Pronunciation Variation UK/US?
Larry Baker
lbaker at accs.edu
Fri Jul 26 09:39:20 EDT 2002
Dear Anthony,
Concerns of "being a child of one's culture" have made for some
interesting observations in life. In the US (and some in the UK, I
think), the Iota is often pronounced as the diphthong, ai, where "aisle"
and "isle" sound the same!!
The Greek Iota, as a pure vowel, has the sound of "ee" especially when
long. Thus, since the Greek letter, pi, is spelled Pi-Iota, the
pronunciation of it is "pee" [much as its counterpart in English.]
Another interesting observation is in the pronunciation of Eta and
Omicron. One may do better to have the Eta, as a pure long vowel sound
rather than as the diphthong sound of "obey", that is, as sounding like
an Epsilon-Iota. Otherwise, the Eta and Epsilon-Iota diphthong will
sound the same. H. Smyth noted in paragraph 24 of his GRAMMAR that the
Eta would be as the "e" in "where". I teach it as halfway between the
sound of the Epsilon and Iota, as in "here."
Also, for Omicron, as a short "o", it could be contrasted to the Alpha
by pronouncing it as the "o" in "off" or "often" (somewhat like the "au"
in "caught" or the "ou" in "bought.") Most Americans pronounce the "o"
in "not" as an "ah" [Alpha], e.g., Logos comes out as Lah-gahs = Lagas.
However, if one puts a more British sound to "not", one will find it
much like "off" and "often."
Larry N. Baker
American Christian College and Seminary
OKC, OK
-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Forsyth [mailto:anthony at calvarybiblechurch.org.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2002 4:04 PM
Subject: Pronunciation Variation UK/US?
I was wondering with regards to the pronuciation of Greek whether there
is any variation between the US & UK (you say tomato...) I was taught at
school that the 2nd letter was B(ee)ta and it blew me away to hear it
called B(ay)ta for the first time! Ditto for P(ie) becoming
p(ee) et al.
Are there any Brits on the list? Do you go with the pronunciation used
Stateside? Is the way being used in the US now used internationally?
Or do we have our own variations, and if so what are they?
Anthony Forsyth
Calvary Bible Church, Medway, UK (obviously!)
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