From: Glenn Cook (pule67@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Nov 10 2000 - 09:45:50 EST
Scholars on this list
Being a very little Greeker and not too smart, I have trouble understanding
all the fuss here. I am an audio reader and so have to hear a word when I
read it, even in English, so need some type of pronunciation for the words.
But! As the Koine pronunciation is dead and I will never go have a
conversation with a native Koine speaker, what difference does it make what
pronunciation I use? It would seem that trying to ascertain what the
original pronunciation was is impossible at this time, unless some of you
have audio recordings made during that period hidden away, and so we should
all just agree on a pronunciation and go from there. We will only be using
the pronunciation among ourselves anyway. Why is that so hard to do, even if
we agree on the modern pronunciation?
But then I am just a silly old man that is past worrying about being a
purest or prestige of scholarship and just happy to be able to set here and
read in my library and enjoy the written word. I am just happy that we have
these written records passed down to us from the past and wish we had more,
but also a realist enough to know that these writings and the scraps of
their lives that the archaeologists find for us is all we have. The audio is
gone. Sad but true, and all the work we do can only be a guess at what it
was. And as long as we take that approach different scholars will take
different guesses, all on deep scholarship, and we will always have these
differences of pronunciation.
There are not that many great Koine Greek scholars in the world. It would
seem that these could get together and agree on a pronunciation and we could
all follow, realizing it was not the true pronunciation. But a working one
that we could all use.
I love reading the posts on this list and have the greatest respect for your
scholarship, but sometimes wonder if ego is not taking over in some of these
arguments.
Now I will shut up with my ignorance and wait to be flamed.
Glenn Cook
P.O. Box 123
Aurora, Utah
84620
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
To: "Biblical Greek" <b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Cc: "Biblical Greek" <b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 2:01 PM
Subject: [b-greek] Re: A question about koine pronunciation
> At 1:20 PM -0600 11/9/00, Marilyn Phemister wrote:
> >Hi People,
> >
> >I have acquired Zodhiates' tapes of the Greek New Testament, which is
read
> >with a modern Greek pronunciation. I'm listening to it, but it will take
a
> >long time before I can understand it, I would rather have the
pronunciation
> >taught in textbooks for koine. It looks like I will have to make my own.
> >
> >There is one problem. There are some differences in how the
pronunciation
> >of koine is presented. I have the Parson's Greek tutor, which surprised
me
> >by treating the first letter in PNEUMA as a silent letter. Some
textbooks
> >don't help the student a bit with this, and one I found says that no
Greek
> >letters are silent. So I have been pronouncing the first letter of such
> >words as PNEUMA of PNEUMATOS. Leaving it silent seems to me like giving
> >Greek an English pronunciation. THEOS is pronounced with a break, like
> >THE-OS, which I have a difficult time accepting as correct.
> >
> >If I can learn the correct way of pronouncing "pneuma" and "theos" I
think
> >I will be ready to begin recording.
>
> I do have a somewhat irreverent and very pragmatic approach to this
> problem; the primary reason for vocalizing Ancient Greek is to add the
> aural reinforcement to the visual and intellectual recognition of words:
to
> HEAR a word one is becoming intimately familiar with contributes immensely
> to making it a concrete experience of physical reality, not just the
> printed symbol on the page. But to endeavor to attain THE SINGLE RIGHT
> pronunciation of ancient Greek is of some questionable degree of value. I
> personally think it's better to learn a pronunciation that distinguishes,
> where possible, the way that roughly similar consonants, vowels and
> diphthongs are pronounced. I believe it probable that the Greek of the era
> of the composition of the NT was pronounced much more like modern Greek
> than like any of the schemes offered for pronunciation of classical Attic,
> but the phenomenon of "itacism" has reduced U, I, EI, H, OI to a
> scarcely-distinguishable vowel sound; I think that the reinforcement of
> sound in learning Greek is better enhanced by using even an arbitrary
> pronunciation that distinguishes the vowel sounds.
>
> --
>
> 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
> cwconrad@ioa.com
> http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
>
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
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