The Greek Language Pronunciation From Bronze Age to Today

Greek is one of the oldest languages in the world that continues to be spoken to this day. Needless to say, it has changed considerably throughout the ages, but how exactly has the pronunciation of Greek changed since ancient times?

Mycenaean Greek to Archaic Greek Pronunciation

The earliest traces of the Greek language appeared around 1500 BCE. This is when we find ancient Mycenaean documents written using the script known as Linear B. The pronunciation of this ancient form of Greek is, of course, highly speculative. Nonetheless, linguists are able to rely on comparisons from other early Indo-European languages to draw reasonable conclusions.

At the end of the Bronze Age, Greece entered the Dark Ages. Some three hundred years later, Greece then entered the Archaic era. Over the course of those centuries, the pronunciation of ancient Greek changed in various ways.

One change was that Greek lost its labialized velar consonants. These were the sounds ‘kwh,’ ‘kw,’ and ‘gw.’ Words with any of these three sounds evolved to use different sounds, based on ‘p,’ ‘t,’ or ‘k.’ For example, the sound ‘kw’ in some words evolved into ‘t.’ In other words, it evolved into ‘p.’

Changing pronunciation in Ancient Greek Classical Period

One prominent ancient Greek writer in the Archaic era was Homer. He lived in the seventh century BCE. Over the course of the next few centuries, the pronunciation of ancient Greek continued to change.

The fifth and fourth centuries BCE are known as the Classical Period of Greece. Many of the most important works of ancient Greek literature were written during this period. Examples include the works of Herodotus and Thucydides.

During the Classical Period, Greek was spoken over a wide area. There were a variety of dialects that developed. For example, there was Attic Greek, Ionic Greek, Doric Greek, Aeolic Greek, and others. Some of the non-Attic dialects lost the ‘h’ sound over the course of the Classical Period.

In contrast to the later period of the Greek language, Attic Greek during the Classical Period had many diphthongs. This is where two distinct vowel sounds are spoken within the same syllable (for example, the English word ‘no’ contains a diphthong). In some other dialects, however, these diphthongs had started to morph into single vowel sounds.

The evolution into Koine Greek

In the latter part of the fourth century BCE, Alexander the Great introduced Greek to various nations all over the known world. This led to the development of what we call Koine Greek. Some people also refer to this as common Greek of the ancient world. The start of the era of Koine Greek is usually placed in about 300 BCE. 

Koine Greek is particularly interesting because its pronunciation was far more similar to Modern Greek than it was to ancient Greek of the Archaic Era. One change that occurred around this time was the loss of the ‘h’ sound.

As we saw before, there were already lots of different dialects of Greek before this era. In Attic Greek, the loss of the ‘h’ sound only occurred during the transition to Koine Greek, much later than some of the other dialects from the Greek world.

The changes of Koine Greek

By the end of the Koine Greek period, the pronunciation was quite different from the ancient Greek of the Classical and Archaic eras. It had become almost identical to Modern Greek. But why was this?

Something that occurred as Koine Greek evolved was an important change in the vowels. Previously, Greek had made use of various diphthongs, . Almost all of these diphthongs evolved into single vowel sounds by this time.

Another change involving vowels was the loss of the distinction of vowel lengths. That is, at the start of Koine Greek, the Greeks distinguished between different lengths of the same vowel sound. In other words, a word could mean two different things. This depended on how long the speaker pronounced the vowel. Nonetheless, by the end of the Koine Greek period, this linguistic feature in the language was lost.

These are just some examples of how the language changed during the Koine Greek period specifically, but the key takeaway is that both examples involved simplification. This process is quite common throughout the world, and it has affected other aspects of the differences between Ancient and Modern Greek pronunciation.

Beyond just the natural process that occurs across most languages, Greek went through simplification because it became the language of so many diverse peoples. Alexander the Great spread the language all over the ancient world by means of his conquests. Due to this, people from all sorts of different backgrounds adopted it. They all contributed to the simplification of the language.