[B-Greek] Lord's Prayer in Greek

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Apr 30 15:11:08 EDT 2004


At 3:30 AM +0900 5/1/04, Raymond Regalado wrote:
>On 2004.5.1, at 03:22  AM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
>> At 2:54 AM +0900 5/1/04, Raymond Regalado wrote:
>>> Dear List,
>>>
>>> I've mentioned before that I'm trying to cultivate a "pure Erasmian"
>>> <grin> pronunciation.
>>
>> Why on earth? If, as you admit, the notion of a "pure Erasmian"
>> pronunciation is a joke, does that mean that you're producing this
>> sound-byte as a joke?
>
>It wasn't a joke, Dr. Conrad.  Why Erasmian?  Because I hear that in
>almost every seminary Greek is taught in Erasmian (I could be wrong).
>Mounce teaches in Erasmian.  Pennington's CD's are in Erasmian.  The
>only complete audio recordings of the (WH) Greek text available online
>is in ("American-style") Erasmian...  So, Erasmian is still going
>strong, it seemed to me, and I thought I might as well practice "good
>Erasmian", but I have no one to teach me, no one to imitate, as I am
>self-taught.

I rather suspect that most of those seminarians taught Erasmian Greek in
different schools would have considerable difficulty understanding the
Greek pronounced by those from other schools: there isn't even a consistent
pronunciation of Erasmian--which is why the notion of "pure" Erasmian has
to seem to me pretty much a fantasy.

I know that Erasmian--or what is called by that name--is still going strong
in schools and seminaries. I readily concede that it is important to
associate a consistent body of sounds with the spelled-out Greek words and
sentences--and given that more-or-less self-evident truth, almost any
system of pronunciation that is consistent in its representation of the
sounds of vowels and consonants is a help toward learning Greek.

What I think is sad, however, is that some illusion should persist that
Erasmian pronunciation of any stripe whatsoever bears any serious
relationship to the sounds of Greek as spoken at any point in history by
native speakers of the language. So why endeavor to cultivate a "pure
Erasmian"? Might it not be enough--strictly as a pedagogical device--to
cultivate ANY CONSISTENT system of pronunciation of Greek vowels and
consonants?

And if one is going to do that, then would it not make more sense to adopt
and practice a pronunciation that has some sound basis in a historical
reconstruction of the way the language actually was spoken at some point in
its history?

>> If one is going to make a serious effort to recreate the pronunciation
>> of
>> the NT  era, one probably ought to go with Randall Buth's
>> reconstruction:
>>
>> 	ELLHNIKH SCOLH "Living Koine Greek for Everyone":
>> 		http://www.biblicalulpan.org/
>
>I've listened before to the sample (1Jn1) on Dr. Buth's site, and I
>think it is simply *beautiful* -- the pronunciation, intonation and
>all.  It sounds pretty much like Modern Greek pronunciation.  Someday
>I'd like to learn that, but, oh, those iotas! ;-)

-- 

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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