How did the language spoken by the ancient Greeks sound? How much and in what ways did it differ from the way we read it today? How right was Erasmus when he suggested a different way of pronouncing it? How are foreigners taught to pronounce Ancient Greek?

The particularly successful book by W. Sidney Allen invites the reader to follow him in the fascinating attempt to restore a pronunciation that has not been heard for centuries, providing them with all the relevant testimonies and evidence, as well as enlightening parallels from other languages, not only related Indo-European ones but also from the Far East and Africa.

The result is a brief yet comprehensive introduction to the phonetics of Ancient Greek, which includes an extensive chapter with radical views on the ancient stress of words. Although it primarily addresses the classical philologist and the historical linguist, the author does not overlook the average reader interested in the evolution of Greek from its Indo-European beginnings to the present day, and particularly focuses on one of its most splendid forms, the Attic of the fifth century BC.

W. Sidney Allen, who has served as a professor of historical-comparative linguistics at the University of Cambridge, has worked on works such as "Vox Latina," "Phonetics in Ancient India," and "Accent and Rhythm."