[B-Greek] DIKAIOS, kai demotikh

Curtis Hinson curtis at curtishinson.com
Wed Oct 12 08:59:56 EDT 2005


Thanks for the clarification of your point, Dr Conrad.  That is an 
interesting and not altogether unsurprising observation.

I think you are right about the actual pronunciation of KAQAREUOUSA.  I 
am not extensively familiar with that dialect except from reading from 
the VANVAS in groups a bit in the past, but I did notice orthographic 
differences that seem to suggest a different mindset in regard to 
phonology.  VANVAS, for instance, shows KAI (pronounced "keh" of course) 
but the new 1997 ellhnikh biblikh etairia demotikh version shows "KI" if 
I remember correctly.  I suppose I should have clarified my question's 
parameters a bit, it might be a psycho-linguistic question.  I doubt 
there are many partisans from the old debate about.

I don't think KAQAREUOUSA is entirely dead either, it's still understood 
and used I guess rather like the never-dying KJV school of English 
translation users.  When I first got my hands on the DEMOTIKH though it 
was like a breath of fresh air, I was delighted.  I only wish the EBE 
was a bit more accessible overseas than they are.  Nevertheless I think 
KAQAREUOUSA serves a good purpose by keeping older forms and grammar 
somewhat accessible and intelligible.

Bless the Name
Curtis Hinson

Carl W. Conrad wrote the following on 10/12/2005 7:41 AM:

>
> On Oct 12, 2005, at 8:27 AM, Curtis Hinson wrote:
>
>> GEIA SAS
>>
>> I usually explain the AI dipthong in modern/historical  pronunciation as
>> "eh" as in "bed" because "ay" seems to prompt English speakers to  glide
>> the vowel "aeiyi", which doesn't reproduce the Greek sound which is
>> short and sharp.  That probably holds true for all Greek vowels and
>> dipthongs, Greeks don't mess around or linger on them.  English  
>> seems to
>> glide more than most languages, for that matter.
>
>
> Regardless of what the modern Greek pronunciation of AI is -- or how  
> any one of the Erasmian schemes of pronunciation represent AI,, it's  
> significant, I think, the papyri of the early Christian era show  
> orthographical confusion -- substitution of E and AI where one or the  
> other might be expected, so that they clearly represented the same  
> sound to the writer. I take this to mean that AI was NOT a diphthong  
> for the Hellenistic speaker of Greek.
>
>> Does anyone have thoughts, by the way, on whether the KATHEREUSA is
>> closer to historical pronunciation than DEMOTIKI?
>
>
> I assume you mean the KAQAREUOUSA or "katharevousa"; this was, I  
> think, an attempt to inject archaic/ancient inflection into the  
> modern language -- that is, a sort of as-it-were Atticism. But I  
> don't think that the KAQAREUOUSA involved any pronunciation that was  
> different from that of standard spoken Modern Greek.
>
>> Carl W. Conrad wrote the following on 10/12/2005 5:24 AM:
>>
>>
>>> 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").
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ---
>>>> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
>>>> B-Greek mailing list
>>>> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
>>>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 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/
>>>
>>> ---
>>> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
>>> B-Greek mailing list
>>> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
>>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> ---
>> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
>> B-Greek mailing list
>> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
>>
>
>
> 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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