[B-Greek] pronuniciation of Cockney "belt", correction plus consonant notes
R Yochanan Bitan Buth
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Sun Nov 7 11:41:45 EST 2004
Weiss EGRAPSEN
>James Morwood in his OXFORD GRAMMAR OF CLASSICAL
GREEK* says the pronunciation of the Epsilon-Upsilon
(EU) diphthong is like the "el" in the Cockney
pronunciation of "belt," and that of Eta-Upsilon
(HU)is a slightly longer version of EU.
Can anyone tell me what the Cockney pronunciation of
the "el" in "belt" would be and how it differs from,
or is similar to, the "eu" in "feud" (Erasmian) or the
"ev/ef" (Modern Greek) pronunciation that other Greek
grammars give?>
Just one small note to correct a common dichotomy and remind the list of historical that we have historical/linguistic data.
The softening of Greek consonants and the development of semi-consonantal dipthongs took place during the Koine period. In the case of EU, the Koine became like modern.
Often, pronunciation isn’t a choice or dichotomy between Erasmus and Modern Greek, but between Erasmus and what is already known about the Koine (which is about 75-80% of the way between reconstructed Ancient to Modern and on a different track from Erasmus).
I've never listed the consonant notes for Koine on the list, so I've appended the following snipet from the website, (converting Greek characters to Latin upperascii)
www.biblicalulpan.org under "courses" "greek"
"U as a Consonant
During the Roman period the U "upsilon" after vowels, (AU, EU, HU) began to be assimilated to (F, B). Throughout the Roman period speakers were using consonantal patterns of a [w]-glide , perhaps becoming an unrounded glide and finally a bilabial fricative [β] [see below-RB]. ...
Discussion of Consonants
Consonants are trickier to evaluate than the vowels because they tended to remain phonemic and are often preserved with a correct spelling regardless of how they were pronounced.
The consonants were in a state of "etic" [non-significant] change throughout the Roman Koine period. They preserved their independent, phonemic status. But their pronunciation changed.
The voiced stops [B, D, G] fricativized first. Already at the beginning of the Roman period BHTA was probably becoming 'soft' bilabial fricative, like Spanish 'b' in Havana/Habana (the city). GAMMA became a velar fricative, and even a palatal fricative in conjunction with front vowels. During the Roman period DELTA eventually became fricativized everywhere (like the English sound in 'this') .
Notice the following examples of Latin words with [v,w] transcribed in Greek with [B].
SALBIOU for the Latin [Salvius] (1st century CE).
PREBETOIS for the Latin [privatus] (1st century CE)
FLABIA for the Latin [Flavia] (149 CE)
FLAOUBIOU and FLAUBIAS for the Latin [Flavius/-a] (120 CE)
Also, our earliest extensive NT papyri, p46 (late 2nd century), already has SILBANOU at 2Cor 1.19, corrected to SILOUANOU.
Likewise, notice the examples of GAMMA reflecting a fricative abound, in some cases approaching a palatal [y] sound. The insertions and the substitutions with I would not be probable without GAMMA having become a soft fricative.
IGEROU for IEROU ‘of holy’ (from 5 BCE)
UGIOU for UIOU ‘of a son’ (from 16 CE)
ERIEUS for ERGEUS (frequent in 1c CE)
It is impossible to know just how much later voiceless F, Q, and X became fricatives like typical Erasmian ‘f’, ‘th’ and ‘ch’. It appears that voiced stops [ B, G ] had already gone soft by the first century, while the voiceless fricatives are mainly post-1st century. This is almost a complete inversion of current Erasmian practice, where Erasmian voiced stops are 'hard' and voiceless aspirated stops are fricatives. For the voiceless consonants (F, Q, X), the typical Erasmian soft pronunciations of FEI, QHTA and XEI, common in academic circles today, were taken directly from Modern Greek. [NB-RB] Historically, these modern sounds probably entered Greek pronunciation around the end of the Roman Koine period. See below for a Dead Sea example where QHTA was still a hard, aspirated t just like modern English t. The ancient Greek distinctions F,Q,X vs. P,T,K were between hard, aspirated stop sounds like English ‘p’ ‘t’ ‘k’ and between unaspirated Spanish ‘p’ ‘t’ ‘k’. Notice:
BenKosiba 1.8 ANASQHSETAI (attested) for ANASTHSETAI ‘he will stand up’
(The theta was probably still hard, an aspirated stop, in order to substitute for tau.)
NB: if the soft pronunciation is accepted for the voiceless consonants (F, Q, X ), then consistency would demand that the historically earlier voiced fricatives (B, D, G ) are also used.
A practical approach on these consonants [ B, D, G, F, Q, X ] is outlined here.
1. To recognize that whichever pronunciation we follow, we will be able to preserve its phonemic status to a high level of consistency. Theta will still pattern as theta, whether pronounced a hard theta [=ancient Greek-RB] or soft θeta [modern, late-Koine, and Erasmian--RB].
2. To accept the flow of the language and recognize that the etic pronunciation of the consonant system was undergoing change, (already in the first century, especially in northeastern dialects), and changing towards the 4-5th century stabilization where they are all fricatives. ...
3. To recognize that the contrast [ph, th, kh] versus [p, t, k] is not phonemic in Western European languages and unnecessarily difficult. ...
4. Thus, for phonemic Koine Greek we may accept the Erasmian (=modern) voiceless fricatives [φ, θ, χ] on practical grounds. This was the direction in which the consonants were already in the process of moving. The voiced fricatives [β, γ, partly δ] can be accepted on historical principles already for the first century. In sum, the most practical and most historical mix would be to use something close to the Modern Greek consonants for Koine."
ERRWSQE
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
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