[B-Greek] Accents - who is responsible?

Vasile Stancu stancu at mail.dnttm.ro
Sun Aug 17 08:19:21 EDT 2008


I would like to get some information (perhaps some good Internet ressources
links, as this subject must be vast, I suppose) regarding the following:

 

- How, when and by whom (if there is such information) were the old Greek
manuscripts editted so as to be added the accents/spirits as we have them
today? (I understand that the original manuscripts did not contain any such
marks).

- What could have been the purpose for which these people engaged in such a
huge work?

- Could it be true that there was a time when virtually no Greek texts
contained accents/spirits hence all texts were thus later (by Middle Ages
perhaps) processed at some point in time?

- Since, I suppose, a large number of persons from various parts of the
world, during a fairly long period of time participated, was there
significant consistency among them as far as the rules of accentuation were
understood and applied?

- Could there be any similarity of purpose between this work and the work of
Aristophanes of Byzantium, for instance, who is acreditted with the
invention of the accents, or with that of the Masorets, who added vowel
indications to the consonants of the old Hebrew texts?

 

Vasile STANCU




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