[B-Greek] Greek NT audio--attitude of modern Greeks
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon Sep 29 14:42:25 EDT 2008
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> From: Nikolaos Adamou <nikolaos.adamou at hotmail.com>
> Date: 2008/9/29
> Subject: RE: [B-Greek] Greek NT audio--attitude of modern Greeks
> To: Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com>, Vasile Stancu <stancu at mail.dnttm.ro
> >
> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org, Leonard Jayawardena <leonardj at live.com>
>
>
> Languages, and Greek in particular, during all times – Homeric,
> Classical, Koine, Modern, have music and meter & rhythm – not only
> in
> its poetic but in their prose form. Erasmian does not preserve this
> quality, and thus becomes cacophonic.
>
> The phonetic aspect of Greek was not studied extensively. Recently,
> in Greece Fr. Athanasios Siamakis published several books using
> material from the classical literature proving that in essence what is
> know as Byzantine music comes from the Greek music. His brother,
> philologist Konstantinos Siamakis published a book on the Alphabet,
> arguing that the lower case Greek alphabet was invented to help learn
> Greek of those who did not know how to pronounce it.
>
> We have the new form of Greek, with separate word, in lower cases and
> with accents and breathing symbols. We also have the variety of
> symbols in Byzantine music that are not available in western musical
> notation, with the variations of the musical climaxes and their
> mathematical perplexities. Just recently, few people in Greece who
> are good in Classical, Biblical and Patristic Greece start focusing in
> this relationship, and the Siamakis' brothers are the most competent
> of them.
>
> If one listens to biblical and liturgical Greek of the Orthodox
> Church, in the vespers that Carl provided the site, of the funeral
> service that I provided the site in a previous communication will
> recognize the tonality of Greek that is completely different than the
> western music.
>
> In the site http://www.musicale.gr/mesaionika/antifona/antifona_sounds.html
> one can hear the same hymns in Greek and Latin.
>
> In the texts Introduction (1821) and Great Theory of Music (1832) by
> Chrysanthos which recently (2003) were reprinted in Greece, he
> discusses the time and way (χρόνος καὶ τρόπος) of
> speech in Greek,
> noting that pronunciation (προφορὰ) is correct voice
> (ὀρθοφωνία) and
> lead to correct writing (ὀρθογραφία).
>
> ὅτι γράφω
>
> ὅ,τι γράφω
>
> ὅ τοι γράφω
>
> ὅ τῇ γράφω
>
> ὤ τὶ γράφω
>
> ὦ τὺ, γράφω
>
> ἔχει μὲν τὴν αὐτὴν φωνὴν. ὅμως ὁ
> τρόπος τῆς προφορᾶς διὰ τῆν
> ὑποδιαστολήν, ἤ διὰ τὴν
> περισπωμένην, ἤ δἰ ἄλλο τι ποιεῖ τὴν
> διάκρισιν. οὕτω καὶ τὰς λέξεις τῶν
> φθόγγων, ἤγουν τὰς θέσεις ὁ τρόπος
> τῆς ἐξαγωγῆς αὐτῶν ξεχωρίζει
> αὐτάς. (page 52, ΕΚΔΟΣΕΙΣ ΚΟΥΛΤΟΥΡΑ,
> ΑΘΗΝΑ 2003).
>
> It has the same voice, but the pronunciation of all the signs is that
> makes the difference, and the way the voice comes out enables us to
> distinguish the differences of the forms. (in a free translation).
>
> In his introduction he makes a point that (Διὰ νὰ
> δυνηθῇ ὁ ἀρχάριος νὰ
> ἐκμάθῃ νὰ προφέρῃ τοὺς φθόγους
> κατὰ ταῦτα τὰ διαστήματα τῶν τόνων,
> πρέπει νὰ διδαχθῇ νὰ ψάλλῃ τὴν
> Κλίμακα ἀπὸ ψάλτην Ἕλληνα, προσέχων
> καλῶς εἰς τὴν προφοράν. ἐπειδή ὁ
> ἀλλοεθνὴς μουσικὸς ψάλλων δὲν
> φυλάττει τὰ διαστήματα, καθώς
> διωρίσθησαν. (Page 25 of the
> Introduction) (In free translation – in order for a beginner to
> learn
> how to pronounce the Greek voice φθόγο according to the
> distances of
> the musical notes, needs a native Greek instructor, paying attention
> to the pronunciation because the non Greek does not keep the distances
> as they are.) The reason is that in a diatonic scale, the distances
> among musical tones are NOT equal, but they have the pattern 9 – 7
> –
> 12 / 12 / 9 – 7 –12.
>
> In Chromatic scales, the distances become:
>
> 7 – 12 – 7 / 12 / 7 – 12 -7,
>
> 7 – 18 – 3 / 12 / 7 – 18 – 3,
>
> 7 – 18 – 3 / 12 / 9 – 7 – 12,
>
> 9 – 7 – 12 / 12 / 7 – 18 -3.
>
> (Pages 106/7)
>
> In enharmonic scales this becomes
>
> 13 – 3 -12 / 12 /3 – 13 – 12,
>
> 9 – 7 – 12 / 12 / 3 – 13 – 12,
>
> 3 – 13 – 12 / 12 / 9 – 7 – 12,
>
> 13 – 3 – 6 / 18 / 9 – 7 – 12,
>
> 13 – 12 – 3 / 12 / 9 – 7 – 12.
>
> (Pages 115/6)
>
> With Ambrosian music, and later in Gregorian music, in Latin all these
> nuances were eliminated and only the diatonic scale is used in the
> west with equal distances among its notes. In the east though, these
> nuances are still present in Greek and Arabic.
>
> In Greek – and Biblical Greek is not an exception, voice not only
> expresses the letters but also the feelings of the words. This is
> evident to those knowing Byzantine music. But, even in Greece, just
> now the two distinct groups of people – philologists and musicians
> start understanding each other. There is also a third dimension in
> this relationship, mathematical analogies and symmetries. Let's not
> forget that Greek numerals, - still used in Bible – are Greek
> letters.
>
> Besides all the rational points I made above, as a native Greek, I
> found quite offensive when non Greeks like Erasmus and his followers
> to tell us how our language should be pronounced. But this is just an
> emotional point that does not count.
>
> ________________________________
> Nikolaos Adamou, Ph.D. ἀναπλ. καθ.
> Νικόλαος 'Αδάμου
> Associate Professor of Business Management
> Διοίκηση Ἐπιχειρήσεων
> BMCC / CUNY
> Πανεπιστήμιο Πόλεως Νέας
> Ὑόρκης, Κολλέγιο Μανχάτταν
>
>
>
>> Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2008 10:54:27 +0300
>> From: randallbuth at gmail.com
>> To: stancu at mail.dnttm.ro
>> CC: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org; leonardj at live.com
>> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Greek NT audio--attitude of modern Greeks
>>
>> 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
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