[B-Greek] Jefferson on Greek Pronunciation
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at ioa.com
Mon Feb 6 12:48:45 EST 2006
On Feb 6, 2006, at 12:12 PM, Eric Weiss wrote:
>> But I could not receive it as genuine in toto. I could not believe
>> that the ancient
>> Greeks had provided six different notations for the simple sound
>> of {i}, iota, and left
>> the five other sounds which we give to n, v, {i-i}, {oi}, {yi},
>> without any characters of
>> notation at all. I could not acknowledge the {y}, upsillon, as an
>> equivalent to our {n},
>> as in {Achilleys}, which they pronounce Achillevs, nor the {g},
>> gamma, to our y, as
>> in {alge}, which they pronounce alye. I concluded, therefore, that
>> as experience
>> proves to us that the pronunciation of all languages changes, in
>> their descent
>> through time, that of the Greek must have done so also in some
>> degree; and the
>> more probably, as the body of the words themselves had
>> substantially changed, and
>> I presumed that the instances above mentioned might be classed
>> with the
>> degeneracies of time; a presumption strengthened by their
>> remarkable cacophony.
>> As to all the other letters, I have supposed we might yield to
>> their traditionary claim
>> of a more orthodox pronunciation. Indeed, they sound most of them
>> as we do, and,
>> where they differ, as in the {e, d, ch,} their sounds do not
>> revolt us, nor impair the
>> beauty of the language.
>
> I am having difficulty figuring out what letters/diphthongs
> Jefferson is referring to in the
> { }, esp, the "n" and "v" and "i-i". Is "i-i" a double iota? I
> assume from the above that
> "y" is upsilon, hence "yi" is UI. Is "n" supposed to be H?
Yes. And I think that "i-i" may be long and short Iota. The "v" is
Upsilon when it is
the second letter of a diphthong (AU, EU, OU)
> What does he mean by their
> different pronunciation of "e" - I thought the Greek E is
> pronounced like our short "e"?
I think he means the long-e sound that we use as the name of the
letter in English. In sum he is referring to the whole process called
"itacism."
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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