[B-Greek] "proper" pronunciation?

Donald R. Vance, Ph.D. donaldrvance at mac.com
Tue Jan 2 17:59:21 EST 2007


A very funny example of this is the Carls hamburger commercial where  
two Philadelphia cab drivers are discussing the latest offering from  
the fast food chain. Though speaking English, subtitles are provided  
because their speech is practically indecipherable.


Donald R. Vance, Ph.D.
Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature
Oral Roberts University
dvance at oru.edu
donaldrvance at mac.com


On Jan 2, 2007, at 4:54 PM, Anthony Buzzard wrote:

> Ted, Yes, indeed. I think of the cockney sound of DIE (more or less
> "DOY") and my own non-cockney British english version. Lots of other
> examples. I have noted on this list that having taught NT Greek in a
> Bible college, with the modern accent, that many learn to read well,
> fast. But this is all a matter of taste of course. I was just
> delighted to learn, for the first time on this list, that other
> institutions have been using the non-Erasmian version too.
> Anthony Buzzard
>
> At 05:45 PM 1/2/2007, shoes6 at juno.com wrote:
>
>> This topic has been discussed and rehashed plenty of times.  An  
>> aspect
>> of this debate that doesn't always get mentioned, however, is the  
>> fact
>> that we probably expect more uniformity than the ancients provided.
>>
>> That is:
>> In our day, people who speak any widespread language (such as  
>> English)
>> have the "equalizing" influences of television, air travel, highways,
>> the internet, movies, etc.  People on the opposite side of the world
>> can read and hear much of the same English that I hear.   
>> Therefore, the
>> English language is almost certainly more uniform than it would be
>> without these factors.
>> ***And we still have different dialects!***
>> Put together native English speakers from different places and
>> different social strata, and they might well have a hard time
>> communicating.
>>
>> If that is true in our day, local idiosyncracies were probably much
>> more developed in the pre-modern world.
>>
>> What, then, is the genuine ancient pronunciation?  There were  
>> probably
>> hundreds of them.  Sure, we can trace back some tendencies.  But even
>> those tendencies are a representation of the world overall, not of  
>> any
>> individual speaker, not even any one century.
>>
>> Ted Shoemaker
>>
>>
>> From: Michael Hinton <guyanimal at mac.com>
>> Subject: [B-Greek] "proper" pronunciation?
>>
>> I listened to an mp3 audio seminar by Charles Vanderpool on correct
>> pronunciation of koine Greek
>>
>> http://apostolicbible.com/
>>
>> His were quite a bit different than what I learned in college NT
>> Greek 1 and what I hear theologians speak. For example, his
>> pronunciation of the upsilon sound is a long ee, as is the dipthhong
>> OI. His premise is that koine Greek correctly pronounced is identical
>> to modern day spoken Greek.
>>
>> Is there a consensus on this? Or is it simply impossible to  
>> ascertain?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> MichaeL Hinton
>> beginning Greek student
>>
>>
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>
> Anthony Buzzard
> www.restorationfellowship.org
>
> ---
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