A reader(‘s son) writes:
I am a 14-year-old high schooler and am trying to teach myself ancient
Greek. I am using the Athenaze series.Because I have no teacher to help with pronunciation, I was wondering if
you could help me with some questions I have. My mom reads your blog and
said that you are skilled at ancient languages. I know you are very busy
and hope you can find the time to answer my questions.Here are my questions:
I want to know if the Greek letter chi is pronounced as the letter "k" is
pronounced, or as the letter combination "ch" in the English language?
It’s neither. The letter chi represents a sound that we either don’t have or that we barely use in standard American English. Ancient Greek textbooks will often say that this is like the "ch" in the Scottish pronunciation of "Loch" (a very harsh sound) but in modern Greek it’s more like the "h" on the front of "Hugh" (a less harsh sound). You also hear it compared to the "ch" in the German pronunciation of "Bach."
I know that it is pronounced as a softer sound in modern Greek but don’t know for sure whether it was harsher or softer in ancient Greek. Any of the above pronunciations (i.e., from "Loch," "Bach," and "Hugh") will get you in the ballpark, though.
A similar question for the letter phi and the letter psi.
The first is easy. Pronounce phi just like the letter "f."
Psi is a little harder for English-speakers at first. It is pronounced like the letters "ps" in the word "lips." You can’t drop off the "p" sound (as we do in English when we say "psychiatrist" and pronounce it /sai-kai-ah-trist/). Neither should you exaggerate the "p" sound and say "pea" (like the Animaniacs do when they say "pea-sai-kai-ah-trist"). It’s just like the "ps" in "lips" or "cops" or "chaps."
The difficulty is caused by the fact that, though we use this sound in English, we don’t put it on the front of words. The Greeks did. To get used to saying it on the front of a Greek word (like "psuche" [meaning "soul"]), you might try adding an extra syllable on the front of the word as a kind of "training wheel" that you can take off once you feel comfortable putting the sound up front. For example, you might say /cops-oo-chay/ (note that this has the chi-sound in it!) and then drop the /co-/ to arrive at the correct pronunciation, /psoo-chay/.
Thank you very much. If you can suggest another series that might provide
more help than the Athenaze series, I would appreicate it.
I’m familiar with Athenaze, but I haven’t used it myself, so I don’t have a feel for how the program works. That makes it hard to recommend something better. If it were me, though, I’d probably try learning either Koine or modern Greek first, since there are very good tools for learning these (see recommendations below), and then afterwards learn the kind of classical that Athenaze covers.
My mom bought me the book on heiroglyphics that you recommended last year
and I really enjoy it. Actually I like languages a lot. My school doesn’t
offer Latin or Greek, so I am studying German. I am the top student in
the school.
Congratulations! Incidentally, your German will serve you well in learning Latin and Greek. The noun system in Latin and Greek works the same general way that the German noun system does (i.e., it has cases and declensions). Also glad you like the hieroglyphics book!
Also, can you recommend a resource to learn koine Greek? I am interested
in learning that so I can study the old Bible texts.
The best resource to really start studying Koine Greek in a serious way is William Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek. It offers tremendous help to the student that other courses don’t offer.
On the other hand, if it’s a little advanced for you, you might try Mounce’s Greek For The Rest Of Us or James Found’s Basic Greek In 30 Minutes A Day.
MORE KOINE GREEK RECOMMENDATIONS HERE.
The best resource for starting to learn modern Greek is Pimsleur. You might try one of the smaller, cheaper sets and see if you like the program.
Hope this helps, and good luck with your language studies!
Do you have similar recommendations for a young man studying Latin?
On behalf of my son, thank you! You are a wealth of knowledge.
What sound does the greek launguage make for the “ch” in choose. Could you let me know as my teacher has given me some tricky homework on this subject. Thankyou from Australia
From what I’ve read (Allen’s Vox Graeca is a great resource) the chi, phi, and theta were all aspirates originally, so for reading classical Greek the fricative pronunciation is not correct. This means that theta is not “th” as in “thin” but “t” as in “top”. Notice how in English we put a little “h” sound after the word-initial “t”. The same goes for phi and chi: phi is “p” plus the “h” and chi is “k” plus the “h”. This means one must be very careful to distinguish, for example, between pi and phi, because in English we use both sounds for one letter. Phi is the “p” in “pat” and pi is the “p” in “tap”.
Using the “f”, “th”, and “ch” (as in German “ich” or Scottish “loch”) is correct for Koine, I think. And really in the end it doesn’t make much difference. What is important is that one finds a system and sticks with it. In this regard, I almost prefer pronouncing as in modern Greek, because at least there are still people living who speak the language this way.
I would just like to mention, for those students interested in both Modern and Koine Greek, that they might like to hear the the ancient Greek of the New Testament pronounced in authentic Modern Greek. Dr. Spiros Zodhiates reads the New Testament in a 22-CD set called “Koine Greek New Testament”. It is available from Amazon.com.