[B-Greek] Greek NT audio--attitude of modern Greeks
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Sun Sep 28 03:54:27 EDT 2008
And I thought that Romanian was Greek! (this is a joke, course,
based on the Byzantine practice of Greeks calling themselves
Roman.)
to your questions:
The ones that I have meet consider Erasmian cacophonic, and
are pleasantly surprised to be able to listen to me fairly clearly
and smoothly. In addition, they certainly respect anyone who
undertakes the difficult and long task of reading the ancient
literature. They forgive them their pronunciation but don't want
to listen to it. Quite a few classicists have attained a remarkable
breadth in the ancient language. Greeks know of names
like Paxon, Rouse, and Willamovitz. And Liddell-Scott has been
translated into Greek. How is that for respect !
Visiting Greek professors are commonly given
free entrances to musuems and archaeological sites, though
that is discretionary and not fixed for those from outside the EU
like myself. Naturally, they think that it is a good thing for any
classicist to learn modern Greek, too. Unfortunately, that has
been a hard sell, and few classics or NT programs send
students for an estimated two-three years in Greece in order to
benefit from what I estimate to be a 60% overlap between
modern and KOINH. Definite benefit, but the distance is far
enough that they must be classified as 'mutually unintelligble
languages', though very closely related through a series of
mutually intelligible chrono-dialects.
However, if communication is desired between modern and
KOINH it can be done. We did this for two weeks last May for a very
interesting time with many sympathetic islanders. It wasn't always
understandable, but quite a bit was able to be communicated.
Two years ago I had an interesting meeting with a foreign
classicist, a KWS historian (Greek) and myself. We were forced
to use French as a lingua franca, but the following year the
historian and I only used my KOINH and his
modern/patched-kathereusa. (adding kathereuvucisms washis
way of joining our game of only speaking ancient. Anyway he
read some old poems that we discussing better than I.)
DIA TI H GALLIKH, EXONTES THN KOINHN?
ERRWSO
Randall
On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 3:49 AM, Vasile Stancu <stancu at mail.dnttm.ro> wrote:
> Yes, I understand this quite well. However, when asking the question I had
> in mind today's Greek scholars (Greek nationals), rather than the ordinary
> Greek person. In my country, for instance, even though Romanian is
> considered as derivating from Latin (one famous scholar of early 1900's even
> said that Romanian is the actual Latin now spoken in these territories),
> pronounciation rules of Latin are taught in school and they are not always
> the same as today's Romanian ones (and, by the way, the ordinary Romanian
> would consider them as cacophonic). Greek scholars at least, do they have a
> similar attitude toward Koine Greek as compared with its modern counterpart?
>
> Vasile STANCU
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Randall Buth [mailto:randallbuth at gmail.com]
> Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2008 6:02 AM
> To: Vasile Stancu
> Cc: Leonard Jayawardena; Sarah Madden; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Greek NT audio--attitude of modern Greeks
>
> On Sat, Sep 27, 2008 at 10:56 PM, Vasile Stancu <stancu at mail.dnttm.ro>
> wrote:
> ...
>>
>> May I ask Dr. Buth one question: you mention today's Greeks strongly
> rejecting the Erasmian system, yet tolerating the Living Koine. If today's
> Greeks were convinced that Living Koine was the system people in NT times
> were using, shouldn't they be the first to not only using, but even
> promoting it? And if they are not, why not?
>>
>
> The question of attitudes of today's Greeks is a good question, but some of
> the
> deductions or test questions above scramble more than one issue. Some of the
> questions are asking them to look at their own language as though they were
> outsiders.
>
> You began a question, "if today's Greeks were convinced that Living
> Koine was the
> system" ... But that seems to misinterpret my statements.
>
> I claimed that in my experience they tolerate "Living Koine", that it
> appears as
> somehow "Greek", maybe in comparison to what they imagine or have heard
> about foreign academic Greek scholars. When I speak or read they follow
> along
> comfortably. Sometimes an HTA throws them off. They hear Y as I, because
> their ears function on a five-vowel grid and a KOINH "Y-psilon"
> happens to land
> in their acoustic grid-space where it is interpreted as I. This means
> that there is a potential
> reconciliation between modern Greek and KOINH Greek if the latter were to be
> used by New Testament scholars around the world. It may be capable of
> bridging
> the gap between KOINH and modern. On the other hand, the Erasmian dialects
> are cacophonic and irredeemably distant from modern. This is one
> consideration that should go into the overall mix in choosing a
> pronunciation.
> Not the only criterion, just one criterion.
> In sociolinguistic terms this deals with 'acceptance'. Preliminary
> indications
> tell me that KOINH has a chance at acceptability that Erasmian is completely
> lacking.
>
>
>> shouldn't they be the first to not only using, but even promoting it?
>>
>
> Why? They don't want to use anything except modern.
> Does the outsider, you or I, have the right to tell the insider what
> they should
> want or what they should consider valuable?
>
> By and large, modern Greeks do not know the history of their phonology.
> This should not be surprising. How many English speakers know about the
> great English vowel shift and what changed between Chaucer and Shakespeare?
> Greeks do not personally recognize a seven-vowel "Koine" system, nor are
> they
> aware of the system transformations that took place in 4-2c BCE. So they
> can hardly advocate a KOINH PROFORA.
> The teachers know something about the period between Plato and Homer,
> but they invariably read according to modern Greek.
> In addition, modern Greeks do not speak and do not try to speak in the old
> language. They are content to speak in modern Greek when discussing an
> ancient
> text. Consequently, they are not interested in using a different phonology
> from
> modern Greek, since they do not use a different language other than modern
> Greek either.
>
> Hopefully, that clarifies modern Greek expectations. If you want to hear how
> Greeks might feel about their language, read Chrys Caragounis' book.
>
>
> ERRWSO
> Randall
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> randallbuth at gmail.com
> Biblical Language Center
> Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
>
>
>
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth at gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
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