Society For The Oral Reading Of Greek And Latin Literature (sorgll)

[Horst Nordfink]

I love the word dipthong!

[Tellos Athenaios]

The pitched accent in Aristophanes is actually Voice acting (imitating birds). Then there's the metre - which especially with modern perfomers - tends to distort some dipthongs. I heard at least one instance of EI being pronounced as I. Furthermore it uses a good deal of synizesis - which, actually gives it a more colloquial touch. ("Gonna" instead of "Going to" for example.)

If you compare the Aristophanes sample with Alkman... that too has undergone a heavy deal of Voice acting; but it ends up quite the reverse (imitating yawning, to assert that everything is asleep in the text).