[B-Greek] Accents in Ancient Greek
Nikolaos Adamou
lets.read.the.bible.in.greek at gmail.com
Sun Sep 12 19:38:43 EDT 2010
Dear friends, it is nice to rejoin this blessed community that I
missed all summer.
William Harris, Prof. Em. Middlebury College, wrote an interesting essay:
THE MUSICAL PITCH ACCENTS IN GREEK, in
http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Classics/Greekaccents.html
related to the point discussed here.
Accents do indicate stress but a musical pitch.
Dionysius Thrax (Διονύσιος ὁ Θρᾷξ) (170 BC‑90 BC), indicates that
“Tone (accent) is the resonance of a voice endowed with harmony.
It is heightened in the acute,
balanced (decreased) in the grave,
and broken (not broken but waived, heightened and then decreased) in
the circumflex.”
http://www.archive.org/stream/grammarofdionysi00dionuoft#page/4/mode/2up
For an English text,
http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/graeca/Chronologia/S_ante02/DionysiosThrax/dio_tech.html
for a Greek text
The fact that at that time manuscripts used uncials (capital letters)
without scripting the tone symbols, does not mean that we did not have
them, or
In oral communication were not used, by the Greeks.
Now days that ignorance let the Modern Greek state to use only the acute,
or 40 years ago when I was pupil, we were not writing grave,
but we substituted it with the acute,
does not mean that when one speaks or reads aloud Greek,
does not have the musicality of the Language.
Furthermore, accents make difference in distinguishing words that
otherwise have the same spelling.
For example, in LOGOS multimedia KALOS, καλὸς (good) is pronounced as
κάλος (calus).
Caragounis, in his 12 lessons audio CD about “How to pronounce Greek as a Greek”
gives the following list.
AMNHNOS ἄκμνηνος fasting from food ἀκμηνὸς
full-grown
AKRATOS ἀκράτος without being mixed ἀκτατῶς
in uncontrolled manner
BATOS βάτος blamble-bush
βατὸς verb adj: that can be passed
DEREIS δέρεις pres. Inf.
δερεῖν fut. inf.
DEMOS δήμος people
δημὸς fat
DIAIRW διαίρω lift up
διαιρῶ divide
DOKOS δόκος opinion
δοκὸς beam
EDRANON ἔδρανον seat
ἀδρανὸν neut. Adj: steady
EIMI εἶμι go
εἶμὶ I am
ELEUSIS ἔλευσις coming
Ἐλευσὶς Eleusis
ZHTW ζήτω long live (from ζάω)
ζητῶ I seek
UEA θέα view
θεὰ goddess
UERMH θέρμη warmth, heat
θερμὴ adj.: warm
IEREIA ἱέρεια priestess
ἱερεία festival, sacrifice
IW ἴω I come (pr.sub. (εἶμι)
ἰὼ exclamation: alas!
KONIS κόνις dust
κονὶς nit
NOMOS νόμος law
νομὸς pasture, district
OINOS οἶνος wine
οἰνὸς the ace of the dice
POTE πότε when?
ποτὲ ever
TIS τίς, τίνος, τίνι, τίνα (inter. pronouns)
τις, τινός, τινί, τινὰ indef. pronouns
AISXYNW αἰσχύνω I shame out (pes. ind.)
αἰσχυνῶ (fut. ind.)
KRINW κρίνω I judge (pres. ind.)
κρινῶ (fut. ind.)
MENW μένω I abide (pres. ind.)
μενῶ (fut. ind.)
NEMW νέμω I divide (pres. ind.)
νεμῶ (fut. ind.)
I think this is an important reason to keep the accents in USE.
When I was ignorant, I also wrote without out accents or breathings
marks, up to the time
my non linear programming professor in mathematics, Carl Lemke,
introduced me to the mystic of Pythagoreans.
Others, who teach Greek, also do not use tones the way they exist in Greek.
This does not mean anything.
Tones (accents) are part of the Greek voice even if there are not
written in the text.
According to Dionysus,
“Reading is the rendering of poetic or prose productions without
stumbling or hesitancy. It must be done with due regard to
expression, prosody, and pauses.
Through the expression we learn the merit (ἀρετὴ arete) of the piece ;
from the prosody, the art of the reader
and from the pauses (διαστολῆς diastoles), the meaning intended to be conveyed.”
He goes on giving the specific characteristics of what reading should
be and then he concludes,
“Any reading done without due observance of these rules
degrades the merits of the poets
and makes the habits of readers ridiculous.”
Randal, thank for introducing me to Dionysius.
Nikolaos Adamou, the reader
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