# Question about Ancient Greek



## cih1355 (Apr 7, 2007)

I am studying Ancient Greek on my own and I'm going through a couple of books. According to the book, _Athenaze_, the Greek letter, "Eta", is pronounced as "the sound of bed, but held longer" and the Greek letter, "Omicron", is pronounced as "the sound in boat or goat". According to the book, _Fundamental Greek Grammar_, "Eta", is pronounced as "a as in gray" and "Omicron" is pronounced as "o as in ought". 

Which is the correct pronunciation or are they all correct?


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## Me Died Blue (Apr 7, 2007)

As a Greek and Roman studies major right now, I can say that there is definitely a significant amount of variety even in how the various Greek professors I've had within a couple years pronounce things. Some pronounce the circumflexes, some do not. And the impression I've gotten is that the pronunciation (and enunciation) of an eta or an omicron can often depend on the word. One professor also mentioned that we ultimately do not know for certain exactly how every single letter was pronounced in ancient Greece.

The two volumes of _Athenaze_ are the textbooks my classes have used from the beginning. I think it's a very good book for learning classical Greek, as it combined simple memorization with a lot of full immersion from the outset, which (for me) has greatly increased the natural ability to retain not only words, but how they are used, since context and things like case, declension, tense and mood are so important to the Greek language. That is actually the reason my primary Greek professor does not recommend flashcards, but rather reading through passages over and over. And the ones in _Athenaze_ are ideal for that, as they describe situations using Greek words in very real, accurate ways, yet are always geared to only correspond to the level of grammar and vocabulary the reader is currently at in the textbook. One thing that can be helpful for _Athenaze_ is if you can get your hands on the instructors' manual, mainly to allow you to check yourself on the passages at certain times and places, so they can be even more useful to you.


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## cih1355 (Apr 8, 2007)

Me Died Blue said:


> As a Greek and Roman studies major right now, I can say that there is definitely a significant amount of variety even in how the various Greek professors I've had within a couple years pronounce things. Some pronounce the circumflexes, some do not. And the impression I've gotten is that the pronunciation (and enunciation) of an eta or an omicron can often depend on the word. One professor also mentioned that we ultimately do not know for certain exactly how every single letter was pronounced in ancient Greece.
> 
> The two volumes of _Athenaze_ are the textbooks my classes have used from the beginning. I think it's a very good book for learning classical Greek, as it combined simple memorization with a lot of full immersion from the outset, which (for me) has greatly increased the natural ability to retain not only words, but how they are used, since context and things like case, declension, tense and mood are so important to the Greek language. That is actually the reason my primary Greek professor does not recommend flashcards, but rather reading through passages over and over. And the ones in _Athenaze_ are ideal for that, as they describe situations using Greek words in very real, accurate ways, yet are always geared to only correspond to the level of grammar and vocabulary the reader is currently at in the textbook. One thing that can be helpful for _Athenaze_ is if you can get your hands on the instructors' manual, mainly to allow you to check yourself on the passages at certain times and places, so they can be even more useful to you.



Thank you for the information, Chris.


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