Mike Aubrey October 8, 2008 Greek, Language, Linguistics, Phonology

On Greek Pronunciation Again

Okay, Caragounis’ description of kappa is even worse:

Capitol: Κ Small: κ HGP: k as in keen (before e and i-sounds). kodak (before α, ο, ω, and consonants) (same book, same page).

I’m really, really struggling to figure what exactly what he’s thinking regarding the difference (?) in pronunciation of “keen” and “kodak.”

No clue on that one.

No clue.

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1

Damian on October 8, 2008 at 11:06 pm
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Mike,

There’s a difference if you’re a phonetician, :). Say the two of them and pay attention to the shape of your mouth when you’re saying the k. It’s lightly different. But why they try to describe this to someone who hasn’t studied phonetics and who can’t read the phonetic alphabet (which is designed to describe the differences), is beyond me.

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2

Mike on October 8, 2008 at 11:31 pm
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Damian,

Good point.

Although, from what I read in his book, Caragounis is clearly *not* a phonetician!

Not to mention that the very little difference between [ki] and [ke] in Greek is far from phonemic.

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3

Damian on October 9, 2008 at 4:29 am
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Yeah, I don’t understand why he thinks it’s important to identify a non-phonemic distinction in a language that hasn’t been spoken in over 1500 years. It’s not like pronunciation is that important in a dead language (especially one that’s been recorded in writing and not orally).

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4

Esteban Vázquez on October 9, 2008 at 6:50 am
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Oh, but his point is that the pronunciation of ancient Greek is not dead, but rather, that there exists a “native Greek” pronunciation whose natural and organic development spans the whole history of the language, and which now lives among modern Greeks.

Of course, this is precisely the point made by nearly every Greek I’ve ever met (and I’m Eastern Orthodox, so I’ve met a few); added to that is usually the comment that this glorious, exalted, pure, etc. Greek pronunciation is basically unattainable for us lowly xenoi: try as you might, you’ll never really get it right. For this I have no patience, and Caragounis strikes me as your average Hellenic (ha! like there are any true Hellenes left after the population exchanges of the Turkocratia!) xenophobe, except that he has a PhD and can write outrageously expensive books to elaborate on our ethnic and linguistic inadequacies.

The point is, don’t try, Mike. You’ll never get it right.

(All of that said, I do think there’s a great deal of merit to the notion of a “native Greek” pronunciation, and I myself always use the modern Greek pronunciation; my students have remarked that it makes it sound like a real, living language, and I agree. It is the tone and subtext of Caragounis’ arguments, together with his presumption that his pet theories are beyond criticism, that irk me.)

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5

Mike on October 9, 2008 at 10:24 am
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Esteban, I don’t think that’s true. Or, I should say, its not completely true. He concedes that “υ” has not always been pronounced “ι” at one point, but as [ɨ]. So while he argues for his five vowel system throughout the book, at one point he actually admits there once was a six vowel system – maybe, perhaps, if he doesn’t think about it too much…

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6

Stephen C. Carlson on October 9, 2008 at 11:57 am
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He’s probably claiming that the k is slightly palatalized before i and e. But so what?

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7

Mike on October 9, 2008 at 12:18 pm
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Stephen: You’re right, of course, That it happen in English too, which makes the statement even more unnecessary.

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8

Peter Kirk on October 9, 2008 at 3:28 pm
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That palatalisation of k before i and e is of course very general in European languages. Russian does it as well, as I’m sure you observed Mike – it has a phonemic palatalised/non-palatalised distinction for most consonants, but not for k, g and kh where the distinction depends entirely on the phonetic environment. But things get different further east, with Turkic and Semitic languages which distinguish k and q sounds as separate phonemes (actually a distinction lost in western Turkish dialects probably under Greek influence). So I have had to learn to say phonetic [q] before front vowels and phonetic [k] sometimes tending towards [c] before back vowels.

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9

Mike on October 9, 2008 at 4:02 pm
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Personally, my favorite Russian phonemes are /ʃʲ/ and /ʂ/. The fact that the non-palatalized version is retroflexed is so cool to me.

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10

Five Biblical Studies Books that I’m Stupider for Reading « ΕΝ ΕΦΕΣΩ on July 28, 2009 at 1:00 pm
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[…] to actually pronounce the letters of the Greek alphabet are imprecise and unhelpful (see HERE and HERE). [UPDATE: See Dr. Caragounis' own comments on pronunciation below. You can either scroll or, if […]

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