[B-Greek] Absurdity of Koine Greek accents (was "Allegory about learning Koine Greek")

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sun Jul 19 18:47:10 EDT 2009


On Jul 19, 2009, at 5:56 PM, Eric S. Weiss wrote:

>
>> From Unit Two, Section 4, p. 17 of Introduction to Attic Greek, by  
>> Donald
> J. Mastronarde:

Attic Greek accentuation is one thing, Koine Greek another.

We are told that Aristophanes of Byzantium invented the system of  
accentuation in the 3rd century BCE in order to mark clearly how the  
classical texts had been pronounced with a pitch accent -- AS IT WAS  
NO LONGER BEING PRONOUNCED, A STRESS ACCENT HAVING REPLACED THE PITCH  
ACCENT. One would like to know precisely when the change in  
accentuation had been completed, the "terminus post quem" for the  
pronunciation of Greek with stress accent only.

It seems to me that our pedagogical conventions regarding Biblical  
Greek are in no respect stranger than with regard to pronunciation: we  
are not much (most of us) concerned with ascertaining and observing  
the pronunciation of Greek actually used by those who composed and  
transmitted the GNT, but when it comes to retention and observance of  
a pitch accentuation system that, so far as we can tell, was obsolete  
in the era of the NT, we are scrupulously religious -- one might even  
be tempted to say tha we are superstitious. Of course, we won't try to  
PRONOUNCE our Koine Greek texts with a pitch accent, but we will  
insist that the DIACRITICAL MARKS OF PITCH ACCENT are learned and duly  
written when we transcribe NT Greek texts. "Oh brave new world, that  
hath such creatures in it!"


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






More information about the B-Greek mailing list