[B-Greek] Modern Greek pronunciation for poetry

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Mon Sep 19 06:46:20 EDT 2005


On Sep 19, 2005, at 6:28 AM, Jeremy D. Brightbill wrote:

> There have been discussions recently about the benefits of Modern  
> Greek
> pronunciation for the NT.  But I am wondering how it would work for  
> poetry,
> since the meter is based on syllable length rather than word  
> accent.  How do
> modern Greeks pronounce Homeric poetry or Attic drama?  I imagine  
> that they
> don't try to reintroduce the contrast in vowel length.  Do they  
> shift the
> stress around to fit the meter?  Or do they simply ignore the meter  
> and
> pronounce the accents as stress, as they are in the modern  
> language?  I
> would be grateful if someone could describe the system that Greeks use
> today, along with its practical advantages and disadvantages.

Quite frankly, although I know that there are important exceptions, I  
believe
that most who READ Homer in Greek do NOT make any attempt whatsoever
to enunciate the pitch accents -- or for that matter do they even  
read them
as stress accents; rather, they read with metrical emphasis on the  
ictus:

MAY-nin a-EI-de, qe-A, Ph-LAY-i-a-DOE a-chi-LAY-os   (that's with a
more-or-less Erasmian pronunciation)

If it's read the same way with a Modern Greek pronunciation, I think  
the same
would probably hold true:

MEE-nin a-EE-de, thay-A, pee-LEE-ee-a-DOE a-chee-LEE-os

Pardon my abandonment of transliteration in a poor attempt to spell out
suggestions for transliteration.

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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