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Order of Contents
Pronunciation 5
Accents 3
Ligatures 5
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Helps for the Pronunciation of Greek
Intro
The traditional pronunciation for classical and koine (including Biblical) Greek was invented by Erasmus (d. 1536) and is known as the Erasmian system. The system is artificial and has never been used by Greeks in any part of their history. Yet as it is still widely used today as a default (it is called the “standard pronunciations” by Mounce), and it is intuitively easier for English speakers, there is good reason for the beginner to learn with it.
Scholars have sought in the last century to reconstruct the original pronunciation(s) of how Greek was actually spoken by the ancient Greeks. This imitation of historical Greek phonology is known as the historical pronunciation.
For more on this subject, see Wikipedia: ‘Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in teaching’ & ‘Ancient Greek phonology’.
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Traditional Pronunciation
Mounce, William – pp. 8-11 in Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar 3rd ed. (Zondervan, 1993), ch. 3, ‘The Alphabet & Pronunciation’
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Historical Pronunciation
Article
McLean, B.H. – 2. ‘Pronouncing Hellenistic Greek: the ‘Historical’ Greek Pronunciation System’ in Hellenistic & Biblical Greek: a Graduated Reader (Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 37-41
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Books
1800’s
Pickering, John E.L. – An Essay on the Pronunciation of the Greek Language (Cambridge: Hillard, 1818) 70 pp.
“…does modern Greek pronunciation approximate Ancient or Biblical Greek pronunciation? John Pickering makes a compelling case that it does…”
This was replied to by N.F. Moore, On the Pronunciation of the Greek language… (NY: Eastburn, 1819) 46 pp.
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1900’s
Sturtevant, Edgar H. – The Pronunciation of Greek & Latin 2nd ed. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977) 190 pp. ToC
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2000’s
Zachariou, Philemon – Reading & Pronouncing Biblical Greek: Historical Pronunciation versus Erasmian Pre (Wipf & Stock, 2020) 160 pp. ToC
Kantor, Benjamin – The Pronunciation of New Testament Greek: Judeo-Palestinian Greek Phonology & Orthography from Alexander to Islam Ref Buy (Eerdmans, 2023) 896 pp.
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Helps for Learning Greek Accents
Articles
‘A Guide to Greek Accents’ (2004) 5 pp. at Chioulaoshi.org
Hewett, James A. et al. – ‘Accents’ in New Testament Greek: a Beginning & Intermediate Grammar (Baker Academic, 2017), pp. 259-67
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Book
Carson, D.A. – Greek Accents: a Student’s Manual (Baker, 1995) 168 pp. ToC
“Rules of Greek accenting practice are organized into a concise text and reference package. Also included are exercises and an answer key.”
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Helps on Reading Greek Ligatures
A ligature is an alphabetic-like abbreviation, or symbol, standing for more than one letter. There was a height of using ligatures, one in nearly every third word, in Post-Reformation writings in the 1500’s.
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Tables
pp. 3-4 & 6-7 in Alphabetum Graecum… (Paris, 1550)
Bullions, Peter – ‘Ligatures or Abbreviations’ in The Principles of Greek Grammar… 20th ed. rev. (NY: Pratt, 1851)
Palmer, David R. – ‘Quick-Reference Greek Ligature Guide: a Table of Ligatures, Abbreviations, Symbols & Alternative Letter Forms in New Testament Greek Cursive Manuscripts (Minuscules) in Alphabetical Order’ (2010) 55 pp.
‘Example Images’ in ‘Greek Ligatures’ at Wikipedia
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Article
Ingram, William H. – ‘The Ligatures of Early Printed Greek’ (Duke University, 1966) 19 pp.
Greek printed in the 1500’s is filled with ligatures, where more than one letter is printed as a special combined letter. The article gives background on the subject and then gives a list of the ligatures on pp. 382-89, giving their meanings.
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Related Pages
Greek Dictionaries, Parsing Guides & Concordances
New Testament Background, Survey, Authenticity & Introduction