[B-Greek] Greek NT Audio and spelling

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Wed Sep 24 07:03:49 EDT 2008


>I wonder if a small caveat might be in order. Have any of you found
that modern Greek pronunciation has a subtle effect of dulling the
memory in regard to distinctions between vowels that sound alike, or
of confusing the spelling of certain consonants? I imagine the long-
term effects would be more important than the short term. Perhaps the
reverse is true; do you pay *more* attention to the spelling of a
word to avoid confusion? I'm sure RB has much to say about this from
his experience, but I'd also like to hear from those with fewer years
of experience.

Don Wilkins
>

DONALDW XAIREIN

 I guess I should answer now, but please note that I don't use a modern
pronunciation. I use a KOINH pronunciation, more below on a recent
development with spelling. So I am not a fair representative.

First, in general, it is easier to remember Greek spelling than English.

I should probably add something with regard to Hebrew, too, since
Israeli MizraHi pronunciation (with `ayin and Het pharyngeals and not
the more common glottal stop and fricative kaf) still has some overlaps
like quf/kaf degusha, tet/tav, qamats/pataH. Plus one must be able to
listen to "Ashkenazi" Israeli consonants (alef/ayin, xet=kaf rafa). Some
t35 years ago I was thinking that this was a burden on the learner
and was wondering how people made the language work. Of course,
looking around, it was obvious that the language did work. And
somewhere in the last 35 years I've forgotten whatever was bothering
me. Every now and then I need to check a spelling, and I was more
than chagrined once, noticing that I'd spelt Tel Aviv with a tet.
Bottom line: spelling is just not an issue, but it is something that must
be learned for several homonyms, and somehow that gets taken care
of by the time one is fluent and an educated writer. (One may surmise
the same for KOINH, below.)

Now for modern Greek itself, I am writing from a declaired weekness. I
speak the language pourly (limited vocab and structures) and have not
been using the language for reeding ancient Greek. I have noticed that
morphological words tend to be correctly written. So HTA is the feminine
article and the subjunctive ending to 3s is also HTA. OI is still the
masculine plural and generally written correctly. But one does see quite
a bit of fluidity, especially on things like menyous with its mix of
less-common and foreign lone words. (PS: Modern Greeks would do
better than this in Greek. I actually had to think to misspell the words in
this paragraph because of writing habits. Then again, sometimes I get
lucky.)

As I mentioned with Hebrew, a student may raise
a question about whether the modern Greek system "works", or more
to the point, whether it "works" for the ancient language. Then the answer
is, Yes and No.

In some situations modern Greek underdifferentiates common words
to a point where communication can break down. Note the dialogue:
A:  TINES EPOIHSAN?
B: YMEIS   (homonym with HMEIS. Both ancient words would be IMIS )
"YMEIS" would not be understood on its own and would require another
word for clarification. As long as HTA and Y-psilon were distinguished  in
sound these words could be used. In the Byzantine era new words for
EMEIS and ESEIS 'we'/'you' developed in order to accomodate the collapse
of vowels. So much for the 'No' side. One can remark that the full modern
system brought about structural and morphological changes to the
language and would cause some instabilities if used for speaking ancient
Greek.

On the Yes side: the educated were still writing and using ancient Greek
thru the Renaissance era, and with a 'modern' pronunciation. (The
Modern Greek five vowels have not changed in over a thousand years.)
Presumably they resolved the occasional homonym thru colloquialisms or
by filling in context.

Returning to spelling, the educated user needed to learn the correct spellings
of many a word and I sense a deterioration in the NT manuscript tradition
from about the time that the full 5-vowel system entered the language.
(9=10 centuries CE).  Before that period, when the 6 vowel system was in
place (2-9 century CE) spelling was better. It is primarily EI and I  that
flucatuate frequently in the early NT mss.
So "ms B" writes words like GEIGNWSKEIN 'to be knowing'
and KREINEIN 'to be judging'.

Which brings us to the KOINH and spelling. For one, we know that it
was a real, historical system and that it "worked".
This must be remembered during all discussions.
Greek was used for centuries with a 7 vowel system (2c BCE
to 2c CE, using EI=I, H, AI=E, A, W=O, OY, OI=Y). I have long wavered on
HTA during the 2-4 c CE because we don't see the wide fluctuation
with HTA that we see with EI=I. I am now convinced that HTA did go
to an  I sound by the end of the second century CE, which points to
an interesting fact of spelling.

HTA was more stable than EI=I,
even when HTA was pronounced as EI=I.

To what can we attribute its stability?
To a longer writing history in the KOINH that gave it a written stability.
EI=I was always unstable in the KOINH but HTA only became I after
a 450 year writing history in the KOINH (300 BCE-150CE). That
apparently fixed things enough so that later KOINH writers and NT
scribes tended to use a fixed spelling with HTA even though the sound
was no longer distinguished.

And back to the basic question, does a KOINH pronounciation
result in some spelling 'mistakes'? Yes, but relatively few after a
little training.  And a person today receives a lot of written training
on the road to fluency. More importantly, a KOINH pronounciation
"worked" for the original speakers/audience (we wouldn't want
to be more Catholic than the pope), it fits the mss traditions,
and prevents MIS-pronunciations, prevents artificial differentiations,
and prevents mistaken homonyms of typical Ersamian.
SAMAREIA is correctly read as [samaria]. Yes, Erasmian, too,
causes mistakes. (Erasmian typically joins HTA to EI [e.g. Erasmian
pronunciation HRHNH vs. koine IRHNH. IRHNH is better differentiated.
ditto for LYSEI future vs LYSH subjunctive], often joins Y to OY [e.g.,
producing 'wash' for 'loose'], and some US speakers join O to A.
[e.g. PROSKYNEIN TAN QEAN. These latter need to repent :-) ] )
The solution should not be to clean up Erasmian, since that would
only produce a historical katachronism (opposite of anachronism and
something never in use throughout the history of KOINH), and would
hide the language that was in use. The solution is to adopt a KOINH
system of the period. Which also allows one's ears to follow modern
Greek quite well, since it is on the same trajectory with the real
development of the language. And modern Greek works for reading
though it may be less desirable for speaking KOINH. (My modern
Greek speaking friends just speak modern and don't attempt KOINH
so I have nothing to judge.)

ERRWSO
IWANHS
(PS: My middle name. I consider this spelling of IWANHS correct
for 1st century, though the later spelling IWANNHS does reinforce
the accent through its doubled NN (not pronounced differently
from N). UBS spelling is not reliable on these things. Probably
because the spelling editors were 'Rasmians.)


-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth at gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life



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