Greek Alphabet Lesson #2: breathing marks and ζ η θ ι

Learn the Ancient Greek alphabet in Lucian Pronunciation in 5 lessons with this series. In part 2, we discuss breathing marks. Then we learn 4 more letters, ζ η θ and ι.

It is beyond the scope of this video to make a full discussion of the issue of printing smooth breathing marks. They are a hindrance to reading and a serious accessibility issue for vision-impaired and dyslexic readers. The writing system has undergone many changes throughout its long history including the addition of spaces, capitalisation, and punctuation for better readability in modern texts; the removal of the tiny, meaningingless, and visibly detrimental smooth breathing mark is a natural extension of this trend towards making modern print texts more readable for humans.

If you want to remove or add back smooth breathing marks with no loss of information either way, you can use this free online tool: https://www.remove-smooth-breathing.com/

📚 Study all the letters, syllables, and words we practiced in Alphabet Lesson #1 here at this free Quizlet List, with audio and pictures: https://quizlet.com/au/500216914/less...

I use the Lucian pronunciation, which is a historical reconstruction of Ancient Greek phonology from the time of the Roman Empire that preserves pitch accent and syllable quantity. For more information about Lucian Koine pronunciation and its historicity, click here:    • Lucian Pronunciation of Ancient Greek...  

I do not write the smooth breathing mark in my orthography of Ancient Greek. This is to give it greater contrast against the almost-identical looking rough breathing mark. Removing the smooth breathing enables the rough breathing mark to become more discernible to all sighted humans - with varying degrees of vision impairments - and at lower screen resolutions and smaller font sizes, in all lighting conditions.

🦚 If you'd like to support the creation of more Latin and Ancient Greek content (with target language subtitles!), consider supporting my work at Patreon:   / foundinantiquity  

👕 I also have a merch shop! https://www.spreadshirt.com/shop/user...

0:00 Learning intentions
0:14 A tip for recognising letters
0:42 Smooth and rough breathing marks
1:19 Problems with smooth breathing mark
3:00 Practice recognising breathing marks
4:35 Learn the letters ζ η θ ι
8:35 Practice saying syllables
13:39 Sound out a full word (αγαθή)