[B-Greek] DIKAIOS

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Wed Oct 12 06:24:33 EDT 2005


On Oct 11, 2005, at 9:52 PM, TuNeCedeMalis67 at aol.com wrote:

>
> LOL, I just opened a barrel of monkeys :-)
>
> OK,  I'm using Erasmian with the AI sounding like "eye". If the   
> syllable
> breaks at an iota it sounds like "ee". If an iota falls in the  
> middle  of a
> syllable it sounds like "i" in pit.
>
> Strong often breaks a syllable like the "dik" in (dik-ah-yos). I'm not
> worried about all that.
>
> I'm focused on repeatedly hearing the iota moved to the next syllable,
> instead of being pronounced with the alpha as a dipthong. I want to  
> make sure  I'm
> putting the iota with the correct syllable. I saw that there was a  
> root word
> ending in alpha and I'm assuming all this has to do with that?

That the syllable was a diphthong in classical Attic  is attested by  
the circumflex
over the iota in the marking of accents. On the other hand, in terms  
of dervation,
DIKAIOS is what's called a "denominative" adjective derived from a  
noun DIKH
("right, justice") the older (and non-Attic) form of which is DIKA;  
the adjective
was formed with the additive -I/OS-A-ON, and there may have been a time
when DIKAIOS was a four-syllable word divided DI-KA-I-OS with an acute
accent on the A. At any rate, in the classical period it was a  
diphthong AI with
circumflex marked on the second vowel of the diphthong, as is standard.

> In a message dated 10/11/2005 9:30:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> cwconrad at ioa.com writes:
>
> On Oct  11, 2005, at 9:12 PM, TuNeCedeMalis67 at aol.com wrote:
>
>
>> Is DIKAIOS  pronounced (dik-ah-yos)? Is the AI a dipthong? It's
>>  accented  like
>> a dipthong, but seems to usually be pronounced  like it isn't.
>>
>
> Yes, it is a diphthong. I've always divided it as  DI-KAI-OS. I think
> that pronunciation
> as DI-KA-YOS is wrong. My  Erasmian would make it DEE-KYE-OS, but I'd
> expect  Koine
> pronunciation would be more DEE-KAY-OS (with AY as in "May" or "de-
> lay").
>
>
>
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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/




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