[B-Greek] Accent marks in ancient Greek

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Thu Sep 9 05:48:51 EDT 2010


On Sep 9, 2010, at 1:18 AM, P R wrote:

> I typically have a heck of a time getting accent marks on Greek letters that
> I type in MS Word, and recently came across a transcript from another list,
> some of whose members were saying that they don't use accent marks when
> writing out ancient Greek letters, since they are either unnecessary or
> conjectural (in that the system of accents was inserted centuries after
> Greek writing first developed).
> 
> Honestly I'd love to junk the entire system of accents if I could. What do
> the people on this list have to say about ancient Greek accents?
> 
> I didn't see a way to search the archives, and I didn't see anything like
> this in the previous couple of months.

1. With regard to accents:

There's no danger of a consensus opinion on this question, I suspect. Certainly it's a bit laborious to type diatonic Greek accurately, although one can acquire some ease and competence at it with enough practice. I think that what most prefer to do is to copy a Unicode (UTF-8) Greek text from an electronic version and paste it into a message or a document one is working on. You'll find our current protocol for transcription of Greek texts as the final portion of our FAQ at
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/faq.html
or on a separate page at: http://ibiblio.org/bgreek/bgtransliteration.html

Certainly our conventional transliteration scheme does NOT ordinarily represent the accents, although the TLG convention is noted in our instructions: "If accents are really necessary, to distinguish otherwise identical words, acute is represented by {/}, grave by {\}, and circumflex either by tilde {~ [preferable]} or {=} -- always AFTER the vowel over which it would be written."

I would add that nobody has objected to unaccented Greek unicode text in B-Greek messages -- and it certainly is true that the accents were not indicated in the earlier NT Greek papyri or MSS.


2. With regard to searching the archives, here's a draft of a section proposed for revision of our BG-FAQ on the matter:
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"How can I search the B-Greek Archives for older discussions of matters of interest to me?

a. Formulate the Search Terms

The question must be formulated so as to bring the most useful results. I would note that, although you can search for scripture citations (e.g. Matthew 6:34), there's such variety of citation modes (Mt 6:34, Mt. 6:34, Mt 6.34, Mt. 6.34, ...) that no particular mode chosen is likely to hit on every item in the archives that deals with the text in question. I have found that a search that uses the standard B-Greek transliteration of a key word or phrase in the passage you're looking for makes a more serviceable search term for getting most of what's useful in the archives.1. You can use the following in a Google search box:

<search-term> site:http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/

I would note that, although you can search for scripture citations (e.g. Matthew 6:34), there's such variety of citation modes (Mt 6:34, Mt. 6:34, Mt 6.34, Mt. 6.34, Matt. 6:34, ..., Matthew 6:34 ...) that no particular mode chosen is likely to hit on every item in the archives that deals with the text in question. I have found that a search that uses the standard B-Greek transliteration of a key word or phrase in the passage you're looking for makes a more serviceable search term for getting most of what's useful in the archives. At any rate, CARIN OIDA PLEISTHN TWi IWSHFWi THS BOHQEIAS hENEKA.

b. Try using the BG Search “Bookmarklet” in your web browser. See:

http://macbiblioblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/b-greek-search-bookmarklet.html

This will take you to a page in Joe Weaks’ Macintosh Biblioblog explaining how to use a bookmark that can be put in the bookmarks bar of Firefox to open up at a click a box in which you can spell out your search terms that will be applied solely to the B-Greek archives.

c. If you want to search the Older Archives, the easiest means  (this will not work on the pipermail/b-greek/ archives) is to go to this web page:

http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/archives/index.html

Type your search term(s) in the search field at the bottom of the page and then click on the "search" button.
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I don't know how adequately I've covered your questions, but at least I've tried.

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






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