I have studied ancient Greek extensively in highschool, even memorizing Medea in metric pronunciation from start to finish as part of my final high school exam. Imagine going through all of that work just to find out that all of it was done in a very flawed and arbitrary pronunciation, far from reality of what actual ancient Greek would have sounded like. Thank you very much for this video, it was greatly educational and illuminating! Love from Italy
Outstanding Dr. Zachariou. As a student of Neohellenic (Modern) Greek for a number of years I've always thought (known?) that Erasmian pronunciation could not possibly be correct, but didn't have the tools/knowledge to explain it. Thank you for this video, I already have the book and now need to sit down and read it.
@@PhilemonZachariou Just finished reading the book yesterday. Really enjoyed it. Your book simply confirms what I have always thought must be true, that Erasmian is not even close to Greek pronunciation, but I never really understood why. Now I do. Your book should be required reading in seminaries, theology schools and universities where Greek is taught!
Extremely useful in demonstrating the evidence that modern Greek pronunciation has not significantly changed in 4,000 years. I would like to see some more advanced work on this.
Very well expressed with plain and clear argumentation! I salute you for this much needed video! I remember when I first heard the Erasmian pronunciation 😅, it took me 3 seconds to laugh... then I wanted to cry...
I read the Greek New Testament and English New Testament, 1 Greek verse, then the same verse in English, aloud every single day. 1-3 chapters at a time. I do not have anyone anywhere around here who doesn't use Erasmian pronunciation to talk with about the Greek New Testament. Every single person I hear quote a Greek New Testament word, or XLL word, sounds weird to me. I realize, also, hardly any of them study the Greek New Testament, let alone read, or practice the pronunciation of the Greek after they leave seminary or the institution where they learned the language. I'm very thankful for Dr. Zachariou's videos. May God be praised in the name - Ιησού Χριστού !
Friend, you remind me of Matthew 13:44-46 ! You have found a treasure that seems hidden under the noses of those seminarians who are, or choose to be, unaware of what they miss. Reading the NT and the LXX using the right Greek pronunciation, as you do, brings you closer to the very sounds encapsulated, as it were, in the folios of the original Greek MSS. Thank you for sharing! -PZ
I was lucky enough to start learning Koine with the modern Greek pronunciation, along with a native Greek tutor. Now when I hear Erasmian pronunciation it sounds like nails on a chalkboard.
Very interesting. Thank you for your valuable work. It's refreshing to have the insight of a native Greek-speaker. The research you present in this video and in your book sounds the death knell for Erasmian pronunciation. Academics for one reason or another have held on to it for too long.
I'm curious about your opinion of learning the three different types of accents, the two breath marks, and the subscripted iota when it comes to the study of κοινε. I don't plan on becoming a scholar - I just want to be able to be able to read the NT and the Septuagint along with the some of the works of the early church fathers. Do you think knowing these different marks is useful for understanding the grammar, or can I safely skip them and just mark the accented syllable? Another question I have is, how valuable do you think it would be for me to learn Modern Greek as well? I'm worried that I might confuse κοινε and Modern Greek, and though I did already spend a few years studying three forms of the Tibetan language (ancient, modern, and literary), I think not knowing the differences between the modern and ancient versions of Greek up front makes me question which way to go in my studies.
Excellent question. The most significant aspect of accents in NT Greek and the LXX is that the acute and the circumflex (aka tilde) indicate which syllable is to be slightly more stressed and raised to a higher pitch above all other syllables of a word. This is applied with greater accuracy when you read individual words, i.e., words in isolation. In conversational speed, some variation may occur, but the most significant part is that generally these two accent mark (acute and circumflex) can make a great difference in being understood by the native speaker/listener. There is no difference between the acoustic value of the acute accent mark and the circumflex: their difference is strictly grammatical, not acoustic. The grave accent mark technically indicates the absence of the acute accent. (You'll find that no dictionary entry form ever takes a grave accent.) Other than these points, accent marks are meaningless. One who knows which syllable in a word is stressed/raised to a higher pitch above al other syllables can read and understand the Greek text without the need to visually rely on such marks. So ἄνθρωπος is the same as ανθρωπος as long as you know that acoustically the stress is on the first syllable. But πότε "when?" is different from ποτέ "ever, never." In this case, in running text the accent may aid the eye, but even without the accent you could rely on the context. Remember that the ancients as well as the NT writers made no use of accent or breathing marks. So, shocking though it may sound to many, it is nevertheless true that stripping the Greek text of all accent marks and breathing marks does not change the text one iota. So, friend, I would concentrate on the more significant aspects of your study of Greek, rather than racking your brains trying to remember this or that rule regarding the application of the "correct" accent mark. Oops! I finished without addressing the so-called "iota" subscript. This tiny symbol is meaningless as far as pronunciation is concerned. The subscript is useful neither acoustically nor grammatically. If a noun is in the dative, it will be in the dative with or without the subscript. For that you could rely on your knowledge of grammatical forms and the context.-PZ
@@PhilemonZachariou Thank you so much for replying! I would certainly write in an accent mark on the appropriate syllable, because I know that accent shifts, and I want to learn the proper pronunciation. But I've spent a lot of time trying to keep track of when and why all the different accent marks change as the nouns go through the different declensions, and along with having to write in all these little marks on every word just takes so much time. Only writing one accent mark per word will save me a lot of trouble all the way around. I also asked you about your opinion about learning Modern Greek as well, did you see that question?
Regarding Modern Greek. Depending on how much exposure you get to the living sounds of Greek, what circles you find yourself in when in Greece (casual or academic), and other factors, Modern Greek can be of immense value in your study of Greek of any particular historical era or literary genre. I couldn't really give a better advice than the advice Cohen and Sellers give when they say: "One of these [advantages] is that the student is learning the sounds of a living language. A knowledge of the modern pronunciation will make it possible for the student to converse with native speakers, whether in his own country or abroad, . . . [which] makes much more possible an approach (however slight at first) toward the acquisition of language intuition. . . . [T]he constant learning and speaking of a real pronunciation system will undoubtedly facilitate a better intuition for semantic range and grammatical nuance. . . . In the light of the advantages of the modern pronun-ciation and the easy access to modern Greek materials as well as native speakers of Modern Greek, there seems to be no compelling reason to retain the Erasmian pronunciation system." Gary G. Cohen and C. Norman Sellers, “The Case for Modern Pronunciation of Biblical Languages,” Grace Theological Journal 5.2 (1984), 200-01. I hope this helps. -PZ
@@PhilemonZachariou I've already finished half of two textbooks on biblical Greek, but I put them down for a couple years and I recently decided to finally finish them. I've been using your videos as a guide to pronunciation since the beginning just for the reason you mentioned, because so many more resources would be open to me. And having learned many other languages in the past, the Erasmian and and other 'reconstructed' accents sound terrible to me. In any case, I think maybe I'll try a little Modern Greek and see what happens - couldn't hurt! Thanks again for your help🙂
As you may know, Modern Greek abolished the use of accent marks and breathing marks back in 1982. The only accent mark used today is the acute ( ´ ), which is placed on the stressed syllable. This really simplified things for learners of Greek (and for most Greeks who weren't familiar with accentuation rules). So you can see that the Greek speech is unaffected by the absence of those marks. Many Greeks do not bother even with the acute accent mark in their texting, emails, etc. But I think, like you said, the only one mark suffices, and that's all you need. -PZ
"The spelling mistakes provide the strongest proof of the pronunciation of classical Greek". What about the letter υ? Are there any instances in which it was misspelled as η, ει, ι or οι? If υ has today the same quality that it had in the classical period, why did the Romans have to adopt a foreign grapheme to represent a sound that would already exist in their language?
Hello, Nicolas, Around the time of Julius Ceasar (1st c. BC), Latin adopted Y to represent Greek words and loanwords containing the grapheme (letter) Y. Latin phonology of course already had the sound [i], but its alphabet did not have the grapheme Y for Greek loanwords containing Y. At the time of its adoption into Latin, Υ(υ) had long been confused with I(ι), e.g., CIGNVS cignus for ΚΥΚΝΟΣ κύκνος "swan." To differentiate between I and Greek-invented Y, the Romans named Y i-Graeca “Greek [i]”-NOT [ü]!-a name still used among Romance languages today. Now if you go back to the video you saw and fast-forward to 17:37 min., you will see that the confusion of graphemes that stood for the sound represented by ι was already in effect by classical times. As for the letter η, it was introduced into Attic around mid-5th century BC-officially in 403 BC. But it, too, was taken from the very start as a substitute for ει, the latter having already been confused with the sound represented by ι. I hope this helps. -PZ
@@PhilemonZachariou Oh I must have overlooked that bit. Thank you. There's just a couple of other questions I'd like to ask you - What about the quote from Cratinus: "The fool walks saying βη βη like a sheep"? Or the one from an anonymous writer: "The dog says βαύ βαύ..."? (or something along that line, I don't remember the exact wording). In comedies or tragedies you also often find onomatopoeic expressions such as "αιαι", which seems to have been used to express pain. It's hard to believe they were pronounced the way they would be according to modern Greek pronunciation rules... especially if one considers that in Italian for instance the dog says "bau bau" too, and "ahi ahi" is also an exclamation used to express pain (the English equivalent is ouch)
Hello again, Nicolas, I appreciate your questions. What Erasmians probably consider as the strongest evidence in support of the pronunciation of η as ε are the two fragmentary lines you are referring to by Kratinos and Aristophanes where βηβη and βη respectively represent the bleating of sheep: Ὁ δ᾽ ἠλίθιος ὥσπερ πρόβατον βῆ βῆ λέγων βαδίζει. -Kratinos Θύειν με μέλλει καὶ κελεύει βῆ λέγειν. -Aristophanes First, the vowel H(η) cannot belong to Kratinos (520-423 BC) and hardly to Aristophanes (450-386 BC). In Kratinos’ case the vowel H had not yet been introduced to the Attic script, and in Aristophanes’ case H had not yet been introduced officially. Kratinos, accustomed to the old Attic use of E both for [e] and [i] sounds, would have written ΒΕΒΕ (βεβε), not ΒΗΒΗ (βηβη), and Aristophanes ΒΕ(βε) not ΒΗ(βη). Thus it cannot be deduced from these fragmentary lines that Attic H can be interpreted as E[e]. Cries of animals cannot be relied upon as a guide to the pronunciation of language sounds. For if a sheep goes bεε in Greek but baa in English (and I am not sure about Italian), one might as well adduce that the same kind of animal, be it a sheep, a dog, a cow, or a lion, must make a different sound in every country where a different language is spoken! Let me clarify further even at the risk of repeating myself. After the Persian wars, the Athenian came to realize that their pronunciation was much different from the Homeric sounds. At the same time, their old Attic script was inadequate in representing long and short syllables in metered verse-mind you, in metered verse, not in regular speech. So, around 450 BC they began to borrow the Ionian symbols H(η) and Ω(ω) as compensatory symbols in verse. Soon, however, Η and Ω began to creep into prose as well. According to Plato (Πλάτων), that is when the Athenians began to spell a word, such as ημέρα, also ιμέρα or είμέρα, since these three symbols represented the same sound. The confusion that resulted from the interchange of ι, ε, and η did not depart even when Athens ratified the Ionic alphabet (403 BC) as the new Attic alphabet, which included H and Ω as regular alphabet letters. I trust the foregoing addresses your question regarding βῆ βῆ vs. βε βε. -PZ
Διδάσκω τους Βιετναμέζους τα αρχαία Ελληνικά. Πολύ χάρηκα. Σας Ευχαριστώ πολύ για το Βίδεο. Τώρα θα τους πώ να μάθουν την Ελληνική προφορά. God bless you
Hello! Your comments were automatically held for review and I just now saw them. My apologies! Your pronunciation of Greek is right on. Try to accent the syllable of a word where the accent is placed. In other words, raise accented syllables to a higher pitch. Avoid accenting with your voice syllables that are unaccented (without the accent mark). Your reading reminds me of how first graders read: slowly and "cautiously." Good job. Frankly, though, I would not publicize your videos as teaching tools until your reading flows more smoothly. But your vowels and consonants generally sound good. Kudos to you for your efforts and progress! -PZ
Thank you very much. I was looking for Greek readings of the New Testament, but none of the Erasmian versions flowed like a real language. They sound like isolated word and not a way people would speak in real life.
Thank you, Henrik, for sharing your view on Greek pronunciation. Indeed, Erasmian does not even approximate the natural historical sounds of Greek. -PZ
Dogma dies hard. Unfortunately, Erasmian Greek is here to stay and absolutely nothing will change Academia's collective, stubborn mind. As a Canadian of Greek extraction, a polyglot and an individual that has studied linguistic anthropology, albeit at the undergrad level, despite the absurd claims of the Erasmian camp, I will continue to read the Bible as it was read after Jesus and continue to consider Erasmaian Greek at the same level as the Cro Magnon Man hoax.
Thank God, the voice of reason against the nonsensical erasmian fallacy. For Christ sake check the Greek Orthodox church hymns people, centuries old preserving the correct pronunciation!
I want to congratule you, sir. Throught your work I met the books of Καραγκούνης and Γιάνναρης. Thanks you sir I free from an intelectual lethargy that had preventing me, that had embarassing me to study the greek language and literature as a whole. Eυχαριστώ! I aware to many questions but, by now, I'd like only to ask you sir how to spell your name in greek. I'll record it alongside those two giants of the Hellenic philology at my library. May God fill you with blessings! Greatings from an oversea portuguese land!
Hello, dear Monio in Portugal. Thank you for your kind words. My name in Greek is spelled Φιλήμων Ζαχαρίου. I am glad that you see, and rightly so, the works of authors Caragounis and Yannaris as products of giants of the Greek language. I would be honored to be even in the shadow of these great men. -PZ
@@PhilemonZachariou Ευχαριστώ!!! Είναι τόσο άθλια αυτή την προφορά και όμως την διδάσκουν σέ όλα τα θεολογικά πανεπιστήμια στην Ρουμανία, αλλά και στο Cambridge και Οξφόρδης.
Υπάρχει και "φόβος" οτι όταν αλλάξουν προφορά και χρησιμοποιούν κανονικά την Ελληνική προφορά, ο καθηγητής Ελληνικης στο Cambridge και στην Oxford θα πρέπει να κάνει αναφορά στον κοινό Ελληνα πολίτη! --ΦΖ
Why do you pronounce Kini when it is written koini. Oi must have been pronounced at one time otherwise it would not be written. Like knife in English used to be pronounced kanif and retained the spelling because it was pronounced at the time the spelling was decided.
Then, my dear JH R, why do we not pronounce "knife" [kanif] anymore? (I think you've answered your own question!) At any rate, we have enough written evidence that Greek ΟΙ by classical times was iotacized, that is, it merged with the sound of iota , or [i]. And that was much before New Testament times. -PZ
@@PhilemonZachariou Very glad to know I’m dear to you :-)) Ok so Ancient Greek was already ancient in classical time. And your point of reference is classical time. And so the spelling must have been set in the archaic period; now I know. I never pretended I knew anything about Greek, I’m just questioning. And now I wonder: if printing stabilized English spelling what stabilized the Greek one? Or the assertion about printing might be wrong of course and Ancient Greek could be an example.
Specifically with regard to what stabilized the Greek spelling was the official adoption and ratification of the Ionic alphabet by the Athenians in 403 BC under Archon (Ruler) Eucleides. The alphabet thus became known as ἡ μετ᾽ Εὐκλείδην γραμματική "the post-Eucleidean grammar" (script). That was not a spelling reformation, but rather the adoption a more definitive Attic script. Notably, the same alphabet and spelling rules have survived diachronically to this day. -PZ
ὁ δ' ἠλίθιος ὥσπερ πρόβατον βῆ βῆ λέγων βαδίζει. (Ancient Comedy author, 5th century BC) Sheep "saying" «vi vi» or not rather «bê bê» !?!? And how come the Romans transliterated φιλόσοφος as «philosophus» despite their having a sign (the letter F) to indicate a fricative form of φ ? Just some counter arguments. In general, there seems to have been an evolution during CENTURIES and not all at the same time in different regions of the vast Roman empire.
Dear eeepc admin, You have eloquently raised some important questions-and there are many more-all of which are dealt with in my book. There is of course no space to address them here, not even in video form. I am sure you would find the answers to your questions, if you cared to read the book. It was written for uninformed friends like you. -PZ
Different nationalities hear and transcribe onomatopoeic sounds in their own peculiar ways. See the wiki article "Cross-linguistic onomatopoeias". There is a section on "sheep bleating". In many languages sheep say: mee or maa or may. In fact, Georgian sheep say: ვეეე (veee). Perhaps, they migrated to Greece :). In "Peace", by Aristophanes, there is the following dialogue: TRYGAEUS What other victim do you prefer then? SERVANT A sheep. TRYGAEUS A sheep? SERVANT Yes. TRYGAEUS But you must give the word the Ionic form. SERVANT Purposely. So that if anyone in the assembly says, "We must go to war," all may start bleating in alarm, "Oi, oi." The bleating of these sheep is "Oi, oi".
What Erasmians probably consider as the strongest evidence in support of the pronun-ciation of η as ε are the two fragmentary lines by Kratinos and Aristophanes where βηβη and βη respectively represent the bleating of sheep: Ὁ δ᾽ ἠλίθιος ὥσπερ πρόβατον βῆ βῆ λέγων βαδίζει. -Kratinos Θύειν με μέλλει καὶ κελεύει βῆ λέγειν. -Aristophanes First, the vowel H(η) cannot belong to Kratinos (520-423 BC) and hardly to Aristophanes (450-386 BC). In Kratinos’ case the vowel H had not yet been introduced to the Attic script, and in Aristophanes’ case H had not yet been introduced officially. Kratinos, accustomed to the old Attic use of E both for [e] and [i] sounds, would have written ΒΕΒΕ (βεβε), not ΒΗΒΗ (βηβη), and Aristophanes ΒΕ(βε) not ΒΗ(βη). Thus it cannot be deduced from these fragmentary lines that Attic H can be interpreted as E[e]. Cries of animals cannot be relied upon as a guide to the pronunciation of language sounds. For if a sheep goes bεε in Greek but baa in English, one might as well adduce that the same kind of animal, be it a sheep, a dog, a cow, or a lion, must make a different sound in every country where a different language is spoken! -PZ
I have studied ancient Greek extensively in highschool, even memorizing Medea in metric pronunciation from start to finish as part of my final high school exam. Imagine going through all of that work just to find out that all of it was done in a very flawed and arbitrary pronunciation, far from reality of what actual ancient Greek would have sounded like.
Thank you very much for this video, it was greatly educational and illuminating!
Love from Italy
Thank you for your straightforward comments. Your feedback is appreciated, particularly because they are revealing. -PZ
Outstanding Dr. Zachariou. As a student of Neohellenic (Modern) Greek for a number of years I've always thought (known?) that Erasmian pronunciation could not possibly be correct, but didn't have the tools/knowledge to explain it. Thank you for this video, I already have the book and now need to sit down and read it.
Very encouraging words. Thank you! -PZ
@@PhilemonZachariou Just finished reading the book yesterday. Really enjoyed it. Your book simply confirms what I have always thought must be true, that Erasmian is not even close to Greek pronunciation, but I never really understood why. Now I do. Your book should be required reading in seminaries, theology schools and universities where Greek is taught!
Dear Neal, Your words and thoughts are at the top of my wish list. Students deserve what is right for them. Thank you!! -PZ
Such an informative video that answers all my question and relieves all my doubts about learning Greek.
Thank you for your affirmative comments. I hope many read them! -PZ
Extremely useful in demonstrating the evidence that modern Greek pronunciation has not significantly changed in 4,000 years. I would like to see some more advanced work on this.
Thank you kindly. There is more work coming up related to Greek pronunciation, though it never seems enough. Stay in touch (NTGreek@att.net). -PZ
I appreciate your insightful comments. More work in this area is needed indeed. -PZ
Hi Dr. Zachariou,
Would you please give us a lecture about the Greek of the Patristics. Thanks
Nice suggestion. -PZ
Very well expressed with plain and clear argumentation! I salute you for this much needed video!
I remember when I first heard the Erasmian pronunciation 😅, it took me 3 seconds to laugh... then I wanted to cry...
Thank you for your feedback. I am sure your initial reaction to Erasmian can be understood by numberless individuals. -PZ
Many thanks! Your book and lectures are of great help and much needed.
You're very welcome! -PZ
Great. Thanks
Please we are in a desperate need of more lectures about koine in modern Greek pronunciation
God bless you
Yes, of course. Thanks! -PZ
I agree with you , your explipication is really logical i wish you translate your book to Spanish one day cause i wanna understand it better
That may be possible. -PZ
I read the Greek New Testament and English New Testament, 1 Greek verse, then the same verse in English, aloud every single day. 1-3 chapters at a time. I do not have anyone anywhere around here who doesn't use Erasmian pronunciation to talk with about the Greek New Testament.
Every single person I hear quote a Greek New Testament word, or XLL word, sounds weird to me.
I realize, also, hardly any of them study the Greek New Testament, let alone read, or practice the pronunciation of the Greek after they leave seminary or the institution where they learned the language.
I'm very thankful for Dr. Zachariou's videos.
May God be praised in the name - Ιησού Χριστού !
Friend, you remind me of Matthew 13:44-46 ! You have found a treasure that seems hidden under the noses of those seminarians who are, or choose to be, unaware of what they miss. Reading the NT and the LXX using the right Greek pronunciation, as you do, brings you closer to the very sounds encapsulated, as it were, in the folios of the original Greek MSS. Thank you for sharing! -PZ
Got your book many thanks. I'm trying to get more of your resources.
Thank you kindly. Contact me at NTGreek@att.net, or go to my website: Greeklinguistics.net. -PZ
Thanks I will order tomorrow.
I was lucky enough to start learning Koine with the modern Greek pronunciation, along with a native Greek tutor. Now when I hear Erasmian pronunciation it sounds like nails on a chalkboard.
Well put, my friend. That's exactly how Erasmian sounds to me as well! -PZ
Very interesting. Thank you for your valuable work. It's refreshing to have the insight of a native Greek-speaker. The research you present in this video and in your book sounds the death knell for Erasmian pronunciation. Academics for one reason or another have held on to it for too long.
Your thoughts are very much appreciated! -PZ
It is my pleasure. Thank you! -PZ
Death knell? Amen to that!
I'm curious about your opinion of learning the three different types of accents, the two breath marks, and the subscripted iota when it comes to the study of κοινε. I don't plan on becoming a scholar - I just want to be able to be able to read the NT and the Septuagint along with the some of the works of the early church fathers. Do you think knowing these different marks is useful for understanding the grammar, or can I safely skip them and just mark the accented syllable?
Another question I have is, how valuable do you think it would be for me to learn Modern Greek as well? I'm worried that I might confuse κοινε and Modern Greek, and though I did already spend a few years studying three forms of the Tibetan language (ancient, modern, and literary), I think not knowing the differences between the modern and ancient versions of Greek up front makes me question which way to go in my studies.
Excellent question. The most significant aspect of accents in NT Greek and the LXX is that the acute and the circumflex (aka tilde) indicate which syllable is to be slightly more stressed and raised to a higher pitch above all other syllables of a word. This is applied with greater accuracy when you read individual words, i.e., words in isolation. In conversational speed, some variation may occur, but the most significant part is that generally these two accent mark (acute and circumflex) can make a great difference in being understood by the native speaker/listener. There is no difference between the acoustic value of the acute accent mark and the circumflex: their difference is strictly grammatical, not acoustic. The grave accent mark technically indicates the absence of the acute accent. (You'll find that no dictionary entry form ever takes a grave accent.) Other than these points, accent marks are meaningless. One who knows which syllable in a word is stressed/raised to a higher pitch above al other syllables can read and understand the Greek text without the need to visually rely on such marks. So ἄνθρωπος is the same as ανθρωπος as long as you know that acoustically the stress is on the first syllable. But πότε "when?" is different from ποτέ "ever, never." In this case, in running text the accent may aid the eye, but even without the accent you could rely on the context. Remember that the ancients as well as the NT writers made no use of accent or breathing marks. So, shocking though it may sound to many, it is nevertheless true that stripping the Greek text of all accent marks and breathing marks does not change the text one iota. So, friend, I would concentrate on the more significant aspects of your study of Greek, rather than racking your brains trying to remember this or that rule regarding the application of the "correct" accent mark. Oops! I finished without addressing the so-called "iota" subscript. This tiny symbol is meaningless as far as pronunciation is concerned. The subscript is useful neither acoustically nor grammatically. If a noun is in the dative, it will be in the dative with or without the subscript. For that you could rely on your knowledge of grammatical forms and the context.-PZ
@@PhilemonZachariou Thank you so much for replying! I would certainly write in an accent mark on the appropriate syllable, because I know that accent shifts, and I want to learn the proper pronunciation. But I've spent a lot of time trying to keep track of when and why all the different accent marks change as the nouns go through the different declensions, and along with having to write in all these little marks on every word just takes so much time. Only writing one accent mark per word will save me a lot of trouble all the way around.
I also asked you about your opinion about learning Modern Greek as well, did you see that question?
Regarding Modern Greek. Depending on how much exposure you get to the living sounds of Greek, what circles you find yourself in when in Greece (casual or academic), and other factors, Modern Greek can be of immense value in your study of Greek of any particular historical era or literary genre. I couldn't really give a better advice than the advice Cohen and Sellers give when they say: "One of these [advantages] is that the student is learning the sounds of a living language. A knowledge of the modern pronunciation will make it possible for the student to converse with native speakers, whether in his own country or abroad, . . . [which] makes much more possible an approach (however slight at first) toward the acquisition of language intuition. . . . [T]he constant learning and speaking of a real pronunciation system will undoubtedly facilitate a better intuition for semantic range and grammatical nuance. . . . In the light of the advantages of the modern pronun-ciation and the easy access to modern Greek materials as well as native speakers of Modern Greek, there seems to be no compelling reason to retain the Erasmian pronunciation system." Gary G. Cohen and C. Norman Sellers, “The Case for Modern Pronunciation of Biblical Languages,” Grace Theological Journal 5.2 (1984), 200-01. I hope this helps. -PZ
@@PhilemonZachariou I've already finished half of two textbooks on biblical Greek, but I put them down for a couple years and I recently decided to finally finish them. I've been using your videos as a guide to pronunciation since the beginning just for the reason you mentioned, because so many more resources would be open to me. And having learned many other languages in the past, the Erasmian and and other 'reconstructed' accents sound terrible to me. In any case, I think maybe I'll try a little Modern Greek and see what happens - couldn't hurt! Thanks again for your help🙂
As you may know, Modern Greek abolished the use of accent marks and breathing marks back in 1982. The only accent mark used today is the acute ( ´ ), which is placed on the stressed syllable. This really simplified things for learners of Greek (and for most Greeks who weren't familiar with accentuation rules). So you can see that the Greek speech is unaffected by the absence of those marks. Many Greeks do not bother even with the acute accent mark in their texting, emails, etc. But I think, like you said, the only one mark suffices, and that's all you need. -PZ
"The spelling mistakes provide the strongest proof of the pronunciation of classical Greek".
What about the letter υ? Are there any instances in which it was misspelled as η, ει, ι or οι? If υ has today the same quality that it had in the classical period, why did the Romans have to adopt a foreign grapheme to represent a sound that would already exist in their language?
Hello, Nicolas, Around the time of Julius Ceasar (1st c. BC), Latin adopted Y to represent Greek words and loanwords containing the grapheme (letter) Y. Latin phonology of course already had the sound [i], but its alphabet did not have the grapheme Y for Greek loanwords containing Y. At the time of its adoption into Latin, Υ(υ) had long been confused with I(ι), e.g., CIGNVS cignus for ΚΥΚΝΟΣ κύκνος "swan." To differentiate between I and Greek-invented Y, the Romans named Y i-Graeca “Greek [i]”-NOT [ü]!-a name still used among Romance languages today. Now if you go back to the video you saw and fast-forward to 17:37 min., you will see that the confusion of graphemes that stood for the sound represented by ι was already in effect by classical times. As for the letter η, it was introduced into Attic around mid-5th century BC-officially in 403 BC. But it, too, was taken from the very start as a substitute for ει, the latter having already been confused with the sound represented by ι. I hope this helps. -PZ
@@PhilemonZachariou Oh I must have overlooked that bit. Thank you. There's just a couple of other questions I'd like to ask you - What about the quote from Cratinus: "The fool walks saying βη βη like a sheep"? Or the one from an anonymous writer: "The dog says βαύ βαύ..."? (or something along that line, I don't remember the exact wording). In comedies or tragedies you also often find onomatopoeic expressions such as "αιαι", which seems to have been used to express pain. It's hard to believe they were pronounced the way they would be according to modern Greek pronunciation rules... especially if one considers that in Italian for instance the dog says "bau bau" too, and "ahi ahi" is also an exclamation used to express pain (the English equivalent is ouch)
Hello again, Nicolas, I appreciate your questions. What Erasmians probably consider as the strongest evidence in support of the pronunciation of η as ε are the two fragmentary lines you are referring to by Kratinos and Aristophanes where βηβη and βη respectively represent the bleating of sheep: Ὁ δ᾽ ἠλίθιος ὥσπερ πρόβατον βῆ βῆ λέγων βαδίζει. -Kratinos Θύειν με μέλλει καὶ κελεύει βῆ λέγειν. -Aristophanes First, the vowel H(η) cannot belong to Kratinos (520-423 BC) and hardly to Aristophanes (450-386 BC). In Kratinos’ case the vowel H had not yet been introduced to the Attic script, and in Aristophanes’ case H had not yet been introduced officially. Kratinos, accustomed to the old Attic use of E both for [e] and [i] sounds, would have written ΒΕΒΕ (βεβε), not ΒΗΒΗ (βηβη), and Aristophanes ΒΕ(βε) not ΒΗ(βη). Thus it cannot be deduced from these fragmentary lines that Attic H can be interpreted as E[e]. Cries of animals cannot be relied upon as a guide to the pronunciation of language sounds. For if a sheep goes bεε in Greek but baa in English (and I am not sure about Italian), one might as well adduce that the same kind of animal, be it a sheep, a dog, a cow, or a lion, must make a different sound in every country where a different language is spoken! Let me clarify further even at the risk of repeating myself. After the Persian wars, the Athenian came to realize that their pronunciation was much different from the Homeric sounds. At the same time, their old Attic script was inadequate in representing long and short syllables in metered verse-mind you, in metered verse, not in regular speech. So, around 450 BC they began to borrow the Ionian symbols H(η) and Ω(ω) as compensatory symbols in verse. Soon, however, Η and Ω began to creep into prose as well. According to Plato (Πλάτων), that is when the Athenians began to spell a word, such as ημέρα, also ιμέρα or είμέρα, since these three symbols represented the same sound. The confusion that resulted from the interchange of ι, ε, and η did not depart even when Athens ratified the Ionic alphabet (403 BC) as the new Attic alphabet, which included H and Ω as regular alphabet letters. I trust the foregoing addresses your question regarding βῆ βῆ vs. βε βε. -PZ
Διδάσκω τους Βιετναμέζους τα αρχαία Ελληνικά. Πολύ χάρηκα. Σας Ευχαριστώ πολύ για το Βίδεο. Τώρα θα τους πώ να μάθουν την Ελληνική προφορά. God bless you
βιΝΤεο :Ρ
Thank you for your comments. I wish you success! -PZ
Thanks for teaching Doctor Philemon. Blessings
My pleasure! -PZ
I showed Americans who speak with "Erasmus" pronunciation to the native Greeks. And Greeks are in shock. Thank you for making this video.
Thank you for that comment. Indeed, Erasmian is not Greek, my friend, as you well know. -PZ
@@PhilemonZachariou I started making video in Greek. Check it out if you have time.
th-cam.com/video/NlrcAYfHRn0/w-d-xo.html
Hello! Your comments were automatically held for review and I just now saw them. My apologies! Your pronunciation of Greek is right on. Try to accent the syllable of a word where the accent is placed. In other words, raise accented syllables to a higher pitch. Avoid accenting with your voice syllables that are unaccented (without the accent mark). Your reading reminds me of how first graders read: slowly and "cautiously." Good job. Frankly, though, I would not publicize your videos as teaching tools until your reading flows more smoothly. But your vowels and consonants generally sound good. Kudos to you for your efforts and progress! -PZ
Thanks for another fantastic resource about pronounciation of Koine and the continuity of the Greek language! I highly recommend the book as well
Thank you! -PZ
Thank you 😊👏 Bravo
My pleasure! -PZ
Thank you very much. I was looking for Greek readings of the New Testament, but none of the Erasmian versions flowed like a real language. They sound like isolated word and not a way people would speak in real life.
Thank you, Henrik, for sharing your view on Greek pronunciation. Indeed, Erasmian does not even approximate the natural historical sounds of Greek. -PZ
@@PhilemonZachariou Αλήθεια
Σας ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Χαιρετίσματα από την Ινδονησία.
Hello, Greek-speaking friend in Indonesia! Γειά σας και ευχαριστώ για την επικοινωνία σας! -PZ
@@PhilemonZachariou Χαίρε , εδώ στην Ινδονησία διδάσκω την ελληνιστική κοινή γλώσσα. Σπούδασα θεολογία στο Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών.
Συγχαρητήρια! Χαίρω πολύ για σας αλλά και για τους μαθητές σας, οι οποίοι πρέπει να αισθάνονται οτι υπερέχουν κάτω από την διδασκαλία σας. --ΦΖ
@@PhilemonZachariou ευχαριστούμε για τα καλά σας λόγια.
Simply FANTASTIC! Thanks.
Thanks! -PZ
Dogma dies hard. Unfortunately, Erasmian Greek is here to stay and absolutely nothing will change Academia's collective, stubborn mind. As a Canadian of Greek extraction, a polyglot and an individual that has studied linguistic anthropology, albeit at the undergrad level, despite the absurd claims of the Erasmian camp, I will continue to read the Bible as it was read after Jesus and continue to consider Erasmaian Greek at the same level as the Cro Magnon Man hoax.
Thank you for your helpful comments. -PZ
Thank God, the voice of reason against the nonsensical erasmian fallacy. For Christ sake check the Greek Orthodox church hymns people, centuries old preserving the correct pronunciation!
Dear Antonis Vidakis, I am glad that your thoughts resonate with the voice of the unbroken historical record. Kudos! -PZ
Great Thanks
Nice of you! -PZ
euxaristo poli, auti doulia dodescalos
I want to congratule you, sir. Throught your work I met the books of Καραγκούνης and Γιάνναρης. Thanks you sir I free from an intelectual lethargy that had preventing me, that had embarassing me to study the greek language and literature as a whole. Eυχαριστώ!
I aware to many questions but, by now, I'd like only to ask you sir how to spell your name in greek. I'll record it alongside those two giants of the Hellenic philology at my library.
May God fill you with blessings!
Greatings from an oversea portuguese land!
Hello, dear Monio in Portugal. Thank you for your kind words. My name in Greek is spelled Φιλήμων Ζαχαρίου. I am glad that you see, and rightly so, the works of authors Caragounis and Yannaris as products of giants of the Greek language. I would be honored to be even in the shadow of these great men. -PZ
thanks for spelling koini as kini. Many english teachers declared my as crazy about this.
You're welcome 😊
СУПЕР!!!! САМОЕ ДОТОШНОЕ ОПИСАНИЕ ГРЕЧЕСКОГО ПРОИЗНОШЕНИЯ!))
Thank you, Sergej, for your kind words. -PZ
Спасибо за ваши добрые слова! -PZ
Not sure if I agree but God bless you in your endeavors....
Dear Pierre Rouge, Feel free to pinpoint what it is in my video you do not agree with, and I will get back to you. Thanks! -PZ
@@PhilemonZachariou your pronunciation is questionable but time is on your side if you are correct 😉
Η ερασμαικης προφορά γιατί είναι τόσο fake. Τελικά η ερασμαικης προφορά είναι απάτη;;;
Μάλιστα. Η προσπάθεια του εχθρού να καταστρέψει την γλώσσα της μετάφρασης των Εβδομήκοντα και της Καινης Διαθήκης. --ΦΖ
@@PhilemonZachariou Ευχαριστώ!!! Είναι τόσο άθλια αυτή την προφορά και όμως την διδάσκουν σέ όλα τα θεολογικά πανεπιστήμια στην Ρουμανία, αλλά και στο Cambridge και Οξφόρδης.
Υπάρχει και "φόβος" οτι όταν αλλάξουν προφορά και χρησιμοποιούν κανονικά την Ελληνική προφορά, ο καθηγητής Ελληνικης στο Cambridge και στην Oxford θα πρέπει να κάνει αναφορά στον κοινό Ελληνα πολίτη! --ΦΖ
Why do you pronounce Kini when it is written koini. Oi must have been pronounced at one time otherwise it would not be written. Like knife in English used to be pronounced kanif and retained the spelling because it was pronounced at the time the spelling was decided.
Then, my dear JH R, why do we not pronounce "knife" [kanif] anymore?
(I think you've answered your own question!)
At any rate, we have enough written evidence that Greek ΟΙ by classical times was iotacized, that is, it merged with the sound of iota , or [i]. And that was much before New Testament times. -PZ
@@PhilemonZachariou Very glad to know I’m dear to you :-))
Ok so Ancient Greek was already ancient in classical time. And your point of reference is classical time. And so the spelling must have been set in the archaic period; now I know.
I never pretended I knew anything about Greek, I’m just questioning. And now I wonder: if printing stabilized English spelling what stabilized the Greek one? Or the assertion about printing might be wrong of course and Ancient Greek could be an example.
Specifically with regard to what stabilized the Greek spelling was the official adoption and ratification of the Ionic alphabet by the Athenians in 403 BC under Archon (Ruler) Eucleides. The alphabet thus became known as ἡ μετ᾽ Εὐκλείδην γραμματική "the post-Eucleidean grammar" (script). That was not a spelling reformation, but rather the adoption a more definitive Attic script. Notably, the same alphabet and spelling rules have survived diachronically to this day. -PZ
@@PhilemonZachariou very interesting, thank you
You are welcome! -PZ
ὁ δ' ἠλίθιος ὥσπερ πρόβατον βῆ βῆ λέγων βαδίζει. (Ancient Comedy author, 5th century BC) Sheep "saying" «vi vi» or not rather «bê bê» !?!? And how come the Romans transliterated φιλόσοφος as «philosophus» despite their having a sign (the letter F) to indicate a fricative form of φ ?
Just some counter arguments. In general, there seems to have been an evolution during CENTURIES and not all at the same time in different regions of the vast Roman empire.
Dear eeepc admin, You have eloquently raised some important questions-and there are many more-all of which are dealt with in my book. There is of course no space to address them here, not even in video form. I am sure you would find the answers to your questions, if you cared to read the book. It was written for uninformed friends like you. -PZ
Different nationalities hear and transcribe onomatopoeic sounds in their own peculiar ways. See the wiki article "Cross-linguistic onomatopoeias". There is a section on "sheep bleating". In many languages sheep say: mee or maa or may. In fact, Georgian sheep say: ვეეე (veee). Perhaps, they migrated to Greece :).
In "Peace", by Aristophanes, there is the following dialogue: TRYGAEUS What other victim do you prefer then?
SERVANT A sheep.
TRYGAEUS A sheep?
SERVANT Yes.
TRYGAEUS But you must give the word the Ionic form.
SERVANT Purposely. So that if anyone in the assembly says, "We must go to war," all may start bleating in alarm, "Oi, oi."
The bleating of these sheep is "Oi, oi".
What Erasmians probably consider as the strongest evidence in support of the pronun-ciation of η as ε are the two fragmentary lines by Kratinos and Aristophanes where βηβη and βη respectively represent the bleating of sheep:
Ὁ δ᾽ ἠλίθιος ὥσπερ πρόβατον βῆ βῆ λέγων βαδίζει. -Kratinos
Θύειν με μέλλει καὶ κελεύει βῆ λέγειν. -Aristophanes
First, the vowel H(η) cannot belong to Kratinos (520-423 BC) and hardly to Aristophanes (450-386 BC). In Kratinos’ case the vowel H had not yet been introduced to the Attic script, and in Aristophanes’ case H had not yet been introduced officially. Kratinos, accustomed to the old Attic use of E both for [e] and [i] sounds, would have written ΒΕΒΕ (βεβε), not ΒΗΒΗ (βηβη), and Aristophanes ΒΕ(βε) not ΒΗ(βη). Thus it cannot be deduced from these fragmentary lines that Attic H can be interpreted as E[e]. Cries of animals cannot be relied upon as a guide to the pronunciation of language sounds. For if a sheep goes bεε in Greek but baa in English, one might as well adduce that the same kind of animal, be it a sheep, a dog, a cow, or a lion, must make a different sound in every country where a different language is spoken! -PZ