[B-Greek] PEE or PIE - Koinê pronunciation
Randall Buth
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Sat Jul 15 13:31:36 EDT 2006
Shalom Mark,
this is a nice summary, pls allow a minor correction (*).
>since according
to Eric Weiss's excellent comparison charts (thanks for your work,
Eric) the
basic iota sound is the same in all three systems (except that the
Buthian
scheme apparently doesn't allow for a short iota sound as in "pit,"
but that
wasn't one of the options we were considering for our audio files
anyway). >
*Modern Greek doesn't distinguish two iota's. (Nor did the first
century.) there is no short 'pit' opposed to long 'peet' or 'pee'. to
do so would sound distinctly Anglophone. If an English speaker thinks
they are hearing the English distinctions, they need to listen more
closely. For those in the US you can approximate this phenomenon by
listening to spanish. closed, unaccented syllables may cause some
centralizing of the the sound, but not like the English system, and
within Greek and Spanish iota is one phoneme.
OK, since i'm writing, a couple of other considerations:
>they will be using a pronunciation scheme
that will confuse their fellow students and perhaps even a few of their
professors. >
*Actually, all pronunciations will confuse fellow students if they
have not been building listening comprehension fluency. when a text
is read at conversational speed students do not comprehend. (we will
politely ignore the teachers on this.) When Greek texts are read at
professional conferences or in 'Greek' classes, the audience follows
the written Greek handout/text, and/or the translation.
> the Greek tools I have
a hand in publishing for our largely American audiences will of
necessity
continue the artificial yet widely recognized "Erasmian" scheme (with
apologies to Erasmus). >
All you would need to do is add alternate MP3 tracks. Let the
teachers/students make their own choices. You'll be thanked down the
road.
the BIGGER issue is fluency in the language. (And working toward
fluency would be a new phenomenon in Greek pedagogy. [apologies to
WHD Rouse.])
>but in the meantime, pass me a button!>
Me too. Send the button to a DWDEKANHSWN island, general delivery.
randall buth
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