[B-Greek] Pronunciation rules

Steve Westfall steve.westfall at comcast.net
Wed Oct 5 13:21:03 EDT 2005


I have no problem with trying to arrive at a more historically accurate
pronunciation.  Many of Randall Buth's comments along those lines and
regarding the use of teaching methods that use the mouth and ear, and not
just the eye, are helpful, and over time methods do need to evolve to
improve things for beginners.

The point of my "to each his own" remark was not to commend the range of
variation within the Erasmian approach.  It was merely a recognition of the
variation that exists and is probably inevitable, however lamentable that
is.  People currently beginning to learn ancient Greek need something that
is consistent, and I think it's less confusing for those people if the
instructor takes care to distinguish between sounds like alpha and omicron
instead of pronouncing them the same like Pennington does.

Speaking of "fake, obsolete systems", since Modern Greek is not pronounced
like ancient Greek, I don't understand why some people are obsessed with
replacing the older Erasmian tradition while promoting another that is not
historically accurate either.  (Perhaps it's because they want the decided
advantages that come with using oral, and not simply visual, learning
methods, but those methods can be used with ancient pronunciations too.  Or
if they are learning modern Greek, they may hope to use only one
pronunciation method for both modern and ancient.)  Why not work toward an
eventual consensus on how to pronounce Greek that recognizes diachronic
variations?  To avoid overwhelming beginning students, it might be possible
to reach agreement for a standard pronunciation for classical Attic, another
for the New Testament, etc.

Steve Westfall

-----Original Message-----
From: Curtis Hinson [mailto:curtis at curtishinson.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2005 8:42 AM
To: Steve Westfall; B Greek
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Pronunciation rules

Yes, when you're using a fake, obsolete system for talking about a language
as though we have no idea how it sounded and sounds, why not have everybody
make up their own interpretation?  Starting from there it's all one and
alike in any case. There are lots of "Erasmians" out there, nearly one for
every one who uses it.  :-D

Bless the Name
Curtis Hinson

Steve Westfall wrote the following on 10/5/2005 1:03 AM:

>[SNIP]...
>
>Oh well, to each his own, I guess!
>
>Steve Westfall
>Naperville, Illinois
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org 
>[mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Eric Weiss
>Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2005 9:56 AM
>To: b-greek
>Subject: [B-Greek] Pronunciation rules
>
>There are a couple pronunciation errors on Jonathan Pennington's CDs of 
>readings from the Greek N.T. -  e.g., at the end of Romans 5:6 (reading 
>from ...
>  
>




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