The Erasmian Pronunciation of Ancient Greek: A New Perspective

Author(s): Matthew Dillon

Source: The Classical World, Vol. 94, No. 4 (Summer, 2001), pp. 323-334
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the Classical Association of the
Atlantic States
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 TIE ERASMIANPRONUNCIATIONOF
ANCIENTGREEK: A NEW PERSPECTIVE
Our pronunciation of Ancient Greek, as Wilamowitz observed,
is essentially a practical question.' Not that historical linguistics has
settled all the phonetic issues: the data of W. S. Allen's Vox Graeca,
widely accepted as the bible of "restored" pronunciation, are not
beyond dispute, and certain questions, especially regarding accents,
will always be answered hypothetically. Actual pronunciation, however,
is not a matter of theory, but of praxis: real sound, not a description
of sound. Often confusing the two, most classicists, I suspect, would
claim that we know fairly accurately what sounds the Greek alphabet
represented, yet no two of us would sound alike in reading a given
passage of prose or poetry. Our students, if they are interested, have
no consistent models to follow. As a result, the pronunciation of
Ancient Greek today generally bears no relation to any language,
living or dead; it is an embarrassment. The less said aloud, the better.
After all, the printed text provides enough challenges as it is: grammar,
substance, theme (all much easier to write about); who has class
time to spend on pronunciation? Where's the benefit?
One benefit lies in appreciating Greek as a language in its truest
sense, involving the tongue (and many other parts of the body), as
opposed to the extended meaning of "communication system," as
with sign language or computer languages. This level of appreciation
is not merely ornamental, nor is it extraneous to the question of
meaning. It is impossible to read a passage aloud properly unless
the reader knows what it means. Obviously, this involves much more
than the correct sounds of the letters and phonemes. It is language
from the inside out, a far cry from the cerebral processing of the
visual stimulus of letter shapes, or the typical jigsaw puzzle method
of translation: finding the verb, matching up words, rearranging it
all to make sense. It is also, of course, the method used by the
ancients themselves. We might try to respect that, or at least realize
that we are missing much of the author's intent when we read silently.
Reading silently is not so much the problem; it is unavoidable.
Rather, it is reading aloud badly. But who can teach us to do it
well? By themselves, books cannot. We need living models, or at
least audio facsimiles. Some do exist: W. B. Stanford's tentative recording
is now passe,2 but Stephen Daitz has "The Pronunciation and Reading
of Ancient Greek: A Practical Guide," augmented by entire recordings
of the Iliad and Odyssey and numerous other examples.3 Daitz's "restored
pronunciation" embodies the results of Allen's Vox Graeca, and sets

In his Hisiorv of Classical Scholarship, A. Harris, tr. (London repr. 1982) 42.
2 A small vinyl recording once accompanied his Sound of Greek (Berkeley 1967).
3 As part of the Living Voice of Greek and Lalin Series, available from the
Audio-Forum division of Jeffrey Norton Publishers, Connecticut.

323

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324 MATTHEW DILLON

a standard for that method that will not soon be surpassed. Yet few
have chosen to follow that standard, and not only because of general
indifference. In particular, Daitz's use of a pitch accent is difficult
to imitate convincingly (even Allen cautions against the "melodic
method," albeit reluctantly and despite his own evidence),4 and the
effect as a whole, impressive as it is, sounds necessarily experimental,
quite unlike any language we have heard before. It is useful for the
few, but the rest will probably look elsewhere, or just give up the
game.
The only other readily available model is obvious, but usually
rejected out of hand: Standard Modern Greek. Horrified by iotacism
and other later developments, classicists have chosen to follow a
reconstructed phonology-not unreasonably, it would seem, yet so
totally divorced from living practice that it has now degenerated to
the present barbarous (i.e., un-Greek) state. For their part, Greeks
today shake their heads sadly at us "Erasmians," so called after the
prince of Renaissance humanists, who is widely regarded (not quite
fairly, I will argue) as the instigator of the last Great Schism separating
East from West: the Erasmian Pronunciation, the forerunner of Daitz's
Restored Pronunciation.
This paper presents a fresh look at Erasmus' fundamental work
on the subject, De Recta La/ini Graecique Sermonis Pronunuiatione,5
not so much to reexamine the fine linguistic points, but rather to
appreciate the underlying principles of his attempt to reform
pronunciation. Through judicious use of these principles, a new proposal
for modified standards of pronunciation will be offered that may
prove more amenable to Philhellenes, both Greek and barbarian.
It is well known that Erasmus was not the first to call for a
more "correct" pronunciation of Ancient Greek.6 Spaniards, Italians,
and possibly even Greeks were all proposing a return to a reconstructed
classical pronunciation. Erasmus generally receives the credit, however,
not only because of the relative readability of his treatise, but also
because, as the recognized leader of Renaissance Humanism, his
reputation and prestige ensured that this new trend in scholarship
would have the widest possible audience. And in fact, the essay was
an immediate success, as it went through several editions and soon

4Vox Graeca, 3rd ed. (Cambridge 1987) 129.

The standard text is that of M. Cytowska for the ASD edition, vol. 1, part
4 (Amsterdam 1973). M. Pope produced an excellent translation ("The Right Way
of Speaking Latin and Greek: A Dialogue") with commentary in vol. 26 of J. K.
Sowards, ed., The Collected Works of Erasmus (Toronto 1985), 348-475, notes, 580-
625. There is also a Latin/German edition with notes by J. Kramer: Desider:i Erasmi
Roterodami de recta Latini Graecique sermonis pronuntiatione dialogus (Meisenheim
1978). In this paper I will cite the ASD text and pagination, cross-referenced with
Pope's translation.
6 1. Bywater's pamphlet The Erasmian Pronunciation of Greek and Its Precursors
(London 1908) is still the standard reference in English; see also E. Drerup's massive
Die Schu/aussprache des Griechischen von der Renaissance bis zur Gegenwartl vol. I
(Paderborn 1930; repr. 1968) 17-46.

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 THE ERASMIAN PRONUNCIATION OF ANCIENT GREEK 325
began to influence the practice of pronunciation in the schools of
England, France, Germany, and elsewhere.7 Undoubtedly it has been
the single greatest influence on the tradition of Classical pronunciation,
even if its tenets are now so taken for granted that the essay itself
is rarely read and barely known outside an inner circle of aficionados.
Most of us in the business, whether we know it or not, are indeed
"Erasmians."
The success of the essay is partly due to its pleasant framework.
In his preface dedicating the work to Maximilian of Burgundy (who
was fourteen years old at the time!), Erasmus apologizes for the
dryness of the subject matter, for which he compensates by casting
the treatise in the form of a dialogue between a very learned Bear
(representing Erasmus) and a not much less learned Lion, who is
searching for a tutor for his newborn cub as the work begins. After
some banter, they discuss at some length the ideal curriculum for
the young lion, with additional comments on pedagogical methods
(evidently a reaction against Erasmus' own dismal schoolboy
experiences)8 before finally settling on the primary subject, correct
pronunciation, for about the last two-thirds of the dialogue, which
in its entirety runs to ninety pages of Latin text.
The dialogue wears its learning lightly, but Erasmus' immense
erudition is evident in the detailed references to ancient grammarians,
which he had clearly mastered, and which served as the major source
for his conclusions. Significantly, he also made abundant use of analogy
with modern European languages, including Dutch, German, English,
French, Italian, and Spanish. Lacking the findings and even some
of the concepts of modern linguistics, as well as the important evidence
of inscriptions, Erasmus could not be expected to match modern
hypotheses exactly, but his results are nonetheless impressive. With
few exceptions, the fundamentals are all there: distinguishing vowels
and diphthongs; the pronunciation of mutes and other consonants;
aspiration, accent, and quantity-all these are discussed in detail,
and the conclusions are not so very different from Allen's.
Whether these conclusions are in fact correct is a matter of some
controversy. Most scholars would defend them as valid through the
Classical period, and date the most significant changes, such as the
change from pitch to stress accent, to the period of the Koine, or
even later.9 Accent aside, the other phonetic adjustments are subject
to debate, since, again, the chronology of phonetic change has yet
to be established. It is worth pointing out, however, that there is
considerable evidence for significant change in the direction of Modern
Greek, especially in vowels, even during the Classical period.
I The diligent can pursue the story in Drerup's exhaustive account (above, n.6);
the rest can peruse Allen's convenient summary in appendix A 1, 140-49, of Vox Graeca.
I See J. Huizinga, Erasmus and the Age of Reformation, tr. F. Hopman (New York
1957) 7-9.
9 For a carefully argued and well-written account, see G. Horrocks, Greek. A History
of the Language and Its Speakers (New York 1997).

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326 MATTHEW DILLON

Sven-Tage Teodorsson's very detailed and comprehensive studies

of Attic and Koine phonology'0 lead to some radical and controversial
conclusions. Concentrating on variant spellings in the inscriptional
evidence, he found evidence for important vowel changes starting
in the sixth century B.C.E. (esp. t = [i], but even some evidence
for au/eu = [afj/[ef]), and notes widespread neutralization of omega
and omicron, and double and single consonants (both of which argue
for the diminishing relevance of quantity, a crucial point for poetics)
already in the fourth century B.C.E. Interestingly, he finds little evidence
for significant consonant change, other than 4 = [z]; "frication" of
f, (p, and X apparently does not occur until the Roman period. Just
as interestingly, he finds that the phonology of the Hellenistic period
reverses some of these trends, especially in vowel quality and quantity.
Teodorsson's results have been rejected by some, such as Anna
MorpurgoDavies in the third edition of the Oxford Ciasvica/ Dictionary,"I
and it must be admitted that the arguments from inscriptions are
based on dates that are subject to centuries of variance.'2 Nevertheless,
his overall findings have been accepted recently by Geoffrey Horrocks
in his excellent and well-balanced book on the history of the Greek
language,'3 and so it seems reasonable that we should recognize at
least the distinct possibility that the crucial time period for vocalic
change was closer to the classical period than one would guess from
Allen's Vox Graeca.'4 We must also bear in mind that, as Teodorsson
notes, phonetic change precedes graphemic change,'5 so the chronology
of such change will tend backward rather than forward, whenever
we accept the evidence. Moreover, since regular orthography disguises
rather than reveals true pronunciation'6 (as Modern Greek and English
spelling make abundantly clear), the lack of orthographic change or
variation actually proves little-a point to which we will shortly return.
But this is not the place for a detailed discussion of phonology.
My plan is to step back from the minutiae and to examine instead

'T The Phonemic S;'stem of the 4ttic Dialect 400-340 BC (Goteborg 1974); The
Phonology of Ptolemaic Koine (G6teborg 1977); and 7he Phonology of 4ttic in the Hellenistic
Period (Goteborg 1978).
S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth, eds. (Oxford 1996) s. v. "Pronunciation,Greek."
12 Thus, for a crucial point of iotacism, Teodorsson (above, n.l0 [1978]) 64, declares

that the "strong evidence of the documents from the Academy of Plato . . . may be
decisive." These inscriptions, including what may be schoolboy tablets with spellings like
AOtva, are commonly dated to the fourth century B.C.E., but in private correspondence,
Prof. William Morison claims that they may be as late as the second century C.E.!
13 (Above, n.9) esp. 102-7.
'4 Some would go even further. C. Caragounis, "The Error of Erasmus and Un-
Greek Pronunciations of Greek," Filologia N/eotestamentaria 8 (1995) 151-85, presents
an even more radical analysis of the epigraphic data, and claims that in all respects,
Greek phonology had already developed into that of Standard Modem Greek by the fifth
century B.C.E. His use of inscriptions is not as careful as Teodorsson's, however, and his
polemical tone detracts from the substance of his argument. I therefore have chosen to
follow rather the lead of Teodorsson and Horrocks.
Is Teodorsson (above, n.l0 [1978]) 9.
1h Teodorsson (above, n.l0 [1974]) 27, 172-73; (above, n.l0 [1978]) 8.

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 THE ERASMIAN PRONUNCIATION OF ANCIENT GREEK 327

two of the basic assumptions that Erasmus makes about language

as a spoken medium: first, the question of who or what determines
the standards for "correct" pronunciation, and secondly, the other
factors involved in pronunciation beyond the individual phonemes.
These two issues in particular have received little attention in the
scholarship on the treatise, but they may enable us to use Erasmus
to begin a dialogue of our own on the feasibility of pronouncing
Ancient Greek as a real language.
In order to establish a reformed phonology of Greek, Erasmus
relies primarily on three bases: orthography, the testimony of experts,
and analogy with modern vernacular languages. Let us briefly examine
each in turn.
Erasmus agrees with Quintilian's principle "that words should
be written as they are pronounced."'7 But if spelling should be a
logical guide to pronunciation, then logically the obvious trend in
Greek to iotacism must be a later corruption:
Bear:To begin with, their pronunciationin current.
Greek is wrong. This is too obvious for even
the learnedGreeks to deny. It is wrong in both
the educated and uneducated speech, and not
only in regard to some of the diphthongs but
in regard to some of the simple vowels too.
Lion: Which ones?
Bear:The Greeks nowadays make no distinction
between 1l, t, u, vt, c, and ot, do they?
Lion: No. Or at least if they do, it is scarcelyaudible.
Bear:But there could have been no point in having
these distinctions in the script if there was no
distinction in the sound.
Lion:Obviously the pronunciationsmust have been
different in antiquity.'8
The point seems undeniable, but in fact it begs some important
questions. Erasmus' simple dichotomy between the pronunciation of
Greeks "nowadays" and that of the veteres presumes a uniform
orthography and pronunciation for all of antiquity, but the former
is demonstrably untrue and the latter improbable, whenever we date
the precise changes. Inscriptional evidence (not available to Erasmus)
shows that the orthography of vowels and diphthongs fluctuates wildly
in the archaic and classical periods, and even the adoption of the
Ionic alphabet as the Attic standard in 403 B.C.E. could not put an
end to the confusion (which persists to this day). Theoretically the
various sounds must indeed have differed at some point, but, as noted
above, it is an impossible task to determine just when and where
the orthography faded into a historical reminiscence, such as it is
in English today. Significantly, Erasmus elsewhere recognizes the
limitations of the alphabet. When Lion wonders how it came to be

71 Pope, 457; ASD, 90.

18 Pope, 417; ASD, 56-57.

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328 MATTHEW DILLON

that the modern pronunciation of Greek and Latin is "almost totally

wrong" (Iota fere . . . depravata), Bear explains: "Partly because
of the processes of corruption at work in common language, partly
because of the fact that the sounds of words cannot be written. And
you know how nothing lasts long in the hands of the people."'9Likewise,
letters cannot express the subtle differences between speakers of different
languages: "Every people has its characteristic speech habits, which
are not easy to describe in words."20Thus, although Greek and Latin
use "almost the same letters" (iisdem pene lilteris), one can easily
distinguish a Greek speaker speaking Latin, and a Latin speaker speaking
Greek.2' The phenomenon loosely called "accent" (as in "French accent,"
"Italian accent," etc.) is, generally speaking, too subtle for the alphabet.
Even within a single language, it is too much to expect of orthography
that it reflect regional differences, or even personal idiosyncrasies,
except in very limited ways. The varieties of English and Spanish
accents, just to name two modern languages that, like ancient Greek,
have spread far beyond their original borders, give some idea of
the gap between oral and written language. Because letters capture
so much less sound quality, they have always been and will always
be only an approximate guide to pronunciation.
This is not to deny that once upon a time 1qwas sounded roughly
[a],ot as [oy], etc., but we are fooling ourselves if, having reconstructed
a valid phonetic distinction in theory, we make some one sound
corresponding to that value and believe that that precise sound would
be recognized by Homer, Plato, St. Paul, and Plutarch. At the other
extreme, it merely multiplies improbabilities to create varying values
for each of those authors based on the latest linguistic evidence,
even assuming that a rough chronology could be generally accepted.
It would still seem that more than one model is necessary, at
least for the post-classical period, and not just to account for the
passage of time. Here yet another of Teodorsson's tenets provides
us with an extremely useful concept. He asserts that at all periods,
there were at least two norms of pronunciation within the same
population, which he calls innovative or progressive (demotic), and
conservative ("High Greek"-he avoids the temptation to use the term
katharevousa), and he links these to the prevailing political winds
of the times (progressive changes are more apparent in the Attic of
the radically democratic fifth and fourth centuries; he finds a conservative
retrenchment in the more controlled environments of the Hellenistic
period).22 It is thus possible to understand why classicists like W.
S. Allen insist on the correctness of their reconstructed pronunciation:
their evidence primarily comes from ancient grammarians who adhere
to a very conservative phonology, which may well be correct as far
19 Pope, 409-10; ASD, 51.
20 Pope, 409; ASD, 50.
21 Pope,409; ASD, 50.
Double pronunciation:Teodorsson (above, n.10 [1974]) 278-80; political correlation:
22

[1978] 93, 111-12.

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 THE ERASMIAN PRONUNCIATION OF ANCIENT GREEK 329

as it goes, but it gives only one side of the story. It makes a difference
whether a man is speaking on the stage or bema, or in the agora; it
may even make a difference, according to Socrates in Plato's Cratylus
(418c), whether the speaker is a man or a woman. Horrocks is convinced
by this thesis, and is careful to note the register of the supposed
speaker as he transliterates his examples. If this seems a reasonable
approach,then there is a sound linguistic/historicalprecedent for adjusting
pronunciation to fit the text: for poetry, we might, for example, adopt
a more conservative or formal pronunciation, with careful attention
to quantity, but a more progressive one for prose.
If orthography can do only so much to preserve the unique sound
quality of a language, there remains the testimony of the experts:
the Greek and Latin grammarians, with whom Erasmus was intimately
familiar in a way that can only be matched by the most highly specialized
philologists today. Of course their evidence is invaluable, but it is
also problematic, even if we allow for a conservative bent that might
be out of touch with everyday speech. So, for example, it is not
helpful when the Romans adopt a technical Greek vocabulary to describe
their stress accent, for which it was completely inappropriate. W.
S. Allen notes that, for example, the grammarians' use of the term
"circumflex" (to describe the accent of a Latin word with a long
penult but a short ultima) was an "embarrassment,"23but Erasmus
perpetuates this confusion in an elaborate description of just that to
distinguish the quality of the first syllable of, e.g., vidit from that
of vidi-to ignore which, says Bear, is a "sacrilege" (piaculum)!24
Of course, when confined to Greek, the ancient grammarians are on
firmer ground; yet even so, there is much that they fail to explain
(e.g., the nature of the grave accent) and ultimately much that they
simply cannot communicate without actually speaking. It's not all
their fault. Even with modern methods and symbols, one might well
despair of trying to learn, say, French phonology from a book. However
one places the tongue and lips and approximates the international
phonetic notation, the attempt is doomed without an audio model to
imitate.
Where Erasmus truly errs in his use of the ancient grammarians,
I would argue, is in his very trust in them as the authentic guarantors
of orthoepeia, practically to the exclusion of popular usage. This is
perhaps a philosophical rather than a political bias. At one point,
Bear expresses a Senecan objection to majority vote: "But there is
no such happy dispensation known to human history or to human
experience, nor is it ever likely to happen in the future, that what
is best will appear best to a majority of people."25 Specifically with
respect to linguistic usage, his numerous condemnations of the masses
have a distinctly antidemocratic, or rather, anti-demotic ring. There
23 (Above, n.4) 84.
24 Pope, 428-29; ASD, 67.
25 Pope, 372; ASD, 18-19. Pope (587, n.36) suggests Seneca's De vita beata 2.1 as

the source for this sentiment.

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330 MATTHEW DILLON

is no point, therefore, in writing in vernacular languages if you want

your work to last-"the people are poor guardians of quality."26 Bear
expresses disappointment at how corrupt the pronunciation of Greek
is: "The educated speech of Greeks today has been taken over from
that of the common people, and you know what sort of model they
are."27 Bear also laments that "once a language passes into the hands
of the uneducated there is, as you will understand, bound to be change
and inconsistency."28He asserts finally that "neither Cicero nor Quintilian
spoke like the majority of people, nor should fallacy be dignified
with the name of usage just because it is popular. But today we no
longer have any link with the masses. The rules of speech can come
only from the learned."29Thus does Erasmus apparently justify turning
aside from living language to reform pronunciation in the rarefied
company of the erudite, which is essentially what the Erasmian
pronunciation sounds like today.
But this is only half the picture. Despite the aristocratic hauteur
of the passages just quoted, Erasmus in fact was well versed in European
vernaculars, and makes abundant use of them in order to reconstruct
the precise phonology of his reformed pronunciation. The result would
be something of an odd composite (a Westphalian vowel here, a
German consonant there, an Italian accent elsewhere, are frequently
recommended as the best equivalents of their ancient counterparts),
were it not for a grudging respect for the living traditions and the
acknowledgment that they may in fact retain traces of original sounds.
He says as much when he reports that his "senate of scholars" (sena/u
Grammaticorum)"have made inferences from modem languages. Corrupt
as these are, they still retain traces of ancient pronunciation."30 So
for example, regarding the sound of the letter "e" in Latin: "Italian
pronunciation, here as elsewhere, is much more correct."3' It stands
to reason therefore that, "corrupt" as contemporary Greek translation
was, it cannot be altogether disregarded. So it should come as no
surprise (though it deserves more emphasis than it has received) that
in constituting an ideal reading group for the inculcation of correct
pronunciation, Bear takes pains to include a Greek participant: "At
times I even hired an actual Greek to be present, even though not
a particularly well-educated one, for his pronunciation as a native
speaker of the language, despite the fact that I had with me scholars
whose pronunciation I had no hesitation in preferring to that of many
Greeks."32Bear claims to have spent three months on this collaborative
exercise of alternately reciting and correcting, during which the club
members read aloud (or rather reread, Bear adds quickly) all of
26 Pope, 390; ASD, 32.
27 Pope, 411; ASD, 52.
28 Pope, 451; ASD, 85.
29 Pope, 471; ASD, 99.
1 Pope, 418; ASD, 58.
31 Pope, 412; ASD, 52.
32 Pope, 474;
ASD, 102. See Bywater (above, n.6) 9-10.

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 THE ERASMIAN PRONUNCIATION OF ANCIENT GREEK 331

Demosthenes, Plutarch, Herodotus, Thucydides, Homer, and Lucian!

Whatever basis such a group had in fact, it is surely significant that
the presence of a Greek was considered indispensable, and I would
assert that it is even more significant that this man was parum eruditum,
whose pronunciation was judged inferior in many respects to the
scholars in the club. Why bother? What could they hope to learn
from such a one?
The answer must lie in those qualities of nativum il/um elpatrium
sonum (pronunciation as a native speaker), which have nothing to
do with erudition and that transcend individual phonemes. Erasmus
is ultimately concerned not just with the sounds of vowels, diphthongs,
and consonants, nor even with individual words, but with the sound
of fluent speech. Pope rightly emphasizes the importance of the word
Sermonis (speech, conversation) in the title of the dialogue.33 It is
in the continuous flow of sound that the special genius of any language
is contained; it defies description, and can only be imitated from
an audio model. Erasmus is aware of this concept, for which he
employs the term avv ux_ta("running speech" in Pope's version).
Both passages in which the word occurs are rather abstruse; in the
first and more important, Bear recommends a musical scheme to capture
its elusive quality.34 Rather than quibble over technicalities or try
to reconstructthe intricacies of the argument (at one point Lion confesses
he needs his guitar to understand: Iic desidero meam citharam), I
suggest that Bear's use of a native speaker offers a much more useful
and effective way to acquire authentic speech patterns, even if one
will eventually differ in details.
The devil may well lie in those details: we will never be able
to agree on a standard pronunciation of Ancient Greek; it is a chimera.
But it is to Erasmus' credit that he too recognizes this and, for all
the radical reforms he proposes in his dialogue, he is no purist. In
this as in other matters, he was a follower of the middle path. His
true colors are revealed in a passage immediately following the question
of setting standards. As we saw, the rules can come "only from the
learned." "But," Lion reasonably asks, "from which 'learned' are
they to be taken? From the 'learned' of what period?" Bear replies
with a Greek proverb, "Not everything or every time or from everyone.""
He goes on to say that while, in Latin, Cicero provides an excellent
model, he must not be slavishly imitated as the only source for good
Latinity (this is indeed the topic of Erasmus' Ciceronianus, published
as a companion piece to our dialogue), "nor shall I reject a practice
that is superior in merit just because it happens to be earlier or

33 Pope, 348, notes that Erasmus "does not limit himself, as his predecessors had
done, to establishing the correct values of the vowels and diphthongs and consonants, but
also considers the largerunits of discourse,the word, the sentence, and what in our terminology
we should call the paragraph.In short his subject is, as the title implies, not just how to
make the sounds of the ancient languages, but how to speak them."
3 Pope, 428; ASD, 66; also see Pope, 436; ASD, 72.
3 Pope, 471; ASD, 99.

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332 MATTHEW DILLON

later . . . . In no period has there ever been a uniform and universally

accepted standard of correctness."36Lion tentatively asks if Bear would
even consider adopting anything from "accepted modern usage" (ab
horum iemporum consuetudine). Bear replies emphatically:
Why not, if there was nothing wrong in it? You have just
been seeing what a great deal we have taken from the
everyday pronunciationof French, German, British, and
Italian speakers.And were I debatingpublicly in a school,
it would be very unbecomingof me to make no concessions
to locally established usage. It is better to lower one's
standards[ba/butire cum balbis: literally, "to stutter with
stutterers"!]than to raise laughs at one's own expense and
be misunderstoodin the bargain.But one must treat usage
as a physician treats a disease. When an immediate cure
is impossible, he aims at gradual alleviation.37
A little later, Lion wonders whether, given that so few now speak
correctly, a practitioner of the new pronunciation might please no
one at all. Bear expresses the hope that his reforms will eventually
win over the majority, "nevertheless I should not object to anyone
who is clever enough to manage it, adapting his pronunciation to
the ears of the audience he is addressing at the time, as a cuttlefish
adopts the color of its surroundings."38In these last passages, Erasmus
obviously is referring to Latin usage,39 but the principles remain equally
valid for Greek: eclectic adaptation, accommodation to changing
circumstances, flexibility rather than rigidity, even at the expense
of "correctness."
If we combine this principle of flexibility with the earlier principle
of contact with native speech, we begin to see the outlines of a
practical approach to the sound of Greek that more truly reflects
the Erasmian spirit than that of most so-called Erasmians. Since we
began this study with the assertion that this is essentially a practical
matter, let me make the following suggestions by way of summation:
First and foremost, Modern Greek must serve as the basis of
any foundation for the sound of Ancient Greek. It is the only universally
available standard, and recent research suggests it is not so far from
the pronunciation of Ancient Greek, at least in the immediate post-
classical period, as is usually assumed. This step is essential above
all in order to master the art of auvexnza, the flow and rhythm
that is unique to any language, and in the case of Greek, very far
from the cadence of English or most other European languages. If
nothing else, the accentual pattern of Greek (which has remained
absolutely stable over the millennia) will become instinctive, instead
36 Pope, 471; ASD, 99.
31 Pope, 471-72; ASD, 100.
38 Pope, 473; ASD, 101.

39 For Erasmus, the question of Latin is more urgent, since it represents a

practical means of communication throughout Europe, while "our sole object in learning
Greek is to be able to read ancient literature, not to converse with ordinary Greeks
(vulgo Graecorum)" (Pope, 409; ASD, 50).

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 THE ERASMIAN PRONUNCIATION OF ANCIENT GREEK 333

of remaining, as it does for many of us, a constant stumbling block.

Even at the level of individual words, the problems presented by
radically different phonetic values (e.g., iotacism, es, av, 3, etc.)
will be counterbalanced by a much improved pronunciation of other
letters, especially "X" and "t," which are as a rule fatally overaspirated
by English speakers. Indeed, on the whole, Greek sits in the mouth
rather lightly compared to English, and we need to adjust our vocal
apparatus radically to imitate the overall effect.
Few classicists who take the trouble to learn a little Modern
Greek will be content to pronounce Ancient Greek precisely as Modern.
We must compromise to produce something like "la lingua antica
in bocca moderna." The adjustments will vary from case to case
and person to person; given the uncertainties and unknowns of Greek
phonetics, we cannot expect general consensus. But the results should
not be totally chaotic. If Modern Greek is recognized as a valid
starting point, our differences will at least emerge from a basic common
ground. A number of models might well emerge, but the underlying
standard will be recognizably Greek.
My own efforts are directed to what I would tentatively call a
"Hellenistic" pronunciation. The term is agreeably vague, but at least
implies "post-classical," and reflects an age when Greek was widely
used by non-native speakers. For the purest attempt to restore Archaic
and classical pronunciation, we must follow the example of Stephen
Daitz, whose extensive recordings of epic, lyric, and dramatic poetry,
as well as prose, currently provide the definitive model for those
eras. But just to isolate one point, already mentioned above: his use
of musical pitch for the accentual system, though technically as correct
as we are likely ever to hear, raises the barrier between Ancient
and Modern Greek that I consider it essential to lower. As for individual
phonemes, I suggest a teleological approach: knowing what a given
sound became at some later date, it is possible to shade the Archaic/
classical sound in that direction, splitting the difference, as it were.
The more intractableproblem is not quality, but quantity. Obviously,
to appreciate the structure of Ancient Greek verse, the distinction
between long and short syllables must be maintained.40Here, if anywhere,
Modern Greeks might learn from other classicists. To be sure, the
effect of quantitative verse is often too subtle even for those who
recognize its importance: witness the widespread, though admittedly
erroneous, practice of inserting a stress ictus into hexameter or iambic
verse to help the system "make sense" to our ears. Careful
experimentation is required here, and Daitz's recordings can always
be used to sharpen the quantitative sense that the study of Modern
Greek inevitably obscures. Yet I reiterate my suggestion above:
methodologically speaking, it makes excellent sense to develop two
registers of pronunciation, a conservative, quantitative level for poetry,
and a more demotic level for prose.

40 Erasmus was emphatic on this: Pope, 422-24; ASD, pp. 60-62.

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334 MATTHEW DILLON

I hope to have demonstrated that such a reform of Erasmian

reform is in fact closer to the spirit of the humanist's own intentions
than a reaction against him. Above all, it is necessary to plug the
recitation of Ancient Greek back into a living, breathing tradition.
Erasmus may unwillingly have assisted in divorcing Ancient from
Modern Greek, but it was a step he himself never took, or even
envisioned. Nor did he advocate correctness at the expense of
comprehension. He hoped that eventually in the schools, "the best
will win,"'41 but I doubt if he would acknowledge that as being the
case yet, and today it is hard to be so sanguine: pride and prejudice
on the one side and indifference and inertia on the other are formidable
opponents, and the number of new recruits is minuscule. Only the
love of language in its fullest sense compels one to raise a voice in
protest. Is anyone listening?42

Loyola AMarymountUniversity MATTHEW DILLON

CWV94.4 (2001) mdillon@lmu.edu

41
Pope, 473; ASD, 100.
J would like to express my gratitude to the Basil P. Caloyeras Center for
42

Modern Greek Studies at Loyola Marymount University for affording me the opportunity
to study Modern Greek at the University of Athens in the summer of 1997, and to
my research assistant, Ms. Lubna Haddad.

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