[B-Greek] Greek NT Audio: vehicle of communication? or enunciation of texts in a dead language?
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Fri Oct 10 13:20:10 EDT 2008
XAIREIN
Karl egrapse
>... Let me raise a tangential question out of curiosity: some have talked about a Homeric Greek pronunciation — have even claimed to have used it pedagogically; I am curious about what they're referring to as a "Homeric Greek pronunciation." I've heard texts of the Homeric poems read aloud myself, but not in some distinct scheme of pronunciation that differs from how Classical Attic is pronounced in the reconstructed Classical Attic pronunciation (Sidney Allen, Stephen Daitz). So I would ask those who claim to have used a "Homeric Greek pronunciation" just what pronunciation they are referred to and how it differs in detail from the other schemes of pronunciation of ancient Greek that we've talked about? The recordings of Homer that I've heard are either Erasmian or reconstructed Attic. >
I could 'Amen' the question, and have only heard Restored Attic used.
As you are well aware, our orthography of Homer is essentially in a
rewritten, postEuclidean Attic. What should we do with unwritten [w]
βαυ waw/digamma"? What about the problem of Y before it moved forward
to German "ue" and was replaced by OY, which was part of the
pre-W-mega orthography?
On the otherhand, one could say that they were reading "Homer" and
Restored Attic could be treated as part of "Homer" since "Homer" is
now in an Attic-Ionic orthography for its mixed Epic dialect.
>The chief question I want to raise here, however, is this: How is the Greek actually being used ...? My guess is that it is not being used for anything other than the sounding out of written texts, that it is probably NOT being used conversationally for real give-and-take communication. That, I think, is where Randall's pedagogical application of his scheme differs from what's being discussed by all others in this thread: Randall wants to use and does use his reconstructed Hellenistic-Roman Koine pronunciation in the actual give-and-take of classroom instruction and conversation.>
Your question and comment are helpful in clarifying what sometimes
gets "lost in the crowd". This is at the heart of Second Language
Acquisition studies. Interactive use of a language is what puts it
deep inside a person. And 'deep inside' is what readers want to have,
too.
> ...I think that what is required is Randall Buth's application of modern language-learning techniques in classroom conversation. The question is ultimately: How is the pronunciation one prefers to employ pedagogically for teaching and learning ancient Greek being employed: is it as a real means of communication between its users -- the back- and-forth of conversation between teacher and students or between the students themselves -- or is it used simply to give an aural expression to literary texts in a dead language that is not really conceived as a vehicle of communication?
That, in a nutshell, is the question. In fact, most SLA these days is
within the umbrella of "communicative language learning".
>I don't disparage the practice of vocalizing ancient literary Greek texts for aural apprehension of the sounds of the ancient language (although I do think it's rather artificial to attempt such vocalization in a pronunciation scheme that clearly doesn't represent the way the language was ever sounded historically other than in modern classrooms), but however valuable such a practice may be, I think it can never foster a real grasp of the language as a vehicle of communication; the spoken language lies at the basis of all real language surely?>
ERRWSQE
IWANHS
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth at gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
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