Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in Teaching - Greek World

Greek World

Among speakers of Modern Greek, from the Byzantine Empire to modern Greece, Cyprus, and the Greek diaspora, Greek texts from all periods have always been pronounced using contemporaneous, local Greek pronunciation, which makes it easy to recognize the many words which have remained the same or similar in written form from one period to another. Among Classical scholars, this is often called the Reuchlinian pronunciation.

Nevertheless, Greek textbooks for secondary education give a summary description of the reconstructed pronunciation of Ancient Greek. This includes differentiation between short and long vowels and between the various accents, pronunciation of the spiritus asper as /h/, of β, γ and δ as plosives and of diphthongs as such, whereas often no mention is made of the pronunciation of θ, φ, and χ.