Pronounciation of PNEUMA

Translation Officer - Bible Society of South Africa translate at biblesociety.co.za
Tue Jan 9 01:52:05 EST 2001


Dear Theodore

You asked:
> Would it be possible or practical to organize an international congress or
> committee for the purpose of developing a unified system of pronunciation
> that could be accepted by most biblical language scholars and teachers?

I have also wondered about that one but, as Trevor pointed out, it is not a
simple matter.  Another maybe less academical reason is a suspicion that
I've got, namely that one would have a hard time trying to get the
English-speaking world to accept the same pronunciation as, for instance,
the Dutch or the Germans.  Speakers of Modern Greek will probably insist
that they have the (most) "correct" pronunciation, and
teachers/lecturers/professors at tens of thousands of
schools/seminaries/colleges/universities will continue to teach the queer
ways of pronunciation they have learned from their predecessors.  Scholars
who are knowledgeable about the phonetics of Classical Greek will have their
own (properly founded) theories.  To me, as a former student of the
phonetics of modern languages, the pronunciation of Classical/Koine Greek
(and Latin, for that matter) is one happy mess ...

Regards,
Manie van den Heever

PS: We use the Israeli pronunciation or a reasonable facsimile thereof in
our Biblical Hebrew courses, and it seems to work fine (I am aware of the
fact that the Modern Greek pronunciation poses some more serious problems).




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