[Music] T KES gles taste heleni Cas welcome that is students of the beautiful Greek language Osan glan it's my great pleasure to see you here and to teach this Immortal tongue Milos I amonos which is the ancient Greek word for Miller which is what my surname Mueller means in the original German I am honored to serve as your dcos your teacher and have you as my students my ma and if you think that Ma Tha sounds like math you are quick studies indeed our word math deres from the Greek verb manthano I learn and we have a lot to accomplish today maai the Greek alphabet and what we call the restored classical pronunciation of ancient Greek doubters and Skeptics and I can see you out there may wonder how we could possibly know how Homer May may have pronounced the letters almost 3,000 years ago or perhaps Plato a half a millennium later in Athens or after another 500 years when the Apostle Paul pinned his letters oh ye of little faith you're right of course so much time so many territories so many authors and works Homer's Iliad and odyssey safos love poetry pindar's Victory ODS Greek tragedy and comedy Herodotus the father of History some say lies Plato Aristotle lyric poetry the gospel writers the Apostle Paul plutarch's lives of the famous grecians and Romans and we are just getting started did they all pronounce Greek the same way do we all pronounce English the same way in Australia the UK Scotland Ireland Canada India Africa or even the USA languages are messy especially over time and across many places nevertheless we shall today learn one pronunciation that will apply to all the Greek we read we call it the restored classical pronunciation this pronunciation differs significantly from Modern Greek which after the downfall of Constantinople in 1453 and the Revival of classical learning in Europe was the original model but then a scholar by the name of arasmus set off a firestorm among Scholars by arguing in Latin for what we call the restored classical pronunciation this pronunciation Remains the standard in American colleges and universities and we will use restored classical pronunciation in this course although we will truth be told make some concessions to the sounds of American English and if you speak another variety of English or another language alt together please Embrace whatever adjustments work for you language should be an instructive pleasure not a torture the important thing is to pronounce Greek loudly confidently relatively accurately and consistently this will allow us to enjoy Greek as a language we can focus more on reading than on speaking ancient Greek but we certainly aim to pronounce words and sentences aloud in a way that is recognizable as the restored classical pronunciation even if our pronunciation might have marked us as tourists to ancient speakers of homeric or adic or Doric or yic or ionic or modern Greek and the grammar that we learn in this class will serve as a solid foundation for reading Greek from Homer in the 800s BCE to classical addict in the 5th Century BCE to the common literary dialect or Co dialectos that became standard after the conquests of Alexander the Great the New Testament would eventually be written in this dialect which we simply call Co there are other dialects too but we will keep our eye on what is most common and useful we take homeric Greek as our starting point and we will aim to learn these forms thoroughly knowing the older forms helps explain why later forms look the way they do later Greek tends to contract older forms we do the same thing compare I'm going to go now which becomes I'm going to go now or even I'm a go now contraction happens to many languages we will thus look from time to time at how homeric forms eventually settled on coin forms by pausing regularly to look at the New Testament we will become acquainted with contracted forms and between the earlier and later forms we will acquire the key to most literary Greek over a span of thousands of years for all its varieties Greek displays remarkable continuity and words that Homer use can still be heard on the streets of Athens today one small example the word ton in Homer can mean him in modern Greek ton him him and these two are even still pronounced the same way but leaving modern Greek aside ancient Greek alone unlocks riches that can only be appreciated by those who know some Greek Shakespeare famously had small Latin and less Greek but he had some and after this course you will have mastered the Greek verb and have read lines of Homer Iliad as well as passages from the New Testament in the original Greek an accomplishment that no one will ever be able to take from you but first the alphabet we of course use the Latin alphabet which is a descendant of a West Creek alphabet that is why so many Latin letters look like their Greek counterparts the Greek alphabet was itself developed from a Semitic alphabet the first two letters in Greek are alpha and beta hence our alphab beta or alphabet but compare the Hebrew letters Olf and Beth and you can hear the close kinship globalism and cultural exchange are hardly exclusively modern phenomena the classical Greek alphabet has 24 letters we will leave aside for now two archaic letters although you can find them in the guide book if you're curious our first letter is Alpha which especially as a capital looks just like our own letter A it is always pronounced when long like the a in father or when short more like a it is never ever pronounced like the a in cake or the a in cat please repeat Alpha a our next letter is beta again not a problem we will pronounce it like our own be please repeat beta B by way are you repeating proud and out loud this is important it is crucial to engage teeth tongues lips the whole neuros pychological apparatus of language from brain to mouth to ears to hands to eyes the more synapses you light up in learning a language the better it sticks please repeat out loud we begin with letters but we'll soon move on to words phrases and whole sentences your own breath across vocal cords tongue and teeth and lips has the power to bring ancient Greek To Life use your power wisely and repeat proud and out loud letter number three gamma gamma gamma is equivalent to G the upper case looks like a Gallows the lower case a bit more familiar gamma is always pronounced hard G as in girl never J as in gymnasium please repeat gamma G Delta Delta is equivalent to d as in Deal please repeat Delta du Epsilon Epsilon is equivalent to a short e as in pet please repeat Epsilon e Zeta Zeta is equivalent to Z but Zeta buzzes more in Greek because we should insert a D sound as well technically z d as in Maz but it's a lot easier to say DZ which is what I generally do what can I say I got a bit of an American accent please repeat Zeta Ada a is equivalent to the long a in gate because this letter looks like an h and a capital as a capital and an n in the lower case it will take some study please repeat Ada a Theta Theta is equivalent to th some choose to pronounce Theta as an aspirated T but our T's in English are already aspirated if I say for example the name Tommy I put a puff of air after the tea if I take away that puff of air I would say bu aspirated Tommy unaspirated buy but I find that difficult and do not want to pronounce an unaspirated t for th the Greek T So a th sound th for Theta is normal and common please repeat Theta th Iota Iota is pronounced either as a long e as in feet and police or a short I as in hit please repeat Iota e or I Kappa Kappa is equivalent to K and pronounced like the K in Kill please repeat Kappa C Lambda Lambda is equivalent to L and pronounced like the L in language please repeat Lambda me mu is equivalent to M and pronounced like the m in man please repeat Mew M new new is equivalent to n and pronounced like the n in never it looks a bit like our V so requires some study please repeat new n some call it Z but I prefer c c is a double consonant equivalent to X that is a K and S sound and pronounced like the X in box please repeat C Omron is a small o a micro o which is to say a short o like the O as in a but a shorter a closed o as in the British pronunciation of pot never as in my own native Midwestern American bat please repeat Omron o Pi Pi is a equivalent to the p in pi please repeat Pi P row row looks like a p but it's not row is an R if you can Trill it the way they do in the Mediterranean please do I on the other hand a son of Wisconsin will proceed with a good old American R please repeat r r by the way if you think this is going too fast it probably is so please remember that you can repeat this lecture as many times as you like also you will find all of these sounds spelled out in the guide book so you can study individual letters at your leisure with me or without me as you prefer Sigma Sigma is equivalent to S and pronounced as the s in sing note however that there are three sigmas uppercase Sigma and two lowercase sigmas one lowercase Sigma looks like an o with a pigtail and one is squiggly like our s round pigtail Sigma is used everywhere except the end of a word squiggly as Sigma appears exclusively at the end of words please repeat Sigma s to is equivalent to r t and pronounced as the T in tip please repeat to T Upson this letter represents a sound that we don't have in English opsilon should ideally be pronounced as the u in French to or as in the German word for Miller Miller in the other hand the U in English prune may serve as a close approximation please repeat Upsilon U th is an aspirated P but again we aspirate P's in English so if we were to pronounce f as if it were an aspirated P we'd have to take the aspiration off pi and pronounce it Pi life is too short most students of ancient Greek pronounce the FI like the F sound at the beginning of philosophy please repeat fi F Kai Kai is another sound that we do not have in English it's equivalent to a soft k one makes a k sound but lets the air seep through the back of the throat as one pronounces it c c the air escapes it's equivalent to the CH in Scottish l or German do if you can't make this sound no worries a simple k sound will suffice remember no ancient Greek will ever make fun of your accent and neither will we please repeat Kai Sai Sai is another double consonant equivalent to PS Sai is pronounced like the PS at the end of lips please repeat Sai and finally Omega Omega is Big O Mega o as opposed to micro o or Omron me GA o is long like the O in open please repeat Omega o the first letter is Alpha the last letter is Omega if you go from alpha to Omega you go from beginning to end let's recite the alphabet when I pause please repeat Alpha beta Gamma Delta Epsilon Zeta Ada Theta Iota Kappa Lambda mu new C Omicron Pi row Sigma to Upsilon fi Kai s Omega and one more time but this time we will practice the sound of each letter please repeat Alpha a beta B gamma G Delta du Epsilon e Zeta [Music] z a a Theta th Iota e or I Kappa C Lambda mu M new Omron o Pi P row R Sigma s to Upsilon u f f k s Omega o there are a few other sounds to learn namely some vowel combinations called diff thongs but let's practice a few Greek words first that don't contain D thongs our first word means countless and is the origin of our word Myriad let's spell it mu Upsilon row Iota Omron Sigma did you notice what kind of Sigma squiggly Sigma at the end and what looks like a lowercase p is really a row an R let's read it aloud maros and again Rios by the way the mark over the Iota is an accent please repeat MOS each consonant is pronounced with the vowel that follows it as a separate syllable let's read it again o this word means C as in a large body of saltwater but not an ocean let's spell it Theta Alpha Lambda Alpha Sigma Sigma Alpha did you note the pigtail sigas in the middle of the word let's try reading itasa again th and one more time thala here's a verb that means to put her to place shall we spell it ta Iota Theta Ada mu Iota let's read it slowly t f me and faster T me again three vowels three syllables did you say e for the iotas one more time T me andless you think every word has three syllables here's a word for and or but Delta Epsilon please give it a try de again de the Epsilon is short please try to read the Greek word for Hero Let's spell it Ada row Omega Sigma but what are those marks above the Ada we call them diacriticals but that does not tell us what they are one diacritical looks like a quotation mark and one diacritical looks like an accent the accent is an accent but what is the curved Mark the one that looks like a quotation mark is a breathing Mark there are two kinds of breathing marks and all were words that begin with vowels have a breathing Mark over the first letter breathing marks indicate whether the letter is to be pronounced with an H we call this rough breathing or without an H which we call smooth breathing let's compare and contrast the first Ada has a Mark that opens to the right the second Ada one that opens to the left the first Ada should be pronounced with an H the second can should be pronounced without an H let's read the first hey please repeat hey now let's read the second a please repeat a time for a quiz try to pronounce the Adas correctly with or without an H after a brief pause I'll provide the answer are you ready hey he hey hey hey I think that we're ready to try hero in Greek please repeat hey Roose and faster hey Rose time runs a pace let's look at what remains of ancient Greek pronunciation D thongs that is two vowels sounded as one at the same time there are nine D thongs but only seven sounds Alpha Iota is pronounced like the AI in Isle please repeat Alpha Iota I Alpha Upsilon is pron pronounced like the ouu in house please repeat Alpha Upsilon Epsilon Iota is pronounced like the a in Freight that is pretty much like the Ada but we do not have a pure a sound in English so most of us can't hear the difference please repeat Epsilon Iota a Epsilon Upsilon or Ada Upsilon is a two for one special a long Epsilon is represented as an ADA so when combin with an Upsilon they both make the same sound which unfortunately does not exist in English it's like the EU in French or the O in German equivalent to e plus fused into one syllable but if you'd like to settle for you that works too we're not native speakers we have an accent please repeat Epsilon Upsilon or ailon Omron Iota is pronounced like the oi in foil please repeat Omron Iota oi Omron Upsilon and Omega Upsilon is another two for one special little o and Big O combined with opsilon is pronounced like the OU in soup please repeat Omron Epsilon or Omega Epsilon U and finally Epsilon Iota is pronounced like the English word we or the French we please repeat Upsilon Iota we have you got all that of course not unless you already know Greek which brings me to an important point you're going to have homework M Tha you'll find summaries of the lecture and supplementary exercises in the guide book it is essential that you complete the exercises for each lecture before proceeding to the next lecture practice makes perfect and you are free to repeat each lecture too as often as you like let's repeat a few more words please repeat after me and concentrate on each letter or combination of letters as we say the word please repeat a loose again a was that a smooth or rough breathing before the alpha smooth the last syllable is a diff thong one more time a very good OS smooth or rough breathing smooth the first syllable is a thong any diacriticals go over the second fowl of a thongs please repeats again one more time linos a smooth breathing second syllable is a diff thong accent is on the last syllable please repeat a again a alos again alos BOS again BOS ifos more slowly ifos again EOS again Pro e opto do you see the two dots over the Iota that's not a umot we call it a diasis and this is our final diacritical it means that the Iota is pronounced separately from the preceding Omron rather than as the D thong oi please repeat Pro e up toe four syllables again Pro opto and faster prapto helan he Lon Aion chco again Tuco o three syllables o o NOS again oos and finally logos please repeat logos logos means word which was according to John at the beginning but for us it is at the end my water clock has run out please study the alphabet in the guide book memorize the alphabet do the practice exercises repeat the first lecture as many times as you like and when you feel comfortable visit me again in lecture 2 but but for now I must go and may you maai come back soon farewell students