[B-Greek] IPA New Testament

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri Dec 4 17:59:07 EST 2009


Whether this has been done, I don't know, but the question seems predicated upon an assumption that there is a "standard" pronunciation appropriate to the Greek NT. In fact there are several. (1) Probably the Erasmian system is the one most widely used -- with dubious justification, but with the heavy weight of tradition enforcing its use; (2) Greeks today and many non-Greeks pronounce the text of the GNT in a Modern Greek pronunciation, a pronunciation which is considerably closer to the probable pronunciation of Greek employed by its original composers, although not quite identical; (3) Randall Buth has reconstructed the pronunciation of Greek current in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time of the composition of the GNT; he has produced recordings of several NT texts in his reconstructed Koine pronunciation; (4) Finally, there is the reconstructed classical Attic pronunciation that is taught in some American universities and used in some pedagogical materials (e.g. the JACT Reading Greek course). There is no consensus -- certainly not among list-members of B-Greek -- regarding the right system of pronunciation to use, although there is probably a strong majority of those who have learned to use the Erasmian pronunciation and are not inclined to shift to one of the other methods of pronunciation.

It should be noted, with regard to the other current thread on Greek audio Bibles, that the same alternatives bear upon the pronunciation to be used in audio Bibles: are they recorded using the Erasmian, the Modern Greek, the Buthian Reconstructed Koine, or the reconstructed Classical Attic pronunciation?

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (ret)

 
On Friday, December 04, 2009, at 04:40PM, "Davis Prickett" <davisprickett at gmail.com> wrote:
>I was wondering if the New Testament has been written out in IPA form. I was
>thinking about doing it but was seeing if it has already been done. Even
>though there may be some differences on how it should be pronounced I still
>think it would be helpful. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly
>appreciated.
>
>-Davis
>---
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