[B-Greek] Why Monotonic Greek. Was: Free Polytonic Uncial Greek Unicode Font?

Steve Westfall steve.westfall at comcast.net
Wed Aug 9 19:39:09 EDT 2006


Curtis,

I think I was confused because it seemed that you were equating the use of
monotonic with converting to Unicode, and these are obviously independent
since both monotonic and polytonic systems are supported in Unicode.  But
you are saying that Greek keyboarding is simpler with monotonic, which I
suppose would be true whether or not you also use Unicode fonts.

Thank you for the clarification.

Steve Westfall

-----Original Message-----
From: Curtis Hinson [mailto:curtis at curtishinson.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2006 11:06 AM
To: Steve Westfall; B Greek
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Why Monotonic Greek. Was: Free Polytonic Uncial Greek
Unicode Font?

Greetings Steve,

I should have given a little context for my statements.  To make a long
story short, the diacritical markings were invented by Aristophones of
Byzantium sometime around 200BC.  These marks were intended as an aid to
foreigners using Greek.  These were not in common use though for centuries.
They appear on rare occasion in a few biblical manuscripts after 200AD but
are not really common until about the 9th century and not standard until the
middle ages.

I do find it ironic that the Greek pedagogical regime (big grin) has for a
long time insisted on the so-called "Erasmian" pronunciation of talking
about Greek, and also on the diacritical markings.  Since the diacritical
markings were intended as an aid to foreigners pronouncing Greek, it seems
amusing that so many students are taught a butchered pronunciation, and the
diacriticals are also drilled into their heads even though they're not
pronouncing Greek, but talking ABOUT Greek.

The Greeks themselves finally rethought the issue and as of the late 1970s,
polytonic Greek is illegal in Greece for official documents or public
signage, and monotonic Greek is the standard in Greece.  Greeks reasoned
that the polytonic system was useless since they did not need markings to
know how to pronounce their own language.

I suppose an approximate analog might be English, which is notorious for
having a pronunciation that is high context, far far more inconsistent and
difficult than Greek, in my opinion.  So if someone had called for all
English documents to start being written in IPA notation to help foreigners
pronounce the language, it might be a similar effect to causing Greek to be
written with diacriticals.

Having said all this, I have made note on B-Greek in the recent past the
text critical and interpretive issues introduced by the use of diacritics.
Because the diacritical markings do not appear in the early manuscripts,
they are editorial markings adding by late copyists or by modern editors.  I
cited an example of how the aspiration on the eta in John 1:17 throws the
meaning of the verse in a different light.  I personally feel this adds an
unnecessary opportunity for editorializing in the Greek text, and since so
many appeal to the Greek text to throw off the editorializing of the
translations, I find it distasteful to use diacriticals in that way.
Particularly because, I observe, students are just force-fed the markings
but not made aware of how they can editorialize or bias someone's reading of
the text.

" Essentially, modern Greek pronunciation starts from Plato's time; we call
it modern, not because it is young, but because it is still in use today."
-- http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/lessons/lesson1.asp

For that reason, in whatever teaching I do, I teach students the "modern"
pronunciation and the monotonic way of writing Greek.  Once they're very
comfortable with that, I explain how the diacriticals work so they are not
ignorant of them.  I then explain about Erasmian to the students having now
learned Greek pronunciation as their default.  Since they've learned the
natural way of speaking Greek, this is a humorous discussion along the lines
of explaining Pig-Latin to a young English speaker.  I've never had a
student at that point who then chose to go with Erasmian.

Anyway that should begin to clarify why I think polytonic Greek is an
unnecessary burden on Greek students and a useless practice.  So, I make an
observation that one of the greatest and most pointless impacts of polytonic
Greek has been the creation of a bagfull of different Greek encoding
standards used only by Greek scholars.  Greeks themselves use Unicode Greek
(or in the past, ISO Greek, but same keyboard layout).  
Because the layout isn't encumbered by adding many diacriticals, it's a
simple and standard keyboard layout.

In Windows XP, go to Control Panel --> Regional and Language Options -->
Languages tab --> Details button. 
Add "EL (Greek)" with the Greek keyboard layout, and you can have the
language bar show up on the taskbar instead of taking up screen space.  
(I think having the language bar out of the taskbar is only useful for Asian
languages.)  Now you should be able to switch between typing in English and
Greek by hitting Alt-Shift.  No need for special or additional programs, and
you'll generate truly portable, international standard text.

Bless the Name
Curtis Hinson
http://curtishinson.com

Steve Westfall wrote the following on 8/8/2006 8:42 PM:
> Curtis,
>
> I don't understand your comment about freeing yourself from polytonic, 
> and polytonic defacing Greek, or what either of those has to do with 
> using XP's language bar.  Can you please elaborate?
>
> Thank you.
>
> Steve Westfall
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org 
> [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Curtis Hinson
> Sent: Monday, August 07, 2006 11:49 PM
> To: B Greek
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Fwd: Free Polytonic Uncial Greek Unicode Font?
>
> Since I freed myself from the chains of the polytonic, which defaces 
> Greek like graffiti, I simply set up XP's language bar to let me 
> switch back and forth between unicode Greek and English.  I notice 
> quite a few on here do the same.  Amazing how it simplifies life.
>
> Bless the Name
> Curtis Hinson
>
>
>   

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