[B-Greek] DIKAIOS, kai demotikh
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at ioa.com
Wed Oct 12 09:43:23 EDT 2005
On Oct 12, 2005, at 8:59 AM, Curtis Hinson wrote:
> 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.
My understanding is that the KAQAREUOUSA continues in use in scholarly
journals, rather as an artificial form rather than a dialect in any
real sense of
a dialect spoken by a distinct ethnic group.
> 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/
>>
>>
>>
>
> ---
> 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/
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list