[B-Greek] Changing Pronunciation

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Mon Mar 14 12:17:11 EDT 2011


> One of the most fun and interesting things to do in any language learning
situation is to explore onomatopoeia and the sounds that people make for
different things. It's fun because different languages/cultures use
different sounds to represent the same thing. So, it seems to me that
Plato's reference to Eta sounding like a lamb bleating could just as well
represent an "aaaay" sound as a "baaaa" sound. I cannot comment on Buth's
pronunciation system.

Ben>


I see that I am coming in on this thread a little late. Not the first time.

First a technical note, then the fun stuff.  We wouldn't want one
without the other.

As to HTA, Carl is correct for the historical Attic, and I have probably
mentioned that and agreed with that on list more than once. However,
it does not appear to represent the post-Alexandrian period, nor is it
what I term the KOINH. In that period EI had already moved into 'i'
(IPA i, like "ee" in English "feet"), and that allowed HTA to move into
the phonetic space vacated by EI. This is a common phenomenon
during language change and re-accomodation.
Eric is correct about the stages of HTA,
and it apparaently followed EI into IOTA around the second
century CE.

Now for fun. The sound system of a language, especially when it no
longer matches the orthography 100%, causes some less obvious
changes and frequencies to take place in a language.
We might see this in the NT in a rather 'in your face' way with a
word for 'sheep' in Greek. The old Greek word was OIS and
the common word in the NT is PROBATON.
What happened? Without extensive investigation, the following
appears influenced by sound:
OIS 'sheep (poetic)' [o'-is] became contracted and sounded
like [ys] in IPA. That is, with the "ue" sound of German or the
high, rounded, front vowel of French. Josephus and Plutarch
were still using it rarely.
YS 'pig' was also pronounced like IPA [ys].

Well, you just can't walk into a PANDOXEION and ask for some
[ys]-meat as your evening meal. And even if the PANDOXEYS
might assume that his Jewish guest meant 'mutton', it would get
pretty repulsive, pretty fast, to refer to mutton as 'swine'.
[apologies to pork lovers, this refers to a Jewish perspective.]
So OIS doesn't occur in GNT or LXX. However, it is pretty rare
in general, it seems to me, so I'm not sure that sound is giving
us the whole picture. I havn't checked sources like Aesop or the
Greek novelists.

We do look forward to some fun with nine days of shared
Greek in August. Lunches will be taken together and with
Greek table talk. Participants will be on their own for dinner.

blessings
Randall Buth


-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life



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