The Sounds

There is more than one system of pronunciation for Greek letters. However, the following is a standard system used by most New Testament Greek textbooks.

For vowels (α, ε, η, ι, ο, υ, ω), the sound can often be either long or short. At times the distinction will make almost no difference in meaning. At other times the distinction is important. In the following chart, if there is more than one sound given, the first is the short sound, the second the long.

alpha--like the a in father

beta--like the b in boy

gamma--like the g in girl (not the g in giraffe)

delta--like the d in duck

epsilon--like the e in pet (always short, the long sound is made by eta)

zeta--at the beginning of a word, like the z in zebra; in the middle, a "dz" sound as the ds in suds

eta--like the a in ate

theta--I will pronounce it like the th in thick, but originally more like the t-h combination when you say "sit here"

iota--like the i in pit (short) or the i in machine (long)

kappa--like the k in kit

lamda--like the l in like

mu--like the m in moon

nu--like the n in noon

xi--like the x in ax

omicron--like the o in obey (always short)

pi--like the p in poor

rho--like the r in row; at the beginning of a word it has an h in front of it, hrema

sigma--like the s in sea

tau--like the t in tea

upsilon-- I'll pronounce it like the oo in pool, but perhaps originally more like the German umlaut u

phi--I'll pronounce it like the ph in philosophy, but it was originally more like the p-h combination in "up hill"

chi--like the hard ch sound in the Scottish loch or the German ich. Try a strong k-h version of "brake hard"

psi--a ps sound like oops

omega--like the o in note (always long)

For exercises, try to identify the letters in Mark 1:1-8.