what is the correct pronunciation of the greek alphabet letter beta?

Question

i know how the americans say it is this correct? i really need an answer as my friends are calling me a yank lover (not that there is anything wrong with the americans) only i reckon that the greeks pronounced it bayta too, not beeta like my crazy friends say. help

Answer 1

Remember that this is an old language that isn't spoken fluently anymore.

The American way to say it it Bayta, the English way is Beeta or Bayta depending on where you are from.

The actual pronunciation is Beh-Ta.

Ancient Greek letter beta was pronounced as [b] (as in English bit) probably until the 2nd century CE. Its pronunciation started shifting to fricative [v] in various places at different times. Evidence for this comes from the following:

Cratinus (5th c. BC), in a surviving fragment of comedy (in Dionysalexandros) states the following: "o d' hliqios wsper probaton bh bh legwn badizei" (and the fool goes about like a sheep saying "ba ba"). If beta is pronounced as [b] and eta as long [e], we get the sound attributed to the animal by contemporary Greeks ("beeh-beeh"). If the letters are pronounced as in Modern Greek, we get "vi-vi", which does not sound like a sheep at all, by any stretch of the imagination.

Aristophanes (ca. 450 - ca. 388 BC), in a similar fashion says: "quein me mellei kai keleuei bh legein" (he is going to sacrifice me and tells me to say "ba"). He also uses the presumably alliterative phrase "pinein kai binein", which would be alliterative only if both initial letters (pi and beta) were of the same type, i.e., plosive (beta pronounced as fricative [v] would not work in this case).

Cicero (106 - 43 BC), identifies the pronunciation of "binei~" with that of the Latin bini.

Greek words containing the letter beta were transliterated to Latin using the letter b (Boeotia, Euboea, basis), although the fricative sound [v] existed in Latin (as consonantal u), and should have been chosen if beta had a fricative pronunciation.

Letters pi, beta, and phi, were called labial consonants by ancient Greek grammarians (and are still learned under this label in Greek elementary schools). Of these three, however, only pi is a true labial sound in Modern Greek, while beta and phi are labiodental. The term labial is accurate if beta was pronounced as [b], and phi as [ph] (aspirated [p]).

Greek grammarians (e.g., Dionysius Thrax) divide consonants into two primary categories: the aphona (beta, gamma, delta, kappa, pi, tau, theta, phi, and chi), and the hemiphona (zeta, ksi, psi, lambda, mu, nu, rho, sigma). In Aristotle's Poetics (1456b) the aphona (of which beta is a member) are described as "having contact" (= "meta prosboles"), but not being pronounceable without a vowel. In modern parlance we would say that aphona are the plosives, pronounced instantaneously, while hemiphona are fricatives, and those other consonants that can be pronounced continuously, without the need for a following vowel. If beta were fricative, it would be classified as one of the hemiphona.

Answer 2

Firecat_mage is right about the ancient pronunciation of the B sound, but Timothy S gives the correct answer (actually the name of the letter comes from the phoenician word Beth, which meant tent -don't ask me how it would be pronounced. If you turn the letter symbol by 90 degrees to the left and write it in an ancient style (without curves, but with triangles), you get the shape of two tents.). In modern Greek it's pronounced as vEE-tuh, or vita in italian.

Answer 3

bayta, I have never heard beeta

Beta was released by Louis Suelter, and named for his wife. Because of this, the proper pronunciation is actually "Bett-uh", but the name is more commonly assumed to follow the pronunciation of the Greek letter.

Answer 4

Beta was pronounced as a "B" in ancient Greek. In modern Greek it is pronounced as a "V". So the name of the letter is 'VEH-tah'. [or slightly anglicized, 'VAY-tah'. ] To write the 'B' sound, modern Greek uses the digraph 'MP'. I know it looks weird, but them's the facts.

Answer 5

In UK we tend to pronounce it Bee Ter

Answer 6

in greek it is pronounced

vita

vi like vi in "victory"

Answer 7

I've always pronounced, and heard it pronounced, bee-tah

Answer 8

You are correct. Your friends are totally wrong. bettyk

Answer 9

beeta

Answer 10

it's actually pronounced "VEE-tuh" in Greece.