[B-Greek] re: hora and describing "o"

Joseph Weaks j.weaks at tcu.edu
Sun May 9 02:34:43 EDT 2004


On May 9, 2004, at 1:12 AM, Raymond Regalado wrote:
> On 2004.5.9, at 10:56  AM, TuNeCedeMalis67 at aol.com wrote:
>
>> I still don't understand :-(
>>
>> Forgive me if I'm being VERY thick here!
>>
>> The audio file doesn't seem to match what is being taught in the 
>> book. What
>> I'm asking is if the audio is a mistake or if it is supposed to be 
>> that way.
>
> The quick answer is, it's up to you.  If you *want* to pronounce omega 
> like "o" in tone, go ahead, you can't go wrong.  If you want to 
> pronounce it like the "aw" in saw, that's fine, too.  I find myself 
> doing it either ways, depending on my mood. ;-)

And, depending on the linguistic context. This notion of pure vowel 
sound, which does have some pedagogical advantages and which some "high 
culturists" in Germany among other places still promote, is 
mathematics, not linguistics. A phoneme in any human language sounds 
different depending upon its phonological context.
So, teach a consistent sound, but if the omega sounds differently in 
different words, well, then you're doing something right, IMHO.

Cheers,
Joe (with a long o)

**************************************************************
Rev. Joseph A. Weaks
Senior Minister, Bethany Christian Church, Dallas
Leander Keck Fellow of NT Studies, Brite Divinity School, Ft. Worth
j.weaks at tcu.edu
**************************************************************




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