α)
You should take care to pronounce a word where an accent is, regardless of
the breathing mark. E.g.
ἀτὰρis
pronounced ata/r : you stress
άρ,
the ultima, final, syllable, and not
ἀτ
despite of the breathing mark.
β)
In any case a smooth breathing mark is not pronounced -
just
like in
ἀτὰρ
above.
γ)
A rough breathing mark sounds like the English h (as in hypothesis).
Words starting with ypsilon (ὕψιλον)
always bear a rough breathing mark.
Recall English words borrowed from Greek that start with h- (e.g. hybrid,
hydraulic, hypothesis, etc. This h before the y is precisely the Greek rough
breathing mark, while y is precisely the Greek ypsilon - In French y is
called y graecum, in German is called ypsilon, just like in
Greek). * Note the word υἱός
(son) which has always the breathing mark on the ι
and not on the υ.
δ)
In modern Greek none of the breathing marks is pronounced.
I don't care
if you ignore them both in pronunciation, but you should learn to write and
discern them, because they are useful or sometimes necessary in
determining the meaning of words. The same is true with circumflex and
the accents. A circumflex denotes a long sound. Don't bother to find out
exactly how longer
ῶ
should be pronounced compared with
ό.
Pronounce it as longer as it sounds good to your ears! But you should
write and recognise the accents.
E.g. see how
meaning changes according to the accentuation of just a single letter
ἡ
= "the" (feminine article, singular, first person)
ἢ
= "or" or "than"
ἦ
= "indeed", "as" ...,
etc!
Of course,
there is also the context, but you won't be able always to rely on
the context in order to understand the meaning of a word.
