[B-Greek] How do modern Greeks pronounce Biblical Greek?

Barbara D. Colt babc2 at comcast.net
Sat Apr 9 02:29:40 EDT 2005



On 8 Apr 2005 at 20:16, Justin Buol wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> For what it's worth, I went on a trip to Greece and Turkey during
> January, and my tour guide during our Greece portion was a native
> Greek, and when she read from inscriptions or any ancient Greek for
> that matter, it was always with her Modern Greek accent and
> pronunciation.
> 
What do you think of:

"When that April with his showers soft
The drought of March hath pierced to the root . . ."

Naa, it messes up the rhythm.


Seriously, while few of us would think of using modern English 
pronunciation for Chaucer, I suppose there's no real reason why one 
shouldn't.  But I'm studying on my own, and at my age I doubt that I shall 
ever have any occasion to try to speak in Greek, and for learning 
vocabulary, it is helpful if not all the vowels and diphthongs are 'ee'.  
And I do almost always read aloud, though needless to say, when say, in 
Acts, there are several verses in succession, each with three or four new 
words, I may have to read each verse half a dozen times to get it 
reasonably smooth. (Especially if all the new words have six or eight 
syllables!)




Barbara D. Colt, mailto:babc2 at comcast.net
St John the Evangelist, San Francisco
>From envy, hatred, and malice and all uncharitableness
Good Lord, deliver us.





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