Re: pronounce iota subscript or not?

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Jan 07 1998 - 06:39:00 EST


At 9:45 PM -0600 1/6/98, Rachelsj wrote:
>Do you pronounce the iota subscript or not? Does it form the some sort of
>diphthong?
>Jason Rachels

The iota subscript was neither pronounced nor written in Greek texts of the
period of the NT; in fact, it was invented as a subscript to show where a
following iota once had been part of a long-vowel diphthong. I think its
primary value is to assist in distinguishing some forms like dative
singulars of the first and second declensions and subjunctive 3rd sg (it
would appear that in the NT era -EI and -H(i) were pronounced identically.
So far as I know, the iota that is conventionally written as a subscript
under A, H, and W has in recent decades by some editors been printed as an
"adscript" in 5th century and earlier texts with the intent that these
long-vowel diphthongs should actually be read as such. This is the case,
for instance with Denys Page's Oxford Classical Text of Aeschylus. But I
know of no conventional pronunciation of Biblical Greek that sounds an iota
subscript.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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