And Carl Conrad wrote:
snip
> I don't quite see what the "definite advantages" of the
> modern Greek pronunciation might be. I do think that one needs to learn to
> read aloud continuous sequences of the text and hear the sounds. The one
> thing I find disturbing about using modern Greek pronunciation is the fact
> that so many of the vowels and diphthongs that are spelled differently
> (e.g. H, U, OI, I, EI and another set E, AI) that the student fails to have
> the advantage of a pronunciation that reinformces the written forms of
> words he/she is learning. What are the advantages that outweigh this if you
> use the modern pronunciation? It has always seemed to me that the
> fundamental reason for pronouncing a dead language is to gain the aural
> reinforcement for the written words.
I quite agree with Carl. I taught beginning and intermediate Greek for
several years at a seminary here in Costa Rica with a text that taught
only modern pronunciation. I made the decision to have my students
disregard the pronunciation in the text and taught them the Erasmus
pronunciation for the very same reason Carl mentions. There is a better
letter-to-sound correspondence. I too would be interested in knowing
what the presumed advantages are to using the modern pronunciation.
Ron Ross
Department of Linguistics
University of Costa Rica
UBS Consultant