Audio practice thread

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jeidsath
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Audio practice thread

Post by jeidsath »

I thought that it would be useful to have an audio practice thread. The idea is to get practice listening to other people's audio, to record multiple versions of the same texts, comment, critique, etc.

Here's something very short. A pun in Xenophon?

Extra points if you make your recording (or a transcript) based on my recording without looking up the text. Note that any errors in that case will be my fault.

Also, please suggest a text for round two.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by Markos »

Okay, I think for the idea you have to work, it would make sense not to look anything up, certainly not to look at the text from the which the audio is made. To that extent, it would make more sense to make up a passage so that people cannot cheat.

That said, I did not look this up. (I have read the Anabasis a few times but I don't remember this passage.) Remember that I am basically an Erasmian, although I have also listened to and spoken Buthian and Modern Greek; the restored Attic is what I find by far the hardest; I have had the least experience with it.

Without looking up anything in a dictionary and only by listening to it a bunch of times, this is what I hear:

πολλακίς ( I don't know why this would not be πολλάκις) δ' ἦν ἰδεῖν παρὰ τὰς στειβωμενας (I'm either not hearing this right or I don't recognize the word, maybe στειβόω, something to do with "narrow") ὁδοὺς καὶ ποδῶν καὶ χειρῶν καἰ ὀφθαλμῶν στερομενοὺς (I again, knowing nothing about meter, I don't know why Restored Attic speakers change the stress on syllables; I would expect στερομένους. This is one of the reasons why the Restored Prophora is the hardest to understand.) ανθρώπους.

The meaning is something like "And often it was possible to see, along the narrow? paths, men deprived of legs and arms and eyes."

Here's my audio of your passage

https://archive.org/details/TextkitAudioThread1

And for round 2 I made up a passage. I wanted it to be easier than yours. maybe this is too easy.

https://archive.org/details/TextkitAudioThread2

And now I am going to look up your passage in the Anabasis and see what I missed. After I look at the original, I will tell you if I see a pun.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by jeidsath »

I will get too your passage shortly, but for me, I have trouble with pitch accent because I'm plain not very good at it. I am neither very musical, nor am I the sort of person who can do fake accents for comedy. But here is a try 2 with better accents, I hope.

EDIT: I still don't have my computer. So while I've listened to all of your audio, I'll have to wait until tomorrow to type up a transcription.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by cb »

hi, could some techie person please explain how to upload audio online easily? i could record a few lines of the iliad and prose say to show how i hear it. i have a mac air but have never used the recording function if there is one - if someone could please explain what app to use to record, what audio format is best for online and then where to upload files online for free, i'll have a go sometime, thanks!

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by Markos »

cb wrote:hi, could some techie person please explain how to upload audio online easily? i could record a few lines of the iliad and prose say to show how i hear it. i have a mac air but have never used the recording function if there is one - if someone could please explain what app to use to record, what audio format is best for online and then where to upload files online for free, i'll have a go sometime, thanks!
I'm no techie, and I am unfamiliar with mac, but I'm sure you have a sound recorder on your computer. I guess the best place to upload is still archive.org

https://archive.org/

because it's fast to upload and you don't have to join anything to hear the audios and they are easy to download from the site.

But Σαῦλος (Paul Nitz) and I also experimented with Voice Thread

https://voicethread.com/myvoice/#

which is even faster to upload, as you can post directly to the cloud without saving anything on your hard drive first. But I think you have to join this first to hear the audios, which not every one is going to want to do. Youtube is also fine, and it is easier to understand spoken Ancient Greek if you can see somebody's face while they are speaking.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by jeidsath »

I use audacity for recording mp3s on my Mac. I have an app on my phone called Voice Recorder that works very well, and will upload directly to YouTube.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by Paul Derouda »

Here's my version of Xen. An. 1.9.13.

http://youtu.be/CVMqqurt2d4

I downloaded a iPhone app called Voice Recorder, but I wasn't able to download directly to Youtube. Maybe it's not the same program. Anyway, Youtube requires you to add an image to the sound, and that takes a lot of time. I'd like to find a really easy way to upload the files.

Well, anyway, I think this is a nice exercise, but I do know if I'm going to continue for long, because it's really time consuming. I have to repeat a short sentence like this 20 or 30 times before I'm even remotely satisfied, and then recording the file, converting it and uploading all take their time.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by Paul Derouda »

Oops, I noticed that in a fit of early onset dementia I pronounced plural feminine accusative -ας short. Let's see if I find the courage to make a new version... The exercise is not entirely in vain, it appears...

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by Paul Derouda »

Ok, I made a corrected (more or less...) version.

http://archive.org/details/Anabasis1913

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by Paul Derouda »

I'm still not happy, but I'll leave it as it is. I notice that ει in στειβομένας is too short. The stress is always on the first syllable in my native language, so the problem is probably that I can't "de-stress" the first syllable without shortening it. Same problem with λλ in πολλάκις – it's a bit too short. Though perhaps not too short to be beyond what might be just possible in native speech, as in real speech this sort of thing might be articulated a bit carelessly.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by jeidsath »

@Μάρκος

πολλάκις δὲ εἲν ἰδεὶν παρὰ τὰς στειβόμενας ὁδοὺς και πώδον καὶ κείρων και αφθάλμων ανθρώπους.

χαίρετε φίλοι τὸ ὀνομὰ μου Μάρκος. ἐγὼ ἐχὼ δύο υἴς. και σείμερον δὴ τὼν δυτέρων υἴον μου πλούνειν τεὶν ἁμάξαν μου. Ἑρρόστε
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by jeidsath »

@Paul (from http://archive.org/details/Anabasis1913)

πολλάκις δὴν ἰδεῖν πάρα τὰς στεβόμενας ὁδὼς καὶ πόδων καὶ χεῖρων καὶ ὀφθαλομὼν <indistinct> ἄνθρωπους.
I have to repeat a short sentence like this 20 or 30 times before I'm even remotely satisfied, and then recording the file, converting it and uploading all take their time.
That sounds like a recipe for burnout. Maybe I can suggest the following: Since feedback from other people is more important than perfection in something that is meant to be an exercise, why not do 2-3 practice read throughs, and then do your recording. In your recording, imagine that I'm sitting there trying to write down what you're saying (which I will be). Go slowly, because you know that I have trouble transcribing speech, and if you misspeak, just correct yourself. I'll be able to catch the correction.

For me, the criticisms of off-the-cuff recordings are actually more useful, because I start to find out what my bad habits are. And if you worry that you will sound stupid, well, join the club.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by jeidsath »

Round 2: Menander

I'm assuming that few people will be familiar with this fragment. I read it twice, once slow, and and once fast. And sticking to the advice I gave Paul, I recorded it after 2-3 practice read-throughs. You can cheat and see the Greek by clicking "Show More" on the Youtube page. Maybe it would be best to do that after a transcription, but before recording your own audio?

Also, Paul, here is the app that I use to upload to Youtube. You don't have to add an image.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by Paul Derouda »

jeidsath wrote:@Μάρκος

πολλάκις δὲ εἲν ἰδεὶν παρὰ τὰς στειβόμενας ὁδοὺς και πώδον καὶ κείρων και αφθάλμων ανθρώπους.
This is how I hear it (I think Markos doesn't attempt to reconstruct pitch accents, so I suppose the aim is stress any accented syllable the same way?)

πολλάάκις δὲ εἲν ἰδεὶν παρὰ τὰς στειβόμενας ὁδοὺς και πόδων καὶ χείρων και αφθάλμων ανθρώπους.

ω in πόδων and χείρων is just "in the limit" acceptable as long, so I resolve the matter in your favor! :)

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by Paul Derouda »

jeidsath wrote:@Paul (from http://archive.org/details/Anabasis1913)

πολλάκις δὴν ἰδεῖν πάρα τὰς στεβόμενας ὁδὼς καὶ πόδων καὶ χεῖρων καὶ ὀφθαλομὼν <indistinct> ἄνθρωπους.
Hmm... I disagree about δὴν, which I think I pronounce with a circumflex, only I think I manage not to overdo it for once ;)

With πάρα, πόδων and ἄνθρωπους you're probably right. I think the problem is, again, the stress accent on the first syllable in Finnish. Here, I do think I manage to get the pitch accent at the right place (or what do you think?), but at the same time, I'm unable to avoid stressing the first syllable. So we get words with two accents, one of pitch and one of stress! στεβόμενας is similar, except for some reason I stress the second syllable – I think the pitch is correct, no?
I have to repeat a short sentence like this 20 or 30 times before I'm even remotely satisfied, and then recording the file, converting it and uploading all take their time.
That sounds like a recipe for burnout. Maybe I can suggest the following: Since feedback from other people is more important than perfection in something that is meant to be an exercise, why not do 2-3 practice read throughs, and then do your recording. In your recording, imagine that I'm sitting there trying to write down what you're saying (which I will be). Go slowly, because you know that I have trouble transcribing speech, and if you misspeak, just correct yourself. I'll be able to catch the correction.

For me, the criticisms of off-the-cuff recordings are actually more useful, because I start to find out what my bad habits are. And if you worry that you will sound stupid, well, join the club.
The way I see it, the pitch accent makes sense only in the context of a longer utterance. So in my opinion, it's a good idea to try to construct a whole sentence at a time, to try to see how the language might work in longer chunks. Since it's difficult, it takes many, many repeats before getting it even remotely right. But it's much more profitable to try to do it really as well as possible, at least a couple of times, especially as we don't have native speakers to correct us.

I know I should go slower, but that's just something I've never learnt to do, unless I really, really concentrate, not even in my own language... It's a speech defect of some sort, if you know how to fix it, tell me! :) It's easier with poetry.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by Paul Derouda »

jeidsath wrote:@Paul (from http://archive.org/details/Anabasis1913)

πολλάκις δὴν ἰδεῖν πάρα τὰς στεβόμενας ὁδὼς καὶ πόδων καὶ χεῖρων καὶ ὀφθαλομὼν <indistinct> ἄνθρωπους.
ὁδὼς – the ου/ω contrast is a typical problem, namely that different languages map vowels differently. We tend to take the closest equivalent from our own native tongue, regardless of how close they actually are. ι ει η is another problem. Here, Ι think I'm making a clear distinction between ου and ω, but in English the sounds are mapped differently and the way I pronounce them makes them indistinguishable to you. I wonder what Plato would have said here...

For ι ει η I suppose French is a much better guide than either Finnish or English (for the quality, not quantity).

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by mwh »

Paul Derouda wrote:
jeidsath wrote:@Μάρκος

πολλάκις δὲ εἲν ἰδεὶν παρὰ τὰς στειβόμενας ὁδοὺς και πώδον καὶ κείρων και αφθάλμων ανθρώπους.
This is how I hear it (I think Markos doesn't attempt to reconstruct pitch accents, so I suppose the aim is stress any accented syllable the same way?)

πολλάάκις δὲ εἲν ἰδεὶν παρὰ τὰς στειβόμενας ὁδοὺς και πόδων καὶ χείρων και αφθάλμων ανθρώπους.

ω in πόδων and χείρων is just "in the limit" acceptable as long, so I resolve the matter in your favor! :)
I don't share your joint perception of Markos' accents (apart from substitution of dynamic stress for pitch, of course). Sure he gets στειβομένας wrong but he gets the accent right on all three genitives. I pronounce them pretty much the same way myself.
(Joel likewise misrepresents Paul's accents.)

I very much like Paul's reading. If he has trouble escaping the bonds of his native phonology, so do all readers of whatever nationality. (I don't even try, myself.)

I'll record the Menander later if I can.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by jeidsath »

I'd advise taking my transcriptions with a large grain of salt. I listen through 9-10 times and try to write out everything faithfully, but I know plenty of people with a superior ear than me. Hopefully I (and all of us) will get better. If I spot something, and you don't, it's probably just me.

On circumflex -- in a stress-based accent, is there any way to tell the circumflex from acute / grave simply from pronunciation? I assume that a grave is stressed.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by mwh »

jeidsath wrote:On circumflex -- in a stress-based accent, is there any way to tell the circumflex from acute / grave simply from pronunciation? I assume that a grave is stressed.
Joel, you have fingered what to my mind is the main deficiency of a stress-based pronunciation: circumflex and acute are stressed identically (at least that's how I do it) — a grave objection in principle, but in practice, to anyone with the slightest knowledge of the Greek accentual system, there's rarely if ever any ambiguity.

Insofar that a grave means "no accent yet," it is not stressed. To stress καὶ, for instance, would be a sin. But the system of written accents itself is inexact, and in a case such as τύχη λογισμὸν καὶ τὰ προσδοκώμενα I will unhesitatingly put stress on the ultima of λογισμὸν. It depends on circumstances, and prosodic environment; there can be only so much distance between accents/stresses.

Michael

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by Paul Derouda »

mwh wrote: I don't share your joint perception of Markos' accents (apart from substitution of dynamic stress for pitch, of course). Sure he gets στειβομένας wrong but he gets the accent right on all three genitives. I pronounce them pretty much the same way myself.
I listened to it again and agree with you now about the genitives. So I guess what bothers me is that the ω's are maybe a bit too short, especially for a stressed syllable.

Would you think that an grave is pronounced with a rise in pitch i.e. like an acute when it occurs at caesura? E.g.

ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχήν / καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by mwh »

Well I really don’t know. So little is known of the conventions governing pitch in Homeric hexameters. The written accents are an inexact guide at best. In a case like this I guess it might depend on the style and pace of delivery.

There's a certain arbitrariness in play here. Whether an editor prints a grave or an acute at caesura—or on any final syllable—is dictated by whether or not there’s punctuation, and punctuation is purely an editorial matter, ruled by modern conventions. A modern editor, whether English or German, wouldn’t punctuate after ψυχην in the example you give, nor after λογισμον in the analogous example I gave—but Nicanor would have. ψυχην comes at the end of a phrase unit (though the τε lessens its potential detachment from the following phrase). Caesura may have played some part in determining the syllable's relative pitch (rising or falling, higher or lower), but less I imagine than syntax and the local prosodic environment, and we should probably be thinking more in terms of prosodic contours than of syllable by syllable accentuation. It would be wrong to think that our written accents tell the whole story, or anything like it.

Sorry to give such a weaselly answer, but I'm not at all sure any other kind of answer can really be given.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by ariphron »

I've made recordings for the first two passages Joel selected, and posted them here:
https://archive.org/details/TKAP_ariphron

When I tried transcribing the Menander from Joel's recording, the first line came out as
ἡ τ’άνα μεσῶν θραυσα

δ/τ is the distinction that I find hardest to keep consistent in the Allen Reconstructed system. Maybe if my French were better I'd hear it more reliably.
ἀνὰ/ἄνα is something that I've only recently started distinguishing in a consistent way. Three months ago I would have pronounced ἀνὰ exactly the way Joel did. Anyways, they're the same word.
μέσον/μεσῶν. Lengthening final short vowels to put some space in between words is something so natural that I do not consider it a major fault in one of my recordings unless it breaks the meter of verse, which is not the case here.
θραύουσα/θραυσα. I've just been reading some Homer where you occasionally have to break up a diphthong to make the line scan. The way I do it sounds just like what you did here. That's what tripped me up.

In short, I don't know the details of Joel's (or anybody's) personal style well enough to transcribe, but if my Greek were good enough to understand this passage by listening, I don't think I would have had a problem based on Joel's delivery.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by jeidsath »

In short, I don't know the details of Joel's (or anybody's) personal style well enough to transcribe
No worries about that. Anything you point out gets noted as something for me to pay attention to is re-listening, so it's not a bad thing to just say what you hear.

I will transcribe your recordings shortly, but here is how I've self-transcribed the different audio segments that I've made for this thread. I've left words unaccented where I can't detect an accent. Double-accented when I double-accent them. I've also noted where I pronounce a grave like an acute.

There are several times where I have an "iffy" vowel length. I've marked it as long or short depending which it sounded closer to, but really, any "iffy" length is an error, and I should think about ways to mark them for next time.

Xenophon 1.9.13 version 1

πολλάκίς δῆν ἰδεῖν παρὰ τὰς στείβομενας ὁδοὺς καὶ πόδων καὶ χεῖρων καὶ ὀφθαλμῶν στειρομενούς ἀνθρώπους

Xenophon 1.9.13 version 2

πολλάκις δέν ἰδεῖν παρὰ τὰς στειβομένας ὁδοὺς καὶ πόδων καὶ χειρων καὶ ὀφθάλμων στειρομένους ἀνθρώπους

Menander 1

ἡ δάνα μέσων θραύουσα τύχει λογισμον καὶ τα προσδοκώμενα οὐκ ἐκθελους ἀλλ’ ἡτερα διανοώμενει ὀρφάνα ποιει τὰ παντα

Menander 2 (second half of video)

ἡ δανα μεσον θραυουσα τύχη λογισμον και τα προσδωκωμενα ουκ εκθελους ἀλλ’ ἡτερα διανοώμενει ορφάνα ποιει τα παντα
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by Paul Derouda »

Ariphron, your Xenophon recording sounds strange... And yet I can't point anything wrong with it, and that's a reminder of how foreing ancient Greek might have sounded.

In Menander, I seemed to hear a circumflex not an acute in προσδοκωμενα. And how did you pronounce ουκ?

Thanks for pointing out I forgot to voice ς in πολλακιzzzz...

mwh, I know my question was impossible. Thanks for answering anyway! I believe punctuatution helps the reader to intonate a sentence correctly, because it helps to interpret it correctly, but you have to how the intonation works in that language - in a way, written Greek accents go just the opposite way. The currrent Greek accetuation system is of course much too mechanichal, but I suppose it still gives us some clue as to what might have happened in real speech.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by mwh »

On the Menander: I could make out what Joel was saying, thanks to his slow pace and individuation of each word (and knowing it was iambics). Confusing to have half a verse missing towards the outset, though!

After that it was easy enough to make out ariphon’s version. Listening again, though, I’m puzzled by a few of ariphron’s accents and pitches:
In λογισμὸν the pitch is raised on ισ and sustained on μον;
τε in ουκ εκτελοῦσ’ is pitched higher and stressed (sounding more like ἐκ τέλους);
similarly with πο in ορφανὰ ποεῖ (as if it were πόει impera.).
If these are deliberate, I don’t understand the rationale.

—And now listening to ariphron’s Xenophon, I don’t get why ιδεῖν, ποδῶν, χειρῶν, οφθαλμῶν have raised pitch and stress on the penult.

As to προσδοκώμενα, queried by Paul, I guess you’re kind of uncontracting, since what I hear is two syllables rising. I queried that sort of thing in your Iliad 6 [EDIT: Odysseias Z] thread, and surely in Menander the vowel is simply ω.
(Gilbert Murray was puzzled by some precursor of Sidney Allen talking about “horse” until he cottoned on to the fact that it was ὡς in the new-fangled pronunciation. [That tells you he was British, btw.])

In Joel’s too, εκτελουσ’ sounds like εκ τέλους (τε higher and stressed). Also τύχη as if τυχή, and ορφανὰ has raised pitch and stress on the first alpha. Or that’s how I hear it.

Remember the actor who was laughed off stage for mispronouncing γαλήν’ ὁρῶ as γαλῆν ὁρῶ? I wonder if any of us could tell the difference?

I have yet to hear raised pitch without accompanying stress.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by ariphron »

First of all, my approach to accentuation mostly follows D&S, but with great attention to a phrase's analysis into morphemes. In a clitic group with an acute accent, the pitch goes from mid to high, going upward by small steps at each morpheme boundary, reaches its peak at the accent (usually reinforced by a larger step upward for it), then jumps downward for the next syllable, and any further morphemes are marked by steps downward in pitch. The jump downward defines the accent; the steps upward depend on context.
mwh wrote: I’m puzzled by a few of ariphron’s accents and pitches:
In λογισμὸν the pitch is raised on ισ and sustained on μον;
Yes, that's how I usually do the grave accent on a short vowel. The word climbs from mid to mid-high and then stays. (For a long vowel I jump down and then rise back to approximately the pitch of the penult.) If I went up, as for an acute accent, and then jumped down for καὶ, then καὶ would be heard as enclitic; if I went down for the ultima, it would sound like an accent on the penult.
mwh wrote: τε in ουκ εκτελοῦσ’ is pitched higher and stressed (sounding more like ἐκ τέλους);
similarly with πο in ορφανὰ ποεῖ (as if it were πόει impera.).
If these are deliberate, I don’t understand the rationale.

—And now listening to ariphron’s Xenophon, I don’t get why ιδεῖν, ποδῶν, χειρῶν, οφθαλμῶν have raised pitch and stress on the penult.
I like to put stress and fairly high pitch on the roots of meaning-bearing words. The circumflex indicates falling pitch on that syllable. If it's just an ending, I don't usually start it from a higher pitch than the previous syllable. Thus the difference between ποεῖ and πόει is not the pitch of πο but that in the former, εῖ slides down to a low pitch, while in the latter, ει is low and flat.
mwh wrote: As to προσδοκώμενα, queried by Paul, I guess you’re kind of uncontracting, since what I hear is two syllables rising. I queried that sort of thing in your Iliad 6 [EDIT: Odysseias Z] thread, and surely in Menander the vowel is simply ω.
I analyze προσδοκώμενα as προσ-δοκα-όμεν-α and then contract; since the morpheme boundary is before the word accent, the resulting ώ has a rising pitch. I made it a smooth glide because it scans as one syllable; if I were marking it as two for the purpose of verse, it would be a sudden jump from mid to high. This distinction can be confusing, since in Western music a glide is regarded as equivalent to a sequence of two notes.
mwh wrote: I have yet to hear raised pitch without accompanying stress.
The converse would be more typical. I often stress a low-pitched syllable: enclitics such as indefinites, φησί, and ἐστί; and verb stems when the accent falls on the augment or reduplication.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by mwh »

Thanks ariphron. I knew that you knew what you were about, and it’s great to hear an attempt to put Devine and Stephens’ linguistically based findings into practice. How you do it is not quite how I’d imagined it, but I could never even attempt it.

You’ll know of that Menander line set to various musical settings. Little guide to regular mode of performance in 3rd-cent. dramatic production, but interesting nonetheless.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by jeidsath »

@everyone

Here is some modern Greek to clean out our eardrums a bit from all of our artificial classical Greek before going forward. (I have more Menander ready, and hopefully a bit of a fix for "γαλήν’ ὁρῶ / γαλῆν ὁρῶ").

Odysseas Elytis

@ariphron

πολλάκις δήν δίδειν παρὰ νὰς στείβωνομας ὁδὸς γεὶ πόδων γαὶ χείρον και ωφθάλμως δερομενως ἀνθράπους

ἥ δάνα μέσον τραύουσα δικελογίσμόν γε δα βρασδοκώμονα ο γέκ τέλώς αλλ’ ἑδρεν γεοόμενη ὀρφάνα βούει τὰ πάντα

Again, this is just my best effort transcription. The most useful exercise, I think, it to transcribe yourself (as I did above).

The one thing that I'll mention is that you seem to be artificially limiting your expressive range. To me, it seems like there are parts of your mouth that you aren't using.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by jeidsath »

Menander, Oxford Book of Greek Verse #466.

I read through it once slowly, and then once fast. I'm paying special attention to my circumflex accents here, hoping to get mwh's approval.
mwh: "and knowing it was iambics"
I am still far from comfortable with recognizing iambics. I'm going to beg you for your promised audio now! I would very much like to hear how the rhythm is supposed to come out.
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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by mwh »

Honestly, Joel, you shouldn’t be seeking my approval for your circumflexes, when I can’t manage them myself and have no clear idea of how they should actually be done. But for what it’s worth (very little, truly), I think this is a fine effort, and the iambic rhythm came through fairly well too. It was somewhat disturbed in the 3rd line, where ἐσίδω has its two short syllables occupying the place of a long, and in your reading the accent had (or seemed to have) the effect of lengthening the iota. But your reading did produce recognizable iambics (as how could it not, when you observe the quantities?).

I note you put stress on most of the accented syllables. I know how hard it is not to, and that’s one reason I don’t do pitch.

As for posting my own, I would if I could, but I’m a hopeless incompetent at this sort of thing. I can record things on my iphone, but don’t know how to get further than that.

But in any case, my way of reading does not even aim at period authenticity. As I say, I don’t attempt pitch accents, and my consonants and vowels leave much to be desired. In lieu of a demo, I formulate (for the first time) the rules I try to follow.

How I read Greek (and Latin) prose:
1. Stress accented syllables. (Forget pitch; no distinctn btwn acute and circumflex.)
2. Distinguish long vowels from short.
3. Pronounce vowels consistently, and each different from the others (except for later Greek).
4. Same with consonants (nasalizing gamma as appropriate).*
5. Read phrase by phrase, not word by word. Effect elisions and crases as appropriate.

How I read Greek (but not Latin) verse:
Same as for prose, but give priority to rhythm over accents.

The most I can claim for this is that it respects most of the significant distinctions, translated into phonological terms that I can relate to. (That’s my excuse for #1.)

*As a native English speaker, I naturally aspirate τκπ, so adopt modern θχφ except where phonically offensive. — I wasn’t even aware that I aspirated my stops until my first class with Prof. W.S. Allen, where he held up a slip of paper in front of his mouth and said “pea” (unless it was “pee”).

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Re: Audio practice thread

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So, in the above, with its x - . - pattern, where does the rhythmical stress go when you read? On the second and fourth syllable of every group?
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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by mwh »

Very crudely, yes, but only to the extent needed to keep the meter clear (as e.g. in verses with multiple resolutions). And of course the verse is not just a string of 3 metra, but has an internal structure (essentially bipartite, but not split in half) given by the cuts and bridges.
Similarly with dactylic hexameter.

E.g., in ἥκω Διὸς-παῖς | τήνδε-Θηβαίαν-χθόνα
(to take the first verse that comes into my head), I’d put some stress on each of the accented syllables. The stresses/accents on ΔιΟΣ and ΤΗΝδε (metrical longa), in conjunction with the syllabic quantities throughout the line (even with only three shorts), are quite enough to sustain the metrical pattern.
Cf. e.g. μΗνινάειδεθεΑ|πηληιάδεωαχιλΗος.
In Latin hexameters there’s a dynamic relation between accent and metrical ictus, which Vergil develops to wondrous effect. That’s not found in Greek, however, where accent is usually irrelevant.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by jeidsath »

@ariphron --

I was re-listening to some of Hagel's spoken audio (he is another Devine & Stephens reader), and noticed that some of his consonants are very similar to yours. I specifically noticed the γ/κ and δ/τ sounds.

Really, phonetic transcripts in IPA would make this thread very useful. Unfortunately, I couldn't even pretend to do that.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Audio practice thread

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I'm experimenting a bit with Allen's suggested stress pattern for Greek. Having real stress on each words helps me keep the pitch accent stress-free.

From Allen's rules, the "natural" stress for the above would have been

ἥκω Διὸςαῖς | τήνδε-Θηβαίαν-χθόνα

μῆνιν ἄειδε θε Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλος

Devine and Stephens would suggest using rhythm instead of stress. I think -- their chapter on this is a huge pile of digressions, which they have made little effort to synthesize, so it's hard to tell -- that you could approximate their suggestion by prolonging Allen's stressed syllables rather than emphasizing them dynamically.

I'm actually finding that this is not impossible to add to prose reading. (Although there will be some vowels that I don't know the quantity for.)

Δαρείου καὶ Παρυσάτιδος γίγνονται παῖδες δύο, πρεσβύτερος μὲν Ἀρταξέρξης, νεώτερος δὲ Κῦρος·

I think that with a few weeks of practice, it should be second nature. And I suspect that it would also be something that you'd pick up naturally from reading a lot of verse, and taking care with metrical stress. I should possibly be reading Demosthenes instead of Xenophon for prose.

I've only had one trouble spot so far. It's hard not to stress/prolong a syllable with a circumflex. Most of the time, this is not an issue, as the circumflex usually falls on a stressed syllable. But words like κῆρυξ give me a problem.

I note that after a quick search through the Iliad, that κῆρυξ is somewhat variable in placement, while a word like θυμῷ always occurs at the second half of the foot, or at the end of a line (where the stress resolution rule changes slightly) -- in agreement with Allen's rule. This leads me to think that there really was some interference between perispomenon and the stress/rhythm accent, and that κῆρυξ should be giving me a problem.
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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by mwh »

jeidsath wrote:From Allen's rules, the "natural" stress for the above would have been

ἥκω Διὸςαῖς | τήνδε-Θηβαίαν-χθόνα

μῆνιν ἄειδε θε Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλος
This puts stress on each of the longa, i.e. it has you bash the beat. I don’t believe that’s right, but it is what I advise beginners to do, to get the meter firmly fixed in their heads.
you could approximate their suggestion by prolonging Allen's stressed syllables rather than emphasizing them dynamically.
Wouldn’t that destroy the meter? And it would tend to make the longum longer than the biceps, which surely can’t be right.
(The ratio of longum to biceps was taken by ancient metricians to be 1:1. It was certainly that in anapaests, but West argues on phonetic grounds that in hexameter the biceps was a little longer. It’s not altogether clear whether he’s speaking in acoustic or in perceptual terms; perhaps both. D&S would not like this, and nor do I, but it does not contravene the principle of metrical biuniqueness on which they rightly insist.

My problem with decoupling pitch accent and dynamic stress is not just that it’s pretty well impossible to do but that if it could be done our reception/perception of the resultant sound would be utterly different from that of an archaic Greek. Our ears are not their ears.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by jeidsath »

@Markos (or anyone) --

How do the pitch accents sound in this? John 1:1-18

Any general (or specific) comments on the pitch accents in the above?

One thing that this thread has shown to me, at least, is that there are a number of people here who can hear pitch better than I can. (No surprise, given my musical inaptitude.)
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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by Markos »

jeidsath wrote:@Markos (or anyone) --

How do the pitch accents sound in this? John 1:1-18
It sounds great, euphonic and comprehensible, if a little anachronistic.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by ariphron »

That was an unalloyed pleasure to listen to. You fit a clear distinction among the different kinds of accent into a natural-sounding flow with excellent rhythm and expression. I'm not convinced the distinction between unaspirated (πτκ) and aspirated (φθχ) stops is sufficiently robust, but I can live with a few lost distinctions if the prosody is good. On the whole, I liked it better than Daitz's recordings, and about as well as those of Ioannis Stratakis.

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Re: Audio practice thread

Post by jeidsath »

Part of the trick above, which might be useful to others, is to work very hard on "saying" words instead of "pronouncing" them. I'm not sure how to be more concrete than that, except to say that conversation practice with bedwere and others has been very helpful in the past few weeks.
I'm not convinced the distinction between unaspirated (πτκ) and aspirated (φθχ) stops is sufficiently robust
I'm noticing this as well. When I'm listening to my own audio I often get tripped up by words that are either over-aspirated or under-aspirated. Usually π-φ, but τ-θ and κ-χ as well.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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