Audiobook In Greek
Agnella Datson
I changed my dominant Ancient Greek pronunciation scheme not once but twice during the drafting of this project and finally settled on Lucian pronunciation. More about why I chose Lucian pronunciation below.
A major goal of mine is to make Latin and especially Ancient Greek more accessible to more people. One of the barriers to learning ancient languages is the relatively scarcity of media, especially audio and video, that could help us internalise the languages. The Greek New Testament, and especially the Gospels, are relatively easy to read compared to the majority of Ancient Greek literature, and are therefore well suited as extensive reading material for late-beginners to intermediate learners of the language. Creating high quality audiobooks of the Greek New Testament would open up more options for Greek learners of all faith backgrounds to internalise the workings of Ancient Greek and improve their fluency in the language.
A third goal is to be able to produce works that encourage the proliferation of other learner materials. Ancient Greek is in a kind of self-perpetuating resource famine. A lot of talent and new pedagogy of ancient languages is being poured into Latin, but its sister Ancient Greek lies neglected and poor in learner resources. Since relatively fewer people gain fluency in Ancient Greek due to the lack of resources, fewer people are around to make resources and the vicious cycle continues. I am releasing this audiobook in the Creative Commons to make it maximally accessible but also to allow for it to be modified and re-used in other projects that may benefit from audio materials, such as video projects, learner software, or anything else in the future. I want to make it easier for other people to produce quality learner materials in Ancient Greek.
Erasmian (perhaps the least deserving of all pronunciation schemes) is dominant in tertiary institutions in the West. Erasmian arbitrarily chooses combinations of phonemes from different time periods to create a version of Greek that sounds distinctly Western European and was never spoken by a historical native Greek speaking population.
The divide between Classical Greek scholarship and Christian Greek scholarship is deeply unhelpful for both sides, and has served to make the learner resource famine even worse for everyone. Fundamentally, Koine is a form of Attic Greek and these historical dialects form a continuous, mutually intelligible language. Classical students would benefit hugely from reading the long, easy-to-digest, narrative passages in the New Testament. In turn, seminary students would benefit from knowing first-hand what NT Koine sounds like in comparison to other writing styles, other dialects, other time periods, and I would love if they could feel more comfortable with venturing outside reading only Koine texts even if these may not be the focus of their studies.
I choose Lucian pronunciation as my dominant pronunciation scheme because it offers the highest degree of compatibility with both Classical and Koine texts, and thus offers the greatest opportunity for both secular and Christian students to learn from a wider variety of texts and learn from each other.
Lucian may not currently be the biggest player in the pronunciation wars, but I think it has a lot going for it and has the potential to bring people from different disciplines and faith backgrounds together. It helps bridge the divide between the Classical, Hellenistic, and later Koine literature by being flexibly useful for both the biblical setting as well as for Attic texts as received by later generations, and Classical and Hellenistic poetry.
In the process of removing smooth breathings, my husband and I created a digital tool that removes all word-initial smooth breathings automatically, performing 117 character substitutions instantly. (It also has the capability of putting them all back in, should the need arise.) It is named simply: Remove Smooth Breathing.
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Only thirty months later, audiobooks in Greece are the talk of the town. Most attention is being given to JukeBooks, a audiobook service being launched by entertainment and media company Antenna Group in partnership with Beat Technology. The Bookseller just had an article about them, and Future Book had a panel with their founders. But the truth is JukeBooks is not the only, nor the first audiobook service to show up in Greece. Actually, less than 3 years after that nice conference at Thessaloniki, nothing less than 4 companies have been announced to be entering the Greek market. Here they are:
Auvril started to operate in September, 2020. It has a strong educational background. The catalogue is about 170 titles, but limited in terms of trade titles. It operates with an all-you-can-eat subscription model and also a-la-carte. The subscription price is 8.95 euros.
The venture supported by Antenna and Beat.no promises their launch to early 2022. According to The Bookseller, the company is already working with 10 major Greek publishers. The business model will be all-you-cam-eat subscription.
TapeTales only has a website, but a very nice one, it could be said. They are not operational yet, but audioreaders can sign up on an e-mail list. They promise an all-you-can-eat subscription of "hundreds of Greek audiobooks". They have promised to launch in early 2022.
Greek consultant and digital specialist Michalis Kalamaras, from eAnagnostis, provided invaluable information to this short article and I hope to read a longer analysis of the Greek audiobook market written by him soon.
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