[B-Greek] The Language of the NT

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Fri Jan 18 06:14:40 EST 2008


John Sanders egrapse
>... phonologically speaking,   ...      It also
appears that although there is no Attic Koine before Alexander, most of the
elements that make up Attic Koine exist dispersed among the various Greek
dialects.
...
I will posit that the other boundary is that
"koine Greek" is spoken in Athens when Aristotle and Demosthenes are
chatting up a storm.
>

You are doing some nice studying and thinking. On your reconstruction --
the assumption ("boundary") that Aristotle was speaking a non-classical Koine
is going in the direction of Teodorsson, The Phonemic System of the Attic
Dialect 400-340 B.C. (1974) and Teodorsson, The Phonology of Ptolemaic Koine
(1977).

Possible, though I think that most Greek historians are happier to
place the 'Great
Vowel Shift' after Aristotle rather than before. The rapid,
post-Alexander spread of
Greek is a convenient and sufficient sociolinguistic catalyst. Of
course, historically,
the fact that Aristotle trained Alexander and that Alexander set up
the new lingua
franca would also lead to a new world-wide situation IF Aristotle were already
pronouncing a Koine system.
Most linguists find the data used by Teodorsson too slight for
the strong thesis that all the changes took place before Aristotle,
though there is
relative unanimity that during the Ptolemaic period the changes become/
were-in-place as the Koine Greek language.  A nice summary is available
in Horrocks, Greek, A Hisotry ... p 102-107. This leaves a seven-vowel Koine
system in PRE-Christian times. PAUL and LUKE would write with it and
it is behind
all NT manuscript history. [[NB: Neither Paul nor Luke, not even
Aristotle or Plato
or Homer knew an Erasmian pronunciation.]] Morphologically, though, some Koine
forms do start to spread in the 4th century (GINWSKW versus GIGNWSKW, EQHKAN
for EQESAN). (If someone wants to see the seven vowel Koine system
discussed with
sample data, see www.biblicalulpan.org under "courses", "Greek demo"
"Pronunciation...". Yes, Greek Part 2a is now available, too.)

However, one reads the data, the Koine vowel system was certainly in place
during Ptolemaic times and MAY have been in place for the masses in Athens by
Aristotle's time. For example, Teodorsson's popular Attic of 350 BCE has dropped
phonemic length and has the seven-vowel Koine system plus a lower
Wi [ipa  backwards c as in 'awe'] while  O-mikron and W-mega were the same,
except for being distinguished from Wi. Thus, a mono-length 8-vowel system for
popular speech in 350 BCE Athens.

As you mentnioned, changes take place over time. However, systems tend to
re-orient after any change is made and the result can be a rather far-reaching
realignment within a generation or two. Note the Great English Vowel shift,
rather suddenly after Chaucer, historically speaking.
With Greek it appears that the first sound to go was EI becoming I,
and the time
of Alexander/Aristotle isn't a bad location.
But H seems to remain stable for several centuries, (as mentioned the
Greeks never knew Erasmian EI=H, which explains why one could shift before
the other) and H only followed and merged into
the I sound of "EI" in the 2-4th c. CE.

ERRWSO
IWANHS

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη
שלום לכם וברכות
randallbuth at gmail.com


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