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@polýMATHY Thank you for this informative video about the Greek letter Eta. Can you do a video about the Greek letter β? I heard that this letter went from being pronounced as Beta to Veta, when did the switch happen? It would be interesting to know. ~Mackyle Wotring
As a Greek I would like to thank you wholeheartedly for all that precious information you have been sharing with us about the long history and evolution of so many obscure elements of my native tongue, most people today, let alone Greeks, are unfortunately completely unaware of.
My man!!! I am a Greek native speaker born in Thessaloniki, graduate of History and Archaeology department, MA in Celtic Literature and upon submitting my PhD thesis which is a comparative mythology approach to Irish heroic literature and that part 16:40-17:41 blew my mind
Many modern Greek words still have their ancient e sound. Modern Greek do not know that...Thus πληρώνω ,πλερώνω.What is more correct; Πληρώνω has correct historic orthography ,but the ancient pronunciations is πλερώνω. Perhaps 2-3 per cent you still use Ε for H sound. Κηρίον ,κερί,σίδηρος,σίδερο,ημείς ,εμείς,γηραιός , γέρος-γερασμένος,υπηρέτρια,υπερέτρια, κλπ
On the topic of Ancient Greek and Latin as being heard and spoken languages, whenever I read Greek I always hear it in Ioannis Stratakis's voice. Very pleasant pronunciation and one that serves as a very good model. Hearing the Greek, even in my head, contributes massively to my enjoyment of the texts.
It's pretty stupid that Italians and Greeks believe that Latin and Ancient Greek sounded like Italian vs. modern Greek. Most languages change pronunciation considerably within just a few centuries. If we take Germanic languages, German sounded very differently in the 1200s, Swedish in the 1300s and English as late as in the 1600s. Yet Italians and Greeks think that their languages sound the same as 2000 vs 3000 years ago.
Why to be? Of course it has been changed. But english language of 1000 AD is not even understandable by modern speakers. What I have my objection is the time frame. Shift was not through 6th AD for sure but way earlier.
Great video, I learned many new things. A long time ago in a museum I remember seeing an Athenian inscription from the time of the Democracy which read «ΕΔΟΞΕΝ ΤΕΙ ΒΟΥΛΕΙ ΚΑΙ ΤΩΙ ΔΕΜΩΙ» instead of «ΕΔΟΞΕΝ ΤΗΙ ΒΟΥΛΗΙ ΚΑΙ ΤΩΙ ΔΗΜΩΙ» which means it dated from the time before the athenian alphabet reform when H was still used to represent the "rough breathing" prior to its replacement by the "δασεια" diacritic.
Good note! In the 5cBC Athenians were using the Ionic alphabet (inconsistently) due to its popularity. The 403 BC decree by Euclid just formalized a trend. That inscription is a great example of this transitional period.
The Athenians were using 'Η' to represent both the rough breathing and the long 'e' sound for most of the 5th century. The article 'η' was obviously used, as well as various instances of ΗΦΑΙΣΤΟΣ, showing use of 'η' as a vowel. Of course, it did sound like a long ε, as shown here by polyMATHY and various other inscriptions, for example, inscriptions reading ΘΕΜΙΣΤΟΚLΕΣ or ΠΕΡΙΚLΕΣ (with the L being the Attic way of writing Λ). You can also see 'η' as rough breathing in words that don't begin with 'η', even in official inscriptions. I can't for the life of me remember exactly in what museum and what inscription I saw this at, but it was an Athenian decree about what to do with the people of the Hellespont (Athens had both colonies and subjects there and some of them had rebelled against Athens during the Peloponnesian War), and it read ΗΕLLEΣΠΟΝΤΙΟΙ. Cool stuff, if you ask me!
@@constantinosstylianou I agree, I think we're so lucky to have so many inscriptions from Athens' most illustrious period that survived through the millenia.
About η indicating the /h/ sound early on: a relevant point to note is that the /h/ consonant is what the equivalent letter indicated in the Phoenician script.
Always nice to see your videos on my feed. It's good that you promote real learning and not whatever grammar translation is supposed to be. I consider myself to have some aptitude for language learning and I find it very enjoyable, and yet the type of grammar translation we did in school was enough to make me dislike Ancient Greek. I should add here that I am Greek myself and it's really mind boggling that the vast majority of Greeks, including specialists, are so poor at reading the language and have an overall very poor relationship with it. Given the fact that the language we speak in our time is descended for the Ancient one, you'd expect Greek speakers to have an easier time, yet grammar translation is such a bad method that it can neutralize this advantage. Regarding modern Greeks sometimes (ok, a lot of times) complaining about how Ancient Greek does not sound right to them, I think the education is to blame. School textbooks actually mention that Ancient Greek had a different pronunciation but I never recall any classes where we actually focused on this. Many people have previously expressed a desire to introduce effective teaching methods in the curriculum but academia and bureaucracy are notoriously resistant to change. Maybe some day... Thank you for your work and I look forward to more! Edit: the pronunciation of η as a mid front vowel actually survives is some words in modern Greek and its dialects: εμέτερον means "our" in the Pontic dialect and νύφη becomes νύφε. In modern Greek the word for we is "εμείς" which might be preserving an older pronunciation to further distinguish it from ὑμεῖς, which would have had a high front vowel (albeit a rounded one).
I've read that generally we can think of the beginning of iotacism around the 1st century AD. An example is how the phrase "Κύριε ελέησον" (Kyrie eleison=Lord have mercy) was spelled in the Latin West. This hymn was transfered into their chants unchanged and is still used until now. If Η/η by that time was spelled as a long "e", it would be spelled as "Kyrie Eleeson" because that's how a Latin speaker would hear it.
Also, I remembered another example of H/η as a long "e" from an ancient source. In Athenaeus' work "Deipnosophistae", book 10, he writes: "ἠλίθιος ὥσπερ πρόβατον βῆ βῆ λέγων βαδίζει" which translates as: "'The stupid man, like a sheep, walks along saying: baa, baa". If Β/β and Η/η had today's pronunciation the sheep should sound as "vi vi" instead of "baa baa".
@@ilias8972 you read υ pronunciation past video comment of mine? That's true. There are also sources describing athenian pronunciation of 100 AD as non ancient by historians of the era.
I don’t think this applies to the 1st century AD, since “kyrie eleison” is attested in Late Latin concurrent with the Vulgate Bible circa late 4cAD early 5cAD, as noted in this video. While it’s possible this occurred in Koine some places earlier, the overwhelming evidence is against this thanks to the thousands and thousands and thousands of transcriptions in the Classical Latin Period that show E rather than I.
Very good video, congratulations and many thanks! I would like to add a small sequel to this eta-adventure. There is a greek language, which has preserved the classical eta until today in a large number of words: the Pontic Greek (Greek of the Black Sea). Although Koine had an extreme influence on this language and did change eta to "i" in many cases, many words kept the eta (however as a short e). Examples (taken from the Grammatik of Papadopoulos, Athens 1955): ἄκλερος, γαλενός, ἔγκα, ζελεύω, ζεμία, θεκάριν and many others. Also in verbs: εὖρα, ἔκουσα, ἐσέγκα . In all that indicate a resident or are stressed in 2nd syllable ending in -τες: ὁ κλέφτες, ὁ ράφτες, ὁ ψὰλτες etc etc.
Looking forward to a video about the pronunciations of ΑΙ and ΟΙ through the centuries! Even one about the pronunciation of Σ which would've been mostly retracted, just like today, but arguably non-retracted in, say, regions where it was spoken as a second language by Semitic or other speakers. This is the case with Cypriot Greek, today. I highly doubt that Palestinian Koine speakers, and therefore Christ's Apostles, would've retracted their sigmas given it is not a sound in Semitic languages and can often be mistaken for a /ʃ/. The reverse was also the case for both Greek and Latin when transliterating the Aramaic and Hebrew ש!
It was still [ɛː] in the conservative pronunciation long after the classical attic period, as we can see from Varro, who preferred to transcribe it as into Latin.
@@polyMATHY_Luke "Obscaenum dictum ab scaena; eam ut Graeci Accius scribit "scena". In pluribus verbis a ante e alii ponunt, alii non, ut quod partim dicunt "scaeptrum", partim "sceptrum" (L.L. VII 96, cited by Lindsay, The Latin Language, P. 48). There are also inscriptions which have -aes for the genitive ending -ης. The diphthongal value of ae was probably not very pronounced in Classical Latin, it was not [a͜ɪ] but rather [ɛ͜e] or [æ͜e], so it was quite usable for replacing the greek [ɛː].
That’s not the case. This is well explained in Vox Latina. Rustic Latin speakers of the 1cBC did have a monophthong, but this is not urban Latin of the city of Rome. It explains such spelling errors, but insofar as Latin is a unity, ae is exclusively a diphthong. The word scaena among others are examples of hypercorrection, where the less educated had the monophthong, thus a diphthong was a corrective measure, occasionally overdone. When people say “often” with a clear T sound, that is an example of a similar hypercorrection. Thus I don’t say scaena, but scēna in Latin.
Hi Luke. I'm Edward. I follow your content for about two years. As I continue to study ancient history, ancient texts in classical Latin and Koine Greek (trying to get a tiny bit closer to the NT originals) , your videos have been fascinating me more and more. You're a true inspiration, an influence and a reference. I wish you all the best and if you ever find yourself in Houston TX, I'll gladly offer you a drink (or two :) PS: may I suggest a video with your comments on the Bible NT translations from Koine/Latin to English?
Greek is the most important language for Christendom because the LXX was quoted by Jesus and the apostles (the earliest Hebrew MT is from the 11th century, therefore less reliable). As a Roman-Catholic Latin always has a special place in my heart (favourite subject at school!) but God used Greek to spread the Gospel and Jesus almost certainly spoke Greek in John 3 (which is cool), yet we have no evidence of him speaking Latin (he probably knew some of it though).
Would you ever be interested in making a video about pitch accent in ancient Greek? It's something that I'm very interested in and would love to hear you talk about and what your opinions on it are.
Luke my friend, what do you think about doing Sanskrit next? I know a lot of people would love to learn it using the method you use with other languages. ॐ नमो गुरु देव् नमो
An interesting piece of evidence to add to eta being transcribed as a front mid vowel in gothic is that it’s specifically a close mid front vowel [eː] or [e̝ː] consistently in wulfilian gothic, if eta would have been lower we might have instead seen it being transcribed as what in gothic was [ɛː] at least sporadically. so its clear that at the time of the translation (4. century) and in that area eta had already raised to [eː] or [e̝ː]
In griko η is mostly read as an "i" sound (η ημέρα=i iméra, ήσελα/ήθελα=ísela, ítela) but certain varieties such the one spoken in the Calimera η is sometimes conserved the /e/ sound (ε εμέρα but ήσελα). It is interesting that even υ sometimes evolved in an ου sound, so we have εσού instead of εσύ, or Τσχουριατσχή (Ciuriacì) instead of Κυριακή, or Τσχούρη (Ciùri) instead of Κύριος. Other words such as τυρί (tirì, cheese) or σταφύλι (stafìli, grapes) have the modern /i/ pronunciation.
@@aroma13 well, it is facts a partial preservation. Notice however that υ sounded /y/ in ancient period, such as the first "u" in the French "bureau", or the German and Lombard "ü", whilst modern diphthong "ου", in Modern Greek as well as in Griko, indicates a /u/ sound.
Is that τσχ (it is [tsx], right?) the usual result of palatalized κ? That’s pretty interesting, but it would also mean that υ must have been [y] at some point for the palatalization to happen.
@@driksarkar6675 I want to say that we don't have any standard orthography and most of the times griko is written in latin alphabet following the rules of the local romance dialect (with the exception of the "ch" or "kh" digraph that is used to transcribe χ). This is my personal alphabet that I developed studying the greek alphabet and I took this τσχ from the Tsakonian alphabet and that is read as a /tʃ/ sound (τζ indicates a /dʒ/) sound. Many scholars though prefer to add another letter to write down /tʃ/, and that is κ̍ (so you have for example 'κ̍είνο for αυτός or αυτό, read 'chEEnoh' and cognate to the greek εκείνος). It is also important to notice that griko, especially the Salentinian variety (this is not valid speaking about grecanico, that is the Calabro-Sicilian dialect) has the exact same pronunciation of the local romance dialect (very similar to the italian), so that χ is the only different sound and it's practically identical to the standard greek one (/ç/ or /x/ dependinɡ on the position). The θ was approximated in /s/ or /t/ (in my script it's etymological and i decided to preserve it in the words were it's pronounced as a /t/, for example θέλω read /telo/, θάλασσα /talassa/ but not in λισάρι (stone).
Could you do a segment where you talk ancient Greek for one or two minutes? I am Greek and I am wondering if I will be able to understand the pronounciation. Wonderful video as always, one of the best channels on TH-cam.
Here you go! In this recording I’m using the Samosatene Lucian Pronunciation: th-cam.com/video/Yvfs5aCIy0g/w-d-xo.html More info here: www.patreon.com/posts/80661461 And here: th-cam.com/video/Dt9z5Gvp3MM/w-d-xo.html
17:26 I knew it! I knew that Attic Greek was doing this! How else do you explain Plato talking about how hēméra was once spelled iméra? Or how apparently an Attic schoolboy in a tablet they had found confused eta with iota?
Right! I always dismissed the importance of these, since it’s obvious Koine did not transmit these iotacisms. Hence arguments that cling to a MG type pronunciation in Classical Athens that has unbroken continuity with the modern language come off as ludicrous. However, when looking at the problem with multiple subsystems of phonology in mind, it all makes a lot more sense.
17:56 There are some rural dialects till this day that are used to close their more open vowels, while also dropping their close ones. They're commonly named χωριάτικα, and ironically called as χουριάτ'κα.
"French mustached-chef serves Greeks the truth about ancient Greek pronunciation" Jokes aside I love that you keep the series going. Keep it up military mustache man 💪 BTW I thought iotacism comes from the iota (ι) and not eta (η)
hey bro come to Greece . you can visit in Thessaloniki the archaeological museum and the museum of Byzantine culture and also the White Tower. there is a lot of things that you will love to see. i work in Byzantine museum and I will love to see you theare.
I'm a language nerd currently living in Athens and I have only now made a connection between the study of ancient transcriptions to draw conclusions about the phonology - and an observation I made a few weeks ago about the latinisation of modern Greek - namely the absolute chaos and total anarchy of said transcriptions. Let me explain based on a specific example. One of the main roads connecting southern Athens with the centre is Συγγρού (pronounced siŋɡru). The Greek spelling is always consistent and the same - however, when you look at the latinized signs you get...: 'Sygrou' (on the metro street sign of the station Sygrou-Fix) 'Singrou' (on a street sign) 'Syggrou' (on another official street sign as the previous one, just next to the previous building) 'Syngrou' (on an official map downstairs) 'Sigrou' (on ..another official map, hanging just one meter to the right of the previous map) 'Siggrou' (a bus stop a few meters from the aforementioned metro station) 'Syggroy' (I don't remember where exactly, but I do recall having seen this spellig somewhere) That probably doesn't even cover all the variants. All of them are somewhat justified, choosing with each letter between the actual pronounciation, the representation of the original spelling and consistency (e.g. should you always spell υ as 'y' as the letters themselves are related, or should you adapt and sometimes spell it as i, sometimes as u, sometimes as ou...?; what do you do with γ? If you always spell it as 'g', you end up with '-gia-' being pronounced as dʒia or gia, which it never is... My two main conclusions are: while looking at spelling is undoubtedly one of the most valuable tools of historical linguistics, the amount of uncertainty seems to be much higher than I previously suspected. Would these methods allow for the proper reconstruction of the pronounciation of Athenian 'Συγγρού ' A.D. 2023 if no recordings existed and someone found a map in a thousand years? With enough examples and context - perhaps, but I think it would still not be an exact science. Secondly - the history and standards (or lack thereof) of latinisation of Greek seem like a whole massive and fascinating subject all on its own. Sometimes people spell things a certain way...well, just because.
The various ways to render modern Greek in Roman letters would be fascinating to discuss. The official transliteration focuses on maintaining a 1:1 match between Roman and Greek letters. Before technology, transliteration was focused on pronunciation. However, it is easier to tell a computer that d=δ, than to try and program an understanding of letter combinations truer to pronunciation. Imagine for a moment how badly English-speaking tourists would butcher “SYGGROY” and it is easy to understand why “official” signs would deviate from this to try and render something a bit closer to the Greek pronunciation.
In Cyrillic "eta" became "И", universally pronounced as [i] in Slavic languages and never having a value of [e]. Some languages, like Russian, Serbian or Bulgarian, got rid of I in favor of И (surprisingly, vice-versa in Belorussian!), Ukrainian preserved both letters, I for a closed sound and И for a more open one.
Thanks again Luke for sharing all this! I did study ancient Greek (and Latin) as a student in Paris, but of course we used the so-called Erasmian pronunciation. One thing I was always convinced about was that, at least when the Greek alphabet was afopted by most of the ancient Greeks, both eta and omega must have been not only the long variant of epsilonn and omicronn, but must also have had a different sound. Eta should have been a more open kind of e (like French è or ê), while omega a more closed o ( like French ô). Otherwise, if it was only a longer version, why have a separate symbol, when alpha for example could be long or short but did not have two different symbols? Of course later on, in classical or post-classical times, that difference may have disappeared. What’s your take on this? - And thanks again.
All those changes in pronounciation in all languages have to do with the increase of the speaking speed of the vast majority of the people were talking in any given era as a general result of the increase of the cognitive subject. The mechanics of those changes just depict the preferred path of the occurred change(s). The same, more or less, stands for the written language as well... There is always a need for a change to happen, gradually or as mutation...
Hello Luca, first of all, I congratulate you on the breadth and depth of your knowledge. I am interested in the real pronunciation of ancient Greek of classical age and some time ago I read one of the texts you proposed in this video: Vox Graeca. It is a very interesting text but it left me with many perplexities which I will summarize in a question: if it is true that in alternative to the melodic accent there was also what the author calls 'prominence' and which corresponded with the strong position of the metre, why the after intensive accent did not slip to coincide with this strong position but was grafted onto the melodic one? Thank you in advance for your kind reply.
I have only studied koine greek to read the Bible and seeing εἰρήνη written as īrēnē just couldn't tell at all what it was I've learned to read letter patterns I have so much trouble with it all outloud lol
Do you have a video on how to pronounce the different tonal markings above ancient Greek vowels? Exempla: ί, ή, õ and do they have an impact on vowel length? (I've started LOGOS which doesn't mark long vowels, is there a way to intuit them from the text?)
It may be easy as a practice, or even easy to understand in Modern Greek, but Ancient Greek gives some rather bizarre results, such as ἡμεῖς-ὑμεῖς, εἴη-εἵη-οἴῃ-οἴει-οἷοι-ἵει-ἴῃ-ᾔει-ἴοι etc. etc. etc.
@@iberius9937 Many languages (e.g. Japanese) may have words that sound exactly the same (homonyms are they called? I don't remember), but the distinction between "we" and "you" (plural) is fundamental. I doubt the situation would be that desperate to confuse the two.
A question for Luke : according to your historical phonology spreadsheet, there was a time around the 400's where èta and epsilon were merged. If this is true, why did only èta undergo ioticization ?
Because they’re not related phenomena; the the iotacism of “Vulgar” Attic is not related to the iotacism that came centuries later: th-cam.com/video/UkXLAe2-DLY/w-d-xo.html
ciao !!!! forti i tuoi video, molto interessanti , noi italiani il latino non lo conosciamo affato ,i ragazzi forse lo studiano , ma con molta difficolta' e solo in certe scuole 👍
Just a quick question, though I'm not sure if the answer can be as quick: you mentioned a tendency to Doricize the pronunciation of Attic in tragedies, but I've never heard about this before, so could you please fill me in on the details regarding this practice, i.e. why and to what extent was this done, etc.? Or, hell, make a video I guess. It's just something I'm unfamiliar with that I'm sure will increase my understanding of the cultural context of Greek tragedy, which makes it tantalizing.
The Nova Vulgata lection of Luca II, 2 is "Hæc descriptio prima facta est præside Syriae Quirino." Saint Jerome had not recognized a Roman name behind Κυρηνίου, and the mistake was corrected in the Latin text only after the Second Council of Vatican.
Also,other question: do we have any idea why so many indoeuropean languages (or at least European ones) determined that the short version of mid vowels must be lower than the long version? English ĕ = low mid, ē = high (not even high mid) and slightly diphthongal, same for o; late Latin long e merged with short i while short e gets lowered,same with o/u; Greek eta high mid eventually drifting into high, epsilon low mid
Can you do a comparison of Attic verses Kione verses Doric? Is that possible? Of course, Doric is pronounced like Myceneaen Greek. Arrian, a student of Epictetus, wrote his recap of his teachers lectures in Kione. He wrote it in the common language, even though his other works are in the more formal Attic Greek dialect.
Hello Luke, I was wondering if the fricantisation of gamma, delta and beta took place after the fortis counterparts broke into fricatives due to aspiration, as a way to maintain symmetry, or if it happened at the same time or earlier. Also, did phita and beta move from labial to labiodental at the same time as each other?
I’m surprised you’re surprised. BC and AD have been in common use for a very long time, as have been the Day of Saturn (Saturday) and the Day of the Sun (Sunday). In Italian Sunday is called domenica “the Lord’s day.” They’re just part of language, and no longer have fixed religious significance (thought for some they might, whether Christian or Pagan). Feel free to use BCE and CE if that’s your preference.
Dear Luke, or any other reader of this comment. I have no idea how to type an α, ι or υ with a macron (or breve for the same matter) with an additional accent, like an acute or a smooth breathing for example. Could you or anyone else please tell me how this is done?
I feel like this video could have used a mention of how Christianos (Christian) was always spelled with an eta instead of an iota in the earliest manuscripts and how Christos was sometimes spelled with an eta too (which changes the meaning as "Chrestos" was a much more common word, meaning "good" instead of "annointed.")
I have a question concerning quantity of long α,υ,ι and the metre. As vowel quantity disappeared by the end of antiquity and was not distinguished anymore (as it is the case in Modern Greek), how can we know that for example χίλιοι has long iota (χῑλιοι)? Was it somehow transmitted by the Byzantine legacy? I wonder if there was lack of vowel quantity distinction, could the Byzantines enjoy Greek metre of ancient poetry? Or maybe it was reconstructed in Europe through Latin sources and poetry?
We know the lengths of vowels in Ancient Greek and Latin thanks in part to a tradition of a small number of people who always understood the concept even after it fell out of common use, unbroken from antiquity to the present. Otherwise it’s very easy to deduce the lengths from the poetry, as well as etymologically.
Hi Polymathy, How would you read this word > ελοι I understand it is written with an Epsilon, but the “οι” at the end made me read it as “eloi”. The Aramaic word hypothesised by me is “Elōhi”. But since you said at the beginning “oi” is an “E” sound, I’m curious if it is possible otherwise.
To get the proper sound of Greek vowels the best is to refer to interjections used by the very authors. Hellenistic authors for the most part used Omega in the same way and in the same context as Oh to mean astonishment or amazement and Eta in the same way as Eh is used to call someone to attention. The boat call OHE was already written with both these vowels. The degree of aperture of both these letters was wider on the coast of Asia Minor than on the peninsular coast and that shows in the use of a different way to write the same interjections, though they used the same written language. Democracy didn’t have any impact of the kind we imagine on the language : Athenian democracy as it was called, during its very supposed golden age that was also that of tragedy, harboured an especially keen contempt for all ordinary people and all workers, both menial and also creative as impure, to the point that demiourgos (public artisan or artist) rapidly came to be a slur addressed against any guy involved in detailed technical work and by extension denoted the devil in the gnostic philosophical systems that were to come. Tragedy despite its magnificience is as a literary genre the thing most opposite to all democratic values in the modern sense : there is no alternative to fate and striving for a better society is the cardinal sin. The very people that would have favoured a democratic development in the West European sense of the word, like inventors, were the adversaries. Athens was an international centre of class snobbishness like no other in the classical world, a fact confirmed by the type of Romans who would a little later idolize most Athens as a luxury destination, namely not the people but the oligarchs. Right from the times of Solon and Pericles Athens believed in the value of class over common humanity. This resulted into a strictly top down direction of cultural influence.
Hey Luke. Why don’t you or your colleagues research different Greek dialects that exist today (or have been recorded during the last century)? I am confident that you will find traces of ancient pronunciations.
Kind of an unrelated question but what's the deal with latin scorpiō being a third declension noun while Greek σκορπίος is a second declension noun? All the borrowed nouns I've encountered so far fall in the same declension in both languages apart from some rare cases like ēchō.
Maybe I was too hasty to see other options but at the ancient languages Institut I only found veeeery expensive courses I could never afford...is there no free or at least low priced course?
It doesn't make sense for "H" to be pronounced as "E" since there was already a letter for the "E" sound. The Attic dialect is just a reconstruction-alteration of Ionic Greek. The Athenians were pretty clear when they invented "H" and "Ω", the long versions of "i" and "o".
@@Κασσάνηρ Μόνο όταν παίρνει περισπωμένη είναι μακρύ το "ει". Το "Η" είναι πάντα μακρύ διότι γι'αυτό εφευρέθει. Τα πράγματα είναι πολύ απλά. Κάποιοι στην Αθήνα πήγαν να επιβάλλουν το "Η" περί το 500 π.Χ., ο κόσμος που πάντα μιλούσε με "Ε" και "Α" αντέδρασε, αρνούμενος να μιλάει με "Η". Και σήμερα εμείς παιδευόμαστε να βρούμε αν το "Η" προφερόταν ως "Ε".
η was a long vowel, so it did not make the same sound as ε, which was short. Before the invention of the letter η, it WAS written ε. It continued to be used to transcribe Latin ē and vice versa well into the Koine period. It became a long i sound during the early Byzantine period.
An explanation on how a letter changed the pronunciation from E to I in a language (i.e. English) that changed the pronunciation of E to I (at least in long vowels) 😄
Also there's pin-pen merger in Southern American English, with /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ merging as /ɪ/ before nasal. Among many speakers of Newfoundland English there's completely merger of those two sound regardless of the surrounding sounds; apparently this was also true for the Irish English as a whole, but today mostly restricted to South and South-West Ireland and not that common
On the name Κυρηνιος (or Κυρινος?) The 4th-century Codex Sinaiticus contains the spelling Κυρηνιου in Luke 2:2, a variant also found in many later manuscripts. On the other hand, the 4th-century Codex Vaticanus presents Κυρεινου, the Codex Washingtonianus from the 4th or 5th century has Κυρινου, and the 6th-century palimpsest Codex Zacynthius has Κυρινιου. Considering that the man's actual name likely was Quirinius (or possibly Quirinus), the use of Κυρηνιου with η might be a textual corruption. This could have been influenced by confusion due to the North African city of Cyrene (Κυρηνη). A resident of Cyrene is referred to as a Κυρηναίος, and Simon of Cyrene is famously mentioned in the synoptic gospels as the man who helps Jesus to carry his cross. The Vulgate in the Latin Codex Harleianus appears to have "Quirino" in Luke 2:2, but most "Old Latin" manuscripts (those predating Jerome's translation) use Cyrino here. The translators of these manuscripts may have derived this from Κυρ(ε)ινου in their source, similar to the Codices Vaticanus and Washingtonianus. In the Greek Ερμενεία Εβραικῶν Ονομάτων edited by Origen, the name from Luke 2:2 is transcribed as Κυριναιου, also a form quite close to Κυρηναίου, but clearly with an ι. It is explained as a Hebrew name meaning "κληρονομοῦντος" or "κληρονόμος ἀνήρ" (inheritor). Interestingly, this form, Κυριναιου, is reflected in the Gothic Codex Argenteus as 𐌺𐍅𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌽𐌰𐌹𐌰𐌿 or Kwreinaiau, where "w" is equivalent to "y," "ei" is a long "i", "ai" is a short open "e," and "au" is a short open "o," indicating the dative case ending in Gothic.
What about the word ἀλήθεια? If we replace the η with εε, we violate the three syllable rule of stressing! So, that is my problem! Does anyone have any ideas on that?
@@unquietthoughts I am talking about the stress if we replace the η with εε. If we stress the first ε, as in Δέελος=Δῆλος, then we will have ἀλέεθεια, which means we have stressed the fourth syllable counting from the end! If we stress the second one, there is no point in having the first one, so the word would have been spelt ἀλέθεια!
@@unquietthoughts thanks for that. Although now my problem is the ει, following. Some people say that it was pronounced separately as ε-ι. But if we do this, we violate again the three syllable rule!
@@kostasantonopoulos1478 Actually that makes me angry as well! φίλε‒ + ‒ε > φίλει Iirc, as long as the iota doesn't have two dots, ει should be read /eː/~/iː/
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@polýMATHY
Thank you for this informative video about the Greek letter Eta. Can you do a video about the Greek letter β? I heard that this letter went from being pronounced as Beta to Veta, when did the switch happen? It would be interesting to know.
~Mackyle Wotring
@@Mackyle-Wotring Hi there! I covered this in the Phi Theta Chi video.
As a Greek I would like to thank you wholeheartedly for all that precious information you have been sharing with us about the long history and evolution of so many obscure elements of my native tongue, most people today, let alone Greeks, are unfortunately completely unaware of.
Γεια, Νίκε· ευχαριστώ πολύ.
My man!!! I am a Greek native speaker born in Thessaloniki, graduate of History and Archaeology department, MA in Celtic Literature and upon submitting my PhD thesis which is a comparative mythology approach to Irish heroic literature and that part 16:40-17:41 blew my mind
Fun fact, in the dilect of pontos ( morden day turkey ) that it is still in use the "η" is pronounced as sort "ε" but not long.
That’s right! Many eta merged with epsilon in some dialects
Cypriot also.
@@oleksijm You sure? I think Cypriots tend to say "kinì" and not "kinè".
@@kevinloscalzo8638 only in some positions. "μην" becomes "μεν" and a few more
Many modern Greek words still have their ancient e sound. Modern Greek do not know that...Thus πληρώνω ,πλερώνω.What is more correct; Πληρώνω has correct historic orthography ,but the ancient pronunciations is πλερώνω.
Perhaps 2-3 per cent you still use Ε for H sound.
Κηρίον ,κερί,σίδηρος,σίδερο,ημείς ,εμείς,γηραιός , γέρος-γερασμένος,υπηρέτρια,υπερέτρια, κλπ
On the topic of Ancient Greek and Latin as being heard and spoken languages, whenever I read Greek I always hear it in Ioannis Stratakis's voice. Very pleasant pronunciation and one that serves as a very good model. Hearing the Greek, even in my head, contributes massively to my enjoyment of the texts.
Agreed!
I recently realised that when my grandmother said "teera" as in "look" was saying "τήρα" from ancient Greek. Mind blowing.
Παρατηρώ (paratirò) = to watch catefully
@@savvassyrmopoulos5570 εγώ εννοώ ότι έλεγαν τηρα σαν τέερα με μακρύ ε.
Arguing with greeks about eta/ita historic pronunciation is a classic.
@Andrea Balestri My dear friend, you can also try to argue with Plato himself, in Plato, Cratylus 418c
It's pretty stupid that Italians and Greeks believe that Latin and Ancient Greek sounded like Italian vs. modern Greek. Most languages change pronunciation considerably within just a few centuries. If we take Germanic languages, German sounded very differently in the 1200s, Swedish in the 1300s and English as late as in the 1600s. Yet Italians and Greeks think that their languages sound the same as 2000 vs 3000 years ago.
Combine stupidity, lack of knowledge and false sense of pride and you get people who think their language didn't change a bit in 2000 years.
Why to be? Of course it has been changed. But english language of 1000 AD is not even understandable by modern speakers. What I have my objection is the time frame. Shift was not through 6th AD for sure but way earlier.
@@francisdec1615 No, we don't think so. It was mainly a catholic belief.
Great video, I learned many new things. A long time ago in a museum I remember seeing an Athenian inscription from the time of the Democracy which read «ΕΔΟΞΕΝ ΤΕΙ ΒΟΥΛΕΙ ΚΑΙ ΤΩΙ ΔΕΜΩΙ» instead of «ΕΔΟΞΕΝ ΤΗΙ ΒΟΥΛΗΙ ΚΑΙ ΤΩΙ ΔΗΜΩΙ» which means it dated from the time before the athenian alphabet reform when H was still used to represent the "rough breathing" prior to its replacement by the "δασεια" diacritic.
Good note! In the 5cBC Athenians were using the Ionic alphabet (inconsistently) due to its popularity. The 403 BC decree by Euclid just formalized a trend. That inscription is a great example of this transitional period.
The Athenians were using 'Η' to represent both the rough breathing and the long 'e' sound for most of the 5th century. The article 'η' was obviously used, as well as various instances of ΗΦΑΙΣΤΟΣ, showing use of 'η' as a vowel. Of course, it did sound like a long ε, as shown here by polyMATHY and various other inscriptions, for example, inscriptions reading ΘΕΜΙΣΤΟΚLΕΣ or ΠΕΡΙΚLΕΣ (with the L being the Attic way of writing Λ).
You can also see 'η' as rough breathing in words that don't begin with 'η', even in official inscriptions. I can't for the life of me remember exactly in what museum and what inscription I saw this at, but it was an Athenian decree about what to do with the people of the Hellespont (Athens had both colonies and subjects there and some of them had rebelled against Athens during the Peloponnesian War), and it read ΗΕLLEΣΠΟΝΤΙΟΙ. Cool stuff, if you ask me!
@@constantinosstylianou I agree, I think we're so lucky to have so many inscriptions from Athens' most illustrious period that survived through the millenia.
I've gone over Allen's Vox Graeca quite a few times. What an excellently written book. One of the best philological works of its kind.
17:44 Some rural modern greek speakers reduce ε to ι and ο to ου when unstressed .
Toujours passionnant, bravo!
I've never known you had a secondary channel! Thanks for the video.
Your mustache is looking hella nice today
Very bizarre innovation indeed, this Classical Attic sub-dialect that you speak of. Mind-blowing INDEED. īméra!!!!!
Haha yes! I thought you’d like that
About η indicating the /h/ sound early on: a relevant point to note is that the /h/ consonant is what the equivalent letter indicated in the Phoenician script.
Absolutely
Always nice to see your videos on my feed. It's good that you promote real learning and not whatever grammar translation is supposed to be. I consider myself to have some aptitude for language learning and I find it very enjoyable, and yet the type of grammar translation we did in school was enough to make me dislike Ancient Greek. I should add here that I am Greek myself and it's really mind boggling that the vast majority of Greeks, including specialists, are so poor at reading the language and have an overall very poor relationship with it. Given the fact that the language we speak in our time is descended for the Ancient one, you'd expect Greek speakers to have an easier time, yet grammar translation is such a bad method that it can neutralize this advantage.
Regarding modern Greeks sometimes (ok, a lot of times) complaining about how Ancient Greek does not sound right to them, I think the education is to blame. School textbooks actually mention that Ancient Greek had a different pronunciation but I never recall any classes where we actually focused on this. Many people have previously expressed a desire to introduce effective teaching methods in the curriculum but academia and bureaucracy are notoriously resistant to change. Maybe some day...
Thank you for your work and I look forward to more!
Edit: the pronunciation of η as a mid front vowel actually survives is some words in modern Greek and its dialects: εμέτερον means "our" in the Pontic dialect and νύφη becomes νύφε. In modern Greek the word for we is "εμείς" which might be preserving an older pronunciation to further distinguish it from ὑμεῖς, which would have had a high front vowel (albeit a rounded one).
I've read that generally we can think of the beginning of iotacism around the 1st century AD. An example is how the phrase "Κύριε ελέησον" (Kyrie eleison=Lord have mercy) was spelled in the Latin West. This hymn was transfered into their chants unchanged and is still used until now. If Η/η by that time was spelled as a long "e", it would be spelled as "Kyrie Eleeson" because that's how a Latin speaker would hear it.
Also, I remembered another example of H/η as a long "e" from an ancient source. In Athenaeus' work "Deipnosophistae", book 10, he writes: "ἠλίθιος ὥσπερ πρόβατον βῆ βῆ λέγων βαδίζει" which translates as: "'The stupid man, like a sheep, walks along saying: baa, baa". If Β/β and Η/η had today's pronunciation the sheep should sound as "vi vi" instead of "baa baa".
@@ilias8972 you read υ pronunciation past video comment of mine? That's true. There are also sources describing athenian pronunciation of 100 AD as non ancient by historians of the era.
I second that! In counterpoint class, we compose motets using the lyrics "Kyrie eleison"!
I don’t think this applies to the 1st century AD, since “kyrie eleison” is attested in Late Latin concurrent with the Vulgate Bible circa late 4cAD early 5cAD, as noted in this video. While it’s possible this occurred in Koine some places earlier, the overwhelming evidence is against this thanks to the thousands and thousands and thousands of transcriptions in the Classical Latin Period that show E rather than I.
@@polyMATHY_Luke my guess is that it applies for isolated areas preserved the original pronunciation but not for big cities.
Very good video, congratulations and many thanks! I would like to add a small sequel to this eta-adventure. There is a greek language, which has preserved the classical eta until today in a large number of words: the Pontic Greek (Greek of the Black Sea). Although Koine had an extreme influence on this language and did change eta to "i" in many cases, many words kept the eta (however as a short e). Examples (taken from the Grammatik of Papadopoulos, Athens 1955): ἄκλερος, γαλενός, ἔγκα, ζελεύω, ζεμία, θεκάριν and many others. Also in verbs: εὖρα, ἔκουσα, ἐσέγκα . In all that indicate a resident or are stressed in 2nd syllable ending in -τες: ὁ κλέφτες, ὁ ράφτες, ὁ ψὰλτες etc etc.
Looking forward to a video about the pronunciations of ΑΙ and ΟΙ through the centuries! Even one about the pronunciation of Σ which would've been mostly retracted, just like today, but arguably non-retracted in, say, regions where it was spoken as a second language by Semitic or other speakers. This is the case with Cypriot Greek, today.
I highly doubt that Palestinian Koine speakers, and therefore Christ's Apostles, would've retracted their sigmas given it is not a sound in Semitic languages and can often be mistaken for a /ʃ/. The reverse was also the case for both Greek and Latin when transliterating the Aramaic and Hebrew ש!
Fantastic mustache sir, it suits you well!
I was waiting for this one. :D
Just starting to watch this one now! Digging the manly mustache. 💪🏻⚡
It was still [ɛː] in the conservative pronunciation long after the classical attic period, as we can see from Varro, who preferred to transcribe it as into Latin.
I don’t follow, as ae is a diphthong in Classical Latin. What did Varro write exactly?
@@polyMATHY_Luke "Obscaenum dictum ab scaena; eam ut Graeci Accius scribit "scena". In pluribus verbis a ante e alii ponunt, alii non, ut quod partim dicunt "scaeptrum", partim "sceptrum" (L.L. VII 96, cited by Lindsay, The Latin Language, P. 48). There are also inscriptions which have -aes for the genitive ending -ης.
The diphthongal value of ae was probably not very pronounced in Classical Latin, it was not [a͜ɪ] but rather [ɛ͜e] or [æ͜e], so it was quite usable for replacing the greek [ɛː].
That’s not the case. This is well explained in Vox Latina. Rustic Latin speakers of the 1cBC did have a monophthong, but this is not urban Latin of the city of Rome. It explains such spelling errors, but insofar as Latin is a unity, ae is exclusively a diphthong. The word scaena among others are examples of hypercorrection, where the less educated had the monophthong, thus a diphthong was a corrective measure, occasionally overdone. When people say “often” with a clear T sound, that is an example of a similar hypercorrection. Thus I don’t say scaena, but scēna in Latin.
@@polyMATHY_Luke wait, is often's t an artificial spelling?
Hi Luke. I'm Edward. I follow your content for about two years. As I continue to study ancient history, ancient texts in classical Latin and Koine Greek (trying to get a tiny bit closer to the NT originals) , your videos have been fascinating me more and more. You're a true inspiration, an influence and a reference.
I wish you all the best and if you ever find yourself in Houston TX, I'll gladly offer you a drink (or two :)
PS: may I suggest a video with your comments on the Bible NT translations from Koine/Latin to English?
Thanks very much! I’ll look into it
Greek is the most important language for Christendom because the LXX was quoted by Jesus and the apostles (the earliest Hebrew MT is from the 11th century, therefore less reliable). As a Roman-Catholic Latin always has a special place in my heart (favourite subject at school!) but God used Greek to spread the Gospel and Jesus almost certainly spoke Greek in John 3 (which is cool), yet we have no evidence of him speaking Latin (he probably knew some of it though).
Would you ever be interested in making a video about pitch accent in ancient Greek? It's something that I'm very interested in and would love to hear you talk about and what your opinions on it are.
10:40 I surely noticed that hahah
Thank you for your amazing work
Thanks!
Ήτα and ήττα. A single letter makes big difference
"Ya win some, ya lose some" is a more interesting phrase in Greek!
@@davidsturm7706 When we want to make fun of the opponents in sports, we tell them that the can spell the alphabet until eta
Luke my friend, what do you think about doing Sanskrit next?
I know a lot of people would love to learn it using the method you use with other languages.
ॐ नमो गुरु देव् नमो
One day!
An interesting piece of evidence to add to eta being transcribed as a front mid vowel in gothic is that it’s specifically a close mid front vowel [eː] or [e̝ː] consistently in wulfilian gothic, if eta would have been lower we might have instead seen it being transcribed as what in gothic was [ɛː] at least sporadically. so its clear that at the time of the translation (4. century) and in that area eta had already raised to [eː] or [e̝ː]
That is perfectly consistent with what we expect in the contemporary Greek, so that’s great. Thanks!
Τα βίντεο σου είναι πάντα ενδιαφέροντα. Θενκ γιου!
In Pontic Greek there are many words with eta that are pronounced like epsilon.
That's some very stylish facial hair you've got there, my good sir. I like it!
Seems like the Mirror Universe Luke, no?
In griko η is mostly read as an "i" sound (η ημέρα=i iméra, ήσελα/ήθελα=ísela, ítela) but certain varieties such the one spoken in the Calimera η is sometimes conserved the /e/ sound (ε εμέρα but ήσελα). It is interesting that even υ sometimes evolved in an ου sound, so we have εσού instead of εσύ, or Τσχουριατσχή (Ciuriacì) instead of Κυριακή, or Τσχούρη (Ciùri) instead of Κύριος. Other words such as τυρί (tirì, cheese) or σταφύλι (stafìli, grapes) have the modern /i/ pronunciation.
It didn't evolve into ου but most likely remained ,,ου" as υ used to have the ,,ου" sound
@@aroma13 well, it is facts a partial preservation. Notice however that υ sounded /y/ in ancient period, such as the first "u" in the French "bureau", or the German and Lombard "ü", whilst modern diphthong "ου", in Modern Greek as well as in Griko, indicates a /u/ sound.
Is that τσχ (it is [tsx], right?) the usual result of palatalized κ? That’s pretty interesting, but it would also mean that υ must have been [y] at some point for the palatalization to happen.
@@driksarkar6675 I want to say that we don't have any standard orthography and most of the times griko is written in latin alphabet following the rules of the local romance dialect (with the exception of the "ch" or "kh" digraph that is used to transcribe χ). This is my personal alphabet that I developed studying the greek alphabet and I took this τσχ from the Tsakonian alphabet and that is read as a /tʃ/ sound (τζ indicates a /dʒ/) sound. Many scholars though prefer to add another letter to write down /tʃ/, and that is κ̍ (so you have for example 'κ̍είνο for αυτός or αυτό, read 'chEEnoh' and cognate to the greek εκείνος). It is also important to notice that griko, especially the Salentinian variety (this is not valid speaking about grecanico, that is the Calabro-Sicilian dialect) has the exact same pronunciation of the local romance dialect (very similar to the italian), so that χ is the only different sound and it's practically identical to the standard greek one (/ç/ or /x/ dependinɡ on the position). The θ was approximated in /s/ or /t/ (in my script it's etymological and i decided to preserve it in the words were it's pronounced as a /t/, for example θέλω read /telo/, θάλασσα /talassa/ but not in λισάρι (stone).
Is very similar to cypriot dialect
Never imagined someone explaining me Greek language while rocking a vintage Van Dyke🤟
That style really suits you!
Despite the whole eta topic, your mustache is great and if you had long hair you would look like a dutch enlightist
First (Not)
Edit: This is a great video on how sound changes can occur. Well done!
Could you do a segment where you talk ancient Greek for one or two minutes? I am Greek and I am wondering if I will be able to understand the pronounciation. Wonderful video as always, one of the best channels on TH-cam.
Here you go! In this recording I’m using the Samosatene Lucian Pronunciation:
th-cam.com/video/Yvfs5aCIy0g/w-d-xo.html
More info here: www.patreon.com/posts/80661461
And here: th-cam.com/video/Dt9z5Gvp3MM/w-d-xo.html
@@polyMATHY_Luke Thanks a lot !
17:26 I knew it! I knew that Attic Greek was doing this! How else do you explain Plato talking about how hēméra was once spelled iméra? Or how apparently an Attic schoolboy in a tablet they had found confused eta with iota?
Right! I always dismissed the importance of these, since it’s obvious Koine did not transmit these iotacisms. Hence arguments that cling to a MG type pronunciation in Classical Athens that has unbroken continuity with the modern language come off as ludicrous. However, when looking at the problem with multiple subsystems of phonology in mind, it all makes a lot more sense.
Ohmydog! I loved this so much!
...I must really be a geek!
Usually you rock my pronunciation world, but this time I actually was taught correctly 😂
Man your mustache is mighty indeed!
I like your moustache man!
Have you ever considered making an ASMR video? Maybe a reading of Latin poetry? I'd gladly listen to that
Omg that's a good idea kinda
Thanks for sharing
Thanks Luke!👍
17:56 There are some rural dialects till this day that are used to close their more open vowels, while also dropping their close ones. They're commonly named χωριάτικα, and ironically called as χουριάτ'κα.
That’s super cool! Thanks Mihail
@@polyMATHY_Luke My pleasure, Luke! I can't get enough of your pronunciation videos!!
Very flattered. Hopefully more soon
"French mustached-chef serves Greeks the truth about ancient Greek pronunciation"
Jokes aside I love that you keep the series going. Keep it up military mustache man 💪
BTW I thought iotacism comes from the iota (ι) and not eta (η)
Iotacism and itacism are synonyms, given that both vowels have the same pronunciation in modern greek (or not so modern).
Thanks, Yianni! You’re absolutely right. It’s sometimes called itacism too:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iotacism
@@polyMATHY_Lukeah, much appreciated
Rocking that 'stache!
It's so weird and funny to discover that Vulgar Attic had /i/ for both eta and epsilon.
I agree!
mindblowing, great job!!!!!!!!!
hey bro come to Greece . you can visit in Thessaloniki the archaeological museum and the museum of Byzantine culture and also the White Tower. there is a lot of things that you will love to see. i work in Byzantine museum and I will love to see you theare.
Love the video. Less certain about the 'stache.
I'm a language nerd currently living in Athens and I have only now made a connection between the study of ancient transcriptions to draw conclusions about the phonology - and an observation I made a few weeks ago about the latinisation of modern Greek - namely the absolute chaos and total anarchy of said transcriptions. Let me explain based on a specific example.
One of the main roads connecting southern Athens with the centre is Συγγρού (pronounced siŋɡru). The Greek spelling is always consistent and the same - however, when you look at the latinized signs you get...:
'Sygrou' (on the metro street sign of the station Sygrou-Fix)
'Singrou' (on a street sign)
'Syggrou' (on another official street sign as the previous one, just next to the previous building)
'Syngrou' (on an official map downstairs)
'Sigrou' (on ..another official map, hanging just one meter to the right of the previous map)
'Siggrou' (a bus stop a few meters from the aforementioned metro station)
'Syggroy' (I don't remember where exactly, but I do recall having seen this spellig somewhere)
That probably doesn't even cover all the variants. All of them are somewhat justified, choosing with each letter between the actual pronounciation, the representation of the original spelling and consistency (e.g. should you always spell υ as 'y' as the letters themselves are related, or should you adapt and sometimes spell it as i, sometimes as u, sometimes as ou...?; what do you do with γ? If you always spell it as 'g', you end up with '-gia-' being pronounced as dʒia or gia, which it never is...
My two main conclusions are: while looking at spelling is undoubtedly one of the most valuable tools of historical linguistics, the amount of uncertainty seems to be much higher than I previously suspected. Would these methods allow for the proper reconstruction of the pronounciation of Athenian 'Συγγρού ' A.D. 2023 if no recordings existed and someone found a map in a thousand years? With enough examples and context - perhaps, but I think it would still not be an exact science.
Secondly - the history and standards (or lack thereof) of latinisation of Greek seem like a whole massive and fascinating subject all on its own.
Sometimes people spell things a certain way...well, just because.
The various ways to render modern Greek in Roman letters would be fascinating to discuss. The official transliteration focuses on maintaining a 1:1 match between Roman and Greek letters. Before technology, transliteration was focused on pronunciation. However, it is easier to tell a computer that d=δ, than to try and program an understanding of letter combinations truer to pronunciation. Imagine for a moment how badly English-speaking tourists would butcher “SYGGROY” and it is easy to understand why “official” signs would deviate from this to try and render something a bit closer to the Greek pronunciation.
Fascinating, this man is a, linguistic genius
Oh that’s much more than I could ever deserve. The credit goes to all the sources I cited.
Will you ever make a video about all the ancient greek dialects?
Absolutely
@@polyMATHY_Luke
I'll be All Ears when you bring up
O L Y M P I C .
Nothing else would
Suit the likes of ZEUS ! :D
Great moustache brother
In Cyrillic "eta" became "И", universally pronounced as [i] in Slavic languages and never having a value of [e]. Some languages, like Russian, Serbian or Bulgarian, got rid of I in favor of И (surprisingly, vice-versa in Belorussian!), Ukrainian preserved both letters, I for a closed sound and И for a more open one.
Thanks again Luke for sharing all this!
I did study ancient Greek (and Latin) as a student in Paris, but of course we used the so-called Erasmian pronunciation.
One thing I was always convinced about was that, at least when the Greek alphabet was afopted by most of the ancient Greeks, both eta and omega must have been not only the long variant of epsilonn and omicronn, but must also have had a different sound. Eta should have been a more open kind of e (like French è or ê), while omega a more closed o ( like French ô). Otherwise, if it was only a longer version, why have a separate symbol, when alpha for example could be long or short but did not have two different symbols?
Of course later on, in classical or post-classical times, that difference may have disappeared.
What’s your take on this? - And thanks again.
All those changes in pronounciation in all languages have to do with the increase of the speaking speed of the vast majority of the people were talking in any given era as a general result of the increase of the cognitive subject. The mechanics of those changes just depict the preferred path of the occurred change(s). The same, more or less, stands for the written language as well... There is always a need for a change to happen, gradually or as mutation...
EYE ah
Heta
Eta
Cuzza
Aint no
Lettah
E I C H !!
Making vowels become
LEFT heavy ..... :D
Oh, University of Gothenburg. I studied German there in the 90s🧐
gemein (common) is a cognate of koine (common) in German.
Con quei baffi e un pizzetto somiglieresti a D'Annunzio. 😂 Mi aspetto però una traduzione de La Pioggia nel Pineto in greco classico.
Hello Luca, first of all, I congratulate you on the breadth and depth of your knowledge. I am interested in the real pronunciation of ancient Greek of classical age and some time ago I read one of the texts you proposed in this video: Vox Graeca. It is a very interesting text but it left me with many perplexities which I will summarize in a question: if it is true that in alternative to the melodic accent there was also what the author calls 'prominence' and which corresponded with the strong position of the metre, why the after intensive accent did not slip to coincide with this strong position but was grafted onto the melodic one? Thank you in advance for your kind reply.
gotta do a video on Δδ
I covered it here th-cam.com/video/5lcIcYFveII/w-d-xo.html
I have only studied koine greek to read the Bible and seeing εἰρήνη written as īrēnē just couldn't tell at all what it was I've learned to read letter patterns I have so much trouble with it all outloud lol
Do you have a video on how to pronounce the different tonal markings above ancient Greek vowels? Exempla: ί, ή, õ and do they have an impact on vowel length? (I've started LOGOS which doesn't mark long vowels, is there a way to intuit them from the text?)
I do! Go to timeline of this video: th-cam.com/video/dQBpwKWnZAo/w-d-xo.htmlsi=jZpCvj1CUuBx7AEs
It is actually easy to speak all vowels as i in Greek and people will still understand you 😉
It may be easy as a practice, or even easy to understand in Modern Greek, but Ancient Greek gives some rather bizarre results, such as ἡμεῖς-ὑμεῖς, εἴη-εἵη-οἴῃ-οἴει-οἷοι-ἵει-ἴῃ-ᾔει-ἴοι etc. etc. etc.
@@Michail_Chatziasemidis Good point. I highly doubt the ancients would have failed to distinguish between all those examples.
@@iberius9937 Many languages (e.g. Japanese) may have words that sound exactly the same (homonyms are they called? I don't remember), but the distinction between "we" and "you" (plural) is fundamental. I doubt the situation would be that desperate to confuse the two.
que bigodão lindo Luke!
A question for Luke : according to your historical phonology spreadsheet, there was a time around the 400's where èta and epsilon were merged. If this is true, why did only èta undergo ioticization ?
Because they’re not related phenomena; the the iotacism of “Vulgar” Attic is not related to the iotacism that came centuries later: th-cam.com/video/UkXLAe2-DLY/w-d-xo.html
ciao !!!! forti i tuoi video, molto interessanti , noi italiani il latino non lo conosciamo affato ,i ragazzi forse lo studiano , ma con molta difficolta' e solo in certe scuole 👍
Just a quick question, though I'm not sure if the answer can be as quick: you mentioned a tendency to Doricize the pronunciation of Attic in tragedies, but I've never heard about this before, so could you please fill me in on the details regarding this practice, i.e. why and to what extent was this done, etc.? Or, hell, make a video I guess. It's just something I'm unfamiliar with that I'm sure will increase my understanding of the cultural context of Greek tragedy, which makes it tantalizing.
Here you go www.aoidoi.org/articles/choral_doric.html
@@polyMATHY_Luke Grazie amico.
The Nova Vulgata lection of Luca II, 2 is "Hæc descriptio prima facta est præside Syriae Quirino." Saint Jerome had not recognized a Roman name behind Κυρηνίου, and the mistake was corrected in the Latin text only after the Second Council of Vatican.
Also,other question: do we have any idea why so many indoeuropean languages (or at least European ones) determined that the short version of mid vowels must be lower than the long version? English ĕ = low mid, ē = high (not even high mid) and slightly diphthongal, same for o; late Latin long e merged with short i while short e gets lowered,same with o/u; Greek eta high mid eventually drifting into high, epsilon low mid
That’s not necessary the case. See the long video on the secondary channel about Vulgar Attic.
Pulcher re vera tibi'st mystax iste, Luci
would be nice one video explaining the change of θαλαττα for θάλασσα
I covered that here th-cam.com/video/fiSGxDV3JIQ/w-d-xo.html
Can you do a comparison of Attic verses Kione verses Doric? Is that possible? Of course, Doric is pronounced like Myceneaen Greek. Arrian, a student of Epictetus, wrote his recap of his teachers lectures in Kione. He wrote it in the common language, even though his other works are in the more formal Attic Greek dialect.
Hello Luke, I was wondering if the fricantisation of gamma, delta and beta took place after the fortis counterparts broke into fricatives due to aspiration, as a way to maintain symmetry, or if it happened at the same time or earlier. Also, did phita and beta move from labial to labiodental at the same time as each other?
I made a video about that th-cam.com/video/5lcIcYFveII/w-d-xo.html
Nice moustache
Ahhh yes the vowel existence to /i/ pipeline
Hello Luke, do we know who made the first Greek alphabet as we know it? Was that Omyrus?
I don’t offhand, I’d have to look it up
Given your predilection for factual specifics, I'm surprised at your use of bc and ad, rather than ce and bce.
I’m surprised you’re surprised. BC and AD have been in common use for a very long time, as have been the Day of Saturn (Saturday) and the Day of the Sun (Sunday). In Italian Sunday is called domenica “the Lord’s day.” They’re just part of language, and no longer have fixed religious significance (thought for some they might, whether Christian or Pagan). Feel free to use BCE and CE if that’s your preference.
Dear Luke, or any other reader of this comment. I have no idea how to type an α, ι or υ with a macron (or breve for the same matter) with an additional accent, like an acute or a smooth breathing for example. Could you or anyone else please tell me how this is done?
I use the Sophokeys keyboard.
@@polyMATHY_Luke thank you so much 😁
I feel like this video could have used a mention of how Christianos (Christian) was always spelled with an eta instead of an iota in the earliest manuscripts and how Christos was sometimes spelled with an eta too (which changes the meaning as "Chrestos" was a much more common word, meaning "good" instead of "annointed.")
"impulsore Chresto"
I have a question concerning quantity of long α,υ,ι and the metre. As vowel quantity disappeared by the end of antiquity and was not distinguished anymore (as it is the case in Modern Greek), how can we know that for example χίλιοι has long iota (χῑλιοι)? Was it somehow transmitted by the Byzantine legacy? I wonder if there was lack of vowel quantity distinction, could the Byzantines enjoy Greek metre of ancient poetry? Or maybe it was reconstructed in Europe through Latin sources and poetry?
We know the lengths of vowels in Ancient Greek and Latin thanks in part to a tradition of a small number of people who always understood the concept even after it fell out of common use, unbroken from antiquity to the present. Otherwise it’s very easy to deduce the lengths from the poetry, as well as etymologically.
Hi Polymathy,
How would you read this word > ελοι
I understand it is written with an Epsilon, but the “οι” at the end made me read it as “eloi”.
The Aramaic word hypothesised by me is “Elōhi”. But since you said at the beginning “oi” is an “E” sound, I’m curious if it is possible otherwise.
If it’s a separate syllable, then we might write it ἐλοϊ to clarify that
❤❤❤
❤️🕊️❤️
To get the proper sound of Greek vowels the best is to refer to interjections used by the very authors. Hellenistic authors for the most part used Omega in the same way and in the same context as Oh to mean astonishment or amazement and Eta in the same way as Eh is used to call someone to attention. The boat call OHE was already written with both these vowels. The degree of aperture of both these letters was wider on the coast of Asia Minor than on the peninsular coast and that shows in the use of a different way to write the same interjections, though they used the same written language. Democracy didn’t have any impact of the kind we imagine on the language : Athenian democracy as it was called, during its very supposed golden age that was also that of tragedy, harboured an especially keen contempt for all ordinary people and all workers, both menial and also creative as impure, to the point that demiourgos (public artisan or artist) rapidly came to be a slur addressed against any guy involved in detailed technical work and by extension denoted the devil in the gnostic philosophical systems that were to come. Tragedy despite its magnificience is as a literary genre the thing most opposite to all democratic values in the modern sense : there is no alternative to fate and striving for a better society is the cardinal sin. The very people that would have favoured a democratic development in the West European sense of the word, like inventors, were the adversaries. Athens was an international centre of class snobbishness like no other in the classical world, a fact confirmed by the type of Romans who would a little later idolize most Athens as a luxury destination, namely not the people but the oligarchs. Right from the times of Solon and Pericles Athens believed in the value of class over common humanity. This resulted into a strictly top down direction of cultural influence.
Hey Luke. Why don’t you or your colleagues research different Greek dialects that exist today (or have been recorded during the last century)? I am confident that you will find traces of ancient pronunciations.
Kind of an unrelated question but what's the deal with latin scorpiō being a third declension noun while Greek σκορπίος is a second declension noun? All the borrowed nouns I've encountered so far fall in the same declension in both languages apart from some rare cases like ēchō.
It’s a big scorpius
@@polyMATHY_Luke Thanks. It makes sense.
Maybe I was too hasty to see other options but at the ancient languages Institut I only found veeeery expensive courses I could never afford...is there no free or at least low priced course?
It doesn't make sense for "H" to be pronounced as "E" since there was already a letter for the "E" sound. The Attic dialect is just a reconstruction-alteration of Ionic Greek. The Athenians were pretty clear when they invented "H" and "Ω", the long versions of "i" and "o".
τό εἶ εἴναι τό μακρύ ἴ
@@Κασσάνηρ Μόνο όταν παίρνει περισπωμένη είναι μακρύ το "ει". Το "Η" είναι πάντα μακρύ διότι γι'αυτό εφευρέθει.
Τα πράγματα είναι πολύ απλά. Κάποιοι στην Αθήνα πήγαν να επιβάλλουν το "Η" περί το 500 π.Χ., ο κόσμος που πάντα μιλούσε με "Ε" και "Α" αντέδρασε, αρνούμενος να μιλάει με "Η". Και σήμερα εμείς παιδευόμαστε να βρούμε αν το "Η" προφερόταν ως "Ε".
η was a long vowel, so it did not make the same sound as ε, which was short. Before the invention of the letter η, it WAS written ε. It continued to be used to transcribe Latin ē and vice versa well into the Koine period. It became a long i sound during the early Byzantine period.
So that means that ε and η even in the classical period were already indistinguishable?
They were distinguished by length in antiquity, but in some cases the quality had merged.
@@polyMATHY_Luke thanks
First!
Ehi Davide! 👋
@@polyMATHY_Luke Sorry, couldn't resist the temptation... 😝
An explanation on how a letter changed the pronunciation from E to I in a language (i.e. English) that changed the pronunciation of E to I (at least in long vowels) 😄
Also there's pin-pen merger in Southern American English, with /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ merging as /ɪ/ before nasal. Among many speakers of Newfoundland English there's completely merger of those two sound regardless of the surrounding sounds; apparently this was also true for the Irish English as a whole, but today mostly restricted to South and South-West Ireland and not that common
Also, I think New Zealand has a (relatively tense) [ɪ] for DRESS (with KIT merging with schwa to [ə].)
Didn't mention cause it's chain shift rather than straight up merger, but true nonetheless
That’s right! And then see what happens in Vulgar Attic; because even short epsilon iotacizes: th-cam.com/video/UkXLAe2-DLY/w-d-xo.html
On the name Κυρηνιος (or Κυρινος?)
The 4th-century Codex Sinaiticus contains the spelling Κυρηνιου in Luke 2:2, a variant also found in many later manuscripts. On the other hand, the 4th-century Codex Vaticanus presents Κυρεινου, the Codex Washingtonianus from the 4th or 5th century has Κυρινου, and the 6th-century palimpsest Codex Zacynthius has Κυρινιου.
Considering that the man's actual name likely was Quirinius (or possibly Quirinus), the use of Κυρηνιου with η might be a textual corruption. This could have been influenced by confusion due to the North African city of Cyrene (Κυρηνη). A resident of Cyrene is referred to as a Κυρηναίος, and Simon of Cyrene is famously mentioned in the synoptic gospels as the man who helps Jesus to carry his cross.
The Vulgate in the Latin Codex Harleianus appears to have "Quirino" in Luke 2:2, but most "Old Latin" manuscripts (those predating Jerome's translation) use Cyrino here. The translators of these manuscripts may have derived this from Κυρ(ε)ινου in their source, similar to the Codices Vaticanus and Washingtonianus.
In the Greek Ερμενεία Εβραικῶν Ονομάτων edited by Origen, the name from Luke 2:2 is transcribed as Κυριναιου, also a form quite close to Κυρηναίου, but clearly with an ι. It is explained as a Hebrew name meaning "κληρονομοῦντος" or "κληρονόμος ἀνήρ" (inheritor). Interestingly, this form, Κυριναιου, is reflected in the Gothic Codex Argenteus as 𐌺𐍅𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌽𐌰𐌹𐌰𐌿 or Kwreinaiau, where "w" is equivalent to "y," "ei" is a long "i", "ai" is a short open "e," and "au" is a short open "o," indicating the dative case ending in Gothic.
Ehta mazkin! :P
What about the word ἀλήθεια? If we replace the η with εε, we violate the three syllable rule of stressing! So, that is my problem! Does anyone have any ideas on that?
The last alpha is short; it doesnt go against the rule! Though, it will conjugate τῆς ἀληθείᾱς, τῇ ἀληθείᾱͅ and so on!
@@unquietthoughts I am talking about the stress if we replace the η with εε. If we stress the first ε, as in Δέελος=Δῆλος, then we will have ἀλέεθεια, which means we have stressed the fourth syllable counting from the end! If we stress the second one, there is no point in having the first one, so the word would have been spelt ἀλέθεια!
@@kostasantonopoulos1478We'll have ἀλεέθεια in this case. (since an acute accent on long vowel signifies low-to-high tone.)
@@unquietthoughts thanks for that. Although now my problem is the ει, following. Some people say that it was pronounced separately as ε-ι. But if we do this, we violate again the three syllable rule!
@@kostasantonopoulos1478 Actually that makes me angry as well!
φίλε‒ + ‒ε > φίλει
Iirc, as long as the iota doesn't have two dots, ει should be read /eː/~/iː/
Wasn't it in fact a syllabic letter hē?