[B-Greek] re: hora and describing "o"
R Yochanan Bitan Buth
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Sat May 8 19:11:42 EDT 2004
FILOIS, XAIREIN
>> The Mounce Audio files use a short "o" for omega in hora.
>>
>> Isn't omega ALWAYS long?? I know there are so many diagreements about
>> pronunciation, but I thought that was one of the few ALWAYS things :-(
>>
>> Is it just a mistake or should I learn to say it like that?
>
>It depends on what you mean by a long omega sound. Some pronounce long
>omega the American way, as "o" in road
>or tone. But I think the ancient
>Greek way of pronouncing a long "o" sound is by lengthening the short "o"
>sound.
This discussion may reflect some of the difficulty of English practices
being used to describe Greek. In English a "short o" refers to a diacritic
symbol used in some English dictionaries for the sound of "o" in 'above' or
the sound of "u" in 'cup'. On the other hand, in some English dictionaries a
long "o" (o with macron symbol) represents the "o" in 'pole' and
'co-defendant'. Neither of those relate to Greek. A brief overview may help,
followed by a bigger perspective relating to language learning.
There may be surprises here for some Erasmians and some classicists. The
most important point is perhaps to learn how to break through an
English-only perspective.
Linguists relate to the relative physical openness of the mouth and the
height and backness of the tongue, among other things, when discussing
vowels.
Some other generalities are useful for understanding Greek vowels. Short
vowels in languages tend toward the center of the mouth, long vowels tend
away from the center.
This is conveniently applied to Greek by Sidney Allen _Vox Graeca_, 3rd ed.,
page 62. o-mega is naturally pictured slightly lower in the mouth than
o-mikron. Thus, o-mega is closer to the 'au' sound in 'caught' than
o-mikron.
This is the opposite of most US seminary pronunciations. (Classics
departments are more mixed.) For example, the Pennington example on the
Zondervan website has an [a] sound for o-mikron in a desire to be different
from o-mega. That probably comes from a dialect where the English
'au'/caught/ sound has joined [a], perhaps Pennington's dialect or perhaps
his teacher's. How does one learn to make a sound that is not in one's
mother tongue? Two techniques help: learning to manipulate physical tongue
position, and listening to the correct sound. (The ah-mikron example
highlights a historical problem of linking vowels that were never linked in
any Greek dialect, similarly to when EI are linked with HTA. These latter
two were distinct in Attic [see Allen] and EI pulled far away from HTA in
Hellenistic, merging with I.)
To what may this all be compared? Consider French. It probably doesn't
matter what dialect a French learner learns. What is important is that they
hear enough French so that they can internalize the language. With French
there is an interesting 'reality check' on language learning strategies. Is
the French learning working? A flight to Mon-real or Mar-seille can quickly
reveal what is working. Less drastic is to try to speak with a nearby French
speaker. I would recommend to a potential French student that they ask
successful French second-language learners what they did to ultimately
succeed. Find some French speakers who became fluent as an adult. Those will
not have done the same thing in the same order, but they will have a better
perspective on what works in language learning than someone who has not
reached that level.
Anyway, when a system is found for French THAT YOU KNOW WILL LEAD TO
SUCCESS, I would say, 'go and do likewise for Greek.' (The negative
corrolary can also be helpful--be careful of following strategies of
learners who do not succeed, especially if the strategies were used for 10+
years without success.)
For my two bits--real language use is one of the surest ways to succeed in
language learning. There is a whole field of applied linguistics
("communicative approaches") that would agree with that statement. If I had
a child going off to university to study a particular language or
literature, I would want to make sure that they learn at least one of the
languages of study to a level of full functional fluency. Then they would
have a standard of comparison and strategies of emulation. Style of
pronunciation is not the main point, but learning to think with the language
is. At least if you want to enjoy lots of rapid reading.
ERRWSQE
('be well', both as a blessing and a recognition that using a language leads
to learning, no matter how long the road.)
Randall Buth
Randall Buth, PhD
Director, Biblical Language Center
www.biblicalulpan.org
and Director, Biblical Studies in Israel
Hebrew University, Rothberg International School
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list