[B-Greek] Accents - who is responsible?

Barry nebarry at verizon.net
Sun Aug 17 14:33:21 EDT 2008


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Vasile Stancu" <stancu at mail.dnttm.ro>
To: "'B-Greek B-Greek'" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2008 8:19 AM
Subject: [B-Greek] Accents - who is responsible?


>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).

Vasile, I know very little about this aspect of the history of Greek 
manuscripts, but I suspect that no massive editing at all was involved. 
It's most likely that over a period of time, as copyists who used accents 
copied from manuscripts which did not use them, they simply added them to 
the copy they were making.  If I'm wrong I hope someone more knowledgeable 
may correct...  :)

The invention of accents and punctuation is usually attributed to 
Aristophanes of Byzantium:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Aristophanes_of_Byzantium.aspx

N.E. Barry Hofstetter
Professor, WRTS
http://www.wittenbergreformed.org
Mentor, TNARS http://www.tnars.net/
Classics Instructor, TAA
http://www.theamericanacademy.net

and me:

http://mysite.verizon.net/nebarry
http://my.opera.com/barryhofstetter/blog




More information about the B-Greek mailing list