The old Greek language spoken way back in Plato's time. Since the 16th century Modern Greek is spoken by virtually everyone in Greece. Phonetically, Classic Greek would sound rather alien to contemporary Greeks, but don't ever say this to them! It is an issue that most Greeks, even educated ones, ignore. It is probably because the Greek alpahabet has remained the same, so Greeks can read classic texts with no trouble (pronouncing in Modern Greek). After all, it all looks Greek to them! If any (non-Greek) scholar attempts to pronounce classic text in the reconstructed pronunciation, that, to Greeks is tantamount to sacrilege.

Probably nobody can reproduce exactly the Classic Greek pronunciation, not only because as native speakers of this or that language we necessarily carry over our native phonology, but also because the Classic Greek pronunciation used pitch to differentiate vowels in words, while all modern European languages (including Modern Greek) use stress instead.

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