From: Rbsads@aol.com
Date: Wed Mar 06 2002 - 22:02:47 EST
Pronunciation is a hard question for us self learning beginners, and have
hesitated asking the list as there seems to be a wide range of scholarly
opinion. I have tried over the last year to be consistent, but have recently
changed some vowel pronounciations after considering various recommendations
from Summers, Mounce, White, and Crosby/Schaeffer.
I try to follow accent marks consistently, and use them as indicators for
long and short vowels.
I have tried to distinguish long and short alpha, iota, and upsilon as
follows: long alpha like father, short alpha like cat; long iota like
machine, short iota like kit; long upsilon like hue, short upsilon like cup.
I have read that alpha may not have had a different long and short sound in
Koine Greek, but it makes sense to me to have a distinct sound for the long
and short alpha.
Most texts do not seem to differentiate between long and short upsilon.
Again, it makes sense to me to be consistent by distinguishing the long and
short sounds.
I try to pronounce all consonants. The PN combination though is especially
difficult.
I pronounce omicron as pot and omega as home. I understand that modern Greek
pronounces both omicron and omega as the English long O.
I pronounce alpha-iota dipthong as long "i" in like. I pronounce
epsilon-iota dipthong as long "a" in freight. I try to give epsilon-upsilon a
double sound such as "e-oo" (short e). Similarly with HU, as "a-oo" (long a).
I had never read that EU might be pronounced as "ev" or that AU might be
pronounced as "av". And I have not read of a difference between velar and
palatal pronunciations. I thought that velar and palatal were merely
different names for that class of mutes.
I pronounce subscripted alpha long as in father. All 1st declension E,I,R
stem nouns in the singular with long alpha for the ending (father sound) and
all 1st declension accusative plural with long alpha for the ending (father
sound). I pronounce other 1st declension stems with short alpha for the
nominative and accusative singular endings.
I pronounce the ending alpha for plural nominative and accusative neuter
nouns with short alpha (as in cat).
It would be good to know if any of these are outside acceptable options.
Thanks,
Richard Smith
Chattanooga, TN
PS
I have AOL 7.0 now. And have attempted to send this post as plain text.
Please let me know if it worked.
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