Greek 101, Fall 2008Brian Lanter, T.A.

THE GREEK ALPHABET AND PRONUNCIATION

Derivation. The Greek alphabet is the precursor of every European alphabet now in use(even for non-Indo-European languages), and several no longer used, including Runic, Gothicand Glagolitic. The precursor of the Greek alphabet was Phoenician script (consonants only),which was based on a north Semitic linear script. Linear script for writing Semitic languages,composed of simple shapes, lines and squiggles as opposed to Sumerian cuneiform (used also bythe Indo-European Hittites) or Egyptian hieroglyphics, had appeared in the Middle East by theLate Bronze Age (before 1200 BCE). Outside of Europe, various Indo-Iranian languages alsohave alphabets based on a north Semitic script. Modern Persian, for instance, is written withArabic letters, derived from Aramaic, the most important north Semitic script. The precursor ofthe various Indic alphabets is the Brāhmī alphabet, whose precursor was also north Semitic.

Greek speakers – we don't know which – having abandoned (or perhaps, if they wereinvaders, never having learned) the ill-adapted Mycenaean Linear B syllabary, derived a newalphabet somewhere around 800 BCE from a Phoenician model. The Greeks and Indians both(independently, as far as we know) adapted the Semitic consonantal system into a system ofvowels and consonants. The Greeks simply took the names and forms of some Semiticconsonants with no Greek counterparts and started using them as vowels. The Greeks alsoinvented four characters – F X Y W – for non-Semitic phonemes, which they tacked onto the endof the new alphabet. The order of the borrowed letters through "T" (tau) was essentially thesame as the Phoenician, but we do not know how that order originally arose. Likewise thenames of the borrowed letters were based on the Phoenician names, slightly changed toaccommodate Greek phonology. Our shorter English letter names are based on Latin nameswhich were based on Etruscan names. Some of the Semitic-derived shapes which lackedbilateral symmetry (like K) got rotated on their vertical axes when the Greeks changed fromwriting mainly right-to-left (the Semitic way) to writing mainly left-to-right.

The tables on the following two pages (from Hans Jensen, Sign, Symbol and Script, 1969)show the derivation of the precursors of the classical Ionic alphabet of Miletus which Athensadopted in 403 BCE (shortly after losing the war), and of the classical Latin alphabet. Regionalvariations between eastern and western Greek alphabets, transmitted to the Romans through theEtruscans, resulted in some of the otherwise puzzling differences between the Latin alphabet,which with two later additions (J and W) is our own, and the Ionic alphabet, which eventuallybecame standard for all Greeks. See the comments below on each letter for some fascinatingdetails on how we got all our letters in their present order.

Typography. The ancient Greeks wrote and carved only the forms which we now callcapital letters, and not always very neatly, as you can see by looking at the inscriptions on somevases. Greek monumental (carved stone) inscription style tended to be very plain, with constantline width and slight or no serifs, compared to typical Roman monumental lettering, whichtended to have varying line width and pronounced serifs. In the first typographical font shown

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below (SPIonic) the style of the capital letters is more like ancient Greek monumental style,without serifs. In the second font shown below (Times New Roman), the style of the capitalletters is heavily influenced by Roman monumental style, with serifs. The letters V, J and `(named digamma, qoppa and sampi), shown shaded, were not present in the standard Ionian-Attic alphabet by 403 BCE, but were still used as numerals. Western Greeks kept V and J, whichpassed into the Etruscan alphabet and thence into the Latin alphabet as our letters F and Q.

A B G D E V Z H Q I K L M N C O P J R S T U F X Y W `

Α Β Γ Δ Ε ú Ζ Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο Π û Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω ü

The lower case letters ("minuscule" script) were developed around the 9th century CE by theByzantines for handwriting. By convention, modern publishers (starting in Renaissance Italy)mostly use the lower case medieval Byzantine script, with capital letters to indicate propernames and chapter or section beginnings. In modern typography, the lower case forms parallelthe aesthetic differences of the capital letters in their respective fonts. For assistance in formingthe lower case letters, see the handwriting guide from your instructor.

a b g d e z h q i k l m n c o p r s t u f x y w

α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ σ τ υ φ χ ψ ω

Pronunciation. Ancient Greek language now consists of a flat visual medium, namelyLinear B and alphabetic writing. This presents a problem because we are accustomed to learnlanguage through speech first, regarding writing (at least when we are young) as a representationof spoken language. Among human languages by which parents first communicate to hearingchildren (as opposed, for instance, to secret codes, machine languages or human-machineinterface languages), speech always precedes writing in the learning process. Although it wouldbe possible to learn ancient Greek as a visual code language, never pronouncing it, there aresome very good reasons to attempt pronunciation:

• it's easier to learn with sound – just try memorizing large matrices of visual symbolcombinations (such as writing or musical notation) with no sound attached;

• since Greek speech preceded Greek writing, making sense out of ancient Greek spellingoften requires reconstructing their phonetics and phonology;

• we need to communicate ancient Greek words to each other in class; and

• it's fun to at least imagine how they sounded.

1M. I. Finley, Ancient History: Evidence and Models. New York, Viking Penguin Inc., 1985,p. 17.

2In modern Greece, most people and even many scholars (somewhat to our amazement) usemodern pronunciation for ancient Greek. In the rest of Europe, the use of reconstructed ancientpronunciation dates back at least as far as the 1528 treatise by Erasmus, De recta Latini etGraeci sermonis pronuntiatione (On the proper pronunciation of Latin and Greek speech).

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The sound of language was very important to the ancient Greeks, who wrote prose for readingout loud and poetry for reciting or singing out loud. Silent reading did not become a commonpractice until at least the Byzantine period, maybe not until well into the Middle Ages.

WARNING: PHONETIC AND PHONOLOGICAL DATAABOUT ANCIENT GREEK ARE INHERENTLY SPECULATIVE

As it happens, we have a lot of evidence about the phonetics and phonology of ancientGreek. We have fragments of commentary on phonology from the 5th century BCE on, detailedintellectual discussions of Greek language starting with Plato's Cratylus, systematic analysesfrom Hellenistic, Roman period and Byzantine grammarians and commentary from Latinauthors. Ancient Greek words were transliterated into ancient Latin, Persian, Armenian,Egyptian, Sanskrit, etc., and vice versa. Ancient spelling is a reflection (not always direct, ofcourse) of ancient pronunciation. Modern linguistics has established a lot of credibility in beingable to analyze the course of phonetic changes, especially in a continuously attested languagelike Greek. Tradition also plays some role, but this is as unreliable in linguistics as in history. "There is no guarantee that the tradition has not arisen precisely in order to explain a linguistic,religious or political datum."1

For this class, you must pick a system for pronouncing ancient Greek.2 The textbookpresents both Attic and koine (see below) pronunciations. I require only that you usepronunciations with some scholarly justification for any period before the Byzantine Age, thestart of which is dated anywhere from Constantine's establishment of his capital at Byzantium in330 CE to the end of Justinian's reign in 565 CE. By the time of Justinian, Greek pronunciationhad changed enough that poets could not write in the classical meters without deliberatearchaizing, and scholars had to rename some letters to avoid confusion. Since pronunciationchanges over long periods at different rates in different places, this gives you a lot of freedom. My own preference is to attempt to pronounce Homer and the classical poets with classical Atticpronunciation, and revert to mostly koine, the more commonly taught pronunciation, for prose ingeneral and poets of the Hellenistic and Imperial periods (see the second paragraph following fordefinitions of these terms). To some extent, I choose the pronunciation (usually older) whichhelps me with spelling.

If our lack of precise knowledge about pronunciation causes you anxiety, remember thatGreek, like English, had several dialects which differed noticeably (we now notice mainly the

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spelling differences) and yet were mutually intelligible. Dorians often used Α [Y] where Atticused Η [e+]. The Ionians and Lesbians didn't use initial aspiration [h], much like Cockneys inEnglish – but when Eliza Doolittle says that in " 'artford, 'arrisford and 'ampshire, 'urricanes'ardly 'appen," it takes only a moment of adjustment to understand her. Think about Ross Perotsaying "there is no doubt in my mind." His long "i" [æ:] in "my" and "mind" is quite a differentphoneme from the long "i" diphthong [aNi] of most non-Southern American dialects, yet isperfectly intelligible to native speakers of English. So even if we don't know the exact qualitiesof ancient Greek vowels, we can come close enough to feel we have some idea of the sound ofancient Greek.

The beginning and ending dates of named historical periods are conventional butsomewhat variable and depend on the field of study. Historians of art, literature, politics, etc.don't always use the same name with the same dates. On the pronunciation chart provided, theterm "classical" refers to the period between the Greek defeat of the second Persian invasion in479 BCE and the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE. The term "koine" (from h9 koinh_dia&lektoj) means the "common" dialect, based on the Attic-Ionic dialect, which began tocohere and change after Philip II of Macedon ended southern Greek independence, and when theconquests and colonizing of Alexander and his successors made Greek the universal language ofcommerce, learning and government in the Eastern Mediterranean. Koine is the Greek of the"Hellenistic" age, which in political terms was the period from the death of Alexander until theRoman reduction of Greece proper (completed in 146 BCE with the dissolution of the AchaeanLeague and the sack of Corinth) and of the Hellenized east (completed in the 1st century BCE). The division between dates BCE and dates CE has no linguistic significance whatsoever. Koinecontinued to change in the Roman, or Imperial, period. Many Greek writers in the 1st and 2ndcenturies CE (the "Second Sophistic"), such as Plutarch and Lucian, imitated the classical Atticdialect. But the comedies of Menander, the Septuagint and the New Testament, the histories ofPolybius and Diodorus Siculus, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, etc., were written in koine. Atticism has remained a powerful pressure on the Greek language, especially written expression,through the present day.

The following pronunciation charts and descriptions of individual letters use these symbols:

[ ] brackets surround International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols, which stand foractual sounds. See the IPA chart on the following page.

/ / slash marks enclose phonemes which cannot be pronounced in isolation (this is alinguistic convention). See the text description for English equivalents.

+ long mark indicates a sound of relatively long duration (not a different vowel sound) . h superscript indicates aspiration of the preceding plosive ("plosive" = "stop").

N ligature under two letters indicates they are pronounced together with no gap.

6 means "becomes," in this case indicating that the change took place over a substantialperiod, or at an undetermined time.

THE INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET (revised to 1993, updated 1996)CONSONANTS (PULMONIC)

´

A Å

i y È Ë ¨ u

Pe e∏ Ø o

E ø O

a å

I Y U

Front Central Back

Close

Close-mid

Open-mid

Open

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel.

ò

Bilabial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Post alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal

Plosive p b t d Ê ∂ c Ô k g q G /Nasal m µ n = ≠ N Trill õ r RTap or Flap | «Fricative F B f v T D s z S Z ß Ω ç J x V X Â © ? h HLateralfricative Ò LApproximant √ ® j Lateralapproximant l ¥ K

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible.

CONSONANTS (NON-PULMONIC)

SUPRASEGMENTALS

VOWELS

OTHER SYMBOLS

Clicks Voiced implosives Ejectives

> Bilabial ∫ Bilabial ’ Examples:

ù Dental Î Dental/alveolar p’ Bilabial

! (Post)alveolar ú Palatal t’ Dental/alveolar

¯ Palatoalveolar Velar k’ Velar

≤ Alveolar lateral Ï Uvular s’ Alveolar fricative

" Primary stress

Æ Secondary stress

ÆfoUn´"tIS´n Long e Ú Half-long eÚ

* Extra-short e*ù Minor (foot) group

≤ Major (intonation) group

. Syllable break ®i.kt ≈ Linking (absence of a break)

TONES AND WORD ACCENTS LEVEL CONTOUR

e _or â Extrahigh e& or ä Rising

e! ê High e$ ë Falling

e@ î Mid e% ü Highrising

e~ ô Low eÞ ï Lowrising

e û Extralow e& ñ$ Rising-

falling

Õ Downstep ã Global rise

õ Upstep à Global fall

DIACRITICS Diacritics may be placed above a symbol with a descender, e.g. N( 9 Voiceless n9 d9 ª Breathy voiced bª aª 1 Dental t 1 d1 3 Voiced s3 t 3 0 Creaky voiced b0 a0 ¡ Apical t ¡ d¡ Ó Aspirated tÓ dÓ £ Linguolabial t £ d£ 4 Laminal t 4 d4 7 More rounded O7 W Labialized tW dW ) Nasalized e) ¶ Less rounded O¶ ∆ Palatalized t∆ d∆ Nasal release d Advanced u ◊ Velarized t◊ d◊ ¬ Lateral release d¬ 2 Retracted e2 ≥ Pharyngealized t≥ d≥ No audible release d · Centralized e· ù Velarized or pharyngealized : + Mid-centralized e+ 6 Raised e6 ( ®6 = voiced alveolar fricative)

Syllabic n` § Lowered e§ ( B§ = voiced bilabial approximant)

8 Non-syllabic e8 5 Advanced Tongue Root e5 ± Rhoticity ´± a± ∞ Retracted Tongue Root e∞

∑ Voiceless labial-velar fricative Ç Û Alveolo-palatal fricatives

w Voiced labial-velar approximant » Alveolar lateral flap

Á Voiced labial-palatal approximant Í Simultaneous S and xÌ Voiceless epiglottal fricative

¿ Voiced epiglottal fricativeAffricates and double articulationscan be represented by two symbols

÷ Epiglottal plosive joined by a tie bar if necessary.

kp ts

(

(

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NAMES AND SOUNDS OF GREEK LETTERS

moderntypographical

forms classical name

post-classicalname

(if different)classical

pronunciation

koinepronunciation(if different)

Byzantinepronunciation(if different)

Modern Greekpronunciation

A a a!lfa [Y] or [Y+] [Y] [a]

B b bh=ta [b] [v] [v]

G g ga&mma [g] [p] [p]

D d de/lta [d] [ð] [ð]

E e ei], e1 e2 yilo/n [e] [e] ÷ [e] [e] [e]

V Vau= di/gamma [w] -

Z z zh=ta [zNd] ÷ [z] [z] [z]

H h h]ta [h] or [e+] [e+] [i] [i]

Q q qh=ta [th] [th] ÷ [›] [›] [›]

I i iw~ta [i] [i+] [i] [i]

K k ka&ppa [k] [k]

L l la&bda la&mbda [l] [l]

M m mu= [m] [m]

N n nu= [n] [n]

C c cei= ci= [khNs] [kNs]

O o ou1, o1 o2 mikro/n [o] []] or [o]*

P p pei= pi= [p] [p]

NAMES AND SOUNDS OF GREEK LETTERS

moderntypographical

forms classical name

post-classicalname

(if different)classical

pronunciation

koinepronunciation(if different)

Byzantinepronunciation(if different)

Modern Greekpronunciation

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J ko/ppa [k] -

R r r(o [r] or [r;] [r]

S s si/gma [s] or [z] [s]

T t tau= [t] [t]

U u u3 u2 yilo/n [y] or [y+] [y] ÷ [i] [i] [i]

F f fei= fi= [ph] [ph] ÷ [f] [f] [f]

X x xei= xi= [kh] [kh] ÷ [x] [x] [x] [ç]

Y y yei= yi= [phNs] [pNs]

W w w w@ me/ga []+] []+] ÷ [o+] [o] []] or [o]*

` sa&n sa&mpi [s] -

*Both of these IPAtranscriptions

appear in Oxfordpublications.

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GREEK DIPHTHONGS & DIGRAPHS

diphthong:classical

pronunciationkoine

pronunciationByzantine

pronunciationModern greekpronunciation

ai [aNi] [aNi] ÷ [e:] [e] [e]

long ai [a:Ni] [a:] [e] -

au [aNu] [aNu] ÷ [av] [av] [av] [af]

ei [e] [e] ÷ [i:] [i] [i]

eu [eNu] [eNu] ÷ [ev] [ev] [ev] [ef]

hi [e:Ni] [eNi] ÷ [i] [i] -

hu [eNu] [eNu] ÷ [ev] [ev] [iv] [if]

oi [oNi] [oNi] [y:] [i] [i]

ou [o:u] ÷ [u:] [u:] [u] [u]

ui [uNj] [yNj] ÷ [y:] [i] [i]

wi []:Ni] []:] [o] -

digraph:

gg [õg] [õg] [õg] [õg]

gk [õk] [õk] [õk] [g] [õg] [õk]

gc [õks] [õks] [õks] [õks]

gx [õkh] [õkh] ÷ [õx] [õx] [õx] [õç]

1As far as I can tell, we have found no written record of the early Phoenician letter names. Scholars have reconstructed them mainly from the names as preserved in Greek and Hebrew.

2The only exceptions being the /k/ in e0k and ou0k, which seldom appear alone or at the end of aclause.

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ORIGINS AND SOUNDS OF LETTERS

A a a!lfa

Phoenician &ālef,1 glottal plosive [§]. Classical Greek open, back, tense vowel [Y] as Americanbob. Alpha could be long or short; the long alpha was just longer in duration than the short, nota different quality of vowel. The Greeks changed the Phoenician letter name slightly because inancient Greek phonology, no word could end with a consonant sound other than /n/, /r/ or /s/.2 So the Greeks adapted many of the Phoenician letter names by switching the final vowel andconsonant, or leaving off the final consonant, or adding a vowel after the final consonant.

B b bh=ta

Phoenician bēt. Classical Greek voiced bilabial plosive [b], as English bet. Byzantine voicedlabio-dental fricative [v], as English vet.

G g ga&mma

Phoenician gīmel. Classical Greek voiced velar plosive [g], as English get. Byzantine voicedvelar fricative [γ], as Spanish agua (some dialects). Also in Greek, a velar nasal [õ] when itoccurs before the velar plosives g, as American anger; k, as American inky; and x, as Americanincome; and before the bilabial nasal m, as American hangman. The velar nasal may have beencalled a!gma.

Why does our letter C occupy the space of the Greek G? I'm so glad you asked. InEtruscan, the voiced plosives /b/, /d/ and /g/ were either non-contrastive or non-existent, i.e., theEtruscans didn't need or use the distinct sounds which the Greeks wrote as B, D and G. So theEtruscans efficiently used G as an allophone (a variant of a phoneme) of the voiceless velarplosive /k/ (English "hard c") when it occurred before the vowels /i/ and /e/; they used K before/a/ and J before /u/. G came to be shaped like a C (see the Latin precursor chart). When theRomans borrowed the Etruscan alphabet, they kept the J for their labio-velar phoneme /kw/,spelled QU. Since K was redundant with Latin C, they used K in place of C only for a very fewtraditional spellings beginning KA and for several abbreviations; and since Etruscan had noseparate letter for the voiced /g/, they used C for both the voiceless /k/ and voiced /g/ sounds. For the position of G in the Latin alphabet, see the paragraph following zh=ta.

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D d de/lta

Phoenician dālet. Classical Greek voiced alveolar plosive [d], as English bed. Byzantine voiceddental fricative [ð] as American bother.

E e ei] (Byzantine e2 yilo/n)

Phoenician hē. Classical Greek close-mid front tense vowel [e], like American English bait, butwithout any glide to the /i/ sound. The long form of this sound, written ++ up to the classicalperiod, came to have the same pronunciation and spelling as the diphthong +3. By the 2ndcentury CE the diphthong !3 had come to have the same sound as +, so the Byzantinegrammarians distinguished them as ai di/fqoggoj ("diphthong ai") and e2 yilo/n ("bare e"). Forclassical Greek purposes we should not be calling it "epsilon," but the name is so engrained thateveryone uses it anyway.

V Vau= or di/gamma

Phoenician wāw. Originally called by the Phoenician name, later called di/gamma because of itsshape. Not written in classical Attic, but written in other dialects such as Boeotian until the 3rdcentury BCE. In Aeolic, Homeric (Aeolic-Ionic), Boeotian and other dialects, it was a voicedlabio-velar glide [w], as English wet. It retained its position as the numeral 6 in alphabeticnumbering systems invented around the 5th century BCE.

Does digamma have something to do with our letter F? In a word, yes. The Greeksdidn't have an /f/ sound until post-classical times. Our friends the Etruscans, however, did havean /f/ sound and originally spelled it VH, apparently because of the similarity of their voiceless/f/ to a voiceless aspirated /w/, like English initial "wh." The Romans left F in place to representthe Latin /f/ sound, while V dropped out of the Attic-Ionic dialect from which koine descended.

Z z zh=ta

Phoenician zajin. Pre-classical Greek voiced alveolar affricate [dz], similar to the consonantcluster [dz] in English adz. Classical Greek consonant cluster [zd] by metathesis (exchange ofphoneme order), as English wisdom. Byzantine voiced alveolar fricative [z], as English biz.

So why is our Z at the end of the alphabet, and how did G get to seventh position? Easy. Go back to gamma and review why Latin C is where Greek G was. In the late 4th or 3rd centuryBCE the Romans added a slash mark to their C to distinguish the voiced /g/ sound, and stuck thenew G in the seventh position, the slot formerly occupied by the Etruscan -, for which theRomans had no use at the time – in Etruscan it was a voiceless [ts]. But around the 1st centuryBCE, when the Romans had borrowed a great many Greek words, they decided they needed aletter to represent the sound of Greek zeta, which by then had lost its /d/ element and was just[z]. Very practically, the Romans tacked Z back onto the end of their alphabet (see also the noteunder upsilon about how we got our Y at the same time).

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H h h]ta

Phoenician £ēt, voiceless pharyngeal fricative [£]. Originally h[ta, classical Attic (before thealphabet reform in 403 BCE) voiceless glottal fricative [h], as English hat. The Ionians andAeolians did not use initial [h] and used the letter instead for one of their vowels. In Attic after403 BCE, the letter had its Ionian value: long, mid-open, front, lax vowel [e:] as English bet (butlonger in duration). Byzantine high front vowel [i], as English beet. After / became a vowel, ahalf / | was used to signify initial aspiration (around 300 BCE). The two halves of the old H, |and , became the rough and smooth breathing marks, ) and ( .

If / used to be an /h/ sound but came to stand for a vowel in Ionian, why does the letternow appear to correspond again to the Latin and English /h/? Also easy. The Etruscansborrowed the Greek alphabet from western Greeks, who did pronounce initial /h/, and in whosealphabet, as in classical Attic, / was still /h/. So the Romans used it likewise.

Q q qh=ta

Phoenician tēt, pharyngealized alveolar plosive [t¨]. Classical Greek aspirated voiceless alveolarplosive [th], as English tin. Byzantine voiceless interdental fricative [›], as English bath.

This seems like a useful letter. Why isn't it in our alphabet? Two reasons. First, becausenative Latin (like English) never differentiated between two words solely by the differencebetween an aspirated [th] and an unaspirated [t] – that difference was not "distinctive" (as theysay in linguistics). So they simply left the Greek and Etruscan Q out of their own alphabet. Mind you, the Romans could hear the difference in Greek pronunciation, and by the middle ofthe 2nd century BCE, were accurately transcribing Greek words containing an aspirated [th] withLatin "TH." Second, Latin (unlike English) had no interdental fricative at all. Although theclassical Greek aspirated [th] mutated into the koine interdental fricative [›], the Romanscontinued to spell it "TH" and never added (or restored) a letter to imitate the foreign sound, asthey did for Y and Z. Old English had interdental fricatives, for which scribes added twointerchangeable letters to the Latin alphabet, ð (eth or edh) and þ (thorn), but the traditionalLatin spelling TH prevailed.

I i i0w~ta

Phoenician yōd. Greek close front tense vowel [i], as American beet. Could be long or short induration.

K k ka&ppa

Phoenician kāf. Greek unaspirated,voiceless, velar plosive [k], as English skit. In thepreposition e0k, it probably assimilated to the following consonant, becoming voiced [g] beforevoiced consonants and aspirated [kh] before aspirated consonants.

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L l la&bda, later la&mbda

Phoenician lāmed. Greek voiced, alveolar, lateral approximant [l], as English let.

M m mu=

Phoenician mēm. Greek voiced, bilabial nasal [m], as English met.

N n nu=

Phoenician nūn. Greek voiced, alveolar nasal [n], as English net.

C c cei=, later ci=

Phoenician sāmek. Greek affricate [kNs] or [khNs], as English bucks. Present in the Corinthian and

Ionic alphabets from early times, the Athenians added it to the Attic alphabet in 403 BCE. Inolder Attic, the /ks/ sound was written out with two consonants: KS, XS or GS.

All right, so what happened to C and why do we write the /ks/ sound with X? Again, theEtruscans borrowed a western Greek alphabet which had no letter C. The Etruscans had noseparate letter for [kNs]; they had a suspiciously X-shaped letter at the position of C in theiralphabet, but apparently it corresponded to the fricative [ • ] (English "sh"), which did not existin Greek. The western Greeks used the letter O, positioned where it is in the eastern Attic-Ionicalphabet, to write the sound [kNs], and the Romans eventually (not until the 1st century BCE)borrowed that letter, which had no Etruscan counterpart. The western Greek Y stood for [kh],which was spelled X in Attic-Ionic (see the chart of Latin precursors).

O o ou], o! (Byzantine o@ mikro/n)

Phoenician #ayin, voiced pharyngal fricative. Classical Greek short, close-mid, back, tense,rounded vowel [o], as American English boat (but with no glide to an /u/ sound). The distinctionbetween long and short vowels and between the sounds of omicron and omega had disappearedby the Byzantine period, so the Byzantine grammarians distinguished O from W by calling themo@ mikro/n (small O) and w me/ga (large O). For classical Greek purposes we should not becalling it "omicron," but the difference in both quality and quantity of the classical Attic omicronand omega are difficult for us to hear, so the Byzantine names are convenient.

P p pei=, later pi=

Phoenician pē. Greek unaspirated, voiceless, bilabial plosive [p], as English spin.

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J ko/ppa

Phoenician qōf. Pre-classical back allophone of /k/, used before back vowels /o/ and /u/. Theletter J apparently dropped out of use in Greece because the use of the back allophone wasautomatic and non-distinctive, but it retained its position as the numeral 90. The Etruscansborrowed the western Greek alphabet before J dropped out, and did use the letter, and it becamethe Latin Q.

R r r(w~

Phoenician rēš. Classical Greek voiced alveolar trill [r] as Spanish perro, or (probably)voiceless alveolar trill in initial and sometimes medial position. The r was always aspirated r(when initial, and sometimes when medial in double rr(. Aspirated r( was probably a voicelesstrill, but when aspiration disappeared after the Hellenistic period, it became voiced.

S s j si/gma

Phoenician šīn. Greek voiceless alveolar fricative [s], as English best, except before voicedconsonants when it was voiced [z], as English bismuth.

T t tau=

Phoenician tāw. Greek unaspirated, voiceless alveolar plosive [t], as English sting. The Greek/t/ sound may have been dental, as in Spanish, but there isn't much difference.

U u u[ (Byzantine u] yilo/n)

Phoenician wāw (see also Vau=). Pre-classical Greek close, back, tense, rounded vowel [u], asEnglish boot. Classical Greek long or short, close, front, tense, rounded vowel [y], as Frenchbutte or German Bütt. Byzantine close, front, tense, unrounded vowel [i], as English beet. Between the 4th and 10th centuries CE, the diphthong oi had come to have the same [i] sound asu, so the Byzantine grammarians distinguished them as oi di/fqoggoj ("diphthong oi") and u]yilo/n ("bare u"). For classical Greek purposes we should not be calling it "upsilon," but thename is so engrained that everyone uses it anyway.

Why does our English "Y " look like the Greek upsilon? Well, for a long time theRomans transliterated Greek words having an upsilon with the Etruscan/Latin V, which had the[u] sound of the pre-classical Greek upsilon. But the sound of the Greek letter changed to [y],and in the 1st century BCE, the Romans added upsilon as a separate letter to transcribe Greekwords. The Romans tacked the new letter onto the end of the Latin alphabet just before therestored Z (see the note under zeta about how Z, once in seventh position, got to the end of thealphabet). At some point, after the Greek Y [y] started sounding like a Latin I [i], Latin scholars

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started calling it "i graeca" to avoid confusion, hence its modern name in several languages, likeFrench (i grec), Spanish (i griega) and Italian (i greca).

F f fei=, later fi=

No Semitic precursor. Classical Greek aspirated, voiceless, bilabial plosive [ph], as English pin(compare to non-initial /p/ in spin, Greek p). Byzantine voiceless labio-dental fricative [f], asEnglish fin.

X x xei=, later xi=

No Semitic precursor. Eastern classical Greek aspirated, voiceless, velar plosive [kh], as Englishkin (compare to non-initial /k/ in skin). Byzantine voiceless palatal fricative [ç], as German ich,or velar fricative [x], as German Bach. In the western Greek alphabet from which the Romansborrowed some non-Etruscan letters, the letter X stood for the sound [kNs], and so it did in Latin.

Y y yei=, later yi=

No Semitic precursor. Greek consonant cluster [pNs] or [phNs], as English bops. Present in the

Ionic and Corinthian alphabets from early times, the Athenians added it to the Attic alphabet in403 BCE. In older Attic, the sound was written out as two consonants: PS, FS or BS.

W w w (Byzantine w me/ga)

No Semitic precursor. Classical Greek open-mid, back, lax rounded vowel, as English board.Byzantine close-mid, back, tense, rounded vowel [o], as English boat. See omicron. Forclassical Greek purposes we should not be calling it "omega," but the difference in both qualityand quantity of the classical Attic omega and omicron are difficult for us to hear, so theByzantine names are a necessity.

` sa&n (Doric) or sa&mpi

Phoenician šādē. Pre-classical Greek voiceless, alveolar fricative [s], as English best. Usedinterchangeably with sigma for the /s/ sound. It dropped out of the alphabet but kept its positionas the numeral 900.

3You can hear the same phonological process at work in the way some Spanish speakerspronounce the initial "y" in English words like a "j," so for instance, "yes" becomes "jes."

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leftovers

Dare one ask, where did English J and W come from? – these are the only letters in thecontemporary English alphabet not explained in the preceding materials. These have nothing todo with Greek, but, since you ask:

The voiced affricate (meaning a stop followed by release in a continuant position) J [dN¥]represents a Latin consonantal or semi-vowel I, which was a voiceless palatal approximant [j]. In Old French, this came to be pronounced [dN¥], like the "soft" G in Italian.3 Old Englishhybridized with Old French, starting with the Norman invasion in the 11th century, to produceMiddle English. Up to the 17th century, words beginning with this French sound were spelledwith I and readers just had to know when initial I was pronounced [dN¥]. Then typographersadopted an old form of minuscule "i" with a tail to stand for "j" and made up the capital form J. No word which begins with "J" is derived from Old English. Its position in the alphabet isnatural, since it was historically regarded merely as a different sound of the letter I.

The voiced labial-velar approximant W [w] represents an Old English phoneme, whichsounded like the classical Latin consonantal U (or V – those were the same letter). But in the 7thcentury CE, when the Latin alphabet was adapted to writing Old English, the medieval Latinconsonantal U was already pronounced as a bilabial or labial-dental fricative, like our modern V. So English scribes at first used a ligatured UU or VV ("double U") to represent the sound, butthen switched to a Runic letter, wynn. But VV had been carried to the continent where it wasused in Old French to spell words of Germanic and Celtic origin, and was reintroduced in Britainby Norman scribes. Its position in the alphabet is natural, since it is an adaptation of U or V (thetypographical distinction between U and V was not regular in England until the 17th century).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, W. Sydney, Vox Graeca: A Guide To The Pronunciation Of Classical Greek, thirdedition. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Allen, W. Sydney, Vox Latina: A Guide To The Pronunciation Of Classical Latin, secondedition. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Browning, Robert, Medieval and Modern Greek, London, Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers) Ltd.,1969.

Daitz, Stephen, The Pronunciation And Reading Of Ancient Greek: A Practical Guide. NewYork, Jeffrey Norton Publishers Inc., 1984.

Daniels, Peter T. and Bright, William, editors, The World's Writing Systems. Oxford, OxfordUniversity Press, 1996.

Howatson, M. C., editor, The Oxford Companion To Classical Literature, second edition. NewYork, Oxford University Press, 1989.

Jensen, Hans, Sign, Symbol and Script; an account of man's efforts to write, third revised andenlarged edition, translated by George Unwin. New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1969.

Joseph, Brian D., "Greek," in The World's Major Languages, Bernard Comrie, editor. NewYork, Oxford University Press, 1987.

Liddell, Henry George and Scott, Robert, compilers, A Greek-English Lexicon, revised andaugmented by Sir Henry Stuart Jones, with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie, and with thecooperation of many scholars, with a revised supplement. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996.

Oxford English Dictionary Online, Oxford University Press: 2nd ed. 1989 (ed. J. A. Simpsonand E. S. C. Weiner), Additions 1993 and 1997 (ed. John Simpson and Edmund Weiner; MichaelProffitt), and 3rd ed. (in progress) (ed. John Simpson). University of New Mexico ZimmermanLibrary, Albuquerque, New Mexico. < http://dictionary.oed.com.libproxy.unm.edu>

Pring, T.J., compiler, The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Greek. Oxford, Oxford UniversityPress, 1986.

Sampson, Geoffrey, Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction, London, Hutchinson & Co.(Publishers) Ltd., 1985.

Stanford, W. B., The Sound Of Greek: Studies In The Greek Theory And Practice Of Euphony. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1967.