Lucian Pronunciation of Ancient Greek · ἡ Λουκιανὴ Προφορά

The Lucian Pronunciation of Ancient Greek, developed by Luke Ranieri & Raphael Turrigiano, is a system that is historically valid, aesthetically pleasing, pedagogically useful, and unifying among standards.

Ranieri's Greek Pronunciation Chronology Spreadsheet:

Luke Ranieri presents (in Latin! subtitles in English) his research on Latin & Greek Pronunciation Evolution 500 BC to 500 AD "Vōcēs quae per saecula inmūtantur" (Living Latin & Ancient Greek in New York City 2020):

Ben Kantor's channel "Koine Greek" @KoineGreek where he expertly and fluently speaks as well as recites Ancient Greek in the Randall Buth Pronunciation:

Christophe Rico @PaideiaMedia on the Sixth Renaissance:

Luke Ranieri & Stefano Vittori discuss in Latin the topic of the nature of authenticity in the restoration of ancient languages in the Latin language podcast Legio XII:

Ioannis Stratakis (Ιωάννης Στρατάκης) @Podium-arts performing Ancient Greek literature in restored Classical Attic Pronunciation:

Raphael Turrigiano's Paleogloss channel:

Logan Klipelä's channels
Menelvagor:

Greeks Speaking Modern Greek:

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0:47 Part I: The Sounds of Lucian Pronunciation
1:00 Short Vowels
1:28 Long Vowels
1:57 True Diphthongs αι & οιṇ̣̣2:41 Iota-Subscript
2:57 Aspirate (h-sound)
3:13 Retracted σ, ζ
4:10 Dental Fricatives δ, θ
4:16 Velar Fricatives γ, χṇ5:11 Palatal Fricatives γ, χ
5:48 Double-gamma γγ
6:07 Velar/Palatal Occlusive κ
6:19 Other Consonants
7:15 Bilabial Fricatives β, φ
7:37 False Diphthongs (Rounded Bilabial Fricatives) αυ, ευ
8:08 Key features of Standard Lucian Pronunciation, as well as the Evolved & Archaic variants
10:30 Origns of Lucian Pronunciation
12:30 Why we think Lucian Pronunciation is a better default choice for all Ancient Greek as opposed to the venerable work done by Randall Buth in his Late Koine Pronunciation
14:15 Part II: Methodology
14:26 Science + Art + Pedagogy + Politics
15:04 Plausible variants: diachronic, diatopic, diastratic, diaphasic
15:48 Aesthetic choices matter
17:30 The "quadrivium" of Science + Art + Pedagogy + Politics applied to Lucian Pronunciation
19:27 The importance of phonemic vowel length and pitch accent in all periods of Ancient Greek literature
22:26 The politics of broad acceptance of a restored pronunciation system
24:08 How people will sometimes use a disingenuous appeal facts to justify a preferred convention
25:37 Conclusion: historically valid, aesthetically pleasing, pedagogically useful, unifying among standards

Music: "Hymn to Nemesis" ancient Greek song, performed by Ensemble de Organographia

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[ΣτυλιανόςΛαγουρός]

As a native Greek speaker I have learned to pronounce ancient greek using modern greek accent, yet I really appreciate your research on phonological history. I think your work is exceptional. Keep going.

[dionysiapanagou]

This sounds very good to my native Greek ears . In my opinion this is the best approach to the real ancient pronunciation. Excellent work! It would be great if you also made a video about ancient Greek metrics in poetry.

[ΚωνσταντίνοςΣέρβης-Νούσμπαουμ]

As a native Greek speaker, I am thrilled by this convention and believe it will help me learn ancient Greek and answer many doubts I have had for a long time about our modern Greek.

[simiyachaq]

Wow, this is great and you guys are awesome!
22:53 I remember watching a video of an Anglo professor disdainfully referring to Modern Greeks who butcher "classical" pronunciation, and recommended students who had their pronunciation criticized by Greeks to simply say that they use the "Erasmian" pronunciation. "Interesting, !", I thought. I really wanted to learn this restored Classical pronunciation... until I heard him speak. The thickest Gringo accent you could think of! You couldn't even make a parody of that. OF COURSE Italians and Greeks would stare in horror and politely tell them no thanks. I can't understand the nerve and lack of self-awareness required to condescend native Greeks AND present yourself as a model of correct pronunciation while sounding like Slavoj Zizek speaking English. I won't link to the video, but I'm sure we've all encountered such people.
In the end I decided to learn Modern Greek to the highest possible level: trying to absorb their prosody, rhythm, intonation, body language... (not that alien to me as a native Spanish speaker) and then move chronologically back, making incremental adjustments (Maybe even using materials intended for native Greek speakers?). I really like the pronunciation proposed in this video as it is basically Modern Greek, with a few tweaks to the vowels plus the addition of bilabial fricatives.

[danielkim]

YouTube algorithm has led me to this video for some reason...
I’m Korean and I’ve never had anything to do with Greek, but I must say that Im thoroughly enjoying this content

[Raveler]

As a person who regularly pronounces Koine Greek words for people, I appreciate the attention to detail here. I think I will be altering how I pronounce them, since I'm aiming for 1st century CE, and this transitional Lucian form hits that note perfectly. I don't actually know what form of Koine pronunciation I originally learned, since I worked hard at mimicking the sounds from my professor, rather than looking it up in IPA or inquiring further. Now you've got me curious!

[JacquesMare]

I'm definitely saving this video. Your system makes the sound changes appear natural, and explains the evolution into modern Greek really well, not as implausible as some other systems. It brings a whole new dimension of understanding to my learning of modern Greek to the table. Thank you for broadening my understanding of the sound evolution of this beautiful language.

[AristoKan]

Σας συγχαίρω κύριοι που διδάσκετε γνώσεις τις οποίες ακόμα και πολύ νέοι Έλληνες, δυστυχώς, δεν διδαχτήκαμε. Thank you so much for your work, things make a little bit more sense now.

[Parageopolitix]

Πολύ καλή προσέγγιση, μπράβο σας !
Όσο για την ερασμιακή προφορά, έχετε δίκαιο, είναι ότι πιο ξένο στο γλωσσικό ένστικτο του φυσικού ομιλητή των ελληνικών.

[IanusNivis]

As a classicist with a passing interest in linguistics, thank you for explaining all of the pronunciations and tongue positions. You truly make it really easy to replicate/understand for this English speaker. Being able to read or understand IPA is one thing, but in practice replicating it is much harder...

[nathanbinns]

I studied under Dr. Buth in Jerusalem in 2017 (9 month Hebrew immersion intensive). He is without a doubt the most brilliant man I have ever met, he speaks ~15 languages (including Koine Greek) and seemed to know everything about everything. That being said, I find this discussion of different methods of pronunciation of ancient Greek absolutely fascinating. I don't know NEARLY enough Greek to be able to make an informed decision of which system I think is best, but on a purely subjective level I think your system sounds nicer on the ears. I think I will make the switch!

[ΒΙΚΤΩΡΙΑΣΤΑΜΟΥΛΗ-θν]

I am amazed! I have recently discovered your channel. I ve studied archaeology and I am teaching ancient Greek and Latin in public greek schools. It's really interesting how the lucian pronounciation just makes sense for native speakers of modern greek.

[cassandrafield]

I've only given it a superficial glance so far, but I think that spreadsheet is going to blow my mind!

[ancienthistorytube]

Finally someone explains it. Great video guys, informative even for native modern greek speakers such as myself.

[AtomikVT]

Thank you for this video, it was quite informative! As my primary interest in Ancient Greek is studying comparative Indo-European linguistics, I feel like the archaic variant is best suited for my uses. I appreciate that you created different models for different time periods and use cases.

[mithridatesi]

Please more videos with both of you guys. You guys are so incredible !!! It helped me so much

[TroyLFullerton]

Thank you SO MUCH for this! I love studying Koine Greek, but I simply could never, EVER abide with Erasmian pronunciation (i.e. "haw law-gaws" for ὁ λόγος just always stuck in my throat). Instead, I studied modern Greek pronunciation and superimposed that system onto my Koine Greek.

I really like having this soundly researched, transitional system that you have presented here, as well as your encouragement to acknowledge modern Greek as a guide--it's a great middle-of-the-road approach. I'm planning to adopt it fully for Koine Greek.

[nixter]

Great pronunciation to the beautiful Greek language!

[electrachristidi]

Συγχαρητήρια για τη δουλειά σας. Σας παρακολουθούμε πάντα με ενδιαφέρον και χαρά από Ελλάδα!

[rrnsensei]

wow! as a greek congratulations for your work!!! amazing