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I heard from a Greek learner who shared their way of organizing the Greek consonants in the following:

unvoiced    less unvoiced                 voiced    less voiced
kappa           chi                        gamma        rho
pi              phi                        beta         mu                
sigma           --                         zeta         lambda
tau             theta                      delta        nu

Does "less unvoiced" mean the aspirated version of unvoiced?

How is "less voiced" related to "voiced"?

Tim
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    No, that makes no sense. Greek does not have different levels of voicing – just voiced and unvoiced – and the layout you give here mixes different types of consonants in with each other (stops and fricatives, for example). It’s not even quite clear if you’re talking about Modern Greek or Classical Greek, which makes a significant difference in how to organise the sounds, given that only the sounds in the first and last column are pronounced the same now as in Classical Greek (excluding rho in initial position). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 23 '23 at 00:14
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Thanks. How would you organize the consonants? whichever of classical or modern Greek. – Tim Jun 23 '23 at 00:21
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    I would organise them roughly the way Wikipedia does: in a table according to place of articulation, manner of articulation and voicing. I might lump the resonants (/r l m n/) in together, but other than that, I wouldn’t change much. For Classical Greek, there would be three rows of stops and only two fricatives (/s/ and /h), whereas for Modern Greek, there are only two rows of stops but more fricatives (beta, gamma, delta, phi, chi, theta, sigma, zeta). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 23 '23 at 00:31
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    Also, if your table is intended to represent Classical Greek, and defining ‘voicing’ as essentially being determined by voice-onset time, your columns are backwards: the unvoiced aspirates (chi, phi, theta) would be more unvoiced than the plain voiceless stops (kappa, pi, tau), and the resonants (mu, nu, lambda, as well as non-initial rho) would be more voiced than the voiced stops (beta, gamma, delta) and affricate (zeta). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 23 '23 at 00:35
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    Not only are rho, mu, lambda, and nu not "less voiced" they are the most voiced consonants. They're in a special category of their own: the sonorants. That's how voiced they are. – Fomalhaut Jun 23 '23 at 00:46
  • Details on the Homeric Greek (the earliest and most natural of the consonant systems) are available here. – jlawler Jun 23 '23 at 23:15
  • @jlawler it is interesting. thanks. – Tim Jun 23 '23 at 23:21

1 Answers1

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In Classical Greek, there was a three-way distinction between voiced, tenuis, and aspirated consonants, with three places of articulation:

Voiced Tenuis Aspirated
Labial beta pi phi
Dental delta tau theta
Velar gamma kappa chi

This symmetry doesn't extend as well to the other consonants. There are special letters for labial and dental nasals (mu and nu), but not for a velar nasal. There are letters for labial and velar stops plus /s/ (psi and ksi), but no dental one. Rho, lambda, sigma, and zeta don't have any counterparts at other places of articulation.

Any good textbook on Classical Greek (or Modern Greek for that matter) should give the pronunciations of all the consonants. You can also find this on Wikipedia.

Draconis
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