Proper Pronunciation of Mythical Names?

Rhoda Nightingale

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Or, how would an actual Greek person pronounce the name "Eurydice?" As opposed to a dumb American lay person, like me? I've been saying it "your-ree-DEE-chee" and I'm not at all sure that's correct...
 

Rhoda Nightingale

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Yes, thank you, that's helpful, but how would a Greek person say it? I'm looking for an accent here.
 

Snick

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A modern Greek or an ancient Greek? The Greek language has changed very greatly over time.
 

RichardGarfinkle

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An approximate phonetic transliteration from My Homeric Greek dictionary has it more or less as eu-ru-di-kay ( the i is short, the ay is meant to mean long a as in age). Also the emphasis is on the i. These days that's done as stress, but at the time it would have been more sung than stressed.

I hope this helps, but someone with more linguistic knowledge can certainly do better.
 

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Just to add another pronunciation possibility into the mix, in my native Swedish it would be ev-ruh-DEE-kuh. I believe (not a hundred percent certain) that the 'eu' is pronounced 'ev' or 'ef' in modern Greek, too.
 

Rhoda Nightingale

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A modern Greek or an ancient Greek? The Greek language has changed very greatly over time.

An ancient Greek living in modern times. To be even more confusing. Basically, I have a character who's a reincarnated version of Orpheus and I'm trying to figure out how he'd say her name.

Thanks for all the input, guys! :) I'm probably agonizing over this more than I need to, but it's one of those infuriating details that I'm worried someone will call me out on if I don't get it right.
 

Bufty

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What difference does it make whether or not I know exactly how he pronounced whatever it was he said, so long as I know that what he said (the bit in English that I read) he said in whatever language he used - if the person to whom he is speaking even knows that.

It's not the phonetical pronunciation that's important.

Everything depends on your POV character's knowledge and perception.
 

shaldna

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Or, how would an actual Greek person pronounce the name "Eurydice?" As opposed to a dumb American lay person, like me? I've been saying it "your-ree-DEE-chee" and I'm not at all sure that's correct...

I studied ancient Greek as an undergrad, and Latin extensively before hand, and we were always taught that it was 'you-rid-is-ee'
 

RichardGarfinkle

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I studied ancient Greek as an undergrad, and Latin extensively before hand, and we were always taught that it was 'you-rid-is-ee'

You were taught to pronounce the kappa in epsilon-upsilon-rho-upsilon-delta-iota-kappa-eta as an s sound? I've never seen that pronunciation in any ancient Greek word. As far as I know Eurydice turned soft by transliteration problems

Kappa to C to soft C.

But in less I'm seriously mistaken kappa in ancient Greek was always a hard k sound.