Glottal Stops in Greek Verb Pronunciation

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proskyneo. Go on, say it. Say it out loud. Pros-koon-eh-o.

Or, did you say pros-koon-glottal stop-o?

You know the glottal stop. It’s what you do when you say the word “button” in normal speech, if you’re American anyways. Also, the glottal stop is infamously employed by Cockney speakers (cf. Ricky Gervais). There’s nothing wrong with the glottal stop. I’m not saying there is, but I don’t think it belongs in an anglophone’s pronunciation of Greek verbs, or any ‘phones pronunciation for that matter.

So please stop glottal stopping. And perhaps go with the open-mid front unrounded vowel instead.

Note, I’m not being a prescriptivist; a prescriptivist would say, “Don’t say…” I’m only kindly requesting you don’t. =)

3 responses to “Glottal Stops in Greek Verb Pronunciation”

  1. Mike Aubrey Avatar

    Note, though that ????????? wouldn’t be pronounced anyway. Contract vowels never appear in texts.

    1. drew Avatar

      Wait, tell me more. I think I’m missing something.

  2. Godmy Avatar
    Godmy

    Hi, don’t forget there’s a glottal stop everytime you begin a word with a vowel and as a native you have almost no way preventing that without sounding weird (and it turns to be extremely hard also to pronounce words regularly without the initial glottal stop).

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