Koine majuscule letter stroke order, advice requested
Posted: August 5th, 2020, 7:45 pm
This is the challenge:
could anyone point me to a reasonably trustworthy source regarding the proper stroke order for writing Koine using a kalamos (reed pen)?
Your own experience might be the best we have in this regard, so please don't be shy, we might need to figure out this one together...
The whys and wherefores follow, very long, sorry...
As part of a somewhat major personal project that I am heavily invested in (over 50% of my own time for the last 3-4 weeks), and that I hope at least part of the fruits will be released as Creative Commons, at least to the extent that Amazon will allow, right now I am trying to figure out enough of the Roman Era Greek calligraphy so that I can pass on said knowledge, so far mostly failing at finding something authoritative.
If you need to know , my motivation/reasoning is that, if someone wants to explore Biblical Greek, knowing and being able to imitate the way that scribes and early believers wrote Scripture can be a motivator and part of a holistic (nice Greek word there) process of learning-teaching Bible Greek, as important and meaningful as the proper Koine pronunciation, etc.
Now, essentially all I can find so far is addressed to Modern Greek, or, equally problematic, to the use of modern pens or pencils, markers, or blackboard chalk.
A kalamos (the reed pens used by Koine scribes) works differently, more like a feather quill. Can''t do well a continuous single-trace circle or oval, normal procedure for writing requires several strokes per letter.
I know enough about medieval handwriting to be able to safely affirm that I need to know more about early AD writing practices before I pretend I can teach.
Does this all matter? Well, according to what I believe is wise advice shared in several posts in this forum, consistency and practice do matter, and, logically, if you are going to do it at all, why not do it the right way?
"Consistency" would mean, in my humble opinion, that someone just procuring A Little Knowledge of Bible Greek should of course practice Koine-era pronunciation together with writing practice corresponding to that era and its available technologies.
Of course, eventually some people that start with Yama and his majuscule uncial no spaces or diacritics or punctuation will go on later to Erasmian and medieval and modern-er conventions as found in standard interlinears, but doing the transition will probably hurt them less than the lack of consistency from using mixed upper and lower case and punctuation would hurt a total noob when the essential foundational text he is using comes from, say, 𝔓26, my favorite. Or 𝔓46, you get the idea.
"I guess" I could eventually "reconstruct" it, and it would seem that most instructors either assume that everyone invents their own way of writing, or else students are to imitate their teacher's style when writing in the blackboard... However, my own bad practice (self taught) is so far making me nervous, and not fit to teach. For example, my Π I start with the two legs and only then cover with a curly top, but based on the way Τ looks in ancient manuscripts, I suspect but I don't know if the curly top is traced before the legs...
Regarding similar matters already addressed in this forum, http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/vie ... ing#p23319 focused on handwriting resources, the best of them focus on modern Greek, others don't even attempt to address stroke order at all, none mention Koine more than being an issue with pronunciation. Also, http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/vie ... =48&t=2670 is a most entertaining adventure regarding someone who wanted to have his back tattooed with Scripture. Peter ended with some fragments of codex Sinaiticus, I'm just waiting for variants correctors to notice him and start putting him right, perhaps add lectionary markings
Besides those two threads, to my surprise there is zero information I have been able to find anywhere regarding a description of these matters, that I would consider are vital to those trying to give some scientific basis to paleographic dating. I know that Brent Nongbri does mention ink, another frequently ignored subject in his 2017 God's Library, but having only recently procured a copy of that book, I don't know if he mentions stroke order.
Please feel free and very welcome to correct me and point out other sources that do address actual writing as in, well, writing...
could anyone point me to a reasonably trustworthy source regarding the proper stroke order for writing Koine using a kalamos (reed pen)?
Your own experience might be the best we have in this regard, so please don't be shy, we might need to figure out this one together...
The whys and wherefores follow, very long, sorry...
As part of a somewhat major personal project that I am heavily invested in (over 50% of my own time for the last 3-4 weeks), and that I hope at least part of the fruits will be released as Creative Commons, at least to the extent that Amazon will allow, right now I am trying to figure out enough of the Roman Era Greek calligraphy so that I can pass on said knowledge, so far mostly failing at finding something authoritative.
If you need to know , my motivation/reasoning is that, if someone wants to explore Biblical Greek, knowing and being able to imitate the way that scribes and early believers wrote Scripture can be a motivator and part of a holistic (nice Greek word there) process of learning-teaching Bible Greek, as important and meaningful as the proper Koine pronunciation, etc.
Now, essentially all I can find so far is addressed to Modern Greek, or, equally problematic, to the use of modern pens or pencils, markers, or blackboard chalk.
A kalamos (the reed pens used by Koine scribes) works differently, more like a feather quill. Can''t do well a continuous single-trace circle or oval, normal procedure for writing requires several strokes per letter.
I know enough about medieval handwriting to be able to safely affirm that I need to know more about early AD writing practices before I pretend I can teach.
Does this all matter? Well, according to what I believe is wise advice shared in several posts in this forum, consistency and practice do matter, and, logically, if you are going to do it at all, why not do it the right way?
"Consistency" would mean, in my humble opinion, that someone just procuring A Little Knowledge of Bible Greek should of course practice Koine-era pronunciation together with writing practice corresponding to that era and its available technologies.
Of course, eventually some people that start with Yama and his majuscule uncial no spaces or diacritics or punctuation will go on later to Erasmian and medieval and modern-er conventions as found in standard interlinears, but doing the transition will probably hurt them less than the lack of consistency from using mixed upper and lower case and punctuation would hurt a total noob when the essential foundational text he is using comes from, say, 𝔓26, my favorite. Or 𝔓46, you get the idea.
"I guess" I could eventually "reconstruct" it, and it would seem that most instructors either assume that everyone invents their own way of writing, or else students are to imitate their teacher's style when writing in the blackboard... However, my own bad practice (self taught) is so far making me nervous, and not fit to teach. For example, my Π I start with the two legs and only then cover with a curly top, but based on the way Τ looks in ancient manuscripts, I suspect but I don't know if the curly top is traced before the legs...
Regarding similar matters already addressed in this forum, http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/vie ... ing#p23319 focused on handwriting resources, the best of them focus on modern Greek, others don't even attempt to address stroke order at all, none mention Koine more than being an issue with pronunciation. Also, http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/vie ... =48&t=2670 is a most entertaining adventure regarding someone who wanted to have his back tattooed with Scripture. Peter ended with some fragments of codex Sinaiticus, I'm just waiting for variants correctors to notice him and start putting him right, perhaps add lectionary markings
Besides those two threads, to my surprise there is zero information I have been able to find anywhere regarding a description of these matters, that I would consider are vital to those trying to give some scientific basis to paleographic dating. I know that Brent Nongbri does mention ink, another frequently ignored subject in his 2017 God's Library, but having only recently procured a copy of that book, I don't know if he mentions stroke order.
Please feel free and very welcome to correct me and point out other sources that do address actual writing as in, well, writing...