[B-Greek] re: Koine and Homeric
R Yochanan Bitan Buth
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Tue Apr 13 00:41:41 EDT 2004
XAIREIN
Just a balancing note on stability and change with Koine.
>in a particularly intense state of flux
Koine went through changes but I would characterize it as relatively stable
during the Roman period. Koine period writings reflect many registers,
levels of writing expertise. However, the big change occurred before the
Roman period. It was the 4th to the 2nd centuries BCE that the major spread
of the "common dialect" Greek took place. You can see some of the simplified
forms (read that as regularizations of previously highly irregular verbs)
show up in writers like Josephus or the NT Luke and Paul (e.g. EDWKAN 'they
gave') yet they read very much like Attic Greek and I cannot think that
Plato would have had any trouble reading them (except for Jewish cultural
background). I suspect that the same first century authors could listen to a
dialogue of Plato read outloud (and certainly could have read) and would
have followed right along. Some of this, of course, can be attributed to
these authors being literate, which entails studying the older dialect with
its broad vocabulary.
> People tended to write the way they spoke. When speech changed, so did
written documents.
Yes and no.
In terms of writing, Greek maintained a historical orthography. This can be
demonstrated today where many modern words that have been pronounced
differently for 2000 years still preserve the shape of the word found in
Homer. EIRHNH never became IRINI, HDH is not IDI, though almost anything can
be found in the history of manuscripts and spelling lapses over the
millennia. (TWI OIEIWI [100CE] 'to the son' [=TW UIW] still gets chuckles or
surprise from friends)
Of course, some of the intolerable clashes eventually led to homonym
reduction: UMEIS and HMEIS were being pronounced the same during the last
half of the first millennium CE [imis] by more and more people and this led
to two consequences. (a) Manuscripts of old documents would be confused
sometimes (note how many examples of textual instability there are of
UMEIS/UMWN/UMIN/UMAS versus HMEIS/HMWN/HMIN/HMAS in the NT manuscripts). (b)
Spoken Greek developed new plural forms, ESEIS and EMEIS, as extensions of
the more stable singulars.
Especially with written Greek, one might argue that it is one of the most
conservative/stable languages in the world. Up to the 16th-20th centuries
there were still people writing in a dialect that could be considered a
mutually intelligible extension of the old Koine or even Attic before it.
One cannot say that for French or Spanish (though "yes" for academic Latin).
(Written Hebrew and Arabic have shown more resiliency than Greek.)
Stability even got out of hand with Greek. Note the resurgence of 'attic'
Greek in authors like Plutarch, Philostratus, and many of the church fathers
with the onset of what is termed the Second Sophistic (the atticizing
movement from just after the end of the NT era).
The problem with documenting Greek historical change is that the spoken
language diverged more and more from the written language. This can be
demonstrated over the last two thousand years but is a difficult job that
requires careful analysis of the literary remains. The book by Geoffrey
Horrocks (Classics, Cambridge), Greek, A History of the Language and its
Speakers (Longmans 1997), is very well done. He keeps tab of both the
written and spoken varieties and tries to evaluate the changes from what is
known about general linguistics so that his conclusions are well taken.
Randall Buth
Randall Buth, PhD
Director, Biblical Language Center
www.biblicalulpan.org <http://www.biblicalulpan.org/>
From: Micheal W.Palmer <mwpalmer at greek-language.com>
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Koine and Homeric
>
Here are a few observations relevant to Bert's question to Carl about
Koine Greek being a "langauge in flux."
As you note, all language are to some extent "in flux." They all change
over time. I believe a solid case can be made for viewing Koine Greek
as a language in a particularly intense state of flux, though.
The Hellenistic-Roman period was one of tremendous cultural change, and
language change is accelerated when cultural change is intense.
Beginning with the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 300s BCE,
many local cultures (and local language groups) were absorbed into the
widening area of Greek influence. When the Romans came to dominate some
of these same regions, a second wave of cultural changed followed
(though Latin never had the impact that Greek did in the East).
There are, of course, similar examples of cultural change in the modern
world, but the language change they cause is sometimes mediated or
masked by the presence of a constraint that Koine Greek did not face:
the prominent role of print media. The invention of the printing press
allowed a standardization of writing conventions that was not present
before that point, so change in WRITTEN language slowed down to some
extent as literacy and availability of books became more widespread. Of
course, writing conventions cannot prevent language change, but they
can artificially retard the change of the written form of the language.
The amazing difference between the way English is spoken and written is
a direct result of this phenomenon. Why do we still spell the past
tense of "teach" as "taught," for example, even though no one has
pronounced it with a gutteral fricative (the "gh") for over 250 years?
Koine Greek did not face this artificial retardation of change in the
writing system. People tended to write the way they spoke. When speech
changed, so did written documents.
The impact of print media on language change will almost certainly be
reduced in the years to come by the presence of electronic
communication, where writing conventions are much looser.
On Sunday, April 11, 2004, at 08:54 AM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
> At 6:51 AM -0400 4/11/04, <bertdehaan at gosympatico.ca> wrote:
>> Carl,you wrote;
>>
>> .... I've argued
>>> often enough on earlier occasions on this list that students who
>>> concern
>>> themselves only with a synchronic study of Koine Greek are likely
>>> not to
>>> appreciate the extent to which Koine Greek is a language in flux, a
>>> language some of whose users/writers who are conscious of the
>>> heritage of
>>> the tradition will employ constructions and usages that have already
>>> become
>>> rare if they haven't vanished from the spoken language, while other
>>> users/writers are commonly employing constructions and usages that
>>> will
>>> become standard in the centuries thereafter.....
>>
>> Several times you have written about Koine being a language in flux. I
>> thought that you meant languages in general.
>> (The Dutch language has undergone some changes in the 25 years since I
>> left The Netherlands)
>> But I am getting the impression that you specifically meant Koine
>> Greek.
>> Are the changes in koine more drastic than in other Greek, or in
>> languages
>> in general?
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