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Eugene DeVries Attempts Restored Koine

Posted: April 22nd, 2014, 8:02 am
by Stephen Carlson
Hat tip to the folks at Textkit, I discovered this attempt to pronounce a restored Koine:



Overall, I'd say that the attempt is more successful in pronouncing the words than at phrasing the text. Some highlights are the use of /y/ for οι, and /nd/ for ντ. Gamma is usually the fricative /γ/ but it should probably be an approximant /j/ before high vowels.

The phrasing, on the other hand, needs a lot of work, especially the enclitics. They belong to the same accent group has the word they lean on, but he often pronounces them separately from their hosts (e.g. with σου after a long, discernable pause). Perhaps, more practice of the text beforehand would have led to a more fluent or at least flowing presentation.

Of course, it needs to be said that Koine was a form of Greek spoken over a large geographical area by people of various competencies across a span of centuries. Regional accents plus differences between elite and demotic usage are to be expected, so there should be a fairly wide range of acceptable pronunciations. Any particular way of speaking by us, however, is likely to be perceived as "foreign" but comprehension is what matters and for that, getting the right phonemic distinctions is what counts. On this front, he is mostly sucessful.

Re: Eugene DeVries Attempts Restored Koine

Posted: April 22nd, 2014, 8:22 am
by Jonathan Robie
I once spent a lot of time listening to restored Koine recordings and recordings by native modern Greek speakers. In general, I find that native modern Greek speakers do a much better job with phrasing and prosody, and those are cues that really help convey the meaning of a text.

They do not, of course, use the restored pronunciation. I've tried to convince several modern Greeks to record a chapter or two with restored pronunciation, they look at me like I'm from mars. To me, getting the pronunciation "right" is less important than conveying the meaning of a text, but I really do want to hear the difference between, say, ἡμῶν and ὑμῶν.

And I want a recording that covers the entire New Testament, read very well. There are good modern Greek recordings for the entire GNT, I am not aware of a good, freely available recording in restored pronunciation. So ... I read along with the voice so I can at least see the difference between ἡμῶν and ὑμῶν.

Opera singers might be an option

Posted: April 22nd, 2014, 10:43 am
by Stephen Hughes
Jonathan Robbie wrote:I've tried to convince several modern Greeks to record a chapter or two with restored pronunciation
Have you tried asking an opera singer? Given a text written in IPA, they might do well at it.
Jonathan Robbie wrote:I read along with the voice so I can at least see the difference between ἡμῶν and ὑμῶν.
What is "the voice", is that a speech synthesiser?

Re: Opera singers might be an option

Posted: April 22nd, 2014, 12:17 pm
by Jonathan Robie
Stephen Hughes wrote:
Jonathan Robbie wrote:I read along with the voice so I can at least see the difference between ἡμῶν and ὑμῶν.
What is "the voice", is that a speech synthesiser?
A speech synthesizer? μὴ γένοιτο!

A human being reading with good phrasing and prosody:

http://www.bible.is/audiodownloader

Re: Eugene DeVries Attempts Restored Koine

Posted: April 23rd, 2014, 2:54 am
by Stephen Carlson
Jonathan Robie wrote:There are good modern Greek recordings for the entire GNT, I am not aware of a good, freely available recording in restored pronunciation.
Yeah, some of the modern recordings are so fluent that I don't mind the modern pronunciation so much.