Saturday, July 30, 2005
Pronouncing Ancient Greek Names
We're not even 100% sure that the ancient Greeks had syllable stresses in their language--the Greek of classical times could have been tonal-- but we've decided to all pronounce Greek names in the same way, that is, with the stress on the ante-penultimate syllable. We stress the third from the end. Here are some examples:
Diomedes (the nom de blog of my shy blogging partner and one of the heroes of the Iliad) would be pronounced Die OM e dees.
One that I find is often mispronounced is the somewhat raunchy play Lysistrata (where the women try to stop a war by refusing to have sex with the men) by the playwright Aristophanes.
Most people I know say Li sis STRAT ah. That's wrong. Lie SIS strat ah is the correct pronunciation.
Ar i STOPH a nees. Most people get that right.
I've even heard some people say Die o MEE dees. Peasants!
Diomedes (the nom de blog of my shy blogging partner and one of the heroes of the Iliad) would be pronounced Die OM e dees.
One that I find is often mispronounced is the somewhat raunchy play Lysistrata (where the women try to stop a war by refusing to have sex with the men) by the playwright Aristophanes.
Most people I know say Li sis STRAT ah. That's wrong. Lie SIS strat ah is the correct pronunciation.
Ar i STOPH a nees. Most people get that right.
I've even heard some people say Die o MEE dees. Peasants!
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 8:07 AM 
