholarly value whatsoever, IMHO), he leaves no doubt about the validity of the vowel length contrasts and the accentuation contrasts. - Current mainstream thinking in Greek linguistics seems to tend towards views of this kind, as evidenced in Geoffrey Horrocks: "Greek: a history of the language and its speakers" (London, 1997); or Randall Buth: Η κοινή προφορά: "Notes on the Pronunciation System of Phonemic Koine Greek" [16].

And Horrocks is a Greek name is it, and Randall Buth as well ? I don't think so. These non-Greeks do not represent Greek thinking but Germanic/English thinking. --Thrax 17:43, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

If anybody is interested, I can provide a summary of why I think Caragounis is crap (His is not just an outsider position, it's also very poor scholarship, and plain wrong in elementary ways) - but I don't think it would be within the scope of Wikipedia if I wrote that into the article. I'm also not sure if I'd have the patience to debate with "Thrax" here.

Lets see it and remember that Caragounis is not here to defend himself. --Thrax 17:43, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

On a less controversial note, an idea for a more structural rewrite of the article: a linguistically oriented article about "phonetics" and/or "phonology" of Greek ought not to be structured by letters, but by sounds. The sound system of a language is, after all, something autonomous which can and should be described first and foremost in terms of its own systematicity, and which has nothing inherently to do with how the language is written. Also, I'd vote for renaming the article to "phonology" or even "pronunciation", not "phonetics", because we are actually dealing with the system of phonological contrasts here. In a "phonetics" page, I, as a linguist, would expect far more technical and detailed discussion about the articulatory or auditory properties of sounds, e.g. what it actually means for a sound to be "aspirated", and how/why an aspirated sound can change into a fricative, and so on, and I don't think that's what people here are interested and competent in. -- Lukas 15:10, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. --Thrax 17:43, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Lukas, you are a linguist right?So you better than me knows that would be impossible to understand each other if greeks pronounced ancient greek in modern way. Well i said that would be ridiculòus to ponounce U,H,EI, as I because there will be misunderstanding. Think these simple sentences: Η καλη κορη, meaning "the nice girl" and ει καλη κορη with ei meaning if "If the nice girl" would sound as I Kali kori, how can a normal person perceive the difference or another example HMEIS And UMEIS , would sound as imis. so i think " who are you and who're we" ?

I hope in your reply, or in someone willing to expalin me that. becaus if it is so, i will burn my diplome of "liceo classico" F.S.S.D Philx Philx 16:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

The Greeks can understand themselves perfectly well pronouncing both ancient and modern Greek the Greek way. OTOH people above have spoken from personal experience saying that no one can understand anyone speaking ancient Greek using the completely artificial reconstructed pronunciation. --Thrax 17:43, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

And I already said to you before that the distinction between the different i sounds is down to inflection. --Thrax 17:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Please explain what you mean by "inflection". I presume you're not using the word in its usual sense as in the Inflection article. --rossb 18:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I mean inflection of sounds of existing letters (stress, breathing, length, pitch etc.) as in Chinese not the substitution of endings. --Thrax 19:26, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Pitch? you say pitch in words? Well there isn't any pitch accent without stress. Philx 19:53, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Philx, I think we shouldn't discuss this at length here, but, very briefly, it seems that languages can manage to live with an astonishing amount of homophony (identically sounding but different words) - so, the existence of many homophones in ancient Greek pronounced the modern way is not really among the strongest arguments against this pronunciation. As for, specifically, υμεις vs. ημεις, I always thought, like you, that this was a strong piece of evidence against an early merger of the sounds; but surprisingly, Horrocks states that this merger was actually quite early, long before η and υ merged in other words, and long before Greek developed the alternatives εμεις/εσεις and μας/σας. Strange but apparently true.--Lukas 00:04, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Constructive editing

We have established a clear consensus among the past editors of this article, as well as two new editors with domain expertise. There is only one dissenter (Thrax). It is now time to act on the consensus, and edit the article accordingly. The standard reconstruction of ancient Greek should be the principal content of the page. The thesis that the 5c BC pronunciation was essentially the same as the modern pronunciation should take a very minor place in the article, reflecting its place in the literature. On the other hand, the scholarly consensus is also that many of the changes found in modern Greek begin to appear in the Hellenistic period, and most are complete by the time of the New Testament. I expect that all editors will respect this consensus, cooperate in putting it into practice, and not disrupt its implementation. --Macrakis 18:38, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

The principle content of the page must be all of the theories on the matter not a POV rant on the reconstructed pronunciation. If you want to expand the section on the reconstructed pronunciation then go ahead, but you many not remove the history of the Erasmain pronunciation or the evidence for the reconstructed pronunciation which are already in a summarised form and cannot be summarised any further. What has been suggested is that more evidence must be shown for the reconstructed pronunciation and the way in which the sounds are made should be demonstrated and as well as thet the process by which the alleged changes took place should be shown, in the same manner as they have been shown in the page on Germanic [17]. There is no need to show how the historical Greek sounds are made or changed since they are the same as in modern Greek. If you cannot come up with the evidence to support your point of view and its evolution then it is your problem not mine and the other sections on the Erasmian and historical Greek pronunciation should not be sacrificed because you cannot convince people that reconstructed pronunciation is scientifically valid. I also want my questions answered such as why do the dasea in Latin and Sanskrit contain fricatives but not reconstructed ancient Greek, and why modern Greek pronouncation have been deliberately ignored and the accounts of the ancient Greek grammarians that contradict the reconstructed pronunciation have been dissembled otherwise you will convince no one. --Thrax 19:18, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Thrax, you have made these arguments before, and they have been uniformly and decisively rejected by the other editors. The Caragounis position (which you call the "historical Greek pronunciation") has been judged to be a fringe position, perhaps worth reporting on, but not at length. As for your substantive arguments, Wikipedia is not the place to debate them. --Macrakis 20:22, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

The historical Greek pronunciation is not a fringe position but holds equal weight with the Erasmian and reconstructed pronunciation. It might not be the most popular position in the English speaking world but it is the dominant position in Greece where 99% of the population and the majority of academics support it, which is why ancient Greek has always been taught in Greece using modern Greek pronunciation. You cannot relegate this fact to a mere side note.

It has already been shown that the reconstructed pronunciation has no scientific merit and is nothing more than a point of view held since the 1800's by the English speaking world and that is why English academia does not provide any proof when it is taught but teaches it as dogma, here it is, learn it. If you doubt that then prove otherwise by providing the evidence I have called for and put it in the article. --Thrax 20:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I fully support Macrakis. (See my recent rec above.) I do not believe Caragounis is worth reporting at all, as he appears to be a crackpot, but if it is common for Greeks without training in historical linguistics to believe that the modern pronunciation they use when reading the classics is accurate, then that should be reported. kwami 20:39, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Caragounis is a classics professor teaching in Sweden. Are all classics professors crackpots. Do western universities employ crackpots. Do crackpots get papers published in academic journals and have their books published. The historical Greek pronunciation is a mainstream theory. Live with it and stop being patronising to Greeks. --Thrax 20:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Come on kwami tell me that Professor Dionysios Karvelas, Anna Tziropoulou-Eustathiou, Professor Kariofilis Mitsakis, Professor Napoleon Mitsis, Professor Nicholas Petrohilos and Professor Panagiotis F. Christopoulos are all crackpots for daring to challenge the reconstructed pronunciation along with Caragounis --Thrax 21:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Thrax, you are repeating yourself. For those who have not been following the discussion, this is a list of speakers at a small, unpublished conference. We do not have institutional affiliations for most of them, let alone copies of their papers. The one person we've been able to identify is a schoolteacher, not a "professor" in the English sense. On the other hand, we have found that Prof. Babiniotis of the Univ. of Athens and Prof. Petrounias of the Univ. of Thessaloniki, both of them recognized linguists and editors of standard dictionaries, subscribe to the usual reconstruction. --Macrakis 21:14, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

No they dont subscribe to it. They only teach it (in the manner it was concocted in the 1800's as a point of reference) in parallel to both their institutions using the historical Greek pronunciation. Even Caragounis teaches the Easmain/reconstructed pronunciation but we all know he doesn't accept it. The reconstructed pronunciation is not scientifically valid and is nothing more than a English speaking colloquial convention and you have still not provided me with scientific evidence to support it. --Thrax 21:39, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Here's another idea, hopefully constructive: We should try and overcome the overall dichotomizing structure and tone of the whole article. It's not about the Erasmian versus the Reuchlinian system. Let's rather give a short summary of the reconstructed pre-classical phonological system, one of the modern Greek system, and then deassemble the problem into a list of all the several phonological changes that must have taken place in between the two, and which each may have happened at different times, before, during or after the classical period. For each change, let's provide a list of all the different datings found in the reference works. That way, we get a wide array of positions, ranging roughly from Sturtevant through Allen through Gignac through Teodorsson through Caragounis. By the way, that there must have been an original, possibly pre-classical, system roughly along the Erasmian lines is uncontroversial, and I must correct Thrax in this matter (and I think the article should be re-worded too): it is not true that current scholars in the anti-Erasmian line question the originally plosive nature of the consonants. Not even Caragounis holds such a view, if you read him carefully (although I think his arguing is internally inconsistent in this respect).

Caragonis contends that there is no evidence whatsoever that shows that the dasea were originally unvoiced aspirated plosives or that the mediae were originally voiced plosives because Caragounis claims to have shown that all the inscriptions we have indicate that the dasea were fricatives as they are in modern Greek with the ita acting in the same way as the h does in the English sound "th" and that the mediae were already as they are in modern Greek since Attic times which is when all the significant inscriptions date to. Caragounis says "Our written records take us back three and one half millenia. But there is no way of establishing how it was pronounced in the second millenium and in the first part of the first millenium B.C. The significant material comes to us in the form of inscriptions from the VIIth century B.C. on and papyri a few centuries later" ie. Attic times.

Since the reconstructed pronunciation interprets the inscriptions in a different manner from Caragounis, (in actual fact the reconstructed pronunciation was concocted without taking any regard of the inscriptions at all) Caragounis cannot be said to accept that any change took place. His position is that it cannot be known. The same can be said for Papadhmhtrakopoulou who is presumably Caragounis source for inscriptional evidence. There is no evidence from inscriptions that can tell us what the sounds were before Attic times. --Thrax 01:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Caragounis: "The consonants in dispute are the mediae Β, Γ, Δ, the aspirates Θ, Φ, Χ, as well as Ζ. As is to be expected the interchange of these consonants, unlike the case of the vowels, is very limited. Hence their sound can be determined chiefly (but not solely) by the principle of syllabication, i.e. the rule that these consonants build syllables together with the vowel following them, and this determines their sound. Confusion in inscriptions is also valuable, while transcription from and to Latin is obviously also of some assistance.

Now with regard to the aspirates Θ, Φ, and Χ, they took the place of the earlier digraphs ΤH, ΠH, and ΚH. Accordingly, Latin TH, PH and CH were used to transcribe these Greek digraphs in the historical spelling of words. When the Greeks in time came to use the monographs Θ, Φ, Χ in place of the digraphs, the Romans had no equivalents for these letters except for F, hence Latin F is usually transcribed with F! This is, moreover, confirmed by the fact that the Φ is confused with the f –sound of the diphthongs au, eu (pronounced af, ef ), but not with Π. Were the Φ sounded like ΠH (i.e. Π with aspiration), it ought to have been confused with the Π."

Nowhere in the above or anywhere else in his paper does Caragounis concede that the consonants changed their sound including Z. In fact he says that Greek Fi was the same sound as Latin F. Caragounis may accept a change took place from the sounds of Proto-Indo-European but he does not accept intermediate forms such as aspirated pH or dz etc. [18] --Thrax 01:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Read more carefully. Caragounis uses expressions like: "Θ and Φ had taken just these [fricative] sounds in Boeotia already in the Vth c. B.C" (p. 172); "these letters already in Attic times were sounded as v, gh" (ibid., my emphasis.) This language clearly implies that even Caragounis would admit that they had been something different before - although he carefully avoids to state that explicitly. The mentioning of the earlier spellings ΠΗ, ΤΗ, ΚΗ is, however, indication enough of an earlier plosive value anyway.--Lukas 08:16, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

You read more carefully. Caragounis states that Φ in Greek was the same as F in Latin therefore he is implying that it was always a fricative just like in Latin and was never pronced pH. The combinaton ΠΗ can in no way be interpreted as implying an aspirated p sound unless you are dissembling. If you claim that for Greek you must also prove it for Latin as well which used the same orthography. Caragounis states that "the sign H originally had two functions: one, to mark aspiration and two, as the second element in the digraphs PH, KH, and TH". Since he calls these symbols digraphs he is clearly indicating that the are pronounced as one sound, like the English digraph "th". As shown above Caragouns makes it clear that before the 5th century BC nothing useful can be derived about pronunciation from the inscriptions therefore Fi could have been a fricative since Mycenaean times or earlier and the previous sound of this letter if there was one was its sound in proto-Indo-European as bH. --Thrax 15:30, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

And another thing I must add. In Hebrew the letter Pe has two pronunciations P or F therefore when this letter was adopted by the Greeks from the proto-Sinaitic script which was also used by the Phoenicians and Hebrews it must also have been of dual value, just like Bet in Hebrew is of dual value B or V and Kaf in Hebrew is of dual value K or Kh (as in German ich) and Hebrew Tav is of dual value, T or S. Further more the name of the Hebrew letter Tav clearly indicates that the au diphthong in Greek Tau should be pronounced as av like it is in the Hebrew name. On top of this Hebrew has a letter called Zayin and two letters called Tzade (one of them is only used at the end of words) therefore if Greek Zeta was pronounced as ZD or DZ why wasn't the Hebrew letter Tzade used by the Greeks instead of Zayin which is a pure Z sound. It is clear that all of the evidence from Hebrew supports the historical Greek pronunciation and completely demolishes that fraudulent reconstructed pronunciation which pays no heed to any comparative linguistics but instead based all of it conclusion of the German mispronunciation of Latin and even then nobody ever claims that Latin F was ever pronounced pH. If Pe had a dual pronunciation in Hebrew then why not Greek. That would also explain why P was originally used in Latin to represent both P and F before the digamma was adapted to represent F and the Fi symbol was added to Greek to replace PH. --Thrax 16:51, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I have checked through the Old Testament which was translated into Greek in around about 280-260 BC and the name of Abrahams father (and other names) is transliterated into Greek as θαρα using theta for the Hebrew letter Tav in TRH rather than the Greek letter Tau which is what you should expect. This proves that the Hebrew letter Tav had a dual pronunciation in Hellenistic times and that pronunciation was either T or modern Greek Θ. Since the bible was written in Babylon in about 600 or 500 BC it is highly unlikely that Tau could have suddenly changed its sound in only 200 years at the time the Septuagint was written. Hebrew Tav must have had a duel sound at the time the bible was written and the name of Abrahams father was Tharah and not Tarah. This means that in Attic inscriptions of this time TH must have been pronounced as modern Greek theta since they use the same alphabet as the Hebrews. --Thrax 17:32, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

The bible also transliterates the Hebrew letter Kaf as Hi (χ) in Greek in the name "χους" (Cush) which in Hebrew is written KVS (Kaf, Vav, Samech). This proves that Hi was pronounced H in Greek and not kH otherwise Kaf would have been transliterated directly as Kappa. Similarly the bible transliterates the Hebrew letter Pe as Fi (φ) insted of Pi and the Hebrew letter Tet as Delta instead of Tau in Greek in the name "φουδ" which in Hebrew is written PVT (Genesis 10:6 LXX and Ben Asher Hebrew text). This proves that Fi was pronounced F and that Tet was pronounced the same way as modern Greek theta and that delta had a fricative sound otherwise the confusion with delta would not have taken place. --Thrax 17:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

The only bit where he really states that no change ever took place is the issue of distinctive vowel length (and that, incidentally, is the one bit of his article where he provides absolutely no empirical evidence!) - As for whether we should include Caragounis at all, yes, I think we should. I strongly believe he is a crackpot, but there are respectable people out there, for instance among his fellow theologians, who take him seriously, if for no other reason than lack of access to the more technical linguistic literature. I think they are ill informed if they do that, but they represent a substantial portion of the community of scholars who are genuinely and honestly interested in the matter.--Lukas 22:08, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

The traditional (or if you prefer Reuchlinian, historical or whatever once can call it) system cannot be represented by Caragounis. I'll give historical info on both systems but I don't know yet if there is someone who can be compared to Bambiniotis or Allen and supports the traditional system. Caragounis is one thing, criticism of the reconstructed system is another (different) thing. Thrax if you can provide book names by linguists who support the traditional system and I'll try to check them at a library, along with other books that we have listed here (in the talk page). +MATIA ☎ 21:30, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

It has already been pointed out that from its onset linguists and classicists have challenged the reconstructed pronunciation and they insisted that ancient Greek was pronounced exactly like modern Greek in all respects. That is the historical Greek pronunciation. The evidence given for this argument is the same evidence and the refutations are the same refutations that Caragounis has presented in his paper. If you have $200 to spare Chrys C. Caragounis book "Development of Greek & the New Testament". Mohr Siebeck (2004) might be useful. --Thrax 21:39, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

From Caragounis paper note 11 "For example, a Greek scholar wrote a book of 752 pages (TH. Papadhmhtrakopoulou, Basanos twn peri ths ellhnikhs proforas Erasmikwn apodeixewn, En A8hnais, 1889) setting forth the evidence available then in vindication of the historical Greek pronunciation and at the same time showing the untenability of the arguments of Blass as well as other advocates of Erasmianism." --Thrax 21:45, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Call this scientific

Can anyone translate the German in Caragounis note 12

"12 Regrettably the argumentation sometimes exceeded scientific propriety. F. Blass, for example, impelled by the nineteenth century Romantic view of ancient Greece, according to which all subsequent development was a retrogression (cf. his evaluative comment that the Italians are not "die reine Nachkommen der alten Römer", 1st ed. p. 8) called the Modern Greeks as well as the Byzantines "half-barbarians" ("Wohl sind die Neugriechen und waren die Byzantiner micoba&rbaroi" [1st ed. p. 8]) and condemned Modern Greek as barbarous, corrupt and worthless (despite the fact that the three editions of his book give ample evidence that he was not acquainted with Modern Greek phonology), cf. e.g. 1st ed. p.7: "Die Sprache eines Homer oder Platon nach derjenigen der Syrer des dritten Jahrhunderts oder der verkommenen Byzantiner umzuwandeln, wäre die reine Barbarei";

"To modify the language of a Homer or a Platon in accordance with that of a Syrian of the 3rd century, or with that of the degenerate Byzantines, would be barbaric indeed." --transl.:Lukas 23:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

p. 8: "Folglich ist die historische Grundlage [i.e. the Modern Greek pronunciation], welche die Reuchlinianer [who pronounced Greek in the Greek way] im Gegensatz zu uns [i.e. Erasmians] für sich in Anspruch nehmen, eine gänzlich nichtige und wertlose"

"Thus, the historical basis claimed by the Reuchlinians for themselves as opposed to us is completely moot and worthless."--transl.:Lukas 23:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

(italics mine), and considered that the German pronunciation of Greek was practically identical with the true and genuine pronunciation not only of Homer, but also of the entire period during which the Greek language flourished — a strange position in view of the enormous epigraphical evidence to the effect that the pronunciation was undergoing deep changes in vth and ivth c. B.C.: "Unsere Aussprache ist in allen andern Punkten des Vokalismus fest genug begründet als die wenigstens annähernd wahre und echte nicht etwa nur der homerischen Zeit, sondern der gesammten Blütezeit der griechischen Nation. ¼ " (italics mine).

"Our pronunciation, in all other matters of vocalism, has solid foundations enough, as being the - at least approximately - true and genuine one, and that not only for the Homeric period, but for the whole hayday of the Greek nation."--transl.:Lukas 23:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

He ended both the 2nd and 3rd editions of his work by a remarkable sentence expressing arrogance and at the same time admission to have perverted ("Verhunzung") the pronunciation of Greek: "¼ die wirkliche Sprache aber mag eher noch mannigfaltiger gewesen sein, und es ist hiernach wohl vollends klar, welche ungeheuren Schwierigkeiten die griechische Aussprache für den Ausländer dargeboten haben muss. Wir haben es leichter, da uns niemand kontrolieren kann, und wenn es sich nicht schickt, ganz gleichgültig gegen eine bessere oder schlechtere Aussprache zu sein, so wollen wir auch andererseits nicht in pedantischer Weise uns so geberden, als ob eines Tages die alten Hellenen auferstehen und uns über die Verhunzung ihrer schönen Sprache zur Rechenschaft ziehen könnten" ! (italics mine). "

"But the real language is likely to have been even more varied, and that makes it entirely clear what immense difficulties Greek pronunciation must have presented to the foreigner. We are in an easier position, since nobody is there to control us; and even though it would not be right to be completely indifferent about a better or worse pronunciation, we should nevertheless not act like pedants, as if we expected that one day the ancient Hellenes might arise from the dead and hold us responsible for how we have perverted their beautiful language."--transl.:Lukas 23:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

--Thrax 22:00, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

This constitutes evidence that the so-called reconstructed pronunciation was never an objective scientific theory but one sided theory which imposed Germanic pronunciation on Greek and despite the evidence presented against it which was more than enough call its credibility into question even by the admission of its own advocated it was only adopted because the Greeks could not fight back. This evidence should be included in the article to show that the reconstructed pronunciation has never been scientifically proven but was adopted purely on racial grounds. Its nothing more than the local Germanic pronunciation of Greek and a a deliberate academic fraud by the admission of its own advocates. --Thrax 15:46, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid the last two phrases (has never been scientifically proven till fraud) are absolutely wrong and do the opposite than supporting your arguments. I've posted in this talk page some links before, please check them (for example review of a greek translation of the Dialogue). My personal advice is to forget about Caragounis and find a better scientist (someone like Allen but from the other side) who supports your view, or criticizes the reconstructed system. +MATIA ☎ 16:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Reuchlin

+MATIA, I noticed you rearranged some material in my earlier changes in the section dealing with Erasmus. I'm now a bit confused about the reference to Reuchlin, because he gets a work attributed to him with exactly the same tite as Erasmus'. Did he really write such a work, or is that a misunderstanding, as I suspect? Also, if I'm not mistaken, Reuchlin seems to have died (1522) before Erasmus published his dialogue (1528), so what would Reuchlin have had to "defend"? Do we have a source for Reuchlin's role in this story?--Lukas 23:02, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

The phrase (defend etc) is from Johann Reuchlin which in turns is from the 11th edition of Britanica (now in Public Domain and usually refered to as the 1911 encyclopedia because Britanica has the trademark over the name).
Reuchlin and Erasmus had one or more common teachers and they were taught greek with the traditional system.
My guesses are that a) Erasmus (while reading ancient greek texts) noticed some problems (some of them can be read here: b, z, theta, phi, x) started discussing with Reuchlin and others about it b) Reuchlin wrote his dialogue in 1519 c) Erasmus wrote his dialogue later. Note that the (partly) common title in latin means "correct pronunciation of Greek and Latin" (or something like that)
So we have the wiki articles about Reuchlin and Erasmus that are from a good source (1911 brit.) and my rearrangment of material was moving phrases (and not changing them) in order to get the chronological order. +MATIA ☎ 23:23, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

The articles at the above links are original research. They are completely unproven speculations and the use of Dionysios Thrax as the primary justification for these speculations renders them completely untenable since Dionysios Thrax (100 BC) is describing modern Greek pronunciation that everyone now accepts was being used in Hellenistic times. To claim that Dionysios Thrax is describing that zeta should be pronounced zd when in fact he is describing the sound of s superposed with the modern Greek sound of delta in a digraph that is pronounced like modern z is completely fraudulent. It is clear dissembling. Nobody claims that Latin z was zd and everyone is aware that in Hebrew and Arabic the sound z is given its own distinct symbol Zein or Ze and in Linear B z also has its own unique symbol and is never represented as sd. The claim that zeta was pronounced zd is a clear academic farud using evidence which has been fraudulently interpreted (which Caragounis has fully refuted) and with grammarians accounts that have been deliberately dissembled. The same holds true about the dasea and mediae where Dionysios Thrax is main justification for this original research on the reconstructed pronunciation although it is universally accepted that he is describing modern Greek pronunciation that was fully developed in Hellenistic times. By Dionysios Thrax description of the mediae Beta must be the sound in between Pi and Fi and that implies that Fi must be a fricative otherwise P followed by PH just gives P once again as the intermediate sound. It is clear that apart from original research the reconstructed pronunciation can provide no physical evidence to substantiate it at all because it is based on false conclusions drawn form the German mispronunciation of Latin. --Thrax 16:13, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Can you imagine what would happen if we applied your definition of WP:NOR at Caragounis? The articles at http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/farg/harry/lan/ give examples from Allen's Vox Graeca (I have checked VG) and Sturtevant's "The Pronunciation of Greek and Latin". We do need more examples and more opinions by scientists and especially linguists. I'm not going to express an opinion on interpreting Dionysios Thrax because I'm not an expert, but I agree that we should analyse his grammar. +MATIA ☎ 16:32, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

note: I've updated the list (apart from erasmus and reuchlin, we should analyse etacism and iotacism - check a nice example previously given by Philx). +MATIA ☎ 23:40, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Matia. I still feel we should check up on this Reuchlin reference. I've not been able to verify so far that a work by that author under that title ever existed.--Lukas 23:57, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Apart from 1911, I had checked the Eleftheroudakis encyclopedia (it is like the greek britanica of the 1960s) and I'll try to translate the related text and present it here (unless someone provides web links about iotacism, etacism, Reuchin or the traditional system in the mean time) to help us document both views etc. +MATIA ☎ 00:06, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll try and check the folloing: H.A. Stoll, Erasmisches u. Reuchlinisches Griechisch?. In: J. Irmscher (Hrsg.), Renaissance u. Humanismus in Mittel- u. Osteuropa I. Berlin 1962, 89-97.

Looks like just what we need! --Macrakis 14:52, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Apart from that, I now find that Reuchlin in 1518 had published a work on the pronunciation of Hebrew, but nothing I can find about Greek ("De accentibus et orthographia linguae hebraicae").

This link: [19], found at the German WP page on Reuchlin, lists the following works that might be relevant:

• "Mikropaideia", textbook of Greek, between 1479-1481
• "De quattuor Graecae linguae differentiis", letter to Bishop Johannes von Dahlberg, 1489.

--Lukas 08:45, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Move "Traditional Greek" (Caragounis) discussion to subpage?

I propose that the discussion of the Traditional Greek (Caragounis) position vs. the widely-accepted reconstruction be moved to a subpage. That discussion has come to take over this Talk page. Once we do that, the discussion on Caragounis and criticism of the usual reconstruction can continue there, while discussion of the usual reconstruction and other consensus matters can proceed more smoothly here. --Macrakis 17:23, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm very sceptical about this one. Can you please clarify? I think that identifying the traditional system with Caragounis is more wrong than identifying the modern reconstructed system with Erasmus. +MATIA ☎ 17:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

No since it would constitute an attempt to turn the page on Greek pronouncation in to an unchallenged POV rant on the totally unscientific reconstructed pronunciation. The next step would be to remove all links to the new page and then to attempt to have the new page deleted entirely. --Thrax 17:37, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

To clarify, I was proposing having a separate Talk subpage, not a separate main page. --Macrakis 18:03, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

In that case, we could archive the talk page and continue the discussion on the traditional at the archive and general discussion for the article here. I'd like to hear the opinions of the rest editors about it before moving the talk page. +MATIA ☎ 18:26, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

By all means, this page is getting too big. But I'm afraid this is not going to solve our structural problem. As long as Thrax is determined to dictate his agenda to the rest of us, there's no way of stopping him, and he'll likely continue to follow the discussion wherever it goes, and make any page spill over. :-( --Lukas 20:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

We can at least separate out the Caragounis discussion, so that more serious issues can be discussed here. If the discussion spills over onto this page, we can clip & paste it into the Caragounis subpage. kwami 22:41, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Transliteration of Hebrew into ancient Greek

I've moved this from further up to its own heading for comment.

In Hebrew the letter Pe has two pronunciations P or F therefore when this letter was adopted by the Greeks from the proto-Sinaitic script which was also used by the Phoenicians and Hebrews it must also have been of dual value, just like Bet in Hebrew is of dual value B or V and Kaf in Hebrew is of dual value K or Kh (as in German ich) and Hebrew Tav is of dual value, T or S. Further more the name of the Hebrew letter Tav clearly indicates that the au diphthong in Greek Tau should be pronounced as av like it is in the Hebrew name. On top of this Hebrew has a letter called Zayin and two letters called Tzade (one of them is only used at the end of words) therefore if Greek Zeta was pronounced as ZD or DZ why wasn't the Hebrew letter Tzade used by the Greeks instead of Zayin which is a pure Z sound. It is clear that all of the evidence from Hebrew supports the historical Greek pronunciation and completely demolishes that fraudulent reconstructed pronunciation which pays no heed to any comparative linguistics but instead based all of its conclusions on the German mispronunciation of Latin and even then nobody ever claims that Latin F was ever pronounced pH. If Pe had a dual pronunciation in Hebrew then why not Greek. That would also explain why P was originally used in Latin to represent both P and F before the digamma was adapted to represent F and the Fi symbol was added to Greek to replace PH. --Thrax 16:51, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I have checked through the Old Testament which was translated into Greek in around about 280-260 BC and the name of Abrahams father (and other names) is transliterated into Greek as θαρα using theta for the Hebrew letter Tav in TRH rather than the Greek letter Tau which is what you should expect. This proves that the Hebrew letter Tav had a dual pronunciation in Hellenistic times and that pronunciation was either T or modern Greek Θ. Since the bible was written in Babylon in about 600 or 500 BC it is highly unlikely that Tau could have suddenly changed its sound in only 200 years at the time the Septuagint was written. Hebrew Tav must have had a duel sound at the time the bible was written and the name of Abrahams father was Tharah and not Tarah. This means that in Attic inscriptions of this time TH must have been pronounced as modern Greek theta since they use the same alphabet as the Hebrews. --Thrax 17:32, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

The bible also transliterates the Hebrew letter Kaf as Hi (χ) in Greek in the name "χους" (Cush) which in Hebrew is written KVS (Kaf, Vav, Samech). This proves that Hi was pronounced H in Greek and not kH otherwise Kaf would have been transliterated directly as Kappa. Similarly the bible transliterates the Hebrew letter Pe as Fi (φ) insted of Pi and the Hebrew letter Tet as Delta instead of Tau in Greek in the name "φουδ" which in Hebrew is written PVT (Genesis 10:6 LXX and Ben Asher Hebrew text). This proves that Fi was pronounced F and that Tet was pronounced the same way as modern Greek theta and that delta had a fricative sound otherwise the confusion with delta would not have taken place. --Thrax 18:00, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

If I understand correctly you prove that the changes took place before the 3rd century bC (something already mentioned in the article about Koine). +MATIA ☎ 18:30, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

It's seriously non sequitur - but we should probably not discuss this further here. If this isn't "Original Research", then what is? I should very much urge that arguments along these lines, which are Thrax' invention and his alone, should not be included in the article on any account.--Lukas 20:04, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I have proven that there were never any changes in Greek pronunciation of the consonants period because Hebrew used fricatives and dual value letters that correspond to the Greek fricatives since at least the 6th century when the bible was written otherwise the Hebrew letters in Hebrew names which did not exist in Greek would have been transliterated directly with the same letters in ancient Greek instead of different ones if a transition to becoming fricatives had only just started in both languages in Hellenistic times. The fact that Hebrew has three letters Zayin, Tzade, and Tzade (terminal) and that only Zayin was used in Greek proves that zeta could never have been pronounced as zd or dz since the time the Hebrew/Phoenician alphabet was devised. This proof is in addition to Caragounis independent and not reliant on Caragounis proof using Greek inscriptions and Dionysios description of the sounds of the mediae which can only be apple to modern Greek pronunciation. Therefore together these proofs totally and utterly demolish the reconstructed pronunciation in its entirety and that's not even including the fact that Latin represents the dasea as fricatives and Sanskrit represents the letter corresponding to Hi (χ) with the sound of H which is enough to bury the reconstructed pronunciation period. --Thrax 19:06, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Andreas' changes

Thanks, Andreas, for your initiative towards a rewrite. I agree with the idea, I've just corrected the summary of Caragounis' position and added a bit more concrete information on that of Teodorsson. I ought to look it up so we can include more precise datings as he gives them. I took out the reference to Proto-Indo-European, because I think that didn't fit Caragounis' position well enough. To be sure, it would be the logical consequence if one were to follow up his argument consistently, but he himself is plainly not interested in reconstructions going back beyond ancient Greek.--Lukas 20:15, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Greek digamma

If thrax's accounts are true someone has to explain me that: F is digamma, pronounced V.

• Greek Latin Myceneum
• Foinos vinum wono(s)
• Foikos vicus woiko
• Fanax wanaka
• Fesperos vesper

So why semitic veth wasn't supplied by digamma and beth by beta? F.S.S.D Philx 20:25, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi Philx, no offense, but I think we ought not to go down this road of discussing the Phoenician>Greek alphabet links too, at least not on this page that's already spilling over. Just very quickly, Lat. <V> and Greek <F> and Semitic <waw> are all thought to have been [w], not [v] (i.e. like English "wine", not Italian "vino"). I'm not sure what the relevance would be with respect to beth. We can move this to our talk pages, if you like. --Lukas 20:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Digamma was originally pronounced W in Greek and Latin and in Hebrew it is also pronounced O and U as well as W. Hence the Hebrew name YHWH is pronounced Yahweh in Hebrew not Jehovah. --Thrax 22:42, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

two questions

Why the article was renamed, again?

The phrase "In spite of this, the idea that the pronounciation of Ancient Greek in classical times was identical to that of Modern Greek is widespread among Greeks outside the academic community." needs to be rewritten according to NPOV. And I expect explanations from Andreas for his too bold removal of paragraphs. +MATIA ☎ 20:39, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

This is not about phonetics, because it deals partly this the confluence of phonemes such as /ai/ and /e/ to a single phoneme /e/, etc. See the definition of phonetics and phonology and Lukas's contribution who is a linguist.

The passage "outside the academic community" is admittedly not ideal, because there are no sources. One could quote http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/farg/harry/lan/grkphon.htm but this is also a personal view. See also the contribution to this talkpage by the anonymous McGill student.

I removed whole paragraphs because by consensus, the socalled "historical" or "traditional" pronounciation is marginal and therefore has not to be explained in detail. Everybody can read Caragounis's article as a citation is given. I also removed the anecdote because as an anecdote and does not belong into an encyclopedia. I removed some arguments in favor of the reconstructed pron. introduced by Thrax because they were not conclusive. Maybe we should look at the French page for a better description of the arguments. Andreas 21:03, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

You removed the evidence and the anecdote in order to suppress the opposing view. The historical Greek pronouncation is not a marginal view but a view held be a significant minority and a majority of academies in Greece including Professor Dionysios Karvelas, Anna Tziropoulou-Eustathiou, Professor Kariofilis Mitsakis, Professor Napoleon Mitsis, Professor Nicholas Petrohilos and Professor Panagiotis F. Christopoulos. That satisfies the Wikipeda definition of a significant minority view which questions the reconstructed pronunciation, and along with the evidence of Papadhmhtrakopoulou it constitutes the majority view in Greece. --Thrax 22:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I urge you to read again the consensus you are talking about. There was no consenus for your too bold edit. I expect you to revert it properly. Caragounis is at the edge of marginal, deleting paragraphs about the history of the two systems is at the edge of vandalism. +MATIA ☎ 21:06, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

This is disapointing. +MATIA ☎ 21:27, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I have reverted to the last neutral version as edited by Lucas. Andreas edits are pure POV vandalism. --Thrax 21:33, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

The consensus statement clearly states that the Caragounis position is marginal, and needs to be minimized. Andreas is carrying out the consensus. Matia, I am confused by your reaction. No one yet has found a serious modern source except Caragounis (to the extent that he's serious) claiming that the modern pronunciation is correct. It is time for Thrax to stop vandalizing. --Macrakis 21:43, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree that quite a bit of underwood had to be cut out of this article, but maybe Matia is right that Adreas was a bit over-zealous. My suggestion, in order to avoid an all-out edit war, is to leave it with the minimized version for the moment, as with Andreas' cuts, wait a day until things have settled down a bit, see that we get a new, more cogent structural outline for the whole article, and then start looking what, if any, of the deleted material can sensibly be reinstated. In principle, I agree that the consensus is that the Caragounis position should take up much less space than before. But once that is done, we also wouldn't need the present list of pro-Erasmian arguments in that form, as it no longer has a structural counterpart. Really, my vote would be for a complete re-write.--Lukas 21:52, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Lukas, if you are willing to do this, this would be reallay great (at least from my POV). The french version at fr:Phonologie du grec ancien would be a good starting point if you read French. I do not object to a presentation of arguments in favor of a "Reuchlian" hypothesis as long as they present a broader spectrum of opinions in a historical perspective with references to prominent authors such as Reuchlin and Papadimitrakopoulos. One has not to forget that this is a sensitive question for many Greeks. Andreas 02:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC) See the recent review of the Greek translation of Erasmus's book with comments by the translator [20] Andreas 02:29, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I encourage anyone to read my previous comments on this talk page (especially a during the last 48 hours and b the various weblinks on my first comments here). +MATIA ☎ 21:55, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, you've been calling for an effort to find expert references supporting the non-Erasmian view instead of Caragounis, right? Well, I seriously think that no such are going to be forthcoming. They don't exist. Not from after 1900. - As for the links you provided in the beginning, I'm not sure if I've gone through all of them, but I didn't find anything that would have seriously challenged the consensus as Macrakis and Andreas and others now see it. One of them is clearly on the crackpot side [21], others more or less grudgingly admit that the Erasmian model is historically correct, but (understandably, of course) defend that the Modern Greek pronunciation is still more appropriate for practical use by Greeks or others, etc. But that's not the topic of our article here, is it?--Lukas 22:21, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

So everyone who disagrees with the reconstructed pronunciation including the university professors I have named is a crackpot. Brilliant argument in favour of the reconstructed pronunciation. Slander its opponents instead of providing counter arguments because the theory can't stand up for itself since its an academic fraud that any objective reader can see through. --Thrax 22:34, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I was also supporting the reconstructed system, and I was trying to convince Thrax to find something better than Caragounis. The links I've provided, apart from krassanakis (who I found after vasargyr) proove that the reconstructed system is considered correct even in greece (aka I disagree with your phrase around the word grudgingly). I don't recall finding someone like the names you 've mentioned yesterday, and you mess the Ancient greek in teaching in Greece, with the majority view (aka reconstructed) about how the ancient greeks spoke. Though the latest edit-war (or content-dispute if one prefers) shows that there is a consensus among some users to remove every reference on the historical debates, this is not WP:NPOV. I find it unencyclopedic and I agree with a previous (yesterday I think) comment by Iceager. Finaly, I'm afraid I still disagree with the bold edit and the edits that followed during the last one hour. We could have worked it out differently. +MATIA ☎ 22:44, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Re: "reference to the historical debates": Maybe there is a legitimate issue here about what the whole article is supposed to be about. As long as its topic is "Ancient Greek phonology/phonetics/pronunciation/whatever", I'd say we don't need much of that material, as it re-hashes a debate that is no longer relevant to the present state of the art. Besides, this whole article might be superfluous, because it's basically just doubling information that is already contained in several of the other Greek-related articles (and better, in my view -- see, e.g. the article on Koine Greek.) However, it would be quite possible to write an interesting and illuminating article about the history of the reconstruction of classical Greek pronunciation. An exercise not in historical linguistics, but in the history of linguistics, as it were. In such an article, Erasmus and Reuchlin and Jannaris and Xadzidakis and even Caragounis could all be treated at length. I think the discussion about the present article has been tending towards such a perspective, and maybe we should move the whole article in that direction?--Lukas 23:56, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I think that now you understand me better. +MATIA ☎ 00:17, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Good, I think we agree on most things. If other editors are also interested in expanding the "history-of-the-debate-over-reconstruction" perspective, the next big task is apparently to get someone to summarise Iannaris and/or Papadimitrakopoulos, as the main historical proponents of an anti-Erasmian view in the 19th century, and maybe Xadzidakis as their decisive opponent. It would also be interesting to find out when and through whom the then-modern movement of Indo-European linguistic reconstruction made contact with the Greek-pronunciation debate - for instance, when and on what arguments did Indo-Europeanists begin to assume an aspirated-plosive value for φ/θ/χ, contrary to Erasmus?--Lukas 09:01, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Lukas, shouldn't that be a different article? 'Conceptions of Ancient Greek' or something? I would expect an article on the phonology of Ancient Greek to present the consensus opinion of the phonology of Ancient Greek, only mentioning alternatives to the extent that there is actually debate within the academic community, and leaving the history to a summary. kwami 09:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely, it would be a different article. Sorry if I didn't state this clearly enough. Of course it would have to be renamed again. The point is, an article on "phonology of Ancient Greek" alone is superfluous, because that topic is covered quite sufficiently elsewhere. As I see it, this whole article seems to have been originally created simply to provide a ground for dealing with Thrax' insistence on his minority view. To get the other, main articles on Greek language history out of the line of fire, as it were. With all the Thrax stuff in, it seemed to stand beside those other articles like a kind of POV-fork. Now that we've reached a consensus about the fringiness of Thrax' position, within the context of the present state of the art in linguistics, the whole article is in high danger of becoming obsolete. So, if we want to rescue those elements of the article that really do contain valuable information and represent the results of some constructive work by several editors here, my view is that we should redefine its whole scope, in such a way that it no longer doubles the contents elsewhere. Alternatively, I'd vote for deletion.--Lukas 11:09, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

An article on a specific scientific subject can easily have sections devoted to the history of the subject, e.g. in the article on surgery there is a long section on the history of surgery. The analogue of that in an article on the reconstructed pronounciation of ancient Greek would in my opinion be a section along the lines which Lukas is proposing. I feel that that section should come after a section on the generally accepted view and could possibly replace the section on the arguments for that view because the history should show general convergence towards that view. If the section gets overly long we could split it of, but in the first instance I think we should keep it here. Stefán Ingi 11:00, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

question: "fringe view"

Is this phrase "Koine had seven vowels, two of which η and ω were long, two ε and ο were short and three α, ι, υ were either long or short." a fringe view? +MATIA ☎ 22:56, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Not a fringe view, but technically incorrect. Correct is that Greek has seven vowel symbols, of which two stood for long vowels, two for short vowels and three for either long or short. As a linguist I'd insist it's vital to keep the terminology clear in this respect. How many vowels (i.e. vowel sounds) there were, is a different question. Sorry I can't right now find what context that sentence stands or stood in; I guess whether or not it needs fixing or can be deleted will heavily depend on the context. --Lukas 23:43, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Anyway I hope the following will help us.

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d92/eyes60/erasmus/erasmus-1.jpg http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d92/eyes60/erasmus/erasmus-2.jpg http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d92/eyes60/erasmus/erasmus-3.jpg

From Eleftheroudakis (1962) encyclopedia. +MATIA ☎ 23:25, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Difficult to read on my machine right now. I'll give it a try later.--Lukas 23:43, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I looked at them. Thanks for posting this. Yes, the article is useful, insofar as it supports our reference list of what were the principal proponents of the relevant views up to c.1900, and they support the view that mainstream linguistics within Greece has turned towards accepting the Erasmian view, with Xadzidakis as the decisive figure around the turn of the 20th century. That can easily be worked in.--Lukas 08:48, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

The Evidence for the reconstructed pronunciation. Discuss

An Aesop's fable in the form of a Latin dialogue between two animals that was written by Erasmus and which he later disowned and told all his friends to disown.

I'll re-word the passage in the article to avoid this kind of misunderstanding: the Dialogus is not a fable, much less an Aesopian one, and its protagonists aren't animals. Read it. They are just fictional characters, clearly supposed to be humans, living in the real world of 16th-century Germany. It's just that their names are "Leo" and "Ursus" (both of which are also perfectly normal christian names for people.) It's simply a piece in the traditional literary genre of the philosophical dialogue, just like Plato. It was a very common device for presenting ideas at the time.--Lukas 07:45, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Well come on all of you that support the reconstructed pronunciation, discuss the evidence. I'm going to have a bath like Archimedes, --Vregamoto 23:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

blocked Thrax

I counted 9 reverts of the same material by Thrax in under 2 hours, and have therefore blocked him for 24 hours. Please use this time to consolidate a consensus version of the article, and to work out any issues that the rest of you might have with each other.

Since there were so many editors reverting Thrax, and Thrax was in such gross violation of 3RR, I did not take the time to examine the contents of all of your changes during the past 24 hours. However, in the future please be aware that supporting a 'concensus' version is no excuse for violating 3RR, and that I will need to block anyone who goes over, not just Thrax. As long as your contributions are well supported by the editing comunity, 3RR shouldn't be a problem. kwami 23:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I've lifted Thrax's block with the warning that any further reverts within 24 hrs of his last edit today will again put him in violation of 3RR. kwami 02:56, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

A vast improvement

Congratulations to Lukas and anyone else involved in the current draft, which is a vast improvement. Now that we've got the history so clearly stated I withdraw my previous suggestion that the references to Erasmus should be removed. --rossb 11:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

about WP:NPOV: This article name used to be Ancient Greek pronunciation. While I don't exactly understand the difference between phonology and phonetics, I don't think it's a good idea to move this article around renaming it (one can check the history for the various title changes). WP:NPOV is the policy we should comply with, at all events. The (modern) reconstructed system, Allen's Vox Graeca, the (original) erasmian system, Dionysious Thrax's grammar (see external link), the (reuchlinian) traditional system, Caragounis position and User:Thrax's contributions are 7 different things, yet most of them are related to the article. My suggestions are to improve the article instead of renaming it, engaging edit wars and splitting it. Let's get this article into a higher quality level with the help of all interested parties. Thanks for reading this and good luck to everyone. (I'll probably take a wikibreak one of these days) +MATIA ☎ 12:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not in the mood of editing the article right now. Perhaps this should be checked by people who are involved in the last edits, so when (or if) user Thrax comes back, he'll find a much better article than the previous (let's say 2 days ago) one. (note I don't want to satisfy Thrax and I disagree with Caragounis POV, I'm interested in NPOV and I think all of us are). +MATIA ☎ 13:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I've taken the freedom of continuing along the lines I started this morning, which has led to another rather big additon to the history section. I now see the section has involuntarily become rather large. If the whole topic-drift is not to the liking of other editors or if you feel it's too long, please feel free to shorten or restructure or move somewhere else. It might need intermediate headings too. I hope it's not too bad from the NPOV perspective. I might not again have that much time to go on contributing over the next few days. Lukas 14:01, 30 November 2005 (UTC)