Accentuation
The accentuation of modern Indo-European languages is predominantly one of stress. That is, the accented syllable—identified by an acute accent (´) over the syllable’s vowel—is emphasized when the word is pronounced.
Where the accent lies can sometimes be as crucial for the proper interpretation of a word as the phonemes that make up a word themselves. For instance:
| English | cóntent (“the things inside a thing”) présent (“gift” or “now”) cónverse (“opposite”) | contént (“happy”) presént (“show, offer”) convérse (“talk”) |
| Italian | áncora (“anchor”) | ancóra (“still”) |
| Greek | θύμος (“anal wart”) | θυμός (“soul”) |
Moreover, improperly accenting a word may render it incomprehensible. For instance, try pronouncing:
| sýllable émphasis láva | and then | sylláble emphásis lavá |
In English, where you place the stress on certain words can even mark you dialectically. How do you pronounce the following words?
| insurance diminish controversy | adult garage advertisement |
Unlike English, Ancient Greek had a pitch accent. Languages with a pitch accent are called tonal languages. This means that the accented syllable raises or lowers in pitch or tone. Unfortunately, we do not know exactly how Greek pitch sounded, so reconstructions are only hypothetical.
Pitch accentuation is distinct from intonation. Intonation refers to the rise and fall of the voice when speaking to indicate emotion and to distinguish statements from questions. Humans intonate no matter the language they speak. Pitch, on the other hand, is lexical and grammatical: it is an innate part of a word just like the phonemes that make them up. To illustrate the lexical and grammatical significance of pitch, Yuen Ren Chao composed a story in Chinese, a tonal language, entitled “The Story of Mr. Shi Eating Lions” (or “Shī Shì shí shī shĭ”), using 92 characters, each pronounced “shi,” but with different pitches and meaning different things.
Pitch is foreign to English speakers, we are not entirely sure how Greek pitch sounded, and we are not trying to learn how to speak flawless authentic Ancient Greek. For these reasons, we use an English stress when pronouncing Ancient Greek words. Greek switched to a stress accent sometime during the Roman Period and certainly by the end of the 4th c. CE, around the beginning of the Byzantine Period. So our accentual pronunciation is closest to how later Romans and early Christians spoke Greek.
Ancient Greek Accents
Greek has three types of accents: the acute (´), the grave (`), and the circumflex ( ͂). Most Greek words have one of them. For the moment, all you really need to know about Greek accentuation is: when reading Greek, stress the syllable that has one of these accents. In our modern pronunciation of Ancient Greek, there is no distinction between an acute, a grave, and a circumflex.
What follows is an introduction to what these accents are. If this is your first introduction to Greek, don’t worry if the material doesn’t sink in right away. Return to this section on occasion, and likely things will make more sense the more familiar you become with the language.
Practice stress accentuation of Greek words by pronouncing the following words aloud:
| ἄνθρωπος μεγαλῶς | κεφαλὴ θησαυρίζομαι | θυγάτηρ εὐριπιδαριστοφανίζων |
Some little words in Greek do not have an accent. The most common are called proclitics. That is, they “lean on the front” of a word. This means that they are treated as part of that word and therefore do not need an accent of their own:
| ὁ ἄνθρωπος | ἡ θυγάτηρ | ἐκ πατρός |
Similarly, enclitics “lean on the back” of a word and, like proclitics, are treated as part of that word:
πατήρ τις
Unless otherwise noted, unaccented words in the sentences we read are proclitics.
The default Greek accent is the acute (´). In theory, an acute can fall on any one of the last three syllables of a Greek word. Originally, it reflected a rise in pitch when the syllable was pronounced.
If an acute accent falls on the last syllable of a word and that word is followed by another accented word in the same sentence, the acute is written as a grave (`):
πατὴρ καὶ μήτηρ
Originally, the grave accent represented a lowering of pitch. However, our modern use of the grave accent is a Byzantine convention, and it is unclear whether that convention reflected an original lowering of pitch or served some other purpose.
The circumflex ( ͂) represented a rise in pitch (´) followed by a lowering in pitch (`) of the same syllable. Thus, the circumflex is a combination of the acute and the grave: ´ ` equals ͂ .
As we will see, Greek vowels are either long or short. Long vowels and diphthongs were pronounced twice as long as short vowels. Only long vowels and diphthongs allowed the speaker enough time to raise and lower pitch, so only they can have a circumflex.
Short vowels in Greek are: ᾰ, ε, ῐ, ο, and ῠ
Long vowels in Greek are: ᾱ, η, ῑ, ῡ, ω, and the digraph ου (/ū/)
Diphthongs in Greek are any vowel followed by ι (/y/) or υ (/w/), except ου
The symbol ̆ (called a breve) indicates a short vowel. The symbol ̄ (called a long mark or macron) indicates a long vowel. Be aware that these symbols will not appear in written texts. The letters ε and ο are always short, and η and ω are always long. Therefore, they do not need the symbols ̆ or ̄ placed over them. The letters α, ι, and υ may represent short vowels or long vowels.
In theory, a circumflex can appear on either of the last two syllables of a word, provided that the syllable has a long vowel or diphthong. Again, the acute is the default accent, and a circumflex will appear in limited instances. For future reference, these are:
(1) Some small words just have a circumflex, like εὖ, “well.”
(2) When accented vowels contract or stretch, the acute likes to become a circumflex, like καλέει > καλεῖ, “she calls.”
(3) When the second to last syllable has an accented long vowel or diphthong and the last syllable has a short vowel, the acute will become a circumflex. For instance, φώρα (φω- has a long vowel and -ρα has a short α) > φῶρα.
The Accentuation of Diphthongs
When accented, a diphthong receives the accent differently depending on whether the vowel that forms the nucleus of the diphthong is short or long. This is an annoyance of orthographic convention that we cannot change. In short, when the diphthong contains a short vowel, the accent falls on the glide (ι or υ). When it contains a long vowel, the vowel receives the accent. Thus:
| Short Vowel Diphthongs κεφαλαί /ke-fa-lay/ κεφαλαῖς /ke-fa-lays/ | Long Vowel Diphthongs κεφαλῇ /ke-fa-lēy/ κεφαλῇσι /ke-fa-lēy-si/ |
Formal Names of Syllables
The last syllable of a word is called the ultima (Latin for “last”). The second-to-last syllable is called the penult (an abbreviation of penultima, Latin for “almost last”). The third-to-last syllable is called the antepenult (an abbreviation of antepenultima, Latin for “before the almost last”). From left to right, these terms are in alphabetical order:
A Greek word can only be accented on one of these three syllables.
Writing and Pronunciation Exercises
Exercise 1. Use this video to practice your pronunciation with a passage from Herodotus (Histories 2.121α):
Note: the text in this video uses iota adscript, and the dialect is Ionic.
Exercise 2. To practice your handwriting, rewrite the passage in your own hand.
Exercise 3. Based on the the passage above, what letters can end Greek words? List them on a piece of scrap paper and see if you can identify patterns between letters that are and are not able to end Greek words. For answers, see here.
reading morphologically 