pronunciation difference between η and ει

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?
Barry Hofstetter

Re: pronunciation difference between η and ει

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Jason Hare wrote: November 23rd, 2020, 11:07 pm Well, that's all good information. Seem bad for communication, though. Can you imagine speaking a language in which you cannot distinguish orally/aurally between "you" and "we"?

"I pray that God gives us [ἡμῖν] reprieve from our [ἡμῶν] troubles." > Which someone takes a nice blessing from you, as he hears it as if you had said, "I pray that God gives you [ὑμῖν] reprieve from your [ὑμῶν] troubles." What foolishness this could lead to!
And yet, for the most part, it really doesn't lead to any foolishness, only the occasional text critical issue where either pronoun could be substituted and still make sense. Greek speakers for the most part could get the difference in context. We have lots of homographs and homophones in English, and they rarely cause too much trouble, except for puns and spelling tests. We have hare and hair...

"What do you call 10 rabbits who all take a step backward at the same time? A receding hare-line..." (ba-da-boom).

No intentional reference to your name, except that it put me in mind of the example.
nathaniel j. erickson
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Re: pronunciation difference between η and ει

Post by nathaniel j. erickson »

Well, that's all good information. Seem bad for communication, though. Can you imagine speaking a language in which you cannot distinguish orally/aurally between "you" and "we"?
Yeah. It sort of reminds me of a language I know where you can't distinguish between 2nd person singulars and plurals. Pretty ridiculous language, that. Me to kids: "Come here!" Each devious child in their mind: "'you' is you, not me." Result. No one comes.
Nathaniel J. Erickson
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Dubious Cactus
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Re: pronunciation difference between η and ει

Post by Dubious Cactus »

Jason Hare wrote: November 23rd, 2020, 11:07 pm Well, that's all good information. Seem bad for communication, though. Can you imagine speaking a language in which you cannot distinguish orally/aurally between "you" and "we"?

"I pray that God gives us [ἡμῖν] reprieve from our [ἡμῶν] troubles." > Which someone takes a nice blessing from you, as he hears it as if you had said, "I pray that God gives you [ὑμῖν] reprieve from your [ὑμῶν] troubles." What foolishness this could lead to!
This is the case in Navajo - yʼall and we are only distinguished in the subject position of the verb (and by context):
nihighan - yʼallʼs,our home
niheiníʼą́ - (s)he, they gave it to yʼall,us
nihí - yʼall,us (standalone pronoun, for emphasis)
ánihiilaa - (s)he, they made yʼall,us
The 1st and 2nd person plural can only be distinguished in the subject pronoun verb conjugation slot:
ʼiidą́ą́ʼ - we ate vs ʼooyą́ą́ʼ yʼall ate

I havenʼt ran into any ambiguity when speaking Navajo despite this homophony. This is the same as it would be in Greek: if η and υ were both /i/ then all cases of the 1st and 2nd person plural would be homophonous except in the subject position of the verb (such as λέγομεν vs λέγετε, etc)
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Re: pronunciation difference between η and ει

Post by Jason Hare »

Dubious Cactus wrote: August 27th, 2024, 7:29 pm This is the case in Navajo - yʼall and we are only distinguished in the subject position of the verb (and by context):
nihighan - yʼallʼs,our home
niheiníʼą́ - (s)he, they gave it to yʼall,us
nihí - yʼall,us (standalone pronoun, for emphasis)
ánihiilaa - (s)he, they made yʼall,us
The 1st and 2nd person plural can only be distinguished in the subject pronoun verb conjugation slot:
ʼiidą́ą́ʼ - we ate vs ʼooyą́ą́ʼ yʼall ate

I havenʼt ran into any ambiguity when speaking Navajo despite this homophony. This is the same as it would be in Greek: if η and υ were both /i/ then all cases of the 1st and 2nd person plural would be homophonous except in the subject position of the verb (such as λέγομεν vs λέγετε, etc)
I’ll have to take your word for that, since I don’t even know what the “subject position of the verb” means. As it is, there is no difference in position between any of the ὑμεῖς/ἡμεῖς pairs in any case. They would be completely identical in sound, position, and usage.

I have to apologize again for your post being overlooked. The forum was overrun with spam and we couldn’t see the posts that were real. Also, you could have been deleted automatically but I caught you. We do not allow anonymous posting, and “Dubious Cactus” is not your name. Could you please give us your name here or create an introductory thread in which you tell us about yourself, your engagement with Greek (especially the Koinē), and how you came to us? We won’t release further posts without a name change, as a matter of forum policy.

Welcome aboard!
Jason A. Hare
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Devenios Doulenios
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Re: pronunciation difference between η and ει

Post by Devenios Doulenios »

As for as teaching υμεις vs ημεις, you could always pair them with some verbs. The verb endings would be different. That, and other things in the conversational or reading context would help. It's no different than learning words like au and aux and eau /eaux in French, all of which are pronounced the same.

In the case of teaching Koine conversationally, you could always add gestures. This is a useful method anyway with some vocabulary, like basic commands.

There may well have been a difference between υ and η before the Koine period. But, the changes toward iotacism started earlier than many realize. I've seen readings from inscriptions from the 5th century B.C. that show iotacism in some words. That's a least a century or so before the starting date of Koine that we normally refer to.
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Jason Hare
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Re: pronunciation difference between η and ει

Post by Jason Hare »

Devenios Doulenios wrote: September 23rd, 2024, 9:53 am As for as teaching υμεις vs ημεις, you could always pair them with some verbs. The verb endings would be different. That, and other things in the conversational or reading context would help. It's no different than learning words like au and aux and eau /eaux in French, all of which are pronounced the same.

In the case of teaching Koine conversationally, you could always add gestures. This is a useful method anyway with some vocabulary, like basic commands.

There may well have been a difference between υ and η before the Koine period. But, the changes toward iotacism started earlier than many realize. I've seen readings from inscriptions from the 5th century B.C. that show iotacism in some words. That's a least a century or so before the starting date of Koine that we normally refer to.
I understand that the subject would be easily distinguished because of agreement with the verb form (ἡμεῖς λέγομεν vs. ὑμεῖς λέγετε). For this reason, the subject pronoun can simply be left out except when used for emphasis.

The problem is outside of the nominative case, such that ὁ θεὸς ὑμᾶς ἀγαπᾷ and ὁ θεὸς ἡμᾶς ἀγαπᾷ needs to be discernable in speech. There is no other opposition in the syntax or forms to indicate what is meant, and the listening audience (the letters were to be read aloud to the congregations) would have no way to know if the author were speaking of himself or of the listeners. That’s problematic. Is it ἡ πίστις ἡμῶν or ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν?
Jason A. Hare
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Devenios Doulenios
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Re: pronunciation difference between η and ει

Post by Devenios Doulenios »

Jason wrote:
The problem is outside of the nominative case, such that ὁ θεὸς ὑμᾶς ἀγαπᾷ and ὁ θεὸς ἡμᾶς ἀγαπᾷ needs to be discernable in speech. There is no other opposition in the syntax or forms to indicate what is meant, and the listening audience (the letters were to be read aloud to the congregations) would have no way to know if the author were speaking of himself or of the listeners. That’s problematic. Is it ἡ πίστις ἡμῶν or ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν?
I agree that this could be problematic. Perhaps, as we do today in English (and, perhaps, in some other modern languages), there was a change of tone when speaking that indicated which was meant. In a speech situation, again, one could gesture if needed. It does appear from some instructions in Paul's letters that reading them aloud to the congregations was the practice. Perhaps the context of what else was said helped distinguish this. At any rate, we know the ambiguity did exist. At some point the Greeks developed an alternate form, I believe, for ὑμᾶς. I only know a small amount of Modern Greek, so I don't know the form or its history.
Dewayne Dulaney
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"Ὁδοὶ δύο εἰσί, μία τῆς ζωῆς καὶ μία τοῦ θανάτου."--Διδαχή Α, α'
James Spinti
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Re: pronunciation difference between η and ει

Post by James Spinti »

Ask any text critic. It was a problem. For example, 1 John 1:4:
καὶ ταῦτα γράφομεν ἡμεῖς, ἵνα ἡ χαρὰ ἡμῶν ᾖ πεπληρωμένη. Or, is it καὶ ταῦτα γράφομεν ἡμεῖς, ἵνα ἡ χαρὰ ὑμῶν ᾖ πεπληρωμένη? The manuscripts differ... There are many others like that.

James
Proofreading and copyediting of ancient Near Eastern and biblical studies monographs
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