Greek pronunciation?

Eric S. Weiss eweiss at gte.net
Tue Oct 8 16:29:39 EDT 2002


> Are there any recordings available of how the Greek New Testament sounds
> like as read by a modern-day Greek person, or in a Greek Orthodox church
> (would the two be the same, or different?)
> 
> Another question, which I know would be hard to quantify, but how hard is
> it for a modern Greek to read the GNT?  Is it to them (roughly) as
> Shakespeare is to us, or as Chaucer is to us, or as Beowulf is to us?
> 
> Brian McCarthy


Spiros Zodhiates has the entire New Testament on cassette tape read with
the Modern Greek pronunciation. It's about $79, available from Christian
Book Distributors http://www.christianbook.com/ or from Zodhiates's
company AMG http://shop.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/AMGPublishers.storefront/

After listening to the tapes for about 6 weeks, you'll get the hang of it,
and you'll probably never be able to go back to Erasmian. Randall Buth's
reconstructed Koine pronunciation is probably closer to NT times, and it's
very close to Modern Greek - a few exceptions include pronouncing OI the
same as U (Upsilon), rather than the Modern Greek "ee" sound. Also, Buth
uses a gutteral G for Gamma, rather than the "y" sound of Modern Greek. It
took me a while to get it, but having listened to Zodhiates first made it
easier. The most difficult for me was the OI/U sound (a French "u" -- say
"ee" with your lips tightly rounded). Words like hUIOS are pronounced like
"oo-yose" (again, no breathing/h sound). Modern Greek pronounces Omega and
Omicron as short O sounds; Buth uses a longish O sound for both. In other
words, neither in Koine times nor in Modern Greek is there a distinction
between Omega and Omicron. Also, Buth uses a hard "B" for Beta, whereas
Modern Greek uses a "V" sound.

I created an Erasmian pronunciation chart and a second chart with Modern
Greek and Buth's Reconstructed Koine pronunciation for comparison. They're
in MS Excel '97:

http://home1.gte.net/eweiss/ntgreek/pronunciation1.xls and 
http://home1.gte.net/eweiss/ntgreek/pronunciation2.xls

You can buy or find a Modern Greek NT or even a whole Modern Greek Bible
in some Christian bookstores and you can see how Modern Greek differs from
Koine. I noticed right away that they use "NA" where the Koine NT has
"hINA". Also, in Modern Greek, Upsilon and Eta are both pronounced as "ee"
-- which means that the 1st person and second person plural personal
pronouns (hHMEIS/hHMWN/hHMIN/hHMAS and hUMEIS, etc.) are pronounced
IDENTICALLY in Modern Greek pronunciation -- which is why Modern Greek
does NOT use these for their 1st/2nd-person plural personal pronouns.
Modern Greek also does NOT pay any attention to breathing marks (rough or
smooth) -- they're ignored (i.e., there is no "h" sound).



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