[noemon]

Hi again! I am happy to go onto a video call with you, screen share, and show you myself logged into my Philoglossos account on YouTube, if you are so certain I am lying lol. Luke and I do both speak Japanese - he was stationed there while serving in the US military, while I have studied it in university and lived there for a little over a year in total. What's so funny is that I can completely see why you might think we're the same person not knowing that he just isn't the sort to use sock puppets and not knowing who I am, but the fact remains that we are two different people, and as I mentioned, this is very easy to prove.

No problem, I believe you. It's also not relevant to our topic, so we can leave this on the side and move on.
I have considered of potentially having this debate over a video or zoom as that makes things a lot more simple phonetically and prevents the confusion resulting from the text. I'm not very good at making videos but I think this is something to consider.

I very deliberately won't discuss any of the Greek or Latin historical evidence here, because I think it's impossible for us to have that conversation now via text in a productive way, and because there are fundamental differences in our opinions of what language is and how it works that must be resolved first. We really will have to start from our respective claims about phonology in general to get anywhere.

In particular, I think we need to start with this issue of p, f, b and v - this is a very interesting disagreement, and if we can resolve it, I think it is the key to moving forwards. In order to resolve this issue, we have to both understand each others' reasons for believing what we believe about these sounds. I think I know why you believe what you do about them, but I am quite possibly mistaken. I do not think you understand my reasons for believing what I believe about these sounds - my assumption is you think my view is driven by ideology or orthodoxy, but once again, I may be completely wrong. So, to resolve this, I will first summarize what I think you believe about p, f, b and v as well as what I believe your reasons to be - not to put words in your mouth or erect a strawman, but so that you can correct me if I do not understand your position. Similarly, I will in my next response summarize my own view, and I hope you will make the effort to understand it from my perspective, even if you don't accept it as true.

1) As you've stated above, you believe that /v/ is softer (more lenited) than /p/, and that /f/ in turn is softer (more lenited) than /v/. You believe that this means that it is impossible for /p/ to develop into /f/ without first developing into /v/, and you believe that the difference between these sounds is primarily the amount of air being expelled - v involves expelling more air than p, and f involves expelling more air than p. Thus, you believe that lenition (softening) is a process whereby more air is expelled while creating the sound. Furthermore, you believe that /b/ is a sound is a combination of a nasal sound /n/ or /m/ with the sound /p/.

2) You believe the above for the following reasons:

a) You believe, for all of the reasons you have given elsewhere, that at the time of the descriptions of π β φ provided to us by Greek grammarians, that they were pronounced as they are today.

b) Ancient grammarians describe β as between π and φ, and you take this as an accurate observation for the sounds /p/ /v/ /f/

c) It makes intuitive sense to you that /p/ should turn into /v/, and then /v/ into /f/

d) It makes intuitive sense to you that the sound /b/ is a combination of /n/ or /m/ plus /p/

So to summarize, as far as I can tell, your position specifically regarding this issue is completely based on what makes intuitive sense to you, and the statements of the ancient grammarians. Once again, I am not trying to put words into your mouth - please correct or elaborate on my understanding of your view if necessary. After that, I will elaborate on my view.

Yes, I agree with all this. And this is a point I have made to you and Farya a couple of times. That sounds do not come out of logic pro and that people of different phonetic traditions have distinct aesthetic vagaries. It is also one more reason as to why Greek ought to be taught by Greeks just like Japanese is taught by Japanese and Chinese by the Chinese. Luke and the neo-Erasmians tell people to literally ignore the Greeks when learning Greek. I am assuming you agree with such a statement. I also want to add that ancient grammarians like Halicarnaseus goes a bit further in his description of these sounds and literally tells us word for word the exact same thing wiki tells us in its article of obstruents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruent

All these sounds are obstruents. The three plosive sounds: k,t,p weaken to fricatives velar k->gh->ch, dental t->th->th, labial p->v->f depending on the stricture of the air. Halicarnaseus literally tells us the exact same thing when he describes the mesa and dasea letters(artirias ypichousis to pneumati), which really puts the nail on the head as it does not actually permit any other kind or type of interpretation.

In the neo-Erasmian theory, where no fricatives are accepted for Classical Athenian Greek and only plosives are theorised the whole body of ancient Greek grammarians telling us how to use obstruency to get these fricatives, gets discarded along with all their phonetic categories.

Finally, there's the issue of the Japanese word ビデオ. I hear the initial sound as basically identical to /b/, and quite different from /v/. Both your and my language distinguish the sounds /b/ and /v/ at the beginnings of words, though I will point out, this sound is fairly rare in Greek compared to English, and it alternates with /mb/. My hypothesis is that maybe it is this expectation of a nasal component which affects your perception of the Japanese sound. I'm happy to elaborate more on this when I describe my view of the preceding issue, but fundamentally, /b/ is not a combination of /m/ and /p/ - this is clear, because languages like english fully distinguish /b/, /mb/ and /mp/. For instance, we have words like 'amp' (not pronounced 'amb'), and we distinguish 'ambi' as in 'ambidexterous' from 'abbey', or 'zombie' and 'swampy'. A telltale sign of a Greek accent in English is the inability to distinguish /mb/, /mp/ and /b/.

It could be, but I doubt it has to do with my Greekness because a) same applies in Greek, .ie we have both mp=b and mp=em-pi, though the mp=b is the more regular phenomenon and I have been living in the UK for 21 years and counting. So not only I no longer have a Greek accent on me, but Greeks distinguish naturally mp=b and mp=mp as they have a plethora of words where both are the case.

What /b/ is fundamentally, is the exact same sound as /p/, but with the vocal chords vibrating as the sound is produced. There doesn't need to be a nasal component to it whatsoever.

I totally disagree with this claim, we can argue about the nuances of Japanese /β and Greek /β being slightly different, but you can not argue that they are not both fricatives which is really the actual crux of our argument. You can call it nasal component or chord vibration(which results from air stricture as I keep harping about), fact remains that the Japanese lenited b is a fricative and not a plosive, regardless of what you or other people hear. Our argument is whether Greek B was a fricative(which is what I argue) or a plosive(which is what you argue). You used Japanese as an example of a language that does not have(or rather never ever had) a fricative /v between its plosive /p and fricative /f. But it does, not only sometime in the past like Chinese, but also in the present day.

Even though the nasal component is irrelevant to the crux of the argument, it is however interesting so...think of the sound BOOM. To build the explosion before you speak it you lock your mouth with the nasal m, there is absolutely no way you can pronounce the b without first placing your mouth into the m position, effectively your mouth builds mmmmmmboom even if the m is silent.

Similar thing applies to doom. There is an inherent n in doom, regardless if it is sounded or not. Positionally the mouth assumes the n position before speaking doom regardless if the n is heard or not.

Take also the word for angel. The real word is merely en-kalo, n+k = gk, so the 2 words en+kal become an+kel, the vowels swap(metathesis) and the combined n+k starts merging into a 'ngk'(goo) sound represented with a double Loggu Λογγou to precisely mark the occasion and distinguish it from single γ(.ie lacking an 'n'). The n transforms into a γαμμα to inform the reader of the transition so when you see double gammas you know that they are nk's original n+kous written often as Angous and pronounced as Angkous=Angkel=Angel=Angle but with a silent n like prologue sounds in English. In the general sense of gk, the n position is not required in the mouth to get to g as it is required for doom and boom but in this example of aggelos=angel=angkel it is required to go there first because you [are supposed to] know you are saying en-kalo and not agk.

But to confirm, here's some more examples of this sound in Japanese - I recommend setting the video speed to 0.5x - I will really be surprised if an unbiased listener whose native language distinguishes /b/ and /v/ hears anything but a clear /b/ sound:

Sure in these videos I can hear more of a /b than a /v, but in your first link of 4 examples of 'video', in all 4 I can hear /v, not /b. I played it to my wife who agreed with me. I'll play it for some friends too, Italians and Portuguese and see what they hear later today when they come see me.

Let me put it this way: if you showed these videos to any linguist who has worked on ancient Greek and describes the sound of β as /b/ in the Classical period whether the sound used in the above videos is correct for that sound, I think they'd all say 'yes'. Even if you found an example with more lenition where the sound is more like a bilabial fricative, I think nobody would insist that was categorically wrong for ancient Greek.

Why would anyone even consider? let alone believe that in Classical Athens the letter B sounded like a /b?

Based on what?

None of the Erasmians ever replies to this simple question. Not only where is your evidence, which I know there is none, but where is a little something, a little cheese to even point towards that? As far as I know there is absolutely nothing at all. Just, it was /b because it's /b in Romance and English/German and that makes it "kewl" for us Anglo-Romance speakers, means we don't have to train ourselves to speak v whenever we see a B when we read Greek or Latin anymore.

3) I do not perceive any audible similarity between "p" and "f" sounds. "f" and "v"?

Audibly yes you have a point and hence why 'Bini et vini' is certainly 'vini et wini'. Because b or p do not fit anywhere in this equation, audibly.

Yet, they are all spoken from the lips. B, P, V, F are all labials, though one can easily make the case that b and p are one set of pure labials and v and f another set of labiodentals as you need the addition of the teeth to play a little part to get to v and f. Consider "The pram goes vrooom". Bram, Pram, Vram, Fram. or Boom, Poom, Voom, Foom.
D, T, TH(/δ), TH(/θ) are all dentals and G, K, GH(/γ), CH(/χ) are all velars. Effectively they are simply variations of each other and the one and only variable is air either obstructed or exploded through the nose for the ultra-plosives, g, d, b or both.

Velars: for 'Can eat gum' 'can eat yam' 'can eat ham'

Dentals:

Theo thought this dot. Tio Θot Δis Ντοτ.

T, Δ, Θ, ΝΤ.

Lastly, think of pater & father, see how sharp plosive /p turns into a soft fricative /f and sharp /t turns into a soft /th. Same with mater, mother, broder->brother.

In Gaelic, words starting with a p or even b turn into an audible v.:

/p/ → /v/ bog /pok/ "soft" → glé bhog /kleː vok/ "very soft"

B,P,V,F = labial continuum.
D,T,TH,TH = dental continuum.
G,K,GH,CH = velar continuum.

Lenition which is a process of softening to make something more sonorous(sweeter in the ears and mouth of the beholder) is a huge part of linguistics globally. Every single language follows largely similar rules among the labial, velar and dental consonants. The difference between these sounds is more often than not represented by different letters as well. .ie f is not a bloody p as the Erasmians claim for Greek. If the Greeks wanted to write p where they wrote f, they could just write p instead of having 2 p's(p and f for /p) and no f as Philoglossos and Luke claim.

What Luke and Philoglossos claim is the following:

Athenians alone between the 5th and 4th BCE had:

2 pi's: p and f, and no f and no v sounds
2 ti's(t and θ), 2 di's(nt & d), and no theta /θ sound and no delta /δ sound.
2 ki's(k and χ), and no hi(/χ) or γαμμα sound.

From 9 consonantal sounds + 3 for the(diphthongs mp/b,nd/d,ng/g) = 12 consonant sounds of ancient and modern Greek letters, they have kept only 6 sounds instead(k,g, t,d, p,b) and have effectively removed half of the phonetic inventory. Greek has 6 plosive phonemes and 6 fricative phonemes made out of 9 letters. They have deleted all the fricative phonemes.

In even more simple terms, their claim means that modern Greek is a far superior phonetic dialect than classical Athenian, while at the same time mocking it in the same breath.

The curious thing is that they speak of this inferiority of phonetic skill applied only to the Athenians and even more particularly only to the Athenians of the 5thBCE-4thBCE.

They claim that Greek words like: phone, photo, philosophy, philoglossos are all supposed to be: pone(instead of phone), poto(instead of photo), pilosopy, piloglosos, etcetera. There is absolutely nothing cringier than hearing these people speak their Greeklish, but the worst part is that they actually mock the real Greek people as ignorant of Greek, they openly tell people to avoid speaking to Greeks when learning Greek because they will be tainted by the fallacies of the Greeks and they openly insult any Greek person that speaks up on this subject. This is one of the biggest wtf's in history. It is even curiouser that this is still ongoing in this day and age of. While they refers to the majority of western "classic" departments and the various youtuber supporting acts.

But why do they even bother arguing, let alone thinking of such nonsense? Because if they don't, then they will have to actually learn ancient Latin and Greek pronounciation and not simply use Anglo-German sounds when reading ancient texts as they have historically been doing.

So for them, it is merely a case, of turning the entire world upside down so they do not have to actually learn how to pronounce these languages and so that they can feel "superior" by having their own modern languages "equated" with ancient Greek, Latin and PIE.

For all these people, it is a case of B = /b because it is so in English dammit. And no barbarian Greek dude is going to tell me how to pronounce the Greek I'm reading, I will pronounce it like a proper Englishman and that's that.

[Saeko]

Even though the nasal component is irrelevant to the crux of the argument, it is however interesting so...think of the sound BOOM. To build the explosion before you speak it you lock your mouth with the nasal m, there is absolutely no way you can pronounce the b without first placing your mouth into the m position, effectively your mouth builds mmmmmmboom even if the m is silent.

I don't agree. When I say a word beginning with an "m", my lips are pressed tightly together and air flows through my nose. When I say a word like "boom", however, they touch only lightly and there is no air flow through my nose.

Similar thing applies to doom. There is an inherent n in doom, regardless if it is sounded or not. Positionally the mouth assumes the n position before speaking doom regardless if the n is heard or not.

Again, a similar issue. When I say a word beginning with an "n", the tip of my tongue is pressed flat against my alveolar ridge and, again, there is air flow through my nose. When I say a word beginning with a "d" like "doom", the tip of my tongue just barely touches my alveolar ridge and there is no air flow through my nose.

'Can eat gum' 'can eat yam' 'can eat ham'

In Enlgish, the "h" in "ham" is not a velar sound, but a glottal one.

Theo thought this dot. Tio Θot Δis Ντοτ.

T, Δ, Θ, ΝΤ.

There should definitely be no "n" of any kind in the word "dot".

[noemon]

There should be no audible m or n, but the tongue goes to m or n regardless in doom and in boom.

It is not physically possible for any human to pronounce boom or doom without placing their tongues at position m and position n respectively.

The amount of air(0 maybe up to 1%-5/%) that is pushed out depends on the user's oral tradition(the more air the more audible the m and n become), but the positioning of the tongue is global. You can x-ray the mouth and see it it.

In modern Greek, when people pronounce antras=adras, there is no audible n sounded, just a pure d. Same goes for mp=b, there is no audible m there either, just a pure /b as thick as bread and butter.

So the diphtongs mp=b and nt=d as fully fused single audible sound are quite strong, there are however lots of exceptions where it's pronounced as read .ie as em-pi not /b and also cases of audible m + b, in this particular order. With non-audible m /b being the standard way of teaching and the rest being taught as exceptions.

Exactly the same applies for nt=d.

When you learn Greek, you are taught nt =/= n + t but equals = d instead and mp=b =/= m+p.

[Saeko]

There should be no audible m or n, but the tongue goes to m or n regardless in doom and in boom.

It is not physically possible for any human to pronounce boom or doom without placing their tongues at position m and position n respectively.

The amount of air(0 maybe up to 1%-5/%) that is pushed out depends on the user's oral tradition(the more air the more audible the m and n become), but the positioning of the tongue is global. You can x-ray the mouth and see it it.

In modern Greek, when people pronounce antras=adras, there is no audible n sounded, just a pure d. Same goes for mp=b, there is no audible m there either, just a pure /b as thick as bread and butter.

I don't agree. When I say an "n" the position of my tongue is slightly different from when I say a "d". Similarly for "m" and "b" with regard to the lips. But the key aspect of physical articulation that makes an "m" or an "n" sound is nasal air flow, not simply the amount of air flow and/or tongue/lip pacement.

To illustrate what I mean, consider the words "bob" an "bomb". When I say them, in the first case, there is zero nasal air flow and my lips just lightly touch while my vocal cords vibrate when I produce the "b" sounds. In the second case, at the end of the word, my lips are pressed more tightly together and air flows through my nose as I say the "m", then my lip tension decreases, nasal air flow stops completely, vocal cords continue to vibrate, and then my lips open when I produce the "b".

I just looked up modern Greek phonology:

Voiced stops are prenasalised (which is reflected in the orthography) to varying extents, and sometimes not at all.[6] The nasal component—when present—does not increase the duration of the stop's closure; as such, prenasalised voiced stops would be most accurately transcribed [ᵐb ⁿd ᵑɡ] or [m͡b, n͡d, ŋ͡ɡ], depending on the length of the nasal component.[6] Word-initially and after /r/ or /l/, they are very rarely, if ever, prenasalised.[1][4] In rapid and casual speech, prenasalisation is generally rarer, and voiced stops may be lenited to fricatives.[4] That also accounts for Greeks having trouble disambiguating voiced stops, nasalised voiced stops, and nasalised voiceless stops in borrowings and names from foreign languages such as, d, nd, and nt, which are all written ντ in Greek.

Prenasalization does not occur in English speech at all.

[noemon]

The Greek nasalisation is described in my post:

In modern Greek, when people pronounce antras=adras, there is no audible n sounded, just a pure d. Same goes for mp=b, there is no audible m there either, just a pure /b as thick as bread and butter.

So the diphtongs mp=b and nt=d as fully fused single audible sound are quite strong, there are however lots of exceptions where it's pronounced as read .ie as em-pi not /b and also cases of audible m + b, in this particular order. With non-audible m /b being the standard way of teaching and the rest being taught as exceptions.

Exactly the same applies for nt=d.

When you learn Greek, you are taught nt =/= n + t but equals = d instead and mp=b =/= m+p.

All this is clearly very natural for a language lacking dedicated d,b and g letters. As they are all built with diphtongs nt, mp, mb, nk,ngk and therefore nasalisation, either existent or wiped out into silent m, n, h, etcetera as in the majority of cases nasalisation does not happen at all, even when reading nt=doctor, ng=Angus, mp=bravo.

To illustrate what I mean, consider the words "bob" an "bomb". When I say them, in the first case, there is zero nasal air flow and my lips just lightly touch while my vocal cords vibrate when I produce the "b" sounds. In the second case, at the end of the word, my lips are pressed more tightly together and air flows through my nose as I say the "m", then my lip tension decreases, nasal air flow stops completely, vocal cords continue to vibrate, and then my lips open when I produce the "b".

Absolutely, this happens because in bomb you actually pronounce the m, while in bob you don't.

And to speak the m you need to actually push air out your nostrils. But your mouth and tongues are at the exact same positions when saying both bob and bomb, the only difference being the air released to make m audible.

Also I'm not sure why you highlighted that last part for me? Are you concerned I am not aware of me ndi's, di's, nti's and tis?

This is what you should have bolded instead, modern Greeks do not prenasalise their bi's:

Word-initially and after /r/ or /l/, they are very rarely, if ever, prenasalised.[1][4] In rapid and casual speech, prenasalisation is generally rarer, and voiced stops may be lenited to fricatives.[4]

And more to his point they have no issue using, speaking, or hearing nt=nd=d and mp=mb=b as all these variations are totally abundant natively and the non-nasal one is the pre-eminent one as well for both d and b. A natural result of Greek orthography. They can confuse foreign words with the same letters transliterated in Greek, obviously, if they are not aware of the foreign words proper pronounciation in its country of origin they will not know how to render it as they should, don't see why you think that's relevant here?

Their ears and mouths are very well capable of speaking and hearing all these variations both nasally and non-nasally at all four steps again. All these variations are very regular in Greek.

Basically all consonantal letters and sounds in Greek can be seen as in that matrix I posted earlier, 3 steps for each of them k, t, p to get 2 soft forms from each plosive, κ-> /γ-> /χ, τ-> /δ -> /θ, π-> /β -> /φ.

And practice:
kou, ghou(γου), hou(χου),
pou, vou, fou,
tou, thou(δου), thu(θου).

This is how Greeks learn to speak Greek since the antiquity as that is also how Halicarnaseus explicitly places the letters and sounds of Greek as well. This is the point after all. Modern Greek learning of letters is identical to Halicarnaseus way of learning Greek, quite literally.

[Saeko]

@noemon I highlighted those parts because I suspect that many of your voiced stops are prenasalized, whereas none of mine are. That's why you think there is some kind of unvoiced "m" in "bob". That is, your brain interprets the word "bob" as "mbomb" (or maybe "bomb" if you are able to distinguished prenasalized and ordinary "b" only at the beginnings of words) with unvoiced m's of some sort.

My brain doesn't do that, as evidenced by the fact that this is the first time in my life I have ever heard of the idea that there might be an "m" of any kind in the word "bob" or that a "b" has some kind of "m" in it (audible or otherwise).

Let me try to explain that again. For a native English speaker, the thing that makes an "m" sound an "m" sound is nasal air flow. If there is no nasal air flow then there is simply no "m" of any kind regardless of how the lips or tongue are placed or how much or how little voicing or air flow through the mouth there may be. If I try to pronounce the word "mom" with no nasal air flow, then what I hear myself say is the word "bob".

Now, in English, /b/ /d/ and /g/ are just the voiced versions of unaspirated /p/ /t/ and /k/, respectively, involving no nasal air flow. It seems to me that, in modern Greek, /b/ /d/ and /g/ are not only the voiced versions of /p/ /t/ and /k/ but must also be prenasalized at least in some cases. That's why I think you perceive some sort of "m" in the sounds /b/ /d/ and /g/ while I don't.

[noemon]

@noemon I highlighted those parts because I suspect that many of your voiced stops are prenasalized, whereas none of mine are. That's why you think there is some kind of unvoiced "m" in "bob". That is, your brain interprets the word "bob" as "mbomb" (or maybe "bomb" if you are able to distinguished prenasalized and ordinary "b" only at the beginnings of words) with unvoiced m's of some sort.

My brain doesn't do that, as evidenced by the fact that this is the first time in my life I have ever heard of the idea that there might be an "m" of any kind in the word "bob" or that a "b" has some kind of "m" in it (audible or otherwise).

Let me try to explain that again. For a native English speaker, the thing that makes an "m" sound an "m" sound is nasal air flow. If there is no nasal air flow then there is simply no "m" of any kind regardless of how the lips or tongue are placed or how much or how little voicing or air flow through the mouth there may be. If I try to pronounce the word "mom" with no nasal air flow, then what I hear myself say is the word "bob".

Now, in English, /b/ /d/ and /g/ are just the voiced versions of unaspirated /p/ /t/ and /k/, respectively, involving no nasal air flow. It seems to me that, in modern Greek, /b/ /d/ and /g/ are not only the voiced versions of /p/ /t/ and /k/ but must also be prenasalized at least in some cases. That's why I think you perceive some sort of "m" in the sounds /b/ /d/ and /g/ while I don't.

Problem is that your understanding of Greek is a lot more limited than my understanding of English and Latin and Italian and German.

Your suspicion is incorrect, as modern Greeks as a general practice do not pre-nasalise their bi's which is written mpis as they are is no b letter in Greek.

So the reason is orthography not phonetics as my brain interprets the mp=b because that obviously is the only way to express b in writing in Greek and that is also the proper way of interpretation when writing mp. So these are equated quite literally.

It is also the only way to express mp and mb. And these sounds are totally abundant in Greek so a Greek speaker has to be able to tell apart mp=b or mp=mp or mp=mb.

Same way you have to be able to tell apart, 'this' from 'thought' cause you lack dedicated letters for these sounds. Hence I keep telling you from very early on that Greek people are quite trained in both nasal and non-nasal forms.

Still does not change the fact that a mouth x-ray will show the mouth being in the exact same position when speaking all these variaties.

[noemon]

Same way you have to be able to tell apart, 'this' from 'thought' cause you lack dedicated letters for these sounds. Hence I keep telling you from very early on that Greek people are quite trained in both nasal and non-nasal forms.

In addition, the way you 're using h, to express lenited forms of t, /δ /θ, in this, that and thought, is also the same way that I propose the Athenians used th when they wrote the same prior to them adopting dedicated letters from the Ionians at 402 BCE and switching them matchingly going forward.

[noemon]

In Greek mythology, Bia Ancient Greek: Βία; "force, strength") is the personification of force. According to the preface to Fabulae by Gaius Julius Hyginus, Bia's Roman name was Vis.[1]

Greek Bia=Latin Vis.

In Greek Bia=Via and evidently in Classic Roman Latin too.

Also, modern english and others Bia=via=violence not biolence.

A word left unpolished by "experts" unlike say "biologia".

Both Bia=Vis=Violence and Biologia are written the same Bia(Βια=via)-Biologia(Βιολογια=viologia).

[noemon]

To illustrate what I mean, consider the words "bob" an "bomb". When I say them, in the first case, there is zero nasal air flow and my lips just lightly touch while my vocal cords vibrate when I produce the "b" sounds. In the second case, at the end of the word, my lips are pressed more tightly together and air flows through my nose as I say the "m", then my lip tension decreases, nasal air flow stops completely, vocal cords continue to vibrate, and then my lips open when I produce the "b".

Edit: I want to add some things on this argument, hopefully to make it crystal clear.

Absolutely, this happens because in bomb you actually pronounce the m, while in bob you don't.

And to speak the m you need to actually push air out your nostrils. But your mouth and tongues are at the exact same positions when saying both bob and bomb, the only difference being the air released to make m audible.

Edit: This is precisely the main actual point here. Because once you reduce the sounds of the letters down to categories with the only remaining variable being air, then you know that the m is real, when an ancient author is telling you that the m in bomb is separated by the non-m in bob because of air, then you know that he is referring to the same m you speak when you say bomb. People like Halicarnaseus did not speak in riddles and were not being cryptic, they were being as explicit as possible since their Grammarian efforts in the Library were all about teaching people how to speak Greek properly and setting the curriculum and content of courses in Attic prose, poetry, oratory, etcetera in the famous Library of Alexandria. When he says that k, g(γ), and h(χ) are all velars, all spoken from the same schema and location and their only difference is air from our lungs, then we know for a fact that he is refering to Greek g(γ) and not to English g, because only the Greek g(γ) is a velar lenited K, while the English g is in fact the DENTAL letter 'tz'. So, Halicarnaseus cannot be referring to English, Italian or German G as Luke and Philoglossos argue, he can only be referring to Greek γ, which is the airfull intermediate form of lenited K and when he says H(Χ), he says that it is the even more airfull letter of lenited k and g, like HAHA, HEHE, or like Heston Blumenthal. It is a "ch" as in Bach, which is the ACTUAL letter X(chi, pronounced he, like he/she/it, he, haha, hehe, hoho) in Greek.

This makes it plain obvious even to a layman, as the wiki article explains in detail that g as in gh, is the lentied form of k and velar h is the lenited form of gh and that the ONLY difference between these letters is the amount of air we let escape from our mouths which at the same time modulates the sound arteries(arterias ypichousin to pneumati)= the windpipe=the vocal chords. So both of these 2 things need to be true, air coming out of the windpipe while also modulating(yp-ichousin=under-echoing) the air to get the proper sound of the letter.

FULL=lots of air on the f, PULL equals very little air on the p, VULL equals intermediate air between p and f, that is more air than p and less air than f, which is on the dot according to ancient Greek grammarians and modern Greek pronounciation. Luke claims that f was a p, so how are /p and /p actually different in the release of air from our lungs that modulates the sounds? No sense there.

Luke claims that the word "pneuma" in Halicarnaseus's books refers to the /h accent as in horse, but the word pneuma is used for ALL the letters including letters such as M and N to denote the air coming out of your nostrils, so it cannot be referring to both air from your nostrils and to the /h from horse in the same sentence(literally).

This shows you quite conclusively that Luke and all these people are not only extremely ignorant, confused and uneducated, but it proves quite conclusively that they are also explicitly malicious as they can read from the original, all these things are in black and white to them.

Yet this issue has been going on since the 16th century when 2 English dudes decided that ancient Greek was more English than Greek, this theory is still doing the rounds in western academia after being ridiculed and revised many many times, all of its previous iterations have been proven wrong and now Luke is begging other scholars like Randal Buth to recognise his work on "Lucian", but they aren't. They just ignore him instead as from their conversation you can tell he is quite linguistically ignorant as shown in Buth's own counter argument of kenicht(.ie knight).

Luke is both uneducated on the subject he engages(he is after all a US pilot and not an ancient Greek or Latin intellectual) in and hence why he uses the positions of others(Sidney Allen) verbatim as well as why he only speaks on easy things. Luke struggles with people like Randall Buth and myself(people who genuinely know a lot more Greek and IE languages than he does), he is more of a one-way preacher youtuber.

Luke cannot really engage in a serious debate on this matter, he can only parrot and copy/paste pages from Sidney Allen whose arguments have all been destroyed in the first post in here quite conclusively and he has failed to come up with counter-arguments as parroting is not education, nor knowledge.