Fluency and an Epigraphic Language

Suedaleg at aol.com Suedaleg at aol.com
Thu Jun 8 02:42:40 EDT 2000


I have been following this line for quite some time now with a lot of 
amusement.
I am not sure where it is going but I'd like to offer what I think may be a 
little common sense.

In order to say "This vowel is pronounced this way" is impossible, even 
within the same time period.  I saw something about fitting sounds into 
boxes.  before you determine the boundaries of these boxes one should visit a 
few cities, such as the Bronx where "ir" is pronounced "oi" like in "boid" 
instead of "bird"; or Little Rock where "lack" is pronounced "laik" and "oil" 
is "aul"; or Boston where they drive "cahs" and "Havaner" is the capital of 
"Cuber"; or Sydney where the common greeting is "gdai".  Have you listened to 
J. Vernon McGee lately?  I once heard Connie Chung say "nucyelar" for 
"nuclear", I remember trying in vain to figure out the pronunciation guides 
from "Scholastic" magazine in school (Iowa) because they never matched what I 
had learned from my parents. Now that I live on the west coast I speak with a 
funny accent.  (Have I insulted everybody yet?)

Remember that Peter was recognized as a Galilean by his murder of the king's 
(Herod's) Aramaic.  I will not spend much time trying to figure out the exact 
pronunciation of any language as long as I can understand and be understood. 
I see languages as being very local and if my English can be understood by my 
freinds in Australia and vice versa, I consider myself more fortunate than 
the Chinese where some of the eight dialects are not mutually understandable.

I don't think it is necessary to be a "pronunciation purist" to understand 
what Paul and co. were saying.

On a slightly different note, I do have a tendency to judge a translation by 
how well the conjunctions in the grammar are presented.

Just a thought.

Dale Greenlee



More information about the B-Greek mailing list