[B-Greek] b-greek online teaching tools
Leonard Isaksson
leonardo1orchardcity at mac.com
Sat Dec 8 09:58:47 EST 2007
When I had elementary NT Greek, what made me usually cringe was hearing
the various anglophonic Erasmian pronunciations. It did not make
music in my ears, nor feel at home. One surely must grant that the
modern Greek pronunciation does not allow for a listener to discern
(m)any differences in the vowels and diphthongs that have the 'ee'
sound. So communication is difficult. It would be nice if the
ancients had been able to keep hold of the pronunciation, with the
variety of vowel sounds. Hmm, which dialect? I suppose attic had the
upper hand.
Was it a matter of a good learning of the grammar, which everyday life
and speech for so many did not always necessitate? Did Paul have
difficulty in expressing or spelling, or John?
I enjoy hearing a living language. In class I did not see many times
when for the teacher or anyone did it really matter, for usually we
were looking at words in the text. But one advantage that R.Buth's
plan has is that there is a bit of difference in the way they pronounce
the diphthongs, and yet these folks seem to have imbibed a bit of
Hellas in them, in their pronunciation. These folks report that modern
Greeks do not have much difficulty in listening to this 'Koine' accent.
Leonard Isaksson
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