[B-Greek] Rm. 8:20: "EF' hELPIDI"

frjsilver at optonline.net frjsilver at optonline.net
Mon Jun 26 20:02:23 EDT 2006


Dear Friends --

I'm always grateful for the comments posted by Profs Conrad and Buth.

In the current vein, what can be said of 'alleluia' VS _haleluYah_?  The form ALLHLOUIA (four syllables) lacks an aspirate in the Greek 70 and in Revelation, its only NT locus

In orthodox Christian liturgical usage, we've inherited that very strange -- if explainable -- pronunciation:  ALLHLOUIA.  In Japan, the orthodox sing _ah - ree -RU -ee --ah_, since they got it from Russia, and since L and R have a special allophonic relationship in Japanese.  

Every language has its own phonemic restrictions, but there's no reason why we, in English, couldn't (like Handel) say something closer to _haleluYah_, right?

Apart from a Latin interlocution between Greek and English, what happened?!

Peace and blessings to all.

Father James

----- Original Message -----
From: Randall Buth 
Date: Sunday, June 25, 2006 1:14 pm
Subject: [B-Greek] Rm. 8:20: "EF' hELPIDI"
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Cc: Randall Buth 

> >> Romans 8:20: "THi GAR MATAIOTHTI hH KTISIS hUPETAGH, OUC hEKOUSA
> >> ALLA DIA TON hUPOTAXANTA, EF' hELPIDI..."
> >>
> >> I don't whether this has come up before, but I was wondering
> >> whether "EF' hELPIDI" was an unusual form, which seems (to 
> me) more
> >> likely than a printer's error.
> >>
> >> Andrew J. Birch
> >> Palma de Mallorca, Spain
> 
> >It does make you sit up and take notice, doesn't it? This is 
> what is
> >(un)commonly termed "Cockney Koine" or "orrible haspiration," 
> or the
> >like. ;-)
> >
> >I'll cite the opening section of BDF ("Orthography"), specifically
> >the section on "Breathing", §14:
> >
> >" ... non-Attic rough breathing ... in the case of hELPIS, hIDEIN,
> hIDIOS, hOLIGOS, hEFIORKEIN, alone, where aspiration in the NT is
> frequent and strongly attested, aspiration is supported by other MS
> tradition, by inscriptions and papyri ... The basis of the phenomenon
> in any case is to be sought in analogies (Schywyzer I 305): hAFIDEIN
> following AFORAN, KAQ' hIDIAN following KAQ' hEAUTON, OUC hOLIGOS
> following OUC hHTTWN ... " The reading EF' hELPIDI in Rom 8:20 is
> noted in p46, p46 also has it at 1 Cor 9:10, but USB4/NA27 has EP'
> ELPIDI there.
> >
> >Carl W. Conrad
> 
> This was worth looking up in Swanson, Romans, who was just cited 
> in 
> another post.
> It turns out that the Alexandrian witnesses p75, B, and alef all 
> have 
> EF' ELPIDI. Their historical fidelity shows thru in their 
> ability to 
> preserve a reading that would not have been accepted by the 
> general 
> Alexandrine academy. Also, D and F, a 9th century text, read EF. 
> We 
> may assume that Paul's letter likely had EF ELPIDI, which he or 
> his 
> scribe wrote.
> 
> Several, e.g. Gignac, Horrocks, have questioned whether, and to 
> what 
> extent, the rough breathing was in use in the common era. It 
> appears 
> that the psilotic (no "h" pronounced) ancient Ionic was winning 
> out 
> in the game of laisez-faire Koine/post-Alexander Greek. Thus, it 
> is 
> likely that Paul would have said ELPIS, without an 'h', but he 
> or a 
> scribe may have "hypercorrected" to EF ELPIS when adding the 
> preposition. As BDF and Schywyzer argue, semantic analogy played 
> a 
> role in choosing allomorphs (variant forms) like EP/EF, AP/AF, 
> OUK/ 
> OUX. [Semantic analogy is not a phonetic phenomenon and is more 
> likely to occur or be accepted where phonetic aspiration was no 
> longer in use]
> It was such morphological pairs that helped to maintain the 
> writing 
> tradition of aspiration throughout the centuries, even when no 
> 'h' 
> was sounded on any of the following words. That is, KAQ' HMERAN 
> preserved HMERA as belonging to a list of aspirates, despite 
> HMERA 
> being pronounced without an 'h' aspiration. The phenomenon that 
> Carl 
> calls "orrible haspiration" illustrates the spelling problems 
> that 
> arise when a speaker without 'h' has to write words where some, 
> but 
> not all words, need to have 'h' written.
> ERRWSQE
> Randall Buth
> ---
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