THE PRONUNCIATION OF ANCIENT LANGUAGES

It is possible to form some idea of the way in which Greek and Latin were pronounced in ancient times. Evidence is to be found in the spellings of ancient languages as we have received them in manuscripts and inscriptions, in the comments of grammarians, and in the pronunciation of derived modern languages. In practice, however, a modern student tends to compromise between an inferred ancient pronunciation and the habits of his own tongue as conditioned by his own language.

The Italian pronunciation of Latin, widespread as a result of ecclesiastical use, may be regarded as international property. However, the letters “c” and “g” in classical Latin were pronounced hard, even when followed by the soft vowels “ee” and ‘’i”. Moreover, Latin, like Greek, distinguished between long and short vowels. Modern scholars whose languages preserve the same difference (of English beat and bit), try to draw the distinction in their pronunciation of the ancient languages.

Long before Greek began to be taught in Western Europe, words borrowed from Greek, not to mention many Greek proper names, had appeared transliterated in Latin and received a Latin pronunciation. Not surprisingly, after the Renaissance, the pronunciation of Greek in western schools and universities was influenced by Latin traditions, particularly in the matter of accentuation.

If one is able to recognize long or short syllables, the rules of Latin accentuation are extremely simple. Dissyllables (with minimal exceptions) are accented on the first syllable. Polysyllables are accented on the penultimate when this is long, otherwise on the antepenultimate. Unfortunately, long and short syllables cannot be recognized without knowledge of Latin. Diphthongs are always long, but Latin sometimes transliterates Greek diphthongs as single vowels, and these must be treated as diphthongs for purposes of accentuation (e.g. in Coronea, formed from Greek Koroneia). Apart from all such considerations, familiarity with derived words in modern languages, particularly Italian, often suggests the correct Latin stress.

The principles of Greek pronunciations are quite different. The accentuation of polysyllables is most frequently determined by the quantity (length) of the final syllable, not the penultimate, and many words – as hardly ever in Latin – are accented on the final syllable.

Considering the long history of Latin and Greek, first as languages of common speech, and subsequently as pronounced in schools, universities, and churches, it is inevitable that their pronunciation should have undergone many changes in the course of more than two millennia, quite apart form local differences. It is therefore impossible to define a “right” pronunciation. But Western Europeans, without experience of the classical languages, will probably make themselves most easily intelligible to other Western Europeans if they pronounce Latin as though it were Italian, and Greek as though it were Latin.

If, however, one wishes to be understood among Greeks, Greek words much receive the Greek accent. This is made much easier by the fact that since the third century BC, Greek accents have been marked on words as part of the spelling (except where block capitals are used). Greek accents, as written, take three different forms: acute, circumflex and grave. These originally indicated differences of musical pitch. Indeed, the phonetic difference between a stress and a pitch accent is not always clear cut, since higher tones make a sharper impact on the ear. In any case, the Greek accents as used today all call for a similar stress in pronunciation and are distinct only in the manner of their writing.

Another important change in post-classical Greek has been brought about the process of Italicism, which has equated the pronunciation of no fewer than three Greek vowels and as many diphthongs with an Italian “i”. Many consonant sounds have also undergone change. Although post-classical, the so-called “modern” pronunciation of Greek is in fact very ancient and probably dates from early Byzantine times.

In Western Europe, vernacular forms of both Latin and Greek names are another source of confusion. For instance, Horatius Flaccus the poet (but not Horatius Cocles who defended the bridge) is written both in English and French as “Horace” and pronounced as linguistic habits dictate. The mute “e” at the end of a French or English word is often especially confusing because a Greek final “e”, when retained in transliteration, is pronounced. Thus Lade is a dissyllable andIthome is a trisyllable. Also compare the modern vernacular dissyllable form “hoplite” (plural: “hoplites”) with the Greek trisyllable hoplites (plural: hoplitai). The difficulty occurs in English and French, but the German plural “Hopliten” happily invites no such confusion with the Greek singular.

In this connection, one should perhaps notice a few principles of transliteration as they apply in different European languages. German renders the Greek letter “kappa” as “k”, but the Romance languages Latinise to “c”. English usually Latinises, but sometimes writes “k”. Latin rendered the Greek letter “upsilon” by a letter “y”, which was reserved specially for this purpose. But Italian uses no such letter and replaces every Latin “y” with “i”.

A reader with no background of classical study may pardonably conclude that if he adopts whatever pronunciation first comes to mind he cannot be very far from one phonetic norm or the other. However, if more than one word is to be pronounced in the same context, consistency is obviously to be considered desirable.

Consistency is admittedly a sore point when it comes to rendering ancient proper names, and most writers on classical themes find that it must often be sacrificed to usage and readability, especially where one is concerned with transliteration from the Greek alphabet. For the spelling of the name Boudica (Boadicea) the reader is referred to the book of this title by Graham Webster, whose reasons for adopting such a usage are fully explained therein.

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