Re: an announcement...

Ed Heil wrote:
>
> That sounds like a lot of fun, though!  I made a hobby of trying to
> get those things right pronouncing Greek, but nobody else in the
> department much cared.
>
        Same for me with Latin in High School. I tried to pronounce right the
long vowels, but nobody cared. Moreover, the pronunciation of Latin we
are taught in French schools is very strange : the 's' is always
pronounced /s/, the diphtongs pronounced nearly seperating the vowels,
but the 'r' is pronounced like in French. Anyway, it is still better
than Latin taught to French pupils just 30 years ago (everything was
pronounced as in French, except that no consonnant was silent. So you
had 's' /z/ between vowels and 'ae' /e/).

[snip}

        At least, Modern Greek is easier in that respect: a stress of
intensity, pure vowels, an impressive number of vowels and diphtongs
that are read /i/ (the strangest of all -for a French person- being
epsilon-iota, ei which is pronounced /E/ in French), many
vowel-diphtongs that are pronounced like in French (like
omicron-upsilon, 'ou' /u/ or alpha-iota, 'ai' /E/). Now that I have a
Greek roommate (no, we don't live in the same room, only in the same
house. Can we say "house-mate"? :) ), I'm gonna add "Modern Greek" on my
resume :) (with Dutch I hope :) ). She already taught me some words and
sentences (especially how to say: "Melina is not here" to her mother
when she calls her by phone :) ). By the way, I've learned how to say
'yes' and 'no' in Greek, and that's very strange. 'Yes' is "Nai"
(nu-alpha-iota) /nE/ and 'no' is "'oxi" (omicron-chi-iota) /'Oxi/ or
/'Ohi/ (I can't really tell the difference). Nearly the contrary as
French 'oui' and 'non'!

--
        Christophe Grandsire

        Philips Research Laboratories --  Building WB 145
        Prof. Holstlaan 4
        5656 AA Eindhoven
        The Netherlands

        Phone:  +31-40-27-45006
        E-mail: grandsir@natlab.research.philips.com