Help talk:IPA/Greek

Clarification

Someone needs to re-write this line: Letters normally representing /i/ can also indicate a palatal pronunciation of dorsal consonants when appearing before other vowels...

It makes no sense at all. It's better to say something like dorsal consonants when appearing before i (note that this is a grapheme, not a phoneme, so maybe should be changed to iota) are pronounced as palatalized ones. Or something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.123.79.20 (talk) 19:42, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

But it's not just the grapheme ‹ι› that acts as a silent letter indicating a preceding consonant is palatal, it's any (di)graph otherwise representing /i/: ‹ει, η, ι, υ, οι, υι›. Unless I misunderstood what I saw elsewhere... — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 20:42, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

However you like it, just correct it. It is verbose and confusing. Also, who on Earth in Greece says [ˈaɲɟelos] and [θesaloˈnici]? Check Forvo, where a person says [k] not [c] in Thessaloniki and [ɟ] is supposed to be [ɣ].

English examples

Let's put in some English examples. It could be a bit complicated, what with having Ancient and Modern Greek, but I imagine the English equivalents will be more useful for Modern, so that would be a good start. Lfh (talk) 09:38, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Now I've added some, but they're just generic so they'll need to be revised by someone who actually knows Greek phonology. More immediately, how do I get the English vowel examples (and the /r/ example) to occupy all the equivalent rows in the Modern Greek column? Lfh (talk) 13:08, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Trilled r

I've modified the part with the trilled r, noting that spanish also has it, and a english speaker is more identified with this kind of comparison. 190.148.195.196 (talk) 00:25, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

γξ example in English

Would the word "ankhs" be an appropriate example of the γξ sound? I don't know Greek, but the pronunciations appear to be the same. Helixer (hábleme) 20:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I suggest that this article can make TWO simple clarification, (1) a digraph of gamma and the combination of gamma-kappa has two sounds (a) 'G' when them start a word and (b) 'NG' when it appears in any other part of a word; and (2) Any combination of gamma with another consonant makes it (gamma) sounds like 'N' followed by the sound of the letter of this combination. I think it is clearer. 189.25.137.121 (talk) 17:29, 21 July 2013 I also smell like a frog.(UTC) ₳

/h/

We're missing Classical /h/. — kwami (talk) 07:44, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Greek examples

Here on the Greek page the criterion for picking example words seems to be familiarity to English speakers. This means almost all the examples are Greek words that were borrowed into English. These words are often long, since they're usually composed of multiple roots. Shouldn't we use short words instead, as on other IPA pages, so that the table isn't unnecessarily enlarged? — Eru·tuon 14:25, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Makes sense. You have my support. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 14:30, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

tone / length

For the most part we didn't use the tone marks we had her, so I changed them. I'm now going through the transclusions, and will post questionable bits here:

meme: does μίμημα have a long ī? Same for Νίκη at Nike, Inc./Nike (mythology), and the y in synoecism.

— kwami (talk) 10:33, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

If you're going through transclusions, I recommend you change all instances of [i̯] to [j] so we can remove it from here. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 11:51, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

But don't we distinguish between the two? And should u̯ be changed to w? (But I've already gone through them all.) — kwami (talk) 17:25, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Why are we switching to j and w? Phonologically most Ancient Greek diphthongs are a sequence of two vowels and are long vowels in meter and accent, so shouldn't we use vowel letters to represent this?

(μῑμ- and νῑκ- have long vowels, but σῠν- has a short one.) — Eru·tuon 20:26, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

You could say the same about Portuguese. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 02:59, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Τσ and Τζ pronunciation sounds

In some international sounds on Greek languages in alveolar affricate sounds like (Jamaica/Τζαμαικα), while τζ sounds as jog dʒ. As for τσ, it sounds as chew tʃ. Example for τσ is (Chad/Τσαντ) ApprenticeFan ^work 16:43, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

yeah its varuably retracted depending on the vowels folwoing the cluster EndlessReading (talk) 01:39, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Affricates or not?

I remember that I read in an older version that [ks], [ps]: not a distinct phoneme, this cluster is included here only for sake of completeness which implies that they are "not" affricates [k͡s] [p͡s]. Now the chart implies that they are affricates! I also think that confusion arises as a result of the practice of ignoring the tie-bar   ͡   in affricates while today all regular mediocre computers must display it properly. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 13:47, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

They are not affricates, nor are [ts] and [dz], any more than English cats has an affricate. Archaic Greek ζ might have been one, I don't know, but that's debatable. I don't see how the chart implies that they are, but restore the note if you like. — kwami (talk) 18:00, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

But, what to do with that Modern Greek#Writing system. That article claims that they are affricate.

“The letter <ξ> stands for [k͡s] and <ψ> stands for [p͡s].”

--Mahmudmasri (talk) 16:01, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. They're just like English ‹x›. — kwami (talk) 18:26, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Ioánna

Is Ioánna /joˈana/ or /ʝoˈana/? If not the second, it should be noted that iota can be /j/.

Chaging the /a/

According to Amalia Arvaniti in Modern Greek /a/ is [ɐ] so I think this should be changed.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.245.19.232 (talk • contribs)

That seems like a minor phonetic difference from what we're presenting right now. Considering how common it is to transcribe the vowel as ⟨a⟩, I'm not sure that we would really be improving our transcription. But that information would be appropriate at Modern Greek phonology (with a fuller citation). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 03:09, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Is there some converter program, template, or script, to convert Greek to IPA?

I tried the {{IPA-el|n|IPA}} template, but did not get the results I expected. --L.Willms (talk) 07:09, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Someone would have to write it. It wouldn't work off of simple Greek script, though, since it's defective, at least for Classical. — kwami (talk) 08:19, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt reply! I would need it only for modern, contemporary greek. --L.Willms (talk) 08:29, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

WP-supported coding is quite primitive. It would be quite complicated to get all the allophones. Easier just to enter in the Greek phonetically, but then of course you couldn't use normal orthography. — kwami (talk) 10:16, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Table is a mess

We've crammed the Greek alphabet, IPA for both Ancient and Modern Greek, and transcriptions for every single word we give as example all into one table. It looks like {{IPA-el}} is used for everything "Greek", so I don't know what'd be best to do here. Split the page into two sections, maybe? — Lfdder (talk) 11:35, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

The tables have to split between modern and ancient Greek. The state this page is in, is almost embarrassing Kotskokos (talk) 08:58, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

The only problem I see is that, because it's organized by Greek letter rather than IPA, it's more tailored to editors, rather than users. Still, the ancient/modern correlations are pretty nice, do you think we could organize it by IPA and still maintain that?

Ancient IPA	Modern IPA	Greek	English equivalent
b	v	β	veal
a	a	α	father
aː

It might just entail switching the columns and reordering accordingly. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 13:43, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Good thinking. I like that. — Lfdder (talk) 13:54, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I've made the changes. Fiddle with the table to get it to look the way it's supposed to look if you'd like. — Lfdder (talk) 18:29, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

The table should be made the way it was before the 18:29, 13 April 2013 edit. The table is a mess now; it was much better then. I'd do it myself, but I'm not familiar with the formatting.ZFT (talk) 04:48, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

ου

Shouldn't ου be given the quality of [uː] in Ancient Greek instead of [oː]? --Mahmudmasri (talk) 22:56, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

It was [oː] "originally". Ancient_Greek_phonology#Vowels says it was raised to [uː] "during or shortly after" the Classical period, but there's no references. — Lfdder (talk) 23:03, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

/c/

According to the table, the κ in κιόλας is pronounced /c/. The English examples given for this have been variously key and ski.

The problem with this is that the IPA transcription and the English example do not match. /c/ represents a sound which is close to palatalized voiceless alveolar stop /tʲ/. Hence, for example, its spelling as ť in Czech and as ty in Hungarian. The ⟨k⟩ in the English words ski and key, by contrast, represents the fronted voiceless velar stop /k̟/. Notably, the Wikipedia article on fronting even uses the word key to illustrate this sound.

So the issue is either one of these:

1. κ in κιόλας is in fact pronounced /c/ and the English examples key and ski are wrong;
2. κ in κιόλας is actually pronounced /k̟/ and the English examples key and ski are correct.

Will someone with more knowledge of Greek phonology than I please clarify which one it is. - TaalVerbeteraar (talk) 09:59, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Tune wouldnt work in either scenario. The t in tune is a postalveolar affricate. Greek palatal stops are somewhat retracted (palato-velar) and contrast with the p/a affricate in some dialects. English /k/ is fronted before front vowels, from just a tiny bit before /a/ to a full-blown palatal before /i/, like in key. Even if Greek palatals were true palatals and key was palato-velar, key would have still been a better example to use than either tune or a palatalised alveolar. See Recasens et al. 2013 and Arvaniti 2007 for the palatals of Greek. Maybe theres something in SOWL about fronting in english, dont remember. — Lfdder (talk) 13:17, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

You describe the Greek κ in κιόλας as palato-velar. Charles V. Russ, in his The German Language Today: A Linguistic Introduction (1994) uses the term "voiceless palato-velar plosive" to describe the sound in the German word Ecke. The IPA symbol he uses is /k/ rather than /c/. If the intended Greek sound is indeed palato-velar, and similar to the English/German k-before-front-vowel (such as in Ecke or key), an argument could be made for using /k̟/ for Greek κ in κιόλας. This is already the transcription used for the English sound in the article fronted (phonetics). By doing so, confusion with 'true' (non-velar) voiceless palatal stops, such as in Czech pošťák and Hungarian vadászkutya, is avoided.

By the way: according to the OED, t in (BrE) tune is *not* a postalveolar affricate (which would make its pronunciation CHOON), but rather /tj/ (see [1]). While /tj/ is not the same as /tʲ/ or /c/, it's the closest English approximation of /c/ that I can think of. Note that I came up with the tune example when I thought that the Greek sound was in fact a 'true' /c/. Now that I understand that it is in fact closer to /k/, obviously the tune example does not apply any longer. - TaalVerbeteraar (talk) 16:47, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Very few people say [tj] anymore. — Lfdder (talk) 17:02, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

TaalVerbeteraar, /tj/ is actually [tj] to very few speakers. Even people without the yod-coalescence realise /tj/ as [tʲ~t͡ɕ], and it's incorrect to say that yod-coalescence is non-standard - it's already RP. See the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (LPD). Also, Czech /c/ is an alveolo-palatal stop (like [t͡ɕ] without the sibilant), rather than a true palatal one. --Helloworlditsme (talk) 05:41, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

The IPA /c/ does not represent a sound which is close to [tʲ], at least not in all languages. (It's important to remember that IPA symbols are abstractions and can have different realizations in different languages.) The sound represented by /c/ is much closer to /kʲ/ than to /tʲ/ not only in Greek, but also in Irish and Icelandic. Don't be thrown off by Hungarian orthography—although voiceless /c/ is spelled ty, its voiced equivalent /ɟ/ (which has the same place of articulation!) is spelled gy. Irish and Icelandic also use "velar letters" c/k and g to represent /c/ and /ɟ/. A Better English approximations, though, would be cute. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:39, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. Might we then agree on replacing the 'ski' example with 'cute'? As consonant fronting is allophonic in English, I think the difference between the plosives in ski and scar will not be as obvious to most readers as the contrast between cute and scar. - TaalVerbeteraar (talk) 11:55, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Fine with me. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:33, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

The contrast between cute and scar is also one of aspiration. Greek /c/ is unaspirated. — Lfdder (talk) 13:08, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

There's also skew. — kwami (talk) 21:29, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm fine with skew. — Lfdder (talk) 21:33, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I propose a split

I move that this page be split into Ancient Greek and Modern Greek. The consonant systems are quite dissimilar. It's almost like putting Latin and Spanish into one key. pʰeːnuːmuː →‎ pʰiːnyːmyː → ‎ɸinimi → ‎fiɲimi 04:07, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Phinumu I didn't notice your comment till now, but I agree that we need a split, in the same way that we need to split Help:IPA for Latin into separate pages for Classical and Ecclesiastical. Perhaps I will do this.

I think Modern Greek should remain on this page, and Ancient Greek be moved to a separate page. The other option is to move Modern Greek to Help:IPA for Modern Greek. I'll ask for comments on which we should do. — Eru·tuon 05:53, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Below I will create the separate tables for Modern and Ancient Greek, in preparation for the move. — Eru·tuon 21:39, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

'*Oppose, though perhaps not as strongly as I oppose splitting Latin. First of all, for most English readers, "Greek" is the classical language, or an English approximation of it, so it should be the modern language that moves, or both. But very often we have multiple Greek transcriptions of a word or place name, because people are interested in it from classical, medieval, and modern POVs. Or, we may only provide the classical pronunciation, but a reader might be more interested in the modern pronunciation, or vice versa. It is therefore useful to have the varieties of Greek side by side. That's not the case for Latin and Spanish. — kwami (talk) 17:51, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

My response on the Latin page applies here as well. We need a table comparing Ancient and Modern Greek, and giving an overview of orthography, but it may be best in an orthography article rather than in the Help:IPA for X one.

I would add, we need to include Koine and Medieval Greek as well. I think that provides another reason for a split, because the Koine and Medieval phonological systems have significant differences, and including them as well will make the table even more complex. It might be possible to include Koine in a table on Ancient Greek, and Medieval in a table on Modern Greek, but not all four at once. Even at the moment, the page does not adequately describe either Ancient Greek or Modern Greek, and I'm not sure it is possible to describe them both in the same page. — Eru·tuon 20:34, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: Either split or make the current guide clearer. It looks quite messy. — Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 17:59, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. What kwami said. And other stuff. Like dealing with the practicalities; e.g. 1000-1500 pages/articles link hereto... ;-)
  PS Anyone wanting to make the guide clearer/better, to include medieval/koine etc, well, feel free to do so... Thanatos|talk|contributions 12:49, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

• @Thanatos666, Kwamikagami, and Peter238: We need to describe Koine and Medieval Greek. I've created a table below with all four forms of Greek together, and a few sample sounds. I think it's way too complex for an IPA help page. IPA help pages are supposed to be simple and understandable. It may be appropriate, though, in an orthography article (with things rearranged: Greek letters and digraphs on the left, IPA symbols to the right of them). — Eru·tuon 21:44, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Imo such complexity is fine. In fact much much more than fine; it shows (or it would show if/when finished) something missing from all relevant articles and something I've been meaning -to try- to create for a long time: a graph or table of the the evolution of greek phonemes and of the relevant spellings (preferably including inter alia pre-classical greek). Provided of course it's accurate (and as much as possible complete), which it isn't (on this I view your effort as a draft or an experiment to show that in your opinion it wouldn't be something acceptable).
PS Similar comments possible about the other tables: geminate=(supposedly) non-geminate, 'thing' instead of 'thing', etc..
Thanatos|talk|contributions 04:41, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

To defend myself, my draft is intended as a genuine attempt to create a table for all four forms of Greek. I didn't intentionally sabotage it or anything. I included phones like /t/ and /a/ that haven't changed, as well as some more problematic phones. There may be inaccuracies in the Koine column, but that's only because I wasn't sure what form of Koine I was describing.

Complexity is fine, but it does not belong in an IPA help page, at least as current practice is concerned. Take a look at Help:IPA for French and Help:IPA for German. These are simple lists of 1. the IPA symbol, 2. examples, 3. an English approximation. There's no listing of graphemes; such a list is found in French orthography and German orthography. The Greek IPA help page should follow the same practice. To make it do so, we must split it. The table of orthographical and phonological changes belongs in Greek alphabet or somewhere like that.

As far as geminates are concerned, my table is not meant to imply that geminate = single. I included geminates to illustrate the fact that Ancient Greek had contrastive gemination. In the final version, I plan to add a note explaining this. — Eru·tuon 05:06, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

1. OK it's a draft; already said so. No castigation intended, just among other things a note, a clarification so that no third parties, out there in the net reading this, would get mislead... ;-)
2. I'd say that the form of the Help IPA for French or German pages is imo irrelevant, at least in this case. I'd paraphrase kwami by saying that for most English readers, in fact not only for them, Greek is all forms of the language through its evolution in time; this along with having its own alphabet, its relative conservatism, the special place it has in classical studies along with Latin and in e.g. the scientific vocabulary in English and/or in general, and so on and so forth, puts it in a totally different category from French and German despite the fact that both these latter languages are also highly important when dealing with the English language and/or other stuff.
PS When writing/reading 'Κρήτη' for example, it's very useful imo to show in parallel - at least - both Ancient and modern Greek; cause 'Crete/Κρήτη' is relevant among other things as a word denoting both a historical "thing" from a few thousand years ago through to the present (e.g. WWII) and a place where many British and other tourists get wasted every summer... :) ;-) Thanatos|talk|contributions

• Comment: Could I suggest that maybe we should handle dead learnèd languages (being somewhat artificial constructs) differently from living modern languages? Latin, Sanskrit, and (non-modern) Greek have varying pronunciations depending on the speaker's background, which millennium we're talking about, and even the subject matter they're being used for. In addition, some of the classical pronunciations are reconstructed, not directly attested. These are not concerns we need to address for modern languages. Greek of course has the complication that it straddles both categories. Personally, I have a slight preference for the original orthographically-based Latin and Greek pages—but that may be due more to aesthetics, language-nerdery, and unacceptable attachment to "my" creation than the actual purposes we're aiming at. I would support a general move to split most of the modern languages (Portuguese/Galician; Dutch/Afrikaans... actually now I see that this has just been done) currently combined onto a single guide unless they have a highly similar phonology (Hindu/Urdu; Czech/Slovak; Serbo-Croatian), but then move the classical languages to show the chronological/regional/topical variations based on, uh... diachronophonemes... instead of imposing one standard pronunciation or endlessly splitting the guides. We should probably keep the transcriptions as broad as possible for the classical languages: getting narrow causes problems when you're generalizing over millennia. — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 18:12, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Certainly classical languages are a separate category from living languages, and perhaps they should be handled differently. However, I would add something I have not yet mentioned (this is for Kwami and Thanatos666 as well): covering two or four historical forms together is a problem from the perspective of providing example words. For /g/, we need a whole set of examples from Ancient Greek, and an entirely different set for Modern Greek (that is, if /g/ in Modern Greek is not prenasalized /ŋg/). Similarly with /i/, the most problematic vowel, we have a small set of examples in Ancient Greek with this sound, and a much larger set in Modern Greek. If we provide sufficient examples for both Ancient Greek and Modern Greek, the cells of examples may be way too big. I haven't tested this out yet, though. — Eru·tuon 18:39, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I've never understood why we have examples. Useful in English, IMO basically useless for other languages. The key is for people who don't know the pronunciation of the language, so what good are examples from that language going to do? If giving examples causes problems, then IMO we should just get rid of the examples. A reader will see the symbol /i/, come here and learn that it's approximately like the vowel in English "see". The point is not to teach them Greek, but to help them make sense of all those funny IPA symbols. Much more than that is needless complexity. — kwami (talk) 05:43, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

As I see it, the Examples column illustrates the occurrence of phones. The English approximation column explains how to make the sounds. The Examples and English approximation columns basically mean "this letter in this word of this language sounds like this sound in English or another familiar language".

I find the examples helpful, when chosen well. For instance, the examples in Help:IPA for Spanish neatly show where stops and fricatives occur, and illustrate the rules given in the footnotes. I find this far better than simply listing graphemes, like ⟨b⟩ and ⟨v⟩, and explaining in the footnotes where these letters represent a stop and where they represent an approximant. And it's far better than giving phonological rules, which most readers will be unable to understand. Examples are great illustrations of the occurrence of phones, when used well.

Thus I would strongly argue against removing examples. This would greatly detract from the usefulness of the IPA help pages to readers and editors. Perhaps I'm the only one that finds examples useful, but I suspect not, and I think the difficulty of including suitable sets of examples in the current form of this article is a strong argument for splitting it. — Eru·tuon 06:33, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Oppose removal of examples provided that they are as accurate as possible (e.g. no approximation of eta using an english diphthong or in the case of using such an approximation, an elaboration would also have to be present taking the second element of the diphthong out of the picture). Thanatos|talk|contributions

• Head over to Talk:Greek orthography § Table of orthography and phonology, where I'm creating a table of orthography for Greek. This is the sort of table some of you are looking for. — Eru·tuon 19:39, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

The last table looks fine, but it probably is too complex. In this case, maybe splitting the page is a good idea. — Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 18:06, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

• Change needed because at the current state you have one IPA symbol corresponding to the respective letters or letter combinations in Ancient and Modern Greek. This is neither helpful to the writer using this guide nor to the reader. In articles with Greek words provided with IPA, the purpose is to let the reader know how something is pronounced. You click on the IPA transcription and see this page. Someone who doesn't know IPA should learn the concept of IPA and the symbols first and not be misled by English approximations. They would be just overwhelmed by this page. Someone who knows IPA automatically knows how it's pronounced. They just want to see how the letters are generally pronounced, not how a sound is represented by this letter in Ancient Greek and that letter in Modern Greek. A writer using this guide wants to transcribe the name of a Greek actor into IPA. They don't want to go through all sounds to see if one finally corresponds to a Greek letter only to be disappointed that it is how it's pronounced in Ancient Greek so that they have to continue their search. An alphabetical order would be much better. --2.245.71.206 (talk) 03:17, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Drafts of tables

Ancient Greek

Consonants IPA Example English approximation b βίος, κάββαλε about d δίδωμι, καδδῦσαι today ɡ γῆ, ἔκγονος ago h ἕτερος, οὗτος, ὑπό, εὐαἵ have j εἴη, οἷος, υἱός, δίκαιος toy yacht k κόκκος, οὐκ, ξένος, ἄξιος, Σφίγξ scan kʰ χορός, χρόνος, χθών, ἔσχε, Βάκχος cat l λόγος, ἄλλος leaf m μετά, γράμμα make n νέον, ἐννέα not ŋ ἀνάγκη, ἐγγύς, τυγχάνω, Σφίγξ, πρᾶγμα thing p πολύς, πρός, Σπάρτη, ἐπί, πτερόν, ψυχή, γράψω, Κύκλωψ, ἵππος speak pʰ φύσις, φράζω, Σφίγξ, ἔφη, ὀφθαλμός, Σαπφώ part r ῥήτωρ, πρός, φράζω, ἐῤῥήθην Spanish perro (trilled r) r̥ s ἴσος, πράσσω, ψυχή, ξύν, Σφίγξ, Κύκλωψ so t τοῦτο, πράττω stand tʰ θεός, ἄνθρωπος, ὀφθαλμός, χθών, Ἀτθίς take z κόσμος, πρέσβυς, ζάω busy w παύω, κελεύω how wide

Vowels Monophthongs IPA Example English approximation a ἀγαθός, δόξα but aː πᾶς, χώρᾱ father e ἐγώ, υἱέ late (Scottish English) eː εἰμί, πάθει similar to kid ɛː ἥλιος, ψυχή head i ἴδιος, εἰμί similar to eat iː Ἴλιος, κῑνέω need o ὄνομα, λόγος, αὐτό similar to note (American English) ɔː ὠκύς, λέγω more uː οὐ, νοῦς, λόγου mood y ὑπό, πολύς similar to cute yː ψῡχή, γέφῡρα similar to cue Diphthongs IPA Example English approximation ai̯ αἴτιος, πάλαι, ψῡχαί tie au̯ αὐτός how ei̯ εἴη hey eu̯ εὖ oi̯ οἶδα, λόγοι toy yi̯ υἱός aːi̯ ᾄδω, χώρᾳ ɛːi̯ ᾖς, ψυχῇ ɔːi̯ ᾠδή, λόγῳ Suprasegmentals IPA Example Explanation ◌́ λέγω [lé.ɡɔː] high tone ◌̌ ἐγώ [eɡɔ̌ː] rising tone ◌ μὲν [men] mid tone ◌̂ γῆ [ɡɛ̂ː] falling tone . syllable break

Modern Greek

Consonants IPA Example English approximation b μπορώ boy c εκεί, δίκιο, κοινό, κεφάλι, καιρός skew ç όχι, τύχη, χείλη, χέρι, χαίρω hue d εντάξει duck dz τζάκι pads ð δεν the f φορά four ɡ εγκώμιο, φεγγάρι game k κατά scar ʝ γιατί, γη, γεια, γέματος, πηγαίνω yes ɟ άγγελος, εγκέφαλος argue l λόγος look ʎ ελιά similar to million m μητέρα mole n ναι no ɲ νιότη onion ŋ άγχος sing p πόδι spy r ρίζα American English ladder s σωστός, ψυχή, ξέρω sow t τέλειος stay ts τσάι cats v βάζω vet ɣ γάλα somewhat like woman, but with spread lips x χαρά, χρόνος, έχουν, στόχος, χωρίς somewhat like hat, Scottish English loch z ζωή, κόσμος, πρόσβαση zoo θ θέλω thought

Vowels IPA Example English approximation a άλλο cut e έχω, αίμα met i ίδιος, ημέρα, είναι, λοιπόν neat o οδός, ώρα similar to note (American English) u ουρανός pool Suprasegmentals IPA Example Explanation ˈ άλλος [ˈa.los] stress . syllable break

All forms of Greek

IPA Greek alphabet Examples English approximation Classical Koine Medieval Modern b β μβ βίος, μπορώ about d δ ντ δέλτα, εντάξει today ð δ δέλτα this s σ, ψ, ξ ἴσος, ψυχή, ξένος sit t τ τέλος stay tʰ θ θεός ton θ θ thin

IPA Greek alphabet Examples English approximation Classical Koine Medieval Modern a ᾰ α ἀγαθός cut aː ᾱ πᾶς similar to father e ε ἐγώ similar to late αι αἴτιος eː ει η, αι εἰμί, αἴτιος similar to made i ῐ η, ῃ, ι, ει η, ει, ι, οι, υ ψυχή, εἰμί, οἶδα meet iː ῑ ῑ, ει Ἴλιος, εἰμί y ῠ υ, οι, υι πολύς, οἶδα yː ῡ ῡ, οι, υι ψῡχή, οἶδα, υἱός ai̯ αι άι, αη αἴτιος, γάιδαρος, αηδόνι bye oi̯ οι οϊ οἶδα, μποϊκοτάρω boy au̯ αυ άου αὐτός, φράουλα how

Wrong English example

In the entry /w/, the english example is "take". well, i don't know ancient Greek phonology but I don't think that /w/ sound is simlar to 't' of 'take' 193.48.126.34 (talk) 14:29, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for noticing the mistake. — Eru·tuon 19:33, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Help talk:IPA which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 16:16, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Missing pronunciation of "η" in Modern Greek

193.34.128.42 (talk) 13:48, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, only the ancient pronunciation exists, but it's not applicable for modern language. Really nobody else has noticed this? --91.79.227.114 (talk) 16:12, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

It's given in a footnote: "In Modern Greek, ⟨η, ῃ, ει, ι, οι, υ, υι⟩ all represent [i]". So it's not missing, but perhaps it should be easier to find. — Eru·tuon 18:20, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

ɣ

Similar to “women” but with open lips?? Seriously?. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.183.222.226 (talk) 00:57, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

three pronunciations for ῃ, ει

The following explanation is incorrect or at least inaccurate because it has 8 pronunciations for 7 spellings:

In Modern Greek, ⟨η, ῃ, ει, ι, οι, υ, υι⟩ all represent [i], but they were pronounced [ɛː, ɛːi̯, eː, ei̯, i(ː) oi̯, y(ː), yi̯] in Ancient Greek. --Espoo (talk) 22:50, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

@Espoo: /eː/ and /ei/ are pronunciations of ει in classical Attic. The list could be rewritten as [ɛː, ɛːi̯, eː/ei̯, i(ː) oi̯, y(ː), yi̯] to indicate this. /ei/ merged with /eː/ early in the classical era except before vowels (where there was no contrast anyway), so it could also simply be removed from the list. — Eru·tuon 02:49, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, but i'm interested in the details, although we perhaps don't need them here. What do you mean with there was no contrast before vowels? Could we change it to this according to Ancient_Greek_phonology#Diphthongs?: [ɛː, ɛːi̯, eː [ei̯ until early Classical; since then only before vowels], i(ː) oi̯, y(ː), yː [yi̯ until early Classical; since then only before vowels] --Espoo (talk) 08:58, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I mean that to my understanding the pre-classical /eː/ only occurred before a consonant or word-finally because it was a result of either vowel contraction or compensatory lengthening. /ei/ did occur before a vowel (for instance, in θεῖος theîos /tʰeîos/ "divine"). Vowel contraction operates on consecutive vowels, and generally collapses them all into a single vowel (monophthong or diphthong), so after contraction the vowel is followed by a consonant or the end of the word: for instance, *ἐφίλεε *ephílee /epʰílee/ → ἐφίλει ephílei /pʰíleː/ "he loved"; *ἐφιλέετε *ephiléete /epʰiléete/ → ἐφιλεῖτε ephileîte /epʰilêːte/ "you (pl.) loved". Compensatory lengthening operates on a vowel that precedes a consonant cluster: for instance, *οὐδένς *oudéns /oːdéns/ → οὐδείς oudeís /oːděːs/ "no one". So /eː/ probably didn't occur before a vowel, unless there were cases where a following consonant was lost (in particular /w/), but /ei/ did.

I'm not sure if υι was actually pronounced /yː/ at some point or if /yː/ that developed from /yi/ was respelled υ. My point about /ei/ not contrasting with /eː/ is that maybe /ei/ could be omitted; but I guess that's not true since this is a pseudo-phonetic transcription, not phonemic. I'd prefer not to have nested brackets. Adding notes after the transcription would be neater. — Eru·tuon 17:41, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

ç - hue or shoe?

The English example for IPA ç uses the word "hue", but when I listened to an audio recording on WP for ψυχή / psychí [ps̠iˈç̠i] it sounds more like a "sh" sound, so I am wondering if this is correct? --Pythagimedes (talk) 22:14, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

I can assure you that Greek doesn't have ʃ sound, although /s/ will depending on the nature of the word will approach this sound and will sound like a ʃ to foreign ears, but its a heavily retracted s EndlessReading (talk) 01:37, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

/s/ and /z/

There should be clarification that the /s/ and /z/ are not always retracted, and will sound like English "stop" and "zoo" at times, depending on the vowels in the word — Preceding unsigned comment added by EndlessReading (talk • contribs) 01:38, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

η is not the E in met, but longer

Astonishment at how wrong this is aside, the η (hta) of Greek) is better defined as the Y in gay. I would personally define it as the second half of the long A in English.

Please speak to any qualified Greek speaker, the text there has no source cited as well Langadakis (talk) 15:58, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

You're referring to modern Greek, but that example refers to the Ancient pre-Koine pronunciation. Qoan (talk) 22:06, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Nasals in modern Greek

The table is not clear about the fact that in modern Greek nasals are homorganic to the next consonant regardless of how they are written: i.e. νμπ stands for [mb] not *[nb] as in Αντετοκούνμπο.-- Carnby (talk) 21:58, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 March 2024

For Vowels/Monophthongs/ε: English approximation should be "greek" instead of "met, but longer" GeoRevolted1989 (talk) 11:36, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: See IPA chart. Nardog (talk) 11:45, 7 March 2024 (UTC)