[B-Greek] Accents in Ancient Greek

Barry H. nebarry at verizon.net
Sun Sep 12 07:15:25 EDT 2010


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Randall Buth" <randallbuth at gmail.com>
To: "B Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2010 4:58 AM
Subject: [B-Greek] Accents in Ancient Greek


> >The proposition that putting the stress on the wrong syllable interferes 
> >with
> communication in Greek and English has a certain logical appeal, but all I 
> can
> say is that the empirical evidence that I have argues against it. >
>
> Several items:
>
> As speech becomes more rapid you will want the syllables correctly 
> accented
> in order to help process longer streams of sound correctly into the right
> words. The wrong accent does create many false starts and the need to
> repeat in live communication. My experience.

This is true in English, as well.  I had a friend from Ghana who used to 
occasionally speak what he called Ghanaan English to us.  Because the accent 
almost always falls on a different syllable, and because the quality (and 
occasionally quantity) of the vowels tended to be different in most 
contexts, and because he could speak it very rapidly, it sounded very 
different from standard English (American, British, or Aussie).  When he'd 
do it to the uninitiaed, they almost always thought he was speaking some 
exotic African language...  :)  Real Cockney speakers from London (as 
opposed to the stage accents most Americans know) are nearly 
incomprehensible as well, for similar reasons, though they tend to throw in 
dialect words for the confusion and amusement of the tourists.

N.E. Barry Hofstetter, semper melius Latine sonat...
Classics and Bible Instructor, TAA
http://www.theamericanacademy.net
(2010 Savatori Excellence in Education Winner)
V-P of Academic Affairs, TNARS
bhofstetter at tnars.net
http://www.tnars.net

http://my.opera.com/barryhofstetter/blog
http://mysite.verizon.net/nebarry






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