[B-Greek] The Pronunciation of Iota
Louis Sorenson
llsorenson at hotmail.com
Fri Aug 8 22:55:46 EDT 2008
Hello all,
While trying to change my pronunciation to more imitate the first century A.D. (C.E.), I have realized that I have been pronouncing iota's inconsistently. (I think being aware of the pronunciation differences will help me read and understand the papyri and understand why some variant reading occur). I grew up learning the Erasmian pronunciation - and as many beginning grammars teach, there are two pronunciations for iota, depending on the length of the vowel: a short like in bit (kri/nw) and a long iota like in 'meet' (e)/krina). Mastronarde (p. 11), Mounce (p. 8 note 5), Croy (Lesson 1.2 p. 2) and many other grammars teach this variation (which must have been a valid pronunciation in Attic around 400 B.C.).
But when looking at the pronunciation on the 'Living Koine' paper on Dr. Buth's site, I see only the 'long' vowel. On page 2, #1, I see the interchange of ει for ι (ei for i The short pronunciation is never mentioned in the paper. ). It also says (p. 7) that in Modern Greek ι = ει = η = υ = οι. From that statement I assume that a 'short' iota is not present in Modern Greek? I believe I have also read that iota was becoming syllabic in certain situations. I am also wondering about the pronunciation of epsilon in words like πόλεως where εω is not a diphthong, but the accent is treated like the ω is short or like εω is a diphthong.
The July 20, 2008 post titled 'Questions regarding accentuation' makes the following statement. http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2008-July/047128.html
Last week we read an inscription at Caesaria
of Rom 13:1-3 where φοβισθαι FOBISQAI 'to be fearing' occurs
and the name ΣΗΛΒΑΝΟΥ SHLBANOY Silvanus. How do you
want students to read these? Next week at Tsippori they will see TEKNON
(plural = TEKNWN) and KE=KAI, among many others. These can be multi-
plied by the ten-thousand from Rome, Athens, the Dead Sea, and Egypt.
And was the expert mason, but poor speller, paid his full wage for such 'vulgar' spellings?
Of course, fast pronunciation may be different from slow methodical pronunciation. So my question is how are the following words Greek (with betacode following) to be pronounced in Living Koine?
τῖς TI=S tiss or teehs(?) long because the circumflex shows
τις TIS (unaccented) tiss or same as τῖς?
τί TI (like bit)
ἔκρινα E)/KRINA (long iota) eh-kree-nah
κρίνω KRI/NW (short iota) krih-noh
μητέρι MHTE/RI, μητρί MHTRI/, (dative singular - short) mht-rih
λύουσι LU/OUSI (3rd plural ending - short) lu-u-sih
ἰατρός I)ATRO/S (syllabic?) yat-ros
καρδία KARDI/A kar-dee-ah or kar-dyah?
πόλεως PO/LEWS (syllabic ε?) poh-lyos or poh-le-ohs
Louis Sorenson.
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