How do you pronounce 'κινειν'?

January 25, 2009 7:34 PM

Greek speakers needed! How do you pronounce 'κινειν' in both modern and ancient Greek?

Bonus points: recordings of either version or explanations of why this question is based on bad assumptions. Thanks!

posted by amery to education (10 answers total)

In Ancient, it'd be "keen-ain" (last syllable rhymes with 'rain') but I can't off the top of my head tell you which syllable would get the stress.
posted by coppermoss at 7:48 PM on January 25, 2009

It's been a while since I studied ancient Greek, but wouldn't the syllable break occur before the first nu? "Kee-nain"?
posted by stopgap at 7:52 PM on January 25, 2009

Oh, yes. My bad.
posted by coppermoss at 9:53 PM on January 25, 2009

In modern Greek, it'd be "kee-nyeen," more or less — with the "ny" pronounced like in "canyon," or like a Spanish ñ.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:55 PM on January 25, 2009

There's a slight problem with the fact that it's an infinitive ("to move"), which modern greek doesn't really have. Other than that, modern greek speakers wouldn't have trouble pronouncing just "kinin" or maybe "kineen", stressed on the second syllable.

My knowledge of ancient Greek was always somewhat dodgy, but I can't figure out why it should rhyme with rain. Also, I don't see any reason for the y in nebulawindphone's answer, except for some (overdone) regional accents.
posted by ghost of a past number at 4:25 AM on January 26, 2009

ghost: the reason the last syllable rhymes with rain is b/c in ancient greek the epsilon iota combination is a dipthong, and the british/american pronunciation standard is for it to rhyme with rain.

also, accent is going to be on the last syllable because it's an epsilon contract verb and the accent's on contracting epsilon. so, kin - AIN. (for ancient greek, anyway.)



ps i'm having trouble understanding why a question on pronunciation would be based on bad assumptions?
posted by ailouros08 at 7:14 AM on January 26, 2009

ps i'm having trouble understanding why a question on pronunciation would be based on bad assumptions?

The pronunciation for some ancient languages is lost, and for all I know ancient Greek is one of those.
posted by amery at 8:15 AM on January 26, 2009

Thank you to my brother who is a student of Koine Greek (Koine = common), in which the Biblical New Testament was written:

Well, first off, it's not in the Bible, but it's pronounced ki nain.... the ei is a dipthong that makes kind of like a long "a" sound... it comes from kineo which is only used 8 times in the NT and is just a word used for "move", "disturb", "remove" or even to "wag" your head... Okay, that's all I got...

oh yeah and the accent is on the second syllable.
posted by nmabry at 12:10 PM on January 26, 2009

oh, i see. well, pronunciation of ancient greek is actually pretty well studied - the different types of accents represent different tonal qualities. When read properly, it sounds a lot like Hebrew (at least to me). Sorry I can't give you a link to the specific word being pronounced, but here are some resources:

Comparison of Modern and Classical Pronunciation

Pronunciation guide

Homer being read by Prof. Nagy
posted by ailouros08 at 9:03 AM on January 27, 2009

ailouros08, those are some fantastic links.

Thanks, everyone.
posted by amery at 1:36 PM on January 27, 2009