[B-Greek] "proper" pronunciation?
Eric Weiss
papaweiss1 at yahoo.com
Mon Jan 1 20:20:36 EST 2007
Ooops! Here is the full URL for Randall Buth's pronunciation paper
(Go to Courses - Greek Demo Lesson to get to the page with the link
to this):
http://www.biblicalulpan.org/PDF%20files/PRONSYS1%202005.pdf
Eric Weiss <papaweiss1 at yahoo.com> wrote: 1st-century Greek was almost identical in pronunciation to Modern
Greek. A couple differences, per Randall Buth:
- eta was likely still pronounced like the "ey" in "they" (Modern Greek
pronounces it "ee"); and
- the omicron-iota diphthong ("oi") and the upsilon ("u") were probably
pronounced like a French "u" - i.e., say "ee" with your mouth/lips
rounded like you are saying "oh" (Modern Greek pronounces these like
"ee" also).
(Neither 1st-century nor Modern Greek pronounces the "h" sound of
the initial rough breathing as Erasmian teaches one to do.
Randall Buth has a detailed paper on 1st-century Koinê pronunciation
here:
http://www.biblicalulpan.org/PDF%20f...YS1%202005.pdf
(his regular Webpage is http://www.biblicalulpan.org/ )
I believe Chrys Caragounis differs with Buth in believing that Koinê was
pronounced like Modern Greek in all respects:
THE ERROR OF ERASMUS AND UN-GREEK PRONUNCIATIONS OF GREEK
http://www.bsw.org/?l=72081&a=Art06.html
http://www.apostolicbible.com/un-greek.pdf (pdf version)
Every Greek Orthodox Church I've visited uses the Modern Greek pronunciation
when reading the Scriptures or the Liturgy, even though the Greek is
Koinê/Byzantine.
John Schwandt wrote an article on different pronunciation schemes, and you can
click on the links to hear the pronunciations of the letters:
http://www.biblicalgreek.org/links/pronunciation.php
Schwandt edited the ESV Reverse Interlinear -
http://www.amazon.com/English-Greek-...dp/158134628X/ - created an online
National Greek Exam - http://www.greekexam.com/ - and did the Greek (and
Hebrew?) pronunciation module in the Logos Bible Software program.
Eric S. Weiss
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Eric S. Weiss
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