[B-Greek] Standardized Erasmian Pronunciation
Raymond Regalado
fwgk5942 at mb.infoweb.ne.jp
Sat May 1 12:50:29 EDT 2004
On 2004.5.2, at 12:52 AM, John Schwandt wrote:
> Raymond, I appreciate your work and your audio file uploads. But I
> think
> your description of a pure or standardized Erasmian pronunciation is
> misleading and possibly uncharitable to those using a different
> Erasmian
> variation. You pronunciation sounded like a consistent Machen
> pronunciation, but I have to think than many using the Mounce or Allen
> scheme would raise their collective eyebrow when you call yours
> (Machen's?)
> "pure".
I didn't mean to imply that only my Erasmian is "pure" while that of
others' is "corrupt". By "pure" I had in mind the idea of keeping
vowels "pure" in the "technical sense" instead of diphthongizing them
(as a Japanese-speaking Tennessean friend of mine does to the Japanese
syllabary! ;-)) -- pronouncing omicron as IPA [o] instead of IPA [a],
etc. And, why would IPA [o] be better than IPA [a] for omicron?
Because the Greeks (modern and ancient) used [o] instead of [a] for
omicron, for one thing. But then again, this is just convention and we
could as well agree to use [a] instead of [o], perhaps.
> John Schwandt Writes:
> I don't think the IPA (international phonetic alphabet) will be of any
> help
> for standardizing any of the Erasmian pronunciations. The IPA is
> simply a
> standardized alphabet (symbol) system.
Along with the symbols, the IPA also came with the "technical
explanations" for the sounds the symbols were supposed to symbolize
(e.g. omicron is [o] which is a "close-middle, back, rounded" vowel
sound, etc.). Anyway, I may be misunderstanding the limits or
intentions of the IPA, but since it is -- for one thing -- the system
used in all English-Japanese dictionaries to teach Japanese students of
English how English is supposed to *really* sound like, I assumed that
the symbols were meant to symbolize "fixed" sounds, just like "meter"
refers to a "fixed" standard of length maintained by the International
Standards Organization.
> I was torn on whether to use it on
> http://www.biblicalgreek.org/links/pronunciation.html but it would not
> have
> changed any of the sounds in any of the pronunciation systems. (I
> decided
> not to use it since it would require further explanation and the actual
> sound files made it less of an issue.)
I see. Actually, in studying (and coming to a decision on) this whole
matter of pronunciation, your site was a big help to me! And, I got
examples of sounds which I think should be part of what I've been
calling "pure Erasmian" from your site. For instance, in
http://www.biblicalgreek.org/links/erasmian.html you point out that the
Allen variation of Erasmian pronounces omicron closer to the "pure"
omicron sound (IPA [o]) than the Mounce version (which you refer to as
"North American" on this page).
Blessings,
Raymond Regalado
Tokyo, Japan
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