[B-Greek] Questions regarding accentuation
Vasile Stancu
stancu at mail.dnttm.ro
Wed Jul 23 03:11:41 EDT 2008
Randall Buth wrote:
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as mentioned above, Koine Greek "stress" would naturally include pitch
distinctions, just not the ones describe by the PERISPWMENOS//OKSUS
distinction. No pitch is being forced out.
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Since pitch distinctions are included, why is it that most of the Greek
grammars I have seen do not explain such details so as the student to
understand and use them in practice? I have the impression that this is a
kind of a taboo subject for the ordinary student.
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However, more to the point, the assumption that there were "traditionalist"
speakers in the first century begs data not in evidence. Just who and where
were anybody speaking the 'ancient' system in the first century? Abundant
evidence contradicts the assumption.
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I am not referring to the "traditionalist speaker" but to the traditionalist
who was promoting the old system of writing which supports an older
tradition in pronounciation.
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And who today or during the last 350 years communicates in pre-Vowel-shift
English? (see below.) This week our SXOLH class will be reading the
Emperor's decree on tomb robbing from the mid-first century CE. the
so-called Nazareth inscription. Well-chiseled for the State by a
professional. He spelled αμετακεινητους AMETAKEINHTOYS 'untransferable',
επιδιξη EPIDIKSH 'point out', τειμαν TEIMAN 'to honor', μετακεινησαι
METAKEINHSAI 'to transfer'. All of these were considered good spellings in
the first century and they show up in all of our early manuscripts and
papyri to the NT. Including the very professional and conservative
Vaticanus, also P75. Check out the name PEILATOS and HLEIA, as I've pointed
out on this list. (The Nestle-Aland and UBS texts had Westcott-Hott
respelled, supposedly "according to first century practice" but actually
according to medieval and modern practice. Westcott-Hort had already done
quite a bit of regularization, in any case, of which I don't mind.) I assume
that you are reading these correctly. 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.
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As a non-native English speaker, I have encoutered numerous cases where
people are still pronouncing "that" or "day" for instance, the same way as
in the 1400s. London, Cambridge, Manchester, Leeds or Hull (let alone
Australia) are places where one may experience many variations which cover
perhaps all cases, if the way common people speak is considered and not the
"official" language used by national television stations.
Regarding the different ways of spelling the same word, may I compare such
phenomenon with that which I can see today. I have seen recently a
adertisment in Paris which reads: "All is in ze box", rendering the typical
way a French pronounces the English "the". Another one in Bucharest: "Chip
in taci", which is the Romanian spelling of the English "Keep in touch",
mocking perhaps those who pronounce English with a strong Romanian accent.
People in my country often ask themselves whether "duminica" (Sunday) is
correct or "dumineca", or whether a certain word should be spelled with
double "i" or not. The former communist President of the country was known
to having had difficulties in pronouncing "municipiu" which he usually did
as "muncipiu". As a result, all of the TV enterntainers would pronounce it
wrongly, as the President did, just to avoid any conflict; the phenomenon
can still be noticed today, almost twenty years after that time. There is a
long ongoing debate regarding the fact that some commercial TV stations tend
to promote the jargon of the street, which is in some cases wrong
grammatically or even vulgar. And a lot of such examples could be given.
My problem with the Greek is that there are so many cases where the
short/long vowels make the difference between a gramatical form and another.
Having also noticed that languages have generally followed a process of
simplification as they got modernised, I would normally tend to keep
pronounciation ways which are consistent - as old as they might be - with
the gramatical structures/forms.
Vasile STANCU
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