HOW ANCIENT GREEK stress-accent ACTUALLY SOUNDED!!! - John 1:1
Channel: David Rudmin
Date: 11/08/2015

***TURN ON GREEK "CLOSED CAPTION" ("CC" button) subtitles!  Either Greek or English.***

Yes, yes, I know that you're going to tell me that ancient Greek didn't have a stress accent, but rather a pitch-accent.  Well that's conjecture, and not at all settled scholarship.  Certainly the accent was some of both, but I think that the stress-component was way more important than any pitch-component.  In my opinion, scholars turned to the hypothesis of a largely pitch-accent, not because they had any definite evidence of it, but instead because the alternative (a standard stress-accent), just sounded too weird, based on where-in-the-word the Greeks accents were written.  (E.g. saying κατέλαβεν as "ka-TEL-aben" just sounds idiotic - Footnote 1.)   But it is a rule of logic that nothing follows from a negative conclusion, and so, just because they couldn't make the stress-accent work, doesn't mean that they should've then turned instead to a pitch accent (κατέλαβεν as the musical notes A-F#-A-A).  I think that I have now 'figured out' how to make that stress-accent work (keep reading the next big paragraph to find out how I do it), SO THERE'S NO LONGER ANY NEED FOR A PITCH ACCENT!!

The system-of-accentuation in this video is different from most attempted renderings of ancient Greek because of a discovery that I personally recently made, that the acute accent (’), called an "oxytone" ("oxy-" means "cut" or "split"), should actually be pronounced on the syllable AFTER the one on which it is written. This clears up numerous problems in the pronunciation of Greek [Footnote 2] , and actually vastly improves the communicative-ness of the language, as a whole.   Turn on the Greek subtitles and observe how the syllable I accentuate (or STRESS), is often not the one with any accent drawn over it, but rather one with an accute accent PRECEDING it.

The Greek text:
1 Ἐv ἀρχῇ ἦv ὁ λόγος, 
καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν,
καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. 
2 οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν. 
3 πάντα δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ 
χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν.  ὃ γέγονεν 
4 ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, 
καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων· 
5 καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, 
καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν.
 
6 Ἐγένετο ἄνθρωπος, 
ἀπεσταλμένος παρὰ θεοῦ, 
ὄνομα αὐτῷ Ἰωάννης· 
7 οὗτος ἦλθεν εἰς μαρτυρίαν 
ἵνα μαρτυρήσῃ περὶ τοῦ φωτός, 
ἵνα πάντες πιστεύσωσιν δι’ αὐτοῦ. 
8 οὐκ ἦν ἐκεῖνος τὸ φῶς, 
ἀλλ’ ἵνα μαρτυρήσῃ περὶ τοῦ φωτός.
 
9 Ἦν τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινόν, 
ὃ φωτίζει πάντα ἄνθρωπον, 
ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον. 
10 ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν, 
καὶ ὁ κόσμος δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, 
καὶ ὁ κόσμος αὐτὸν οὐκ ἔγνω.

Footnote 1 - To see the two systems-of-accentuation (the standard way -vs.- my way) directly compared on a line-by-line basis, view my video "Line-by-line comparison of Greek Accentuation Systems - Mary's Magnificat"  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu4zbBb175o
Footnote 2. - To see precisely ALL the things cleared up by my system-of-accentuation, view my nearly hour-long video entitled "Revised Rules for Pronouncing Ancient Greek Accents"   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BEvZzx0YLk