Commentary on the Greek voicemod....

**Tiberius Nero** · 12-09-2006, 01:19

The only point that is arguable really is the pronounciation of Β,Γ,Δ as b,d and g respectively. That they must have been originally pronounced as such, it would seem undeniable to one trained in comparative linguistics: words of the same roots in related languages have them. Now as to when the shift started: first it might have not been universal at the beginning; I recall that there is an inscription from Boiotia (could be wrong, its been years since I studied those things) that has an interesting spelling mistake: it presents a digamma where a beta should have been. If the scribe made such a mistake it might lead us to think that the digamma (presumably pronounced as "v") and the beta sounded the same (spelling mistakes and mistakes in general are our friends, seriously, don't correct people in the way they talk or write, future linguists will thank us for this). Now iirc this inscription dates from sometime in the 4th cent BC. But again it would only prove that Greek as spoken in a particular place was moving towards the shift in question, towards a softer pronounciation of Β,Γ,Δ. It would certainly be rash to claim that this proves a universal tendency in Greek. And again all this concerns one of the three letters in question. Evidence for when the pronounciation shift of these is very hard to come by. What I can say, is that to my knowledge, Latin never rendered Greek B in borrowed words (and there were a lot around the 1st and 2nd cent AD) as anything else than b, at a time when the Latin V must have sounded like v today, that is the exact sound of the modern Greek pronounciation of beta. Why would this have been so at this point in time if B did not still sound like b?

**Shigawire** · 12-09-2006, 01:34

Just to correct, the Classical Latin V sounded more like the english "W" - a mix between U and V. Depending on the word..

**Tiberius Nero** · 12-09-2006, 01:43

Yes, but that must have changed rather early, just like the pronounciation of C before e and i. Otherwise its universal appearence as v and the universal palatalization of C before e and i e.g. in Romance languages are very hard to explain; those changes must have taken place before Latin actually spread to places like Gaul and Iberia if we are to explain this type of uniformity in Romance languages; but lets not argue about this here too, Greek is enough of a headache!

**Casmin** · 12-09-2006, 02:10

What in god's name is this debate about?

Hellenes, who cares if the accent sounds this way or that? It's a game mod and they did the best they could and it turned out a lot better than what we wished for.

So because the modder's voice has a different accent than what you expected there's some kind of academic conspiracy involved?

**Shigawire** · 12-09-2006, 02:31

Palatalization of C in front of i, e..

You know.. The letter G was invented by a grammarian by the name of Spurius Carvilius Ruga around 3rd century BC, and it was passed into law by Censor Appius Claudius Caecus in 312 BC.
The letter G was created because letter C had 2 sounds.. One hard (K) and one soft (G).. and Spurius Carvilius Ruga wanted to put that difference to paper. To demonstrate it. So he added an extra line to the "C" thus creating "G."

The very same process would have occurred when V branched out into U and V, and when I branched out into I and J..

I am not sure I agree with you that the palatalization of C occured as early as you predict.. I think the general consensus is that it occured some time between 300-450 AD. But I haven't studied this intermediary face much, I've mostly studied on the great change from the hard "K" of "Caesar" (Kaisar) versus the palatalized C in "Cesare" (Chessare) in Italy today.. and of course the G in "Giovanni"..

**keravnos** · 12-09-2006, 09:21

Tiberie,

On Dipthongs, I either made a big mistake or I misunderstood completely what my philologist friend was trying to say. Either way, I must do some more research on this...

For the reccord, the "ΙΠΠΕΙΣ" you see was "ΙΠΠΗΣ" originally. Teleklos had written it this way. I changed it because I considered it to be mistaken, while it seems to be a phonetic version of the change in dipthongs Tiberius is talking about. (HIPPEIS or rather ΙΠΠΕΙΣ was and is the written version).

You heard Falangitai, e?

Do tell me if you find more glaring obvious mistakes like that so that I can

them..

Thanks.

**Vorian** · 12-09-2006, 11:18

Actually I tried the Greek campaign and when I heard "Hoplites Aploi", I thought there was some kind of mistake. I am not an expert in ancient Greek and my school grades were very bad actually so I didn't know these theories you mention keravnos. Anyway, even though it sounds strange to most Greeks, I don't think the pronanciation is so bad, 2000 years have passed for God's shake you can't be sure how they talked, right?

Keep up the good work.

**Birka Viking** · 12-09-2006, 17:28

Originally Posted by Casmin

What in god's name is this debate about?

Hellenes, who cares if the accent sounds this way or that? It's a game mod and they did the best they could and it turned out a lot better than what we wished for.

So because the modder's voice has a different accent than what you expected there's some kind of academic conspiracy involved?

I can only agree with u man......How the hell can pronunciations cause such big debate

**Teleklos Archelaou** · 12-09-2006, 17:47

Originally Posted by Birka Viking

I can only agree with u man......How the hell can pronunciations cause such big debate

As I said earlier in this thread, this is the single biggest debate that has existed over the whole mod. It's utterly ridiculous. I've totally removed myself from it as I have better things to do continuing to make the mod better and finish it rather than engage in this game. People who aren't actually trying to make the mod or any others actively may not actually realize that we aren't just here for a debate, but to make a mod. Complainers complain, but what keravnos and shiga have actually done immediately shows everyone that results are what matters, especially results that the mod team is very very happy with.

**Birka Viking** · 12-09-2006, 20:35

Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

As I said earlier in this thread, this is the single biggest debate that has existed over the whole mod. It's utterly ridiculous. I've totally removed myself from it as I have better things to do continuing to make the mod better and finish it rather than engage in this game. People who aren't actually trying to make the mod or any others actively may not actually realize that we aren't just here for a debate, but to make a mod. Complainers complain, but what keravnos and shiga have actually done immediately shows everyone that results are what matters, especially results that the mod team is very very happy with.

Yes and Iam realy happy with it also....Nice job EB team!!!!!

**Tiberius Nero** · 12-09-2006, 18:00

You know, some people like arguing about Star Trek physics others like arguing about ancient pronounciation. Who are you to judge?

Anyway, Back on topic, let me provide the thoretical outlines of the theory of the BGD pronoungiation: phonetic stucture of a language is called like this, because there actually exists structure, that is method to madness. Ancient Greek has no voiceless fricatives: Φ,Χ,Θ were pronounced ph, kh, th that is the first like "p" in "pot" the second like "k" in "kit" and the third like "t" in "tip". This we know because even the letters Φ,Χ,Θ do not exist in old inscriptions but you find ΠΗ, ΚΗ, and ΤΗ in their place, that is stops with the sign of aspiration (H). Corresponding to this class of consonants there are their non aspirated variants Π,Κ,Τ. Now, there really isn't much sense in a phonetic system of this sort that those varieties of consonants coexist with a class of voiced fricatives, i.e. β,δ,γ (moddern pr.), because those would not correspond to any other class of consonants. If they are stops, they do correspont to Π,Τ,Κ as their voiced variants. The advantage of such a system is that it is homogeneous, as classes of consonants naturally correspond as variants of others. The existence of β,δ,γ in the consonantal system of Greek would have been a rather major aberration.

**Casmin** · 12-10-2006, 00:28

Originally Posted by Tiberius Nero

You know, some people like arguing about Star Trek physics others like arguing about ancient pronounciation. Who are you to judge?

The difference is that here we are on the EB team forum berating them for something that they went beyond the call of duty of. As much time, research and trouble they went through to get this job done I hardly think these kind of discussions make them feel appreciated for their diligent work. The other difference is that Hellenes is claiming that there is some sort of conspiracy in the study of ancient Greek outside of Greece. I don't even think Baigent and Leigh could come up with such a far-flung conjecture.