Posted by brian on March 28, 2001 at 03:41:09:
In Reply to: Re: Greek translation help, please posted by Joanna on March 23, 2001 at 23:31:42:
: : : : Syghariti'ria ke stous dyo' sas. Sas e'fhome ka'the aga'pi ke eftihi'a gia si'mera, a'vrio ke gia' pa'nda.
: : : : "Congratulations to you both. I wish you all the love and happiness today, tomorrow and always".
: : : Without offending Alexandros I just want to clarify his words so that you can pronounce them more correctly. Wherever Alexandros has put the punctuation mark ', you emphasise the vowel before that mark.
: : : The word "dyo'" should actually be pronounced as "thio'" whereupon the "th" is uttered like in the word "the". Wherever Alexandros has "y" such as in the above-mentioned word 'dyo' it is pronounced the same as "i" such as in "is".
: : : Pronounce the word "gia" as "ya".
: : : The sound "gh" comes from the throat and is a soft sounding "g". It is best if you ask a greek person to pronounce it for you so you can get alittle practise. The letter for the sound is 'gamma' (Γ).
: : : Alexandros did a more direct translation of each letter from the actual greek. But when it comes to speaking the above, it may be best to follow my hints.
: : : No offence Alexandros. You did a good job.
: : Surely the 'y' you talk about is pronounced 'ee' as in 'meet' although clipped short and not as 'i' as in 'is'. Still, this is wrong in many greek translation books as well! Brian
: Brian, I tried to make the sound (the 'ee' clipped short) as you described above but I found that it sounds very similar if not exactly the same as 'i'.
: Alexandros used 'y' because the letter in greek capitals (that is, ΣΥΝΓΑΡΗΤΗΡΙΑ = SYNGHARITIRIA)
: is the same as a 'Y' as you can see. In greek there are three 'i's: Ι ι, Η η, Υ υ.
: These are all pronounced exactly the same. They are used in the written words often to distinguish between gender for example.
: As far as I have read, I have noticed that with the literal english translation of greek words there are certain english letters assigned to each greek letter (particularly vowels). For example 'η' in english is 'e'. For instance, Αθήνα = Athena. Ηλεκτρικό = Electric(al). But that doesn't necessarily correspond to a literal phonetic translation. Αθήνα is actually pronounced as "Athina". The 'i' as in "is".
: This should explain why I said that "y" should be pronounced as "i". So that the person uttering the letter would not get the sound wrong and perhaps pronounced it as e.g. in "ps-y-che". --This is another good example where infact the the 'y' in greek phonetic pronounciation is 'i' as in "is".
: I hope I have not confused you.
Hi! joanna It is so interesting to hear from you and I understand what you are saying about the three "i"s and also the other combinations of vowels giving the same sound. I know nothing of phonetics I'm afraid but to an english born english speaking person the "i" in "is" is very short and if you prolong the sound it is nothing like the sound we're trying to describe.This sound of "i" in "is" may not appear in other languages and maybe that is why people from other countries often say something like "ees". Of course you dont want any confusion with the "y" sound in "psyche" which is quite different and doesn't exist in greek or many other languages as a single letter. Many books agree with you as you say but its interesting to see many have changed to the sound of "ee" clipped short as in "meet".
The oxford dictionary gives "i" as the phonetic symbol for the the three vowels and three vowel combinations as you rightly say but then gives the example sound "ea" as in "beat" as the nearest english equivalent exactly matching "ee" as above. yours confusingly Brian.