Re: CHAT: barbarisms (was: CHAT: Being both theologically correct and properly modern)

On Sun, 13 May 2001, John Cowan wrote:

> Raymond Brown scripsit:
>
> > Elsewhere in Europe, however, AFAIK the Byzantine & modern Greek system was
> > retained.  I had thought that German influence in classical scholarship had
> > ensured that the Henninian pronunciation had not found a foothold on the
> > American side of the pond and that the Byzantine oral stress was still used
> > there.  Young Muke's email had shattered yet another myth I entertained
> > about Americans: so the Henninian barbarism have reached there   <sigh>
>
> Well, after all, the Greek derivatives in English, and Greek proper names
> in English, are given Henninian stress:  "A'cropolis", "Alex'ander" (not
> "Alexan'der"), whether Across the Water or not.
Is this really Henninian pronuncation of Greek, or simply the
principles governing English stress applied to names of Greek
origin? My surname is most often pronounced with stress on the
penultima, [El.'ziN.g@] rather than with native Frisian initial
syllable stress: ['El.ziN.Xa]. The English accentuation fits the
"Latinate" pattern, but "Elzinga" is certainly not a name taken
from Classical Antiquity.

I suspect the same thing has happened for names and other terms
of Greek origin which are commonly used in English; their
"barbaric" pronunciation is due to English stress conventions,
rather than to Dr Henning's "reform" of Greek pronunciation.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga                          dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu

"The strong craving for a simple formula
has been the undoing of linguists."               - Edward Sapir

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