[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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