[B-Greek] Absurdity of Koine Greek accents (was "Allegory about learning Koine Greek")
Sarah Madden
sarah.r.madden at gmail.com
Mon Jul 20 09:20:29 EDT 2009
Eric --
In defense of the current system of accents, one thing I like about the
circumflex accent is those situations where the circumflex is a subtle clue
that certain letters (vowels) have been subsumed under a stronger
letter (e.g., in the article's dative case or contract verbs).
While we're on this topic, I would suggest another thought: I have often
wondered why there is a soft-breathing mark. Why not only use the
rough-breathing mark?
Sarah ><>
USA - Maryland
sarah.r.madden at gmail.com
On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 8:57 AM, Eric S. Weiss <papaweiss1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I was thinking this morning that those of us who recommend using a
> historically proper
> pronunciation for Koinê Greek - i.e., Randall Buth's Phonemic Koinê or even
> Modern Greek
> (what Caragounis calls the Historical Pronunciation) - should be similarly
> consistent when it
> comes to accents.
>
> I.e., since the "accent" in Koinê times only represented stress and not
> (i.e., no longer)
> pitch, then a simple stress accent (like is done in Modern Greek) is what
> Koinê/NT texts
> should have, and the basic "rules" we teach or use re: when to use an acute
> vs. circumflex
> vs. grave accent should be rewritten to discuss only one kind of accent
> (i.e., a stress
> mark), and explain the shifts in stress, rather than explain when a
> circumflex is used, when
> an acute changes to grave, etc.
>
> I would guess that vowel length and nouns tending to be persistent and
> verbs tending to be
> recessive when it comes to accents would still be part of these "stress
> accent rules."
>
> What remains, then, is what to do with the breathing marks. Should they be
> retained to
> differentiate between words, or should they, like the different
> shapes/kinds of
> accents, likewise be dropped since they no longer affected pronunciation.
> Were breathing
> marks used in texts from Koinê times by Koinê writers?
>
> - - -
> Eric S. Weiss
>
>
>
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--
Sarah ><>
sarah.r.madden at gmail.com
work: 301.429.8189
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