Overview of various Greek Pronunciation systems

Is vocalizing the Greek words and sentences important? If so, how should Greek be pronounced (what arguments can be made for one pronunciation over another or others?) How can I write Greek characters clearly and legibly?
cwconrad
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Re: Overview of various Greek Pronunciation systems

Post by cwconrad »

Jonathan Robie wrote:Turns out Wikisource has Dialogus de recta latini graecique sermonis pronuntiatione, by Erasmus. Attached as PDF. I don't know Latin, so I can't read it.

Anyone know where to find Reuchlin?
It's not really true, is it, that Luther wrote a refutation of Erasmus' account entitled Dialogus de sinistra latini graecique sermonis pronuntiatione? :D
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Paul-Nitz
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Re: Overview of various Greek Pronunciation systems

Post by Paul-Nitz »

It's my understanding that Reuchlin's work has the same title: Dialogus de Recta Lat. Graecique Serm. Pron.

I searched hard for it yesterday, but came up with naught all. Oddly, it is listed here as one of the great classics:
http://www.foreignlanguageexpertise.com ... books.html
I was more interested in finding Reuchlin's primers on Greek, but again no luck.

Reuchlin is called the father of Hebrew studies among Christians. See this 34 page essay from the year 1896.
https://archive.org/stream/bookofessays ... 6/mode/2up
Paul D. Nitz - Lilongwe Malawi
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Overview of various Greek Pronunciation systems

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Alexey Gubanov wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:Does the pronunciation system you are familiar with have any of those features?
Thank you, Stephen. I've read about it. But haven't coded it yet in editor.
If you are working on voice recognition software for your editor, there are a lot of subtle, but real changes that happen across word boundaries with the Modern Greek pronunciation, that are probably less common in the simplified / contrived Erasmian system. It may be better to have the basics of the recognition data in the editor, and to let the user train the software to recognise their own style of reading, and then check that with a reference dictionary. That would be more fun than writing.

If you are only working on keyboard entry, then it doesn't matter what pronunciation system you (or anyone else) are using.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Overview of various Greek Pronunciation systems

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Robertson's grammar mentions all of these players and tells the story.
A.T.Robertson wrote:VI. Pronunciation in the Κοινή.

This is indeed a knotty problem and has been the occasion of fierce controversy. When the Byzantine scholars revived the study of Greek in Italy, they
introduced, of course, their own pronunciation as well as their own spelling. But English-speaking people know that spelling is not a safe guide in pronunciation, for the pronunciation may change very much when the spelling remains the same. Writing is originally an effort to represent the sound and is more or less
successful, but the comparison of Homer with modern Greek is a fruitful subject. Roger Bacon, as Reuchlin two centuries later, adopted the Byzantine pronunciation. Reuchlin, who introduced Greek to the further West, studied in Italy and passed on the Byzantine pronunciation. Erasmus is indirectly responsible for the current pronunciation of ancient Greek, for the Byzantine scholars pronounced ancient and modern alike. Jannaris quotes the story of Voss, a Dutch scholar (1577-1649), as to how Erasmus heard some learned Greeks pronounce Greek in a very different way from the Byzantine custom. Erasmus published a discussion between a lion and a bear entitled De Recta Latini Graecique sermonis pronuntiatione, which made such an impression that those who accepted the ideas advanced in this book were called Erasmians and the rest Reuchlinians.

As a matter of fact, however, Engel has shown that Erasmus merely wrote a literary squib to "take off" the new non-Byzantine pronunciation, though he was taken seriously by many. Dr. Caspar Rene Gregory writes me (May 6, 1912) : "The philologians were of course down on Engel and sided gladly with Blass. It was much easier to go on with the totally impossible pronunciation that they used than to change it." Cf. Engel, Die Aussprachen des Griechischen, 1887. In 1542 Stephen Gardiner, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, "issued an edict for his university, in which, e.g. it was categorically forbidden to distinguish at from ε, ει and οι from ι in pronunciation, under penalty of expulsion from the Senate, exclusion from the attainment of a degree, rustication for students, and domestic chastisement for boys!" though the continental pronunciation of Greek and Latin was "Erasmian," at Cambridge and Oxford the Reuchlinian influence prevailed, though with local modifications.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Alexey Gubanov
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Re: Overview of various Greek Pronunciation systems

Post by Alexey Gubanov »

Stephen Hughes wrote: If you are working on voice recognition software for your editor, there are a lot of subtle...
You have overestimated my humble facilities, Stephen. Of course it's not about voice recognition. It's a text editor yet, not a polygraph :).
Stephen Hughes wrote: If you are only working on keyboard entry, then it doesn't matter what pronunciation system you (or anyone else) are using.
Not certainly in that way. I'm really working on keyboard entry, but pronunciation system plays not a last role in that process. Let me show. Imagine you are a medieval Byzantine and your pronunciation will be called in the name of Reuchlin after 500 years. You want to write δῆμος. You pronounce it "dimos" - forget about Erasmus. But there are following variants for your ear (Reuchlin's homophones):

δῆμος
δίμος
δύμος
δείμος
δοίμος
δυίμος

Where is the right variant for "dimos"? Another brilliant word:

συνοίκησις

Pronounced as "sinikisis". What about the number of possible homophones?
συνοίκησις σινοίκησις σηνοίκησις σεινοίκησις σοινοίκησις συνίκησις συνείκησις συνοίκισις συνοίκεισις σινοίκεισις ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

I don't know what was the reason of itanism for byzantines, but welcome to the hell! Here we can see why Erasmian pronunciation is the better way for students: all this words sound in different manner there. After that I realized it is Reuchlin's pronunciation that needs autocomplete feature in the editor. So I decided to adapt the editor's dictionary for Reuchlin's pronunciation (it will take some time). It doesn't matter what you have typed - συνίκησις or συνείκησις or other 500 false variants - editor should suggest the right one. That's the idea.
Alexey Gubanov
Alexey Gubanov
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Re: Overview of various Greek Pronunciation systems

Post by Alexey Gubanov »

By the way I'm switching over to Reuchlin's pronunciation.
Alexey Gubanov
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