Hi Dwane. I'm a greek Cypriot, which makes me a greek speaker. Your pronunciation in the modern greek way of reading ancient greek is excellent 👌

A university professor of ancient languages has video courses on Koine as well as Latin. He’s a brilliant scholar and when he slowly reads text in the original languages it sounds great. But when he gets to going a little faster, his flat-toned Midwestern American accent comes through and it sounds painful to listen to! He uses reconstructed pronunciations in both languages but I’m quite confident it sounds NOTHING like an ancient speaker would (I’m sure my pronunciation isn’t much better lol).

If you get the accents and vowel quantity right, Erasmian doesn't sound that bad. It's just really hard to learn it the right way because there are so few recordings made by those who do it right. Julius Tomin has a website with recordings that I consider to be above average. Dr Stanley Lombardo also made good recordings which can be found on youtube.

I am with you 100% on (Modified) Modern Greek pronunciation, even down to the rough breathings. I've shared the story of my path to pronunciation before, I think on one of Stephen Hackett's (BSAR) videos. If I'm remembering incorrectly and I've shared this on your channel before, I apologize for the repetition. Fifty years ago, the church I was attending had their own Bible school. I'm not a clergyman, but I took their course in beginner's NT Greek. The textbook was J. Gresham Machen's, which utilized Erasmian pronunciation, so that's what I learned. Decades later I was on a discussion forum where one of the members was from Cyprus. He argued in favor of Modern pronunciation. I familiarized myself with it, but since I rarely ever converse in Greek, I didn't prioritize "switching" my pronunciation scheme. Fast forward to the late 1990s. My kids had given me a present of a T-shirt that read Είναι όλα Ελληνικά για μένα. I wore it to a local coffee shop frequented by people of different nationalities/ethnicities. (The owner is a Turk.) After I got my coffee I noticed 3 guys sitting at tables outside smiling and waving at me. I went out, thinking I would have to apologize for not recognizing them, but before I could say a word, they blurted out, "We love your T-shirt!" They were Greeks. They asked me if I knew what it meant, to which I replied, "It's all Greek to me." They laughed and confirmed that, then went on to ask me, "Can you pronounce it?" My mind raced. I knew if I pronounced it in Erasmian that I would "offend their sensibilities," as you put it. And yet I had never spoken Greek in Modern pronunciation to another living soul. It was probably just a moment's hesitation on my part, but it felt like an eternity as I quickly reviewed a comparative pronunciation chart in head. I then did my best to pronounce it in Modern. I'm sure they were just being charitable, but as soon as I did, they excitedly exclaimed, "Exactly right!" I've pronounced Greek in Modern ever since.

In High School I took Koine Greek classes through a college program online and I was taught Erasmian. But a few years later when I actually went to College (same as the one I took classes from online) and took the more advanced level Greek classes I found out they updated the pronunciation and don't use Erasmian anymore. So I was the only one in the class operating on different pronunciations 🤦‍♂️ Ir definitely sounds a lot less cluncky using a modern pronunciation and it doesn't make Greeks cringe as I would later find out Erasmian does lol But Erasmiam can definitely sound better if done right

Curious: does anyone know how a Greek Orthodox priest, who was born & raised in Greece, pronounces the koine Greek when he is reading Scripture aloud?

American Erasmian pronunciation is truly ugly. I was once considering buying the audio that went with some Greek flashcards I bought. Although it was pronounced by a well known author of Koine Greek textbooks, the American accent was so obvious, he sounded like a beginner.

That depends on your pronunciation. Your Erasmian impersonation sounded like James White reading Greek. My pronunciation is different than Erasmian but not the street Greek that you use. Your pronunciation is correct for a modern Greek speaking person. I found myself somewhere in the middle. If that is your Greek NT, where can I get one?

you're going to need to demonetize this video due to using my likeness on the thumbnail without my prior consent 😂.... great video though. 😀

I only use two pronunciations: Modern and the Buthian. Modern pronunciation is absolutely hideous. I use modern for public reading and reading silently, but if I want to try and speak it or listen to it, then I use Buth's, because he only makes two sound changes, sounds a lot like modern, and is still pretty. However, everyone should learn modern, even if they use another. It contributes too much. My Greek professor would pound the desk and yell, "Erasmus is dead! He's dead, I say!" The Erasmian pronunciations should follow him and, unlike him, never be raised from the dead.

Good stuff brother Dwayne , God Bless

I learned Hebrew first. I also am self taught. The first Hebrew book that I got had a table of the letters that was very very poorly laid out. In some cases, I couldn't tell which letters went with which sounds. So I got another book. What I didn't know at the time ('cuz I was self taught on a budget and my books reflected that budget) was that the first book was using a modified Yeminite pronunciation and the second one was using modern Hebrew pronunciation. I thought they were trying to say the same things, just differently. (And both of them very poorly.) So the first book would say that the gimmel without a dagesh was pronounced like G in George, and the second book said that we retain something of an aspirated G in a word like ghost. (See the 'silent' h! That means it's aspirated. It's all clear as mud now! Isn't it?) Between the bad table and the bad descriptions of sounds and not having anyone to practice with, my initial Hebrew pronunciation is probably most charitably described as creative. So a couple years later when I met someone with a little more formal training in Greek and Hebrew than I had (read, any formal training) it turned very confusing. We could text, but then when we talked at lunch I was saying gibberish. That sparked a year long expedition on my part to figure out which pronunciation to use. I don't think it still exists, but at one point I found a blog post that did a quick and dirty comparison between Yeminite, modern, and Shephardic pronunciation. The conclusion was that it doesn't matter. He was able to show wordplays or rhyme or something at various places that only made sense in one but not the others for all three. (I wish I had that kind of time.) So I went with modern after that because it was easier to find CDs of modern Hebrew. That was convenient when Duolingo came out, because that's modern Hebrew. It's not perfect but it's better than nothing and gives daily practice. (And it fits my budget: free!) My Hebrew pronunciation is still best described as horrible, but at least now it's at least consistently bad. As I've been picking up my Greek the last couple years or so, I've been trying to stick to modern pronunciation. Mostly because I've been down this road once already and I don't have time for another year long study. Then there's the fact that I've got Duolingo to practice modern Greek with, and now I've got a text-to-speech program to make audio flashcards that has modern Hebrew and modern Greek but no ancient versions, and it's just inconvenient to try any reconstructed Greek pronunciation. But I've also long since come to the conclusion that it only matters when you're talking to someone and no one talks to me so it doesn't matter. Wait... I think that came out wrong... no, never mind. It checks.

There´s also the reconstructed Koine pronunciation (look up Randall Buth), which is quite close to modern Greek, but closer to what it would have sounded like in the first century. But modern Greek is certainly better than Erasmian, which honestly is just torture.

While I concur that modern Greek pronunciation is much easier on the ear, it seems to me that we should be faithful to the old Erasmian pronunciation of the ancient koine Greek. If that is how it sounded in Jesus' & Paul's time, then we should hear it as they did.

The shear ugliness and obvious inaccuracy of mainstream American Erasmian has always been off-putting to me, but I also feel that Modern Greek merges too many of the sound distinctions that were present in ancient Greek (like the rough breathing you mentioned). One KZfaqr who's done an excellent job discussing the historical and regional development of Greek pronunciation is Luke Rainieri, and he recently put together a framework for structuring your pronunciation ranging from a more Classical-adjacent (what Erasmian is *supposed* to be) to more modernized, but all falling within the range of speech patterns found in the Koine period of Greek. Here's his (rather long) video discussing it. I think it's well worth the time: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mrdyo9p8vNS-caM.htmlsi=GOWsxqdjzp4fHhWS

I'm sorry, but you didn't make your point. That first reading in Erasmic(?) pronounciation sounded halting and stuttering like from a first year student who just learned how to read. Give it your best shot. And then give the modern pronounciation your best shot, without pauses. Redo both, until both are good and then cut them into your video, instead of trying to record in one take. Then we could decide. . . . The argument from beauty might still not convince all: modern Italian has a good sound, but should we pronounce Latin texts that way? (One pope thought so, but for songs in church.)

You're using modern Greek pronunciation because you want to be Orthodox with us. :)

How's your Greek? How's your English? ..."so much more better"? 🤣 Only joking, keep up the good work and bless you.

I have to laugh that you make a video where you start of saying the Erasmian pronunciation is ugly and then go on to mispronounce Koine repeatedly using the Erasmian pronunciation "Coin-nay" instead of "key-nee." And using the "h" sound for the rough breathing marks sounds ugly in my opinion too.