Pronunciation tip: Ancient Greek philosophers

[@davidketteringham8923]

Great! This is how “classroom” education can be effective. Humour is the oil or balm that helps the machinery of learning. Very entertaining!

[@didack1419]

As a native speaker of Spanish I have to say that I felt compelled to laugh with the Greek speakers at the English pronunciations.

[@mocha_genie7416]

Ummm that's not English pronunciation, that's white priv pronunciation.

[@didack1419]

@@mocha_genie7416 Those are indeed English pronunciations, trivially. It doesn't matter what point you are trying to make.

[@johnnyklash5883]

@@mocha_genie7416 What's white priv pronunciation?

[@ReganAtSea]

@@mocha_genie7416 this comment makes so little sense in so many ways

[@mocha_genie7416]

@@ReganAtSea Good afternoon. Your statement made no sense, in no way.

[@Bethany38326]

The English pronounciation of Diogenes made me think of diogeneez nuts.

[@LittleBitVic]

I've grown up in a Tejano community for most of my life, so the modern American pronunciation of Greek names has been bugging me for years. This was so comforting to watch, lol. I'm saving this for a rainy day.

[@marsged]

If only there were a way to like this multiple times

[@soniyazas]

Share it with people who may appreciate it

[@itorapadas]

Jordan Schlansky, you're the man. Don't ever be bullied by Conan.

[@manxhu6610]

justice for jordan!

[@maxmelser35]

Also here from that!

[@korypedersen9768]

I know how I got here, but the internet continues to astound me. 15 years ago this would have been a viral classic. Bravo, I feel educated and entertained.

[@WowUsernameAvailable]

Aristotle - the reaction is golden🤣

[@emyrronain6983]

also deserved İmagine calling Aristoteles like that xDD

[@g.v.6450]

Aristotle’s reaction was “Golden”!? I thought it was kinda “mean”! (‘See what I did there? 🤣🤣🤣)

[@malvinbanaticla6250]

The reaction is "Golden" not too much and not too less. 🥁🥁 tssss

[@SushiFanatic]

Those two guys are brothers.

[@jovifigueroa8670]

Jordan Schlansky brought me here

[@HybridReal]

Currently trying to pronounce Greek names, and hopefully modern Greek in general. I love the language, so sophisticated and beautiful.

[@brettjohnson536]

This is awesome! Have you thought about doing a video like this on the Greek gods and mythological figures? I've always wondered about those

[@katelisviglas2360]

Μπράβο κύριοι, εντυπωσιάστηκα. Πολύ χάρηκα την ειρωνεία απέναντι στη γελοία, όπως φαίνεται σε εμάς τους σύγχρονους Έλληνες, ξένη προφορά των αρχαίων και νεώτερων ονομάτων.

[@ciganyweaverandherperiwink6293]

Cheers for uploading something I found to be genuinely educational (and socially helpful) but which also made me laugh out loud. 👍💯💯😆

[@laurab9867]

I am a Spanish speaker myself. I learned Latin in school when I was a child. Honestly, I have a hard time accepting the English pronunciation of these and other ancient greek names. They sound silly to me but it is what it is.

[@Rightbackatchya]

I'm Australian and I could never reconcile how they went from Plah-toh to Play-toh or Soh-cra-tes to Sock-ra-teez. It's like having academics pronounce gnocchi as no-chi or spelling ciao as chow.

[@godowskygodowsky1155]

@@Rightbackatchya The past two millenia accompanied a lot of sound changes to English and French, through which some of these pronunciation systems were adopted. Just five centuries ago, the word "mate" rhymed with modern "lot," "cat," or "bet." The softening of g before e and i to a j sound in English is no less sensible than the softening of g to an h sound in Spanish, the softening of g to a y in modern Greek, or whatever nonsense is going on in French and Portuguese.

[@brianmarkie4667]

for an age I've wanted to learn Greek but living in a town in Northwest England I have more chance of getting a suntan on Dec 25th.

[@williamwilson6499]

I got a kick out of that! Well presented…and I loved the righteous/humorous indignation of the ancient and modern speakers.

[@TeresaPelka]

Wonderful, on the letter symbol η, word stress, and language change (I'm a learner); thank you. : )

[@LGSmith_3]

Awesome work!

[@aniespagatt666]

I came here looking for some education, and ended with laught🤣 n i dont get dissapoint

[@AbdullahShrugged]

Magnificent work, thank you gentlemen.

[@ReganAtSea]

this is amazing

[@debbierussell7775]

Your presentation was very clever! However, James, I think your friends names are actually, Jametrios and Jimitri! 😅 I love this! 😉

[@Angie-art]

Thank you! This is amazing! Can you do a video like this with the homeric heroes? I LOVE the video... And the looks!! Go on!

[@dpw6546]

Super interesting and entertaining at the same time. Also, watching this I couldn't shake the Monthy Python sketch on Ancient Greek vs German philosophers playing competitive football match off my mind. Another gold mine of the kind is how the Anglophones pronounce Latin in maxims or special uses (for instance in court proceedings). Stuff like "bona/mala fide", "injuria sine damno" or "stare decisis".

[@OldProp1941]

Outstanding!

[@nineteenfortyeight]

How have I not yet named a cat Aristippus?

[@d36williams]

this is great

[@cindland]

I’d pronounce it the Greek way too.

[@dylanfox8597]

More impressive that they can read backwards

[@officialinterestingchannel]

Why does it look like he just had a pin of cocaine at the begining?

[@anunohmouse7460]

Thanks to Assassin's Creed Odyssey I was correct some of the time and pretty close to some of the proper pronunciations.

[@mac5er]

I've been saying Plato correctly all this time, I put my English coworkers to shame instead of the other way around.

[@gungnir3926]

as a danish history/philosophy student, i find it both funny and satisfying that the EXAGERATED danish pronounciation of names like these are much much closer to the ancient greek, sometimes even more so than this modern greek way of saying them. Most of these were almost identical between the old and new greek, with the exeption of the "th" sound (among others), were the modern greek would say it closer to the english way, with very soft t. In danish we would also not pronounce the h, making it a hard t or d sound, very close to the old greek. Diogenes is another example were danish and old greek are almost identical, with both e's being weighted and pronounced clearly and as e and not i. Funny how the english (lingua franca of our times science) makes it sound "wrong" for danish students to pronounce them with a distinct danish accent, when we are so use to hear them pronounced this cringy modern english way. But that is a general problem with english in general, that they depart from their own alphabetical pronounciations. Ex: c and z being the same??

[@lennyerdody]

Brilliant

[@g.v.6450]

Wouldn’t Ζηνων be pronounced “zdaynohn” in Restored Classical pronunciation, with the “zd” pronunciation becoming “dz” and then “z” over time (zdayta, then dzayta, then zayta and finally zita)?

[@sesquiotic]

Well… yes. I can't remember why I didn't use that pronunciation; it may have been accidental omission, perhaps due to personal distaste for it, but I'm not taking a stand against it, and thank you for pointing it out.

[@christopherskipp1525]

I think the Erasmian pronunciation would be Zanon, with an open o sound, not an omicron sound.

[@g.v.6450]

@@christopherskipp1525 Erasmian pronunciation is different from Restored Classical pronunciation, which was used in Ancient Athens up to the Koine period. With the spread of Koine Greek by the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Classical Pronunciation fell into disuse. Koine Greek used a pronunciation called “Lucian” (after an ancient grammatician named Lucius). This pronunciation is virtually identical with Erasmian (the actual pronunciation devised by Erasmus of Rotterdam, not the mutilated version learned by many students.) A scholar named Luke Ranieri has made several KZbin videos addressing this issue.

[@PilgrimofMatter]

Have you heard of Lucian Greek pronunciation?

[@bhargabigoswami7231]

Thank you..

[@johnnyklash5883]

As a Greek that studied in English language, I have to admit it always bothered me hearing Greek names with English pronunciation. If a foreign person tells me their name, I won't try to change it to the corresponding Greek or create something similar in Greek. Its functionality doesn't change and it doesn't help anywhere, so it's just kind of rude to me.

[@earthyskies]

clever!

[@BIKASHKUMAR-gh7cz]

Nice

[@webenbanu]

I wonder if you could help me? I'm looking for the appropriate pronunciation of Heradotus's name and this is exactly the kind of information I'm looking for. I'd like to know how it should be pronounced today so that people can understand me, but I also feel that it's important to be respectful and at least try to be able to say a person's name as they know it--and I think that the way a person would pronounce their own name is the real "proper" pronunciation. But I'm not familiar enough with Classical Greek to figure this out on my own, and searching through dictionaries and video pronunciation guides on KZbin has revealed two camps in this Herodotus pronunciation skirmish. We have "her-ROD-o-tus" and "HER-a-dough-tus." I had been wondering which one would have been the ancient Greeks' preference, but after seeing your video I'm now realizing that they might have laughed at both! So would you mind having a go at at least one more ancient Greek? If you'd like to make it a topic for another video, it'd be nice to know how to pronounce Apuleius as well. Thanks!

[@sesquiotic]

Hi! I regret not having included Herodotus, and you're right, I should do another video (though it will have to be with short hair all around!). I can tell you that the Greek original of Herodotus is Ἡρόδοτος, with the pitch accent marked on the second syllable: “hey-RO-do-tos.” There’s not really any good reason to put the stress on the “do”; even going by the roots (which is dodgy, because the stress shifts in compound words) you get Ἥρα +‎ δοτός, “HEY-ra” plus “do-TOS.” As to Apuleius, he wasn’t Greek; he was from Numidia, and his name was Latin. The Latin pronunciation would be like “a-poo-LEY-oos” (strictly the “lei” is two syllables but really it comes out in the wash) but the established English pronunciation is, apparently, “ap-yu-LEE-us.”

[@webenbanu]

Thank you so much! This is very helpful and I appreciate having the benefit of your knowledge!

[@simreisner8852]

How is lathe biōsas pronounced?

[@arvydussibonus1712]

Jordan Schlansky brought me here. (He was right 😮).

[@soniyazas]

Playdoh really gets on my nerves.. damn Americanos

[@mic982]

Clever

[@rhythmdroid]

You were kind to thank them, but their snarky laughing was excessive.

[@motorsikletistanbul]

1:36 Aristotle ! Yeah it sounds so fake in English

[@crodo123]

I was looking for this video because greek names sound so cool in english I was wondering if it was even better in greek but I have to say I don’t think so. I speak spanish and these have a latin vibe to them that is just nothing special.

[@axiomist4488]

Just as I thought : PYTHAGORAS is NOT Piethagoras. It's Peethagoras or Peetagoras . So all you pretend (or actual) mathematicians, take notice and stop saying it the stupid way .

[@CAMALEONable]

❤🤣🤣

[@arunenquiry]

I am an Indian, so I tend to butcher even the English pronunciations of these names. A double crime! I ought to be punished twice for my sins in pronunciation! 😐

[@RiccardoRadici]

Nice video. This ancient Greek pronunciation, however, is not very precise, especially in relation to long and short vowels. E.g. Sokrates, min. 3:36, where A should be pronounced as a short vowel.

[@aleee641]

I like the idea but the ancient Greek pronunciation was not on point. Geminated consonants were not distincted from normal ones, vowel length was not always correct nor pitch accentation.