[B-Greek] Vowel rules for Erasmian pronunciation
Chet Creider
creider at uwo.ca
Wed Jan 7 22:09:47 EST 2004
Kathleen Borsari writes:
> What are the vowel rules for the Erasmian pronunciation?
Get a library copy of W. Sidney Allen, Vox Graeca or Wm. Sturtevant, _The Pronunciation of Greek and Latin_,
or Goodwin & Gulick, _Greek Grammar_ or H. Weir Symth, _Greek Grammar_, or Donald J. Mastronarde, _Introduction
to Attic Greek_. There are probably many other good books, but the others I can think of now contain errors. Oh,
another good one is Reading Greek by JACT (Joint Association of Classics Teachers). This comes with an excellent
cassette.
> How do you know if alpha is like the "a" in "man" or "father"?
Alpha is never pronounced like "a" in man (in most NA dialects of English) and is always pronounced like "a" in
father.
> How do you know if the iota is the "i" in "pit" or "machine"?
iota is _never_ pronounced like "i" in pit. Always like "i" in machine (this is true whether it is long or short -- as is
the case for alpha).
> Does anyone know of a cheap source for a "Talking Strong's"?
If "Talking Strong's" makes these mistakes, I would stay away from it.
There are many difficulties involved in choosing a pronunciation for Greek. The problem is not so much not knowing
how it was pronounced at a particular time, but of choosing pronunciations that are possible given one's own language
background and that also make learning easier. However, alpha and iota have been pronounced exactly the same way
from the time of Homer, through Attic, through Koine^, down to modern Greek. At least those two are easy.
Best,
Chet Creider
Kathleen Borsari
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