Attic Greek Long Alpha
This sound was not shown by a separate letter but by a rough breathing mark ἑ placed above the initial vowel of a word and pronounced before the vowel.
Attic greek long alpha. In the fifth century this was a true diphthong but the iota part of the sound weakened during the fourth century to a glide and then disappeared. Actually over time the language simplified as many languages do the the later koine is simpler than earlier attic. Ancient greek speakers tended to avoid pronouncing two different vowel sounds in a row.
Attic greek also had an h sound that only came at the beginning of some words. If attic greek is the horse and koine greek is the donkey well septuagint greek is something of a mule. Alpha long father short drama. Attic greek in school it is very easy to study koine or read the new testament.
In the attic dialect of greek long alpha is somewhat rare because of a historical change of aː to ɛː when not preceded by e i or r. The earliest written records in greek date from the 16th to 11th centuries bc and exist in an archaic writing system linear b belonging to the mycenaean greeks. Attic greek is the greek dialect of the ancient city state of athens of the ancient dialects it is the most similar to later greek and is the standard form of the language that is studied in ancient greek language courses attic greek is sometimes included in the ionic dialect together attic and ionic are the primary influences on modern greek. If two vowels came together they preferred either to pronounce the two vowels together as one sound called a diphthong greek for double sound or to contract the two vowels to form either a single long vowel or diphthong cf.
The α in the second syllable of ἁμαδρυάς is not preceded by one of those sounds so i m not sure how it could be long. This is a so called long diphthong because it is a combination of ᾱ and ι whereas αι combines ᾰ and ι the recommended pronunciation reflects postclassical practice. Two vowels in a row.