Roberts, Deborah H.

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Haverford College: Haverford Scholarship

Haverford College Haverford Scholarship Faculty Publications Classics 1983 Review of Daitz's The Pronunciation of Ancient Greek Deborah H. Roberts Haverford College, droberts@haverford.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.haverford.edu/classics_facpubs Repository Citation Roberts, D. H. Stephen Daitz, The Pronunciation of Ancient Greek: A Practical Guide (New York 1981) in Classical World 77 (1983) 134. This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Classics at Haverford Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Haverford Scholarship. For more information, please contact nmedeiro@haverford.edu. 134 CLASSICAL WORLD editor herself claims, it is difficult o represent Tatian's language and style ade- quately in a translation: his style is stilted and harsh, and his language very of- ten obscure. The introduction to the work provides a summary of Tatian's life, education, literary style and general theological views, as well as a list of biblical quotations and allusions found in the Oratio. There is also a list of classical quo- tations found in the work, and indices of mythological, legendary and other mis- cellaneous names. Rutgers University ANTONIA TRIPOLITIS CW77.2 (1983) Stephen Daitz. The Pronunciation of Ancient Greek: A Practical Guide. New York: Norton, 1981. $19.95. This guide consists of two tape cassettes accompanied by a pamphlet with exercises and demonstration texts. Daitz gives L brief history of the Greek lan- guage, followed by an account of the evidence for Attic pronunciation in the fifth and fourth centuries, and argues for the importance of reading Greek aloud as accurately as possible. He then takes up in turn the pronunciation of vowels and consonants, pitch accent, and quantity. Daitz usefully spends most time on those sounds hardest for English speakers to pronounce. In the pronunciation he recommends: omicron and epsilon are relatively closed vowels, omega and eta relatively open, and long vowels with iota subscript are pronounced as diphthongs; zeta is zd, gamma is pronounced as ng before mu as well as before palatals, and theta, phi, and chi are aspirated stops rather than fricatives. Daitz gives a judicious account of what we know about Greek pitch accent; he dis- cusses quantity (focusing on the dactylic hexameter) and gives basic rules for dis- tinguishing long and short syllables. He suggests that the student add gradually the elements of proper pronunciation, accent, quantity, and expression, and demonstrates his approach by reading aloud the opening line of the Odyssey. Daitz's method should work well; he reads Greek with clarity and explains many of his choices. Since this is a practical guide, however, he gives little atten- tion to theoretical complexities; interested students hould make use of the works cited in the brief bibliography, particularly Allen's Vox Graeca. Teachers will continue to differ on the validity and pedagogical usefulness of the pronunciation recommended here. Some may believe that pitch accent is too little understood or too difficult for English speakers, and that in reading we can more easily combine a sense of meaning with attention to pronunciation a d quantity than with attention to pitch. Daitz himself, noting that to use a later At- tic pronunciation i reading Homer is like reading Shakespeare with a modern pronunciation, recognizes considerations other than contemporaneity of author and pronunciation i our choice of pronunciation. My experience isthat students find Daitz's recitals tremendously exciting and feel that they are hearing Greek read as a living language. The encounter isworth while, and, if we support Daitz's enterprise but disagree at points with his views, surely critical discussion of these views will also be of interest. Haverford College DEBORAH H. ROBERTS CW77.2 (1983) This content downloaded from 165.82.124.14 on Wed, 7 Jan 2015 15:48:57 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Review of Daitz\u27s The Pronunciation of Ancient Greek

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Review of Daitz\u27s The Pronunciation of Ancient Greek

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