From: Trevor & Julie Peterson (spedrson@netzero.net)
Date: Sun Dec 17 2000 - 16:52:28 EST
IWANNHS MPOUQ EGRAYEN:
> For reading from a printed text, ALL (>99.9%) modern Greek speakers prefer
> the modern pronunciation. That is a weighty argument for people with
> multicultural sensitivities. Academics are not always aware of how
> "unnatural", "offensive", "bad", "ridiculous", "non-Greek" they sound.
I agree that this fact in itself may not be a weighty enough argument, but
have you interacted with them enough to know their reasons? I suppose it
may be for the same reasons that modern Americans don't normally read the
KJV with a British accent (let alone whatever the differences might be
between modern British and the Elizabethan period). But perhaps there are
others that might be worth weighing?
[snipped]
> That is, the Greek language itself couldn't
> maintain the 'classical'/'Koine' language with the reduced vowel system.
Good point. And that certainly is an obvious drawback. On the other hand,
it doesn't seem to hamper the ability of modern Greeks to read the text with
their own pronunciation system or to understand the different grammar of the
biblical material. (Or does it?)
[snipped]
> So if I
> want to interact with the academic and influence I need a more credible
> case than simply Greeks use 'modern'.
And obviously, it would be a good thing to maintain facility with the
Erasmian system. Of what I was able to dig up in the archives, there was a
good apologetic for this notion by Edward Hobbs from 8/2/96. He does add,
though, that it would be worthwhile to learn Modern Greek in addition to
Koine with Erasmian pronunciation.
[snipped]
>
> 1. Use a pronunciation that
> a. sounds 'Greek'
> b. maintains sufficient distinctions for the language
> c. is historically justifiable/defensible
>
> For Koine, such a compromise exists. The roman period Koine used the
> following seven vowels
> EI=I, H, AI=E, A, W=O, OU, OI=U (this is easily demonstrated from most any
> collection of 20 or more popular papyri. Like from Bar Kochba or Babata
> where HNUGMENON = 'opened'[HNOIGMENON], IS = 'into'[EIS], PEMSE = 'to
> send' [PEMYAI]. In Egyptian papyri examples are a dime a dozen.)
> If one adds the basically modern consonant system you have
> something pretty
> close to what Origen or Eusebius would have understood without any
> difficulty. It is a historically 'real' system that was tolerated
> well-enough to be stable from 150 BCE to 350 CE. Such a system
> means that a
> person would relate to a written text with roughly the same kind of
> phonemic, homonymic, alliterative and assonantial grid as NT
> writers. As an
> additional blessing, it is tolerably 'Greek' to modern ears. But the
> clincher is the next point.
So essentially, you're advocating a reconstructed early CE Koine
pronunciation. Of course, there is a similar approach to Biblical Hebrew
which strives for a reconstructed Masoretic pronunciation. I suppose
there's less need for such a compromise in light of the distinct advantages
to using Modern Hebrew, but it is an option in both spheres.
I wonder if you would mind elaborating a bit more on the vowel system of
that period. In your brief summary above, you don't say what the
pronunciation would be for the OI=U pair. Would it follow the German
u-umlaut analogy typically offered for U or the English oy analogy for OI?
Also, what would you do with AU, UI, and EU/HU?
>
[snipped]
>
> a. pray at least one sentence every morning from something that you
> yourself want to say.
Not a bad idea. I've already started to move toward this with Hebrew and
Syriac. (Somehow it doesn't feel quite right in Akkadian!) I have a friend
in the same program who talks to himself in the languages he's learning.
>
[snipped]
>
> c. point 'b' could lead to a KOINE GREEK list, where the main
> rule would be
> that communication would all be in Greek.
Of course, the drawback would be that you wouldn't actually get to speak the
language. It's certainly better than doing nothing but reading it, but I've
actually contemplated the possibility of establishing ancient-language
communities where language learning could be dealt with from a more
immersion-type approach. Languages like Hebrew, Greek, and Syriac, where
modern equivalents do exist, would be a good starting point. You could
begin with a cooperative effort between modern native speakers and
ancient-language scholars (or better still, ancient-language scholars who
are modern native speakers) and set up some sort of "language camp," where
perhaps for a whole summer or semester (or longer if feasible) students
could come and live in a setting where only that language, reconstructed
according to the best available information and adapted as necessary from
the modern speech community, is allowed. After some techniques were
developed and perfected, a later objective could be to work up something on
a truly dead language like Akkadian. Of course, I'm hardly in a position
right now to start such a movement, but I hold no rights to the idea, so if
anyone on the list has the ambition . . .
Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics
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