[B-Greek] Online teaching tools

Kevin Riley klriley at alphalink.com.au
Sun Dec 9 19:54:05 EST 2007


If Amos used a northern pronunciation, both words may have sounded identical
  And that brings us to a point about Greek - wordplays may not have worked
as well in every area of the Greek world.  What was a perfect pun in Egypt
may have fallen flat in some of the Black Sea colonies, or southern Italy. 
I think that is worth remembering when we get excited about an "authentic"
Greek pronunciation - it is unlikely that all Greeks pronounced Greek the
same way then any more than now.  If Tsakonian can survive 23 centuries,
then it is likely that other dialects survived into the C1st.  I can see
that using Randall's system is worth the effort if we want an "authentic"
C1st pronunciation, but am not persuaded that C21st Athenian [or Cypriot,
another version of Greek that sounds good to my ears] is any more authentic
than the pronunciation used for Classical Greek which was only 4-5 centuries
removed in time.
 
I suspect Paul had the same incentive to spell Greek correctly as any
educated Greek of his day - a teacher with a strong stick  :)
 
Kevin Riley
 
-------Original Message------- 
 
From: George F Somsel 
Date: 9/12/2007 5:24:18 AM 
 
 
Unless there is the use of word play of some type in the text, I doubt that
you are going to achieve any better understanding of the text using either
approach. I think immediately of Amos 8.1-3 (I give the text in English, but
I will explain my point) 
 
 
 
Here there is a play on words involved. The word for 
"end" (×§Öµ×¥ Q"C or qeits) sounds very much like the word for "summer fruit
 (×§Ö·×™Ö´×¥ QaYiC or qayits). Here the English reader will miss the point
unless someone happens to explain it. There can be various forms and degrees
of wordplay, but otherwise I don't think that there is any reason to suppose
that any greater meaning is derived simply from listening to a correct
pronunciation. Other benefits from learning the original language of a text
seem to lie more on a lexical level. 
 
To Sarah: 
 
Of course I was kidding. Where would I get such a tradition? I don't know
whether the Greeks had some simple lexicon, but I would be surprised if they
did not. We do know of some bi-lingual examples of word lists. Perhaps Carl
or Randall knows more about this. 
 
 
George 
Gfsomsel 
 
Therefore, O faithful Christian, search for truth, hear truth, 
Learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth, 
Defend the truth till death. 
 
- Jan Hus 



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