From: Randall Buth (ButhFam@compuserve.com)
Date: Wed Jan 30 2002 - 17:06:01 EST
CAIREIN
(from the rough breathing thread)
>MH: Yes, Randall, but some of us remain unconvinced about the
>whole idea of trying to reconstruct a pronunciation based on
>spelling errors. My guess would be that pronunciation patterns varied
>widely between regions, in much the same way as English does
>from place to place now. The idea of one correct pronunciation
>ignores the fact that Koine was spoken (mostly as a second
>language) from India to Italy ... and beyond<
Two directions of comments on this.
First, and least important, we can and should assume that there were many
dialects and that most people would be recognizable as outsiders as soon as
they travelled any goodly distance. Those differences are unrecoverable for
the most part and are not really very interesting as far as the meaning
system of the language goes. In concrete terms, it doesn't matter how
close one's "A" vowel slides towards "ae" or towards "aw", what matters
is that the hearer recognize the words. For example, today Modern Greek
speakers have different accents, but most all of them are using the five-
vowel vowel system (I, E, A, O, U).
Secondly, "unconvinced?" -- the comment on spelling errors suggests that
the writer hasn't really tried to pay attention to patterns in our old
papyri. As
Horrock's said in his Greek: A History of the Language ... (Longmans,
1997), we benefit from hindsight, because we know how the process ended
up. RB: It's not even a close call.
For starters, it is beyond any doubt that Paul and Luke would have
pronounced "EI" exactly the same as "I" when they were speaking
their Greek. We don't know exactly how their "I" would sound, just
that it would sound like their "EI".
The other self-evident equations are
"AI" with "E", "W" with "O", and "OI" with "U",
while "OI/U" was not pronounced like "OU".
This was standard Koine in the Roman period. The long vowels were gone,
maybe because of all those second language speakers, and the vowel system
reoriented itself during the pre-Christian centuries.
As for dialect diversity--it turns out not to affect these equations. In
the
same way that calling Modern Greek a five-vowel system does not mean
that there are no phonetic/dialectic distinctions. The Koine vowel
equations as mentioned occur as far West as the catacombs of Rome in the
first
century, and in the Dead Seas area, and Egypt in the East. I would expect
to
find these same vowels in Dura Europos, though I haven't checked. I can't
speak for India.
So for clarity, I assume dialect diversity and actually advocate practical
phonemic compromises over purist phonetic concerns.
I am advocating a phonemic pronunciation that groups sounds/symbols
together that belonged together. Nothing more, nor
less. It's historical, easy, gives one a closer feel to the original
assonance and homonymy of the writings, fits our papyri documents, fits out
NT documents, and slips fairly smoothly into modern Greek, should one so
desire. The course Living Koine Greek for Everyone has a ten-page
discussion with examples as an appendix. Four different pronunciation
alternatives are discussed.
If someone actually works hard enough to become fluent in an erasmian
Koine, I would be happy to speak with them. More power to them. They are
kind'v hard to find. [If fluent, they shouldn't have any trouble
understanding me, either, after the first five minutes of speaking. But
their
accent might be a bear of a problem for them to change if they didn't like
the dialect they ended up with.]
ERRWSQE
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
and Rothberg International School
Hebrew University
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