[B-Greek] teaching Greek I-II using Croy but with modern pronunciation

Susan Jeffers susan at read-the-bible.org
Fri Jul 3 09:09:54 EDT 2009


Greetings b-greekers --

I'm scheduled to teach Greek I & II online this upcoming (North 
American) academic year using Clayton Croy's "A Primer of Biblical 
Greek" for an institution that uses modern Greek pronunciation.  Croy 
presents Erasmian pronunciation in chapter 1, and all my lessons and 
audio recordings have used Erasmian in the past. 

My intention is to offer each  student a choice between modern and 
erasmian, with explanations and audio recordings of both.  The students 
from the host institution will be required to use modern pronunciations, 
but any who enroll from elsewhere may choose either system.

I'm working on revising my lessons that accompany Croy now; I plan to 
have the majority of students who will choose modern Greek just skip 
Croy's chapter 1 and instead use an alphabet/pronunciation document I 
will post, with accompanying audio files.  So far it's going pretty 
well, although of course it's hard for this old dog to learn new 
tricks.  But I am VERY motivated.
  
I anticipate some "gotchas" along the way though, as I myself try to 
master modern pronunciation on top of the Erasmian I've been using since 
I started studying biblical Greek.  Has anyone on this list been down 
this road before, and if so, could you email me off-list with any 
pointers, either for adding a second "accent" to my own repertoire, or 
for not unduly confusing students?  I can't just forget about Erasmian, 
as I teach for multiple institutions with different requirements, nor 
would I want to stop using Croy.

By the way, I customarily inform students that there are varying 
opinions about which pronunciation system is best, and regularly refer 
those interested to the b-greek archives, R. Buth's website, and 
elsewhere, if they're interested in learning more about the options.

Thanks so much -- this email list is one of the best resources on the 
internet, in my opinion.

Grace and peace of the Lord to you all,

Susan Jeffers
Adjunct faculty, several institutions




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