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As S. Teodorsson argues in his work on the phonemic system of the Attic dialect, there is evidence that already in the IV century BC, 'popular' Athenian speech underwent changes such as the merger of ι, η, υ in [i]. Even more conservative reconstructions (such as by W.S. Allen) place at least the disappearance of the subscript iota and the monophthongization of οι into [ø:] before 350.

Yet the grammar textbooks by e.g. Dionysius of Halicarnassus often prescribe e.g. the pronunciation of subscript iota as "correct" hundreds of years after its disappearance.

Was that "correct" conservative pronunciation actually used? Did the politicians use different pronunciations in public and in private? Was there perhaps an equivalent of the Transatlantic accent (having artificial archaizing features such as wh = [ʍ]), taught to students of public speaking?

If so, how could e.g. Demosthenes know to pronounce οι as [oi] in speeches and not [ø:] as everyone around him? The Greeks didn't have our methods of linguistic reconstruction, so slowing down natural phonological change seems almost impossible -- and also useless, needlessly alienating the audience of politicians etc.

Simon Korneev
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    Spelling pronunciation seems like an obvious answer to the last question. – TKR Feb 08 '19 at 22:37
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    I'm not familiar with the work in question, but a merger of ι, η, υ sounds way too early for the IV century BC. – varro Feb 09 '19 at 00:19
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    As an aside, I pronounce "wh" as [ʍ], and do not regard it as either archaic or artificial. – varro Feb 09 '19 at 01:15
  • @leaving υ aside for the moment, why do you think the merger of ι and η sounds way too early for the forth century BCE? – Alex B. Feb 09 '19 at 20:53
  • @AlexB. Short answer: spelling confusions I've observed in manuscripts, time frame needed, evidence of Latin and Coptic. A fuller answer would probably exceed the character count allowed in comments. – varro Feb 09 '19 at 22:24
  • Shouldn’t it be Teodorsson though? https://sprak.gu.se/english/contact/retired-teachers-and-researchers/sven-tage-teodorsson – Alex B. Feb 10 '19 at 14:52
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    And another quote from him (Teodorsson 2013): “Presumably it was demanded from reciters of epics as well as from actors in the theater to observe the traditional rules of pronunciation. A changed pronunciation according to an adjusted orthography, based on the everyday pronunciation, would have been detrimental to the performance.

    It is reasonable to assume that even in the cases where poetry or prose was read aloud − which was customary − the reader observed the ‘correct’ pronunciation as indicated by the orthography.”

     – Alex B. Feb 10 '19 at 15:02
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    A very important note so far. As Teodorsson himself writes, his focus was “the pronunciation of the broad mass of (illiterate) people, including the women.” – Alex B. Feb 10 '19 at 15:04
  • @AlexB. Thanks, I did actually misspell Teodorsson's name – Simon Korneev Feb 11 '19 at 22:21
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    On spot @AlexB., this quote is basically the reason I was asking myself this question. What Teodorsson suggests here runs contrary to how I believe language works. In particular, 'spelling pronunciation' never introduces new sounds into a language. E.g. imagine someone 'spell-pronounce' the word "meet" with a [ɛ:] sound: no one native in English would ever do this, because English does not even have this sound. Similarly, [oi] was an extinct sound in Greek by Demosthenes's time, and contemporary Greeks perhaps still thought of οι as of a diphthong when it had been [ø:] for ages. – Simon Korneev Feb 11 '19 at 22:39
  • @SimonKorneev I can think of at least one example of adding new sounds. In German, ä was traditionally pronounced /e/, same as e. But spelling pronunciation has led to a split between e /e/ and ä /ɛ/ in careful speech. – Draconis Feb 11 '19 at 22:54
  • @Draconis I think I can see both vowel qualities in the chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_German_phonology#Monophthongs

    Do you mean that that ɛ-sound was not historically represented by ä?

     – Simon Korneev Feb 11 '19 at 22:56
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    Some British lexicographers transcribe "air" as /ɛ:/, so I don't think we can be confident that "no one native in English" has this sound. Of course, it's a phonemic transcription rather than phonetic, but it was introduced precisely because many phoneticians thought it more accurately reflected most people's pronunciation than the previous conventional transcription /eə/. – rjpond Aug 19 '20 at 20:36
  • Greek loanwords with οι are rendered as ø and pronounced as [ø] in Norwegian, Danish and Swedish (some phonemic variances of course, and the Swedes spell it ö). – Canned Man Aug 22 '21 at 11:44

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