Introduction to the Lucian/Koine Pronunciation

An introduction to the Lucian or Koine pronunciation of Ancient Greek, which is sort of a compromise between Erasmian and Modern, and represents how Greek was actually spoken during parts of the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
See here for a detailed overview: • Lucian Pronunciation o...

[@g.v.3493]

A Greek professor (of both ancient and modern Greek) explained the sound change very simply: sheep said Beh-Beh, not Vi-vi. (βη-βη).

[@jay.rhoden]

Yes, but the more interesting question is, _when_ did sheep start saying vi-vi 😀

[@trackanalysis6369]

@@jay.rhoden that's usually determined by the exact way words were borrowed into other languages. We don't call basilisk a vasilisc, but the russian name sounds Vasil, not Basil.

[@teoteog3984]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/gqi9f3ptitqobck βηη-βηηηηη

[@kalliaspapaioannou7045]

@G. V. True, still Kratinos, who wrote that, was a comedy writer, and it refers to an idiot who starts walking as "προβατον" (προβαίνω: walk in front) which did not meant always sheep back then, the word was (οίς), but could be many different animals and he either meant that the idiot person was acted in not the correct sound or he maybe means another animal. Also the animal sounds are not copied by people the same in every language, in Greek we say "Γαβ" when English can be "woof" for example and we don't know if the ancient Greeks were actually using "beh-beh " Also Plato in Kratylus (418c) says: " 'Εγώ σοι ερώ. Οϊσθα δτι οι παλαιοί οι ημέτεροι τω Ιώτα και τω δέλτα εϋ μάλα εχρώντο, και ούχ ήκιστα αι γυναίκες, αΐπερ μάλιστα τήν άρχαίαν φωνήν σώζουσι. νυν δε αντί μεν του ιώτα ή ει ή ητα μεταστρέφουσιν, αντί δε του δέλτα ζήτα, ως δη μεγαλοπρεπέστερα οντά."

[@MrVladko0]

@@trackanalysis6369 True, also in Russian basilisk sounds ‘vasilisc’ (‘василиск’) too.

[@georgios_5342]

Great job! Thank you! Your reading is really cool at the end too, and I could understand even without looking at the text! As a modern Greek, I really think Lucian is a good system in all regards!

[@diglossos5202]

Thank you so much!

[@jasonbaker2370]

Nice summary and great reading at the end. As a long time Latin student I am just now learning Ancient Greek and this is the pronunciation I have adopted.

[@dekenlst]

Lucian sounds like a slower version of modern Greek. If you speed it up a bit they sound exactly the same

[@LukeRanieri]

Lovely video! Thanks for the shoutout.

[@PC_Simo]

I *_KNEW_* there *_HAD TO_* be a shoutout to you. One does not simply talk about Lucian pronunciation, without mentioning you 👌🏻. 😅

[@joseantoniobenlopez3240]

Enhorabuena por el vídeo.

[@ignisfatuus07]

At last an acceptable ancient Greek pronunciation for modern Greek speakers

[@fs2728]

The monophthongization of the i-diphthongs was very early (and was the cause of the itazism), so it would be much more consistent to pronounce αι as [ ɛː] and οι as [ øː].

[@Philoglossos]

As with most sound changes it was one that may have began fairly early, but certainly wasn't complete for all speakers by this period.

[@Alaedious]

Μπράβο σου! That was a lovely reading at the end! 😍 What's your native language? Are you bilingual? 🤔

[@diglossos5202]

Thank you so much! I'm bilingual English/German, but I've done a lot of Latin and Greek (ancient and modern).

[@Max-te2gy]

You mentioned that it preserves vowel lenghts, but at the end of the video I couldn't really distinguish between long and short vowels. Did I miss(hear) anything, or was it intentional?

[@diglossos5202]

I am, admittedly, not very good at consistently maintaining vowel length. But a lot of people greatly overextend long vowels; in which case, a "normal" long vowel might sound short. In English: 'bet' is βετ, 'bed' is βηδ. But most of us don't notice the length distinction.

[@HighWideandHandsome]

@@diglossos5202 I never noticed that before. That's a great illustration! Pronouncing one as long as the other sounds unnatural.

[@y11971alex]

For my part I prefer a pronunciation leaning towards the archaic period, which means distinguishing genuine from spurious diphthongs. To draw on Luke Ranieri, ειπειν has a genuine in first and spurious after, and for that purpose the old Attic alphabet is actually more etymological.

[@wagdywilliam1869]

What do you say when you to be on the tips that most of the coptics spoke the hellenic language about 25oo years ago and the second greatest library situated in alexandria which contained thousands of manuscripts sciences in hellenic language and the alexadrian university lectures were in hellenic language so it has become a native language for it used as well in liturgies, but misfortunately in the reason of various drastic mishaps factors that have gone through by the onalphbet invatiion tribes was totally lost. As to come to the conclusion we have missed away a lovely toning language, but we could manage to regain our native coptic language before it's utterly lost. We stii have a tiny village that speaks this language as well. Moreover, we were able to keep the philology and its correct sounds. As for myself, the good chance has given me the opportunity to learn greek language, for I found out a wide range of similarity between the both languages,and that has given me an impetus to read the septuagint so that I'm still diving lookin for pearls and diamonds. It's really a pretty and lovely great job, for everybody has deep consideration for such subjects.

[@RyanJohnsonD]

Very interesting theory of linguistic change. Why go with Lucian if modern Greeks can train their ears to the differences. Can't we?

[@tomtsuka6416]

I believe that if you want to pronounce ancient greek as it might have been pronounced in 5th century AD then this so-called Lucian pronunciation is appropriate. It could be easily called late Roman empire pronunciation of koine or simply early BYZANTINE pronunciation and both would be correct. In other words a greek speaker in 500 AD would have read Plato, Aristotle and the New Testament in this way;however a Greek in 400 BC or 350 BC would have read with the reconstructed and updated Erasmian pronunciation. The Lucian or early Byzantine pronunciation is akin to pronouncing Shakespeare and 16th and 17th century English in modern British or American pronunciation as we indeed do today. If one wants to pronounce Plato, and the other 5TH AND 4TH CENTURY GREEK AUTHORS, then the scholarly modernized Erasmian pronunciation would be more accurate. Either way this is a choice one must make that suits one's linguistic abilities and personal ease of pronunciation or sense of reproducing authentically the Greek language in its targeted chronological period. That is all. Either way each choice is appropriate to the person who chooses it and it works for him or her.

[@bouzoukiman5000]

The reading and pronunciation of modern greek is easy and it's logical, but writing it is a little more difficult because you have to either memorize or know the root. English is 1000x worse

[@jay.rhoden]

Exactly. People who argue "We should pronounce koine greek as it was written, letter by letter, because it makes learning easier" should check how quickly a normal 5 year old is able to pick up the English pronunciation system.

[@pocketmonstergb5570]

Does Attic Greek poetry rhyme in Lucian pronunciation?

[@diglossos5202]

Welll technically Attic Greek poetry doesn't rhyme in any pronunciation except by accident, because ancient Greek poetry doesn't use rhyme. But the Lucian pronunciation preserves long and short vowels and so maintains the meter.

[@mjbalbo]

Is it called "Lucian" because of Luke Ranieri?

[@MarcoMangia78]

By Lucian of Samosata, a famous writer that lived in 2nd century AD, the period this reconstructed pronunciation system refers to

[@13tuyuti]

@@MarcoMangia78 but probably not entirely a coincidence.

[@Nikelaos_Khristianos]

I've found Classics professors at my university often encourage us to just use the one that comes most easily to us. Reason being, it'll get in the way of actually learning if you get hung up on it at the beginning. Like right now, we're doing alot of Attic Greek, so I try to go for Attic pronunciation like one of my professors. But then others use Erasmian, and others just kinda feel their way through it. It really just depends on the person I find.

[@manos7958]

Imagine if it was math or physics and a professor said that he doesn't care if it is correct or not, "just use the one that comes most easily to us". I will leave it at that, give it a thought.

[@scintillam_dei]

@@manos7958 Exacto.

[@richardyannick8935]

I've read that Lucian was a Syrian from birth ,do you think his way of writing/speaking was based on the Greek spoken in Syria or more on the one spoken in Athens? He was part of the second sophistic if I remember correctly?? Do you know how this movement shaped the Koinè Greek??

[@diglossos5202]

A big question! As far as we can tell, this pronunciation reflects the way Greek was probably pronounced by most educated speakers during the Roman period. There were however regional variations: Athens in particular was a bit more conservative than other areas. Lucian himself may have had an accent, yes, but he was still a fluent Greek-speaker.

[@richardyannick8935]

@@diglossos5202 Maybe we could answer it by comparing Lucian prononciation of words compared to Capadoccian greek ,the closest geographical dialect of the Greek spoken in Samosata ?? Just guessing I'm a total beginner in greek , well I know the alphabet now 💪 An other question about Lucian prononciation, it is possible to communicate with a person speaking modern Greek ?

[@dariusmot8440]

@@richardyannick8935 Lucian pronunciation is quite close to Modern Greek pronunciation but of course we do have a few differences. I think if we mimic the modern greek phonology they can understand us.

[@charliemassih5819]

Một bài hát rất hoài niệm , nhớ những ngày bồng bột của tuổi trẻ, chút kỷ niệm của tình yêu, lời chia tay vội vàng đúng như cái bồng bột ấy. Đức Phúc cover lại bài hát này tâm trạng quá !

[@DOOMMAKEDONIA]

KOINON MAKEDONON

[@DiomedesDioscuro]

I'm afraid this pronunciation adds lots of difficulty for students, with no real advantage. It prevents me from recommending Luke's videos to my students. I hope he'll change pronunciation someday!

[@diglossos5202]

I'm afraid I often agree.

[@diglossos5202]

Incidentally, in your opinion, what kind of video would be most useful for your students?

[@DiomedesDioscuro]

@@diglossos5202 I really really think the best thing is to combine both restitution and convention, details depending on the language of the students. For example, my Spanish speaking students pronounce χ like in modern Greek, because it matches Spanish j, but I might not demand the same thing from an English speaking student.

[@kenx8176]

Same here.

[@Nikelaos_Khristianos]

@@DiomedesDioscuro I actually found that to be the case when teaching a session of Ancient Greek to English 10 year olds (it was a programme at university). I basically offered a "hard way", like "chi", and an "easy way", like "khi". The main difficultly they found was distinguishing the aspirated consonants from their non-aspirated counterparts, like "kappa" vs "chi" for example. Overall, I found it was a decent middle-ground between making sure everyone could have a try, but also letting the more ambitious students to try and show off.

[@Llyebbay]

Τhe pronunciation is the same the last 3500 years and the letters pronunciate the same

[@acstamos]

Any sound change from modern Greek to any system renders that system invalid.

[@mariostsam]

As a greek my self I admire the ignorance of the neogreeks about ancient greek language, not only about the homeric or the varioys classical dialects, the hellenistic and roman times but even the "byzantine" pronounciation was different from the neogreek, eg the /y/ sound of Y. Ancient greek, hellenistic poetry in modern greek pronounciation, loses basic characteristics as length, gravity, musical intonation is no more greek than latin poetry in modern english mode. The fact that the modern language of the greek state is named "greek" means NOTHING. Italian Spanish Portuguese speaking people dont claim that they speak Latin! Η ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΦΩΝΗ ΞΕΝΗ ΕΣΤΙΝ, ΔΙΑ ΤΟΥΣ ΝΕΟΕΛΛΑΔΙΤΑΣ

[@acstamos]

@@mariostsam You must be spending many hours in front of a mirror every day admiring yourself. Yours has to be one of the most idiotic comments out there stupid.

[@mariostsam]

@@acstamos I admire your strenuous arguments. A celebration of dialectical thinking, a theophania of Hermes Logios Himself.

[@acstamos]

@@mariostsam That was not an argument. I just called your post idiotic, and stupid. Your last post is just as idiotic.

[@IIlines]

And as I expected, the only 2 people that left a comment here were Greeks and they started fighting together immediately.