[B-Greek] Pronunciation of Kappa, Pi and Tau

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Sep 28 07:10:08 EDT 2006


On Sep 27, 2006, at 2:12 PM, Arthur King wrote:

>
>
> Eric Weiss <papaweiss1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Current pronunciations for these Greek letters are given as follows:
> [SNIP]>
>>   I understand that before Koine times, the letters were pronounced
>> as follows:
> [SNIP]
>
> I have read with interest the many messages on this list concerning  
> the
> various pronunciations of Greek letters, and wondered - does
> pronunciation have any effect on understanding a Greek text?

There is certainly some advantage to aural reinforcement of what  
would otherwise be visual recognition alone; that is not to say that  
you must adopt and one particular mode of pronunciation rather than  
any other -- and there have been advocates of several different  
schemes of pronunciation on this list, some more persuasive than  
others. I must say that I rather dread the onslaught of a new thread  
on this matter, since it seems to be inexhaustible and threads on the  
matter end in fatigue rather than resolution.

I think it is useful to be aware of what were homophones in Koine and  
therefore aware that scribal errors are particularly common when they  
are involved;  one of the most common is the shared enunciation of  
hUMIN and hHMIN, both being pronounced something like an English EE- 
MEEN.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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