#Greek #classical greek #greekabc #soundsof greek
THE
SOUNDS OF GREEK
How
Greek Was and Is Pronounced
This
is part 4 of a series of 4 posts to Metousia.
Τ
τ
Tau Tactics or Time or sTand
Υ
υ
Upsilon The French U in Tu or the German ü or the Y in the form
of Welsh that pronounces it as U. IPA [y] This sound tends to change
to i and is pronounced as I in Modern Greek just as some Modern Welsh
speakers use i for the sound spelt “Y” instead of the “u” and
also explains Greek sun in sunthesis becoming sinthesis in English.
Φ
φ
Phi The Aspirated P at the beginning of words like Phobos or
English Pin or Pool or mop-handle.
Modern
Greek however F as in Fat. Latin speakers lacked this sound and
wrote Greek loan words starting with this sound with an F.
Χ
χ
Chi An Aspirated K as in English Cat or Cool.
In
Modern Greek it's a Fricative like the sound in the Gaelic (NOT the
English) pronunciation of Loch or the ch in German words like Machen
This
sound is also often transliterated as “h” as in Hue as it becomes
ç before i and e but English speakers tend to hear it as a H so
Classical Greek Metokhee is pronounced metohi in modern Greek.
Ψ
ψ
Psi Ps Pi plus Sigma as in EcliPSe or English caPS
Ω
ω
Omega the BIG O Ode Ocean like English sAW
There
is NO H in Classical Greek. Aspirated letters have their own symbols.
Theta
for Th Phi for Phi Chi for Kh. These are NOT Fricatives in Classical
Greek!
However
there is what scholars call a rough breathing.
Its
not exactly the same as English H but is written as a h.
̒
ἁ
ἑ ἡ ἱ ὁ ὑ ὡ
In
classical Greek Ὀρος is oros but ὁρος is horos. Ῥήτωρ
is rheetoor.
Although
the historical rough breathing is used in written forms in many
Modern Greek texts the “h” is NOT spoken and you will often see
the breathing symbol omitted.
The
dictionary form Holos ὅλος all becomes όλος olos.
(I
am not going to explain Katherousa versus Dhemotika here!
That
is a topic for a separate post)
