[B-Greek] Listening to Romans 5:1 (Greek NT Audio)

Kevin Riley klriley at alphalink.com.au
Wed Oct 8 19:08:54 EDT 2008


Just out of fairness to Erasmians - it is only American Erasmians who
regularly pronounce A and O the same.  It is not part of the British system
at all.  The British are much more likely to confuse U and OU.

In the whole history of Greek there was never a time when the spelling
differentiated all the sounds of Greek with neither too many nor too few
graphemes compared to phonemes.  We survive quite well with the same
situation in English.  

In theory, I am what Carl called a "maximalist" in that I would love to be
able to read the literature with the same pronunciation as the author used,
and so distinguish C8th Homeric from C5th or C4th Attic from C1st Koiné by
sound.  But in practice, I just want to be able to learn Greek well enough
to be able to pick up a Greek text and read aloud as well as I can in
English - even better would be good :)  When I look at the world of Greek
language learning, it is only Modern Greek that delivers that outcome
consistently.  It doesn't have to be that way.  Europe produced people who
could not only read but also converse fluently in Latin for centuries after
the last native speaker of Latin passed from the world.  I don't regret my
two years of NT Greek, but when I consider how much more comprehensively I
would have learnt virtually any modern language I can't help but be
disappointed with the methodology.

Being a social scientist rather than a theologian or linguist, one thing
that has intrigued me is the different arguments (and results) when
comparing the situation in NT Greek with Biblical Hebrew.  The change from 
classical" Massoretic pronunciation to what is virtually identical to modern
Israeli pronunciation has happened quickly and without much pain, yet Greek
has hardly budged.  

Kevin Riley
 
-------Original Message------- 
 
From: Mark Lightman 
Date: 9/10/2008 5:54:11 AM 
 
 
#4. The WORST part of your system is pronouncing these two 
Letters the same. But this does not make Erasmus better, because 
You point out the pronouncing omicron and alpha the same (which 
Most Erasmians do) causes much more havoc with the language. 
This havoc is not a badge of honor in either system, as your 
Example tries to make it out to be. 
 



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