accents
Posted: October 16th, 2011, 1:52 am
I can't remember who I heard what from, but I hear/read that the three accent marks used to indicate the pitch of the voice. But then I heard that by the Koine time that this then switched to just putting stress on one of the syllables, exactly the way English words are pronounced, no matter what accent is over the syllable. I also heard from someone somewhere that only the acute and circumflex became a stress indicator while the grave meant nothing and could just be ignored. I also heard that all three accents don't mean anything, and for all I can remember, I might have also been told that only the acute indicates stress, while both acute AND circumflex signify nothing.
So which one is it? One thing I do know with confidence is that since the ancient world was primarily oral instead of written, that when they wrote they would write based on what they heard. So if our standard editions of the Greek New Testament contain all three accents in them (and since these editions are intended to reflect what the original manuscripts said), then does this mean that the Greek NT still used the same system of pitch that Classical and earlier Greek had? If not, then why do our standard Greek NTs have them? Why not have just a little apostrophe marker to indicate the stressed syllable like what English dictionaries use, or something like that?
So which one is it? One thing I do know with confidence is that since the ancient world was primarily oral instead of written, that when they wrote they would write based on what they heard. So if our standard editions of the Greek New Testament contain all three accents in them (and since these editions are intended to reflect what the original manuscripts said), then does this mean that the Greek NT still used the same system of pitch that Classical and earlier Greek had? If not, then why do our standard Greek NTs have them? Why not have just a little apostrophe marker to indicate the stressed syllable like what English dictionaries use, or something like that?