Re: CHAT: barbarisms (was: CHAT: Being both theologically correct etc

At 7:26 am -0400 14/5/01, John Cowan wrote:
>Raymond Brown scripsit:
>> At 1:57 am -0400 13/5/01, John Cowan wrote:
>> [snip]
>> >
>> >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.
>>
>> But that's simply because we got them from Latin, after the Romans had
>> borrowed them from Greek.
>
>Not always.  "Perithecium", for example, is not recorded before the
>19th century: it is obviously Greek, despite the Latinized ending,
>but bears the Latin stress:  /pErI'TiSi@m/.
OK - but the word is _Latinized_ before entering English, following exactly
100% the same way the Romans did it.

But I fail to see what relevance the pronunciation of Latinized Greek words
taken into English has with the way that ancient Greek is pronounced in
America or Britain.

No one doubts that on both sides of the pond, e.g. Alexander is stressed on
the middle syllable, however the {a} is pronounced.  But that tells us
nothing about the way some reading ancient Greek would say _Alexandros_.

Till well past the middle of last century, it would've been /alek"s{ndros/
in Britain (Henninian stress - which I consider a barbarism).  Now, since
the publication of Sidney Allen's "Vox Graeca", I suspect /a"leks{ndros/
(Byzantine & modern Greek stress) has gained ground.  (I'm assumimg
anglophones on both sides of the pond pronounced {a} as /{/ )

My informations was that in the US the Byzantine stress had always been the
norm.  So far nothing from your side of the pond has actually contradicted
this.

Ray.


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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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