[B-Greek] Accents in Ancient Greek
Mark Lightman
lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Mon Sep 13 22:37:35 EDT 2010
James egrapsed:
<A few years ago, I was at a conference where an Italian speaker was presenting
a paper on the LXX in English. He consistently put the accent on the wrong
syllable and the vowels weren't always correct, either. Plus, he was trying to
get the whole paper into a limited amount of time. I had an outline on paper of
what he was covering and was familiar with the subject. But, I could not
understand more than about 5% of his presentation.
Accents do matter.>
Hi, James,
1. At the last academic conference I attended, the papers were delivered in
flawless English, and I understood about 10% of what was said. So, I would say
this Italian guy did pretty well for himself. :)
2. Thanks for sharing this. This is the sort of empirical evidence that I
think should guide discussions like this. What you say causes me to reevaluate
one point I was making in the larger discussion.
Niko wrote:
<Furthermore, accents make difference in distinguishing words that
otherwise have the same spelling.
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.>
Hi, Niko. It is good to have you back on the list.
What's funny about this, is that even with the accents, I often confuse these
words and other pairs like them. The accents SHOULD help, but my brain tends
to ignore the accents and it seems like I always mistake the less familiar word
for the more familiar. Maybe this just means I should pay closer attention to
the accents.
Randall wrote:
<I would even recommend differentiating OY (high pitch/stress) "of which' from
OY (lowtone/pitch) 'not'. TWN (high pitch/stress) 'of the (pl) from
TON (the, acc).>
Hi, Randall,
The reintroduction of the tone/pitch, on a very limited basis, to overcome late
homophones, strikes me as very cool. It's not consistent, but it makes a whole
'lotta sense. It's one of the things I like about Modern Ancient Greek, that it
is ALIVE, growing, evolving, being changed by the people who use it.
Paul wrote:
<How sure are we that the current system of
accents that we see now, is in fact the way that classical and koine Greek
was pronounced?>
Hi, Paul,
I don't know for sure, but I would think that people who spoke Greek as a
second language--people like Jesus and Peter and John--probably did not put the
stress on the syllable that the text books told them to. (Question: Could God
create an accent system so complicated that even HE could not follow it?) Some
of them with Semitic backgrounds may--I say may because I sure as heck don't
know--may have just accented the last syllable. Some of them may even have
been done what Robinson and Dobson, do, i.e. place the accent on whatever
syllable sounded natural to them, without worrying about whose ears got hurt.
Treatises on Greek Accentuation, like history books, are written by the winners.
Mark L
FWSFOROS MARKOS
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