Orthoepy is the study of pronunciation of a particular language, within a specific oral tradition. The term is from the Greek ὀρθοέπεια, from ὀρθός ''orthos'' ("correct") and ἔπος ''epos'' ("speech"). The antonym is '':wikt:cacoepy, cacoepy'' "bad or wrong pronunciation". The pronunciation of the word ''orthoepy'' itself varies widely; the OED recognizes the variants , , , and for British English, as well as for American English. The pronunciation is sometimes clarified with a diaeresis (diacritic), diaeresis: ''orthoëpy'', such as in the title of Edward Barrett Warman's ''Warman's Practical Orthoëpy and Critique'', published in 1888 and found in Google Books. Warman states on page 5: "Words possess three special characteristics: They have their Eye-life - Orthography; Ear-life - Orthoëpy; Soul-life - Significance." As with Warman's book, the purpose of this article is "to deal exclusively with the ear-life, or orthoëpy.

Overview

In English grammar, orthoepy is the study of correct pronunciation prescribed for Standard English. This originally was understood to mean Received Pronunciation specifically, but other standards have emerged and been accepted since the early 20th century (e.g., General American, General Australian). In ancient Greek, ὀρθοέπεια ''orthoepeia'' had the wider sense of "correct poetic diction, diction" (cf. A Greek-English Lexicon, LSJ ad loc., or the etymology in the OED), referencing correct pronunciation not just of individual words but also of entire passages, especially poetry, along with the distinction of good poetry vs. bad poetry. The archaic English term for this subject is orthology, and in this sense its opposite is ''solecism''. The study of orthoepeia by the Ancient Greece, Greek sophists of the 5th century BCE, especially Prodicus (c. 396 BCE) and Protagoras, also included proto-logical concepts. Protagoras criticized Homer for making the word for "wikt:wrath, wrath" feminine (Aristotle, ''Sophistic Refutations'' 14) and for praying to the Muse with an imperative (Aristotle, ''Poetics'' 19). Plato depicts Protagoras criticizing the poet Simonides of Ceos, Simonides for contradicting himself, and then shows Socrates and Prodicus arguing to the contrary that Protagoras has conflated the senses of the words "wikt:be, be" and "wikt:become, become" (Protagoras (dialogue), ''Protagoras'' 339a-340c). Aristophanes, in his comedy ''The Frogs'', parodies such disputes by having Euripides and Aeschylus bicker over ''orthotes epeon''. Between the two poets Dionysus states in lines 1180-1181: «ἴθι δὴ λέγ᾽: οὐ γάρ μοὔστιν ἀλλ᾽ ἀκουστέα τῶν σῶν προλόγων τῆς ὀρθότητος τῶν ἐπῶν.» Translated "correctness of diction" in Perseus: "Speak, come on. For I cannot but hear the correctness of your prologue's diction."

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Sociolinguistics {{phonetics-stub

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