[B-Greek] Re: How do modern Greeks pronounce Biblical Greek?
R Yochanan Bitan Buth
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Fri Apr 8 14:08:30 EDT 2005
EGRAPSAN:
>They use modern Greek pronunciation. I think Erasmus's pronunciation
is probably never used in Greece.
>Paul Buchan
>
>> In modern Greece and Cypress, when modern (demotic) Greek-speaking
>> students study Biblical or Attic Greek, do they use their native
>> pronunciation, or do they use Erasmus's pronunciation that's
usually
>> taught everywhere else?
>>
>> (I'm guessing that they use their native pronunciation.)
Greeks do not consider Erasmian pronunciation to be Greek.
It neither sounds like Greek, nor even like a language in the mouths
of most.
Chrys Caragonis has a long essay in Filología Neotestamentaria 8
(1995), 151-185. THE ERROR OF ERASMUS AND UN-GREEK PRONUNCIATIONS OF
GREEK. It is quite interesting reading, though technical and citing a
lot of Greek texts that a student of NT Greek may not be prepared to
read. (One caveat: while Caragounis battles with the
'pseudo-scientific' Erasmian pronunciation, scholars of the history of
Greek have reconstructed the development of Greek pronunciation from
classical times to modern. They propose a trajectory that has nothing
to do with Erasmian, and by NT--Roman times, is already remarkably
close to modern. Basically, modern plus two vowels HTA and U-psilon
[also spelled OI]. For these other studies, see Sidney Allen, F.
Gignac, and Geoffrey Horrocks.)
I would add an anecdote that I believe is true though I haven't
verified it: Erasmus had trouble "getting his head around Greek" and
didn't feel that he 'got' it until he visited Venice where he joined a
circle who were reading old Greek texts AND SPEAKING GREEK.
Presumably, some of those in the circle were Greeks who were still
writing in a "semi-classical style" and pronouncing Greek as modern.
Erasmus, of course, would have been comparing his Greek functionally
to Latin, a language that educated people of his time could listen to
in speeches and read and write in books.
If you would like a short ten-page survey of pronunciation options,
with ancient evidence and clarification of the different systems,
please see www.biblicalulpan.org under "courses" "greek materials"
download of PDF on Koine Pronunciation.
Caragounis article can be found at
http://www.bsw.org/project/filologia/filo08/Art06m.html
Or http://www.bsw.org/?l=72081&a=Art06.html .
Enjoy. The main thing is to not be satisfied until you reach Erasmus'
level of functional language use. It is what we expect of German
literature devotees, would anything less satisfy ancient Greek?
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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