During the dark Middle Ages, Greek was lost even to scholars of Western Europe. The fall of Constantinople on 1453 brought Greek scholars to the West together with the texts of ancient Greek literature.
Erasmus, wanting to study these texts, came across a Latin-Greek grammar, through which he learned Greek by himself. Not knowing how to pronounce Greek, he naturally pronounced it phonetically. Since then and everywhere outside Greece, ancient Greek is taught, read, and pronounced phonetically, wrongly.
Greek was of course pronounced phonetically when the Greek alphabet was first adopted. But, with the passage of time, like all languages, it evolved phonetically. The main reason was the recognition of Greek as the universal language after the conquests of Alexander the Great. The refined Egyptians of the time found the Greek language harsh and simplified the vowel sounds.
This happened around 2,300 years ago and Greek has been pronounced in this manner without interruption all these centuries, except outside Greece, where the Erasmic pronunciation has prevailed, even though Erasmus was experimenting when he introduced it.
Now that it is known how Greek has been pronounced for 2,300 years, is it not time for Greek scholars to abandon the Erasmic pronunciation and adopt the traditional Greek pronunciation?
If scholars began pronouncing phonetically living languages other than theirs, it would not take them far.
English is French badly pronounced.
French is English badly pronounced.
English and French are Greek and Latin badly pronounced.
Few Anglophones speak French.
William Mallinson
Athens, 29 July 2026
William Mallinson is a former British diplomat, a member of the Editorial committee of the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, and author of several books, in Greek and English, including Cyprus: A Modern History; Guicciardini Geopolitics and Geohistory: Understanding Inter-State Relations; and Cyprus 1974: Anatomy of an Invasion (co-authored with Vassilis Fouskas). His latest book is The Real Story of the Relationship between Britain and Greece, the paperback having recently appeared. It has also been published in Greek by Papazisi, as Οι Έλληνο–βρετανικές Σχέσεις΄ Ξετυλίγοντας το Μύθο.
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