[B-Greek] Choice of transliterations for "David"?

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Aug 27 07:53:30 EDT 2003


At 9:14 AM +0100 8/27/03, Ranulf Doswell wrote:
>> This raises a question for me: Since modern Greek pronounces AU and EU
>> as av/af and ev/ef, is it possible that this was also done in Koine
>> times? E.g., I find the Greek forms of "Eve" (hEUA) and "Levi" (LEUI)
>> more difficult to pronounce with the Erasmian pronunciation than if the
>> EU has an "ev" sound. Likewise, POREUOMAI is easier as
>> "por-ev-o-mai" than "por-yoo-o-mai.
>
>As far as I know, even Classical greek pronounciation was more more our "v",
>e.g. EUAGGELION = evangelion

This has been argued by a few, but if by "Classical" you mean 5th and 4th
century Attic, the phonetic value of Beta was still that of the voiced stop
"b."

>Interesting, in Modern Greek, you'll find that B is now pronounced as v
>(similiar idea to Spanish v pronounced as b) and the distinction between D
>and Q (delta and theta) has largely been lost, e.g. D is pronounced as
>thelta.
>
>If you look at pronunciation charts where the letters are arranged by where
>in the mouth these sounds are made, you'll see it all starts to make sense.

It is unquestionably true that the shift in sound is perfectly intelligible
in phonetic terms. The shift of Beta to the "v" sound is evident also in
the alphabet of Cyril constructed for the Slavic languages, wherein "B"
represents the "v" sound.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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