R: Re: Multi-lingos

> callanish wrote:
>
> > > Actually, philosophy of religion was quite, quite interesting. We
> > > had a Greek who laughed at us trying to pronounce the Greek
> > > gods' names, and....
> >
> > OK, I'll grant that although the phonology of modern Greek has changed
quite
> > significantly from that of Ancient Greek, it's still probably closer
(and
> > more "authentic") than our method of pronouncing Ancient Greek as if it
were
> > English!
>
> Well, most schools don't use the old pronunciation that acts as if
> Greek went through the Great Vowel Shift (where <nous> = /n&us/).
> Most today use either the Erasmean system or the newly reconstructed
> one with a distinction between aspirated and unaspirated stops.
In Italy we are taught that the Erasmean system is, AFAWK, the closest to
the old pronounciation. I can't figure out how (Modern) Greeks can say their
pronounciation is the same as in Homer's times. H, Y, OI, EI, HI are all
pronounced the same: if this was true even 2k yrs ago, why not using an
unique grapheme?

Luca