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How Should we Pronounce Ancient Greek?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
Mr. Francis Elliot's eloquent plea for substituting the ‘beautiful modern Greek pronunciation’ for the so-called ‘reformed’ pronunciation of the ancient language is at first sight very attractive, and there is no doubt that the reformed pronunciation is itself in need of some reforming. I would agree that the modern language in the mouths of most Greeks is more beautiful than the ancient language in the mouths of most Englishmen—this is partly due to the Englishman's inability or reluctance to fit his mouth to continental vowels and consonants—and that the modern Greek way of stressing the syllables bearing the acute or circumflex accent should be universally adopted in our schools instead of being the hobby of a few eccentric teachers. The ancient Greek accent was no doubt one of pitch, but there are traces of the transformation of this into a stress accent as early as the fourth century a.d.; in any event there is a tendency for a higher-pitched syllable to carry a stress with it, whereas there is no case at all for foisting the Latin trisyllabic rule of stress on to ancient Greek. Even to utter the stressed syllables at a higher pitch is no impossible feat.
page 74 note 1 Greece & Rome, Second Series, ii (1955), 82–85.
page 77 note 1 The evidence for the facts in this and the preceding paragraph is set out by Sturtevant, E. H., in The Pronunciation of Greek and Latin (Chicago, 1930).Google Scholar But I think he exaggerates in ascribing a ‘strong puff’ to the Greek aspirates; this hardly fits in with the general character of the language as we know it.
page 78 note 1 Mr. Elliot's article was written in 1953.—ED.
page 80 note 1 The results of such study may be found in detail in Sturtevant, E. H., The Pronunciation of Greek and Latin (2nd ed., Philadelphia, 1940).Google Scholar
page 81 note 1 In his De recta et emendata Graecae linguae pronuntiatione (Paris, 1568) he writes: ‘narravit … amicus meus … esse Patavii Graecum quemdam natione, lanum, ni fallor, nomine, consummatae eruditionis virum, et existimationis non mediocris, qui contendit id ipsum quod nos, vetustiores Graecos longe diversam habuisse pronuntiandi rationem in illa sua diserta doctaque lingua, quam qua mine omnes fere utantur, et hanc etiam ipsam in vocalibus et diphthongis quae fuerit, solet percontantibus ex coniectura sua patefacere’.
page 81 note 2 A. Γεωργιάδου, Πραγματεία περί τ⋯ς τῷν ⋯λληνικῷν στοιXείων ⋯κφωνήσεως (Παρίσι, Βιέννη, Λιψία, 1812).
page 81 note 3 In the periodical ‘Εστία, ii (1893), 17 ff.
page 82 note 1 Γ. Ν. ‘Xατ
ιδάκι, ‘Ακαδημεικ⋯ ‘Αναγναώματα (Athens, 1902), i. 284 ff.; and Γλωσσολογικα⋯ Μελέται (Athens, 1901), i. 574 ff.