Re: Romaunt days (was: A funny linguistic subway experience &c)

At 5:26 pm -0500 11/12/00, Steg Belsky wrote:
>On Mon, 11 Dec 2000 20:06:58 +0000 Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
>writes:
>> At 11:45 am +0100 11/12/00, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>> >En rÈponse ý Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>:
>> [....]
>> >form S·mbati). Still, seen how little it's used in real world (only
>> in
>> >Greece if
>> >I understood correctly your explanations,
>>
>> Certainly used in Greece, where it's pronounced /paraske'vi/
>
>> Ray.
>-
>
>Do you know how it was pronounced in Koine Greek?
I guess there were regional differences in the Koine, just as there are in
modern English internationalized koine; but the 'norm' would be some thing
like:
[paraskEwwé:]

The final vowel was long and high by that time (on its way towards the
modern [i]), like German {ee} and carried the pitch accent (some sort of
rise in tone - exactly how it was pronounced when syllable final is one of
those unknowns that people love to argue about).

The short /e/ was probably lower, similar to modern Greek & English 'short
e'; that's what I've assumed above.  It seems that where a diphthong ending
in upsilon was followed by a vowel the [w] sound (which later became [v])
was geminate.

Hope this helps.

Ray.

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