[B-Greek] Pronuncing PILATOS
Chet A. Creider
creider at uwo.ca
Fri Aug 13 14:50:49 EDT 2004
I agree of course that the use of IPA symbols is the only way to transcend
dialect differences, and as both pronunciations of [i]conomics/[E]konomics
(E = IPA "open e", Cardinal Vowel symbol 3) are very common (the former
"etymologically correct", the latter probably more common) nearly everywhere
in the English-speaking world (including most of Canada), I also added
[i]cology, where there is no variation. The only reason I chose such
long words was that I wanted to eliminate the possibility of a diphthongal
pronunciation of English "long e" as in "see" and so picked words where
the vowel was not stressed. Note also that the word in question is PILA=TOS,
with accent on the penultimate syllable.
The point is a small one, but it is sad to see the new edition of Teach
Yourself Greek using "sit" to illustrate Modern Greek I/OI/U/H etc. The
previous version used the word "police". In defense of the author, I
would imagine that the difference between the vowel of "sit" and that
of "seat" is not very great to Greek ears since the two sounds do not
contrast in Greek.
Regards,
Chet Creider
London, Ontario
CANADA
in use in much of
On Fri, 13 Aug 2004, Brent Hudson wrote:
> Chet's comments highlight the problem of different dialects of English
> adding to the confusion about Greek sounds. In my region of Canada,
> "economics" has no "IPA [i]" sound in it. Using the word "economics" in a
> book to illustrate the sound of Greek IWTA would be very confusing to my
> students.
>
> I recently purchased a book and CD of Modern Greek. It was quite
> entertaining to read the book and then listen to the native Greek speaker
> pronounce the sounds. For Greek diphthong EI the definition is "i as in
> sit". Listening to the CD, the Greek speaker pronounced the sound as the
> 'i' in IPA [i]. If there had not been CD with a native speaker, I would
> have learned yet another system of pronouncing Greek that bore little
> resemblance to any language living or dead. In a language as broadly used
> as English, any English examples of Greek sounds will suffer from dialect
> differences. IPA is the best way to represent Greek sounds. "Economic",
> "sit", or even "machine" all represent different values of "i" in my region
> whereas IPA [i] is the same here and everywhere.
>
> Brent Hudson
> Moncton, NB
> Canada
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Chet Creider
> Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 11:55 AM
> To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [B-Greek] Pronuncing PILATOS
>
> There is not and never was any justification for pronouncing the "i"
> in PILATOS as in English "pie". This was doubtless simply an error by
> Mounce due to interference from the English pronunciation of the name.
> The correct vowel should be that of the initial vowel in "ecology" or
> "economics" (the latter pronounced with so-called "long e" (= IPA [i]), not
> the initial vowel of "indeed", the vowel of "pit", etc.
>
> Chet Creider
>
> (Note that there are still a few teachers and students of Greek, including
> NT Greek, alive who were trained in the old English system of pronunciation
> (now largely supplanted in England by a more historically accurate system of
> pronunciation) in which long iota _was_ pronounced as English "pie". The
> amusing story of how this happened is told in Allen's _Vox Graeca_ and has
> to do with the Great Vowel Shift. I am assuming that Mounce is an American
> and was never part of this tradition.) In this system, which should never be
> used, the name of the vowel BHTA is pronounced "beet-ah" or "beet-uh".)
>
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