by wmfinck » Sun May 19, 2013 8:14 am
Michael,
It is clear that in transitions from one language and people to another throughout our history, certain sounds have changed slightly, and that this is manifest when two languages share the same word. F/V and V/B are two examples. V/W (U) is another. Did Caesar say Veni, Vidi, Vidi, or did he say Weni, Widi, Wici?
learningaboutCI,
It is admitted by scholars that nobody really knows what ancient Greek sounded like. There were also different dialects, even within Koine Greek. The Greek "ss" was a "tt" in Attika, but Attika was never Assika elsewhere.
I butcher the pronunciations of a lot of English words, never mind Greek. However I have tried to abide by the pronunciation guide found in Strong's Concordance. That one makes the most sense to me of any I have seen.
In prison, a friend I spoke to almost daily once brought a "Greek" to talk to me about pronunciation. It seems that many of the vowels (except the omega and omicron and sometimes the upsilon) and combinations thereof (some including the omicron) were basically pronounced like an "e".
He did not like it when I told him that I thought modern Greeks must have gotten such a scheme from the Turks. I could not believe that the Greeks would have four vowels and several dipthongs that all sounded the same (alpha, eta, epsilon, iota), and maybe even a fifth (upsilon). And then several sounds which we are accustomed to are wanting.
Somehow, I do not think that modern Greek can tell us how ancient Greek was pronounced. The same can probably be said for much of modern and medieval English.
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I just watched the video. While it is more accurate a representation than the memory I repeated above, it is not far off (if there was anything about dipthongs, I did not see it). The video has three vowels all sounding like a long "e". If it discussed dipthongs, I am sure it would assert that a few of them including the "a" would also sound like a long "e".
I do not think I could be convinced, without documentary evidence, that in ancient Greece 3 vowels and a few dipthongs all sounded like a long "e".
I also do not think I will be convinced that several of those consonant sounds are original, without documentary evidence.
But all of this and more is exactly why scholars still debate over what ancient Greek sounded like. I would bet that modern Greek would be to them like ebonics.
If a jew is moving his lips, he's lying. If you see a rabbi, there has already been a crime!