A Brief Guide to Ancient Greek Pronunciation © 1999, John
Opsopaus This guide will help you to pronounce Ancient Greek
according to current scholarly reconstructions of Attic
pronunciation in the fifth century The purpose of trying to
pronounce Ancient Greek correctly is that it allows our
invocations to be more authentic (and, we imagine, more pleasing
to the ears of the Gods), and that it permits us to appreciate
ancient Greek poetry better. (Upper and lower case Greek letters
are shown - if you have a graphical browser - followed by and
the name of the letter.) Diphthongs are pronounced by slurring
together the individual vowel sounds, except as noted below.
Also note that the terms "long" and "short" refer to the length
of the sounds (in time), not to whether they are long or short
like English vowels. In emphatic speech (ceremonial etc.), long
vowels should take approximately twice as much time as short.
Doubled consonants are pronounced by lengthening the consonant's
sound. Alpha may be long or short an