Guide to the Variants of Lucian Pronunciation part 2 of 4: Choosing a Main Variant of Lucian Pronunciation (Patreon)

The complete Guide to the Variants of Lucian Pronunciation PDF is attached to this post for you to download. Since patrons tend to like audio series delivered episodically, I have divided the two-hour pronunciation guide into four half hour parts.

In part 2: Choosing a Main Variant of Lucian Pronunciation

*

In March 2023 I released a new audiobook, Lucian’s Judgement of the Goddesses, which I recorded as an opportunity to show six standardized variants of Lucian Pronunciation. Up to the present, I have produced hundreds of hours of audio for various Patreon tiers in only one variant of Lucian Pronunciation, which was the original “main” variant that Raphael Turrigiano and I recommended in 2020. The system of Lucian Pronunciation, however, was always designed to be modified into other variants based on chronological and regional varieties of the language during Classical Roman times.

Thus the “main” variant of Lucian Pronunciation, now called Samosatene Lucian, is only one of many newly standardized variants that I will be using in future recordings. In my Judgement of the Goddesses audiobook (already available to Theodorei Tier Patrons and at my audiobook store at this link) each character speaks in a different variant in order to demostrate the differences between Romaic Lucian, Pompeian Lucian, Alexandrine Lucian, Memphite Lucian, Samosatene Lucian, and Antiochene Lucian.

The dialogue in the audiobook is preceeded by a pronunciation guide that explains the genesis of these six variants, the historical evidence supporting each as a convention, and the reasons why someone may prefer to employ one variant over another. Today I am making that Guide to the Variants of Lucian Pronunciation available to you so that you can explore which Lucian Pronunciation variant might be best suited to your purposes. As much as I am compelled by the desire to accurately realize historical phonology, I am equally sensible to the importance of practicable conventions, and thus have attempted to harmonize these two potentially discordant requisits as best as possible in the commentary below.

In the following document, I will discuss phonology in terms of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols. If you are unfamiliar with these symbols, I recommend the various Wikipedia pages and audio samples that cover this topic in detail, or my introductory lessons available as videos on my YouTube channel polýMATHY (q.v. IPA vowels, IPA consonants).

N.B.: I use the terms innovative or evolved to indicate pronunciation characteristics more akin to Modern Greek or in that direction from a developmental perspective, and conservative or archaic for those more like Classical or pre-Classical Greek.

Thank you so much for your support! Χάριτας οἶδα.

See attached PDF.