Re: CHAT: Multi-Lingos

On Mon, Aug 21, 2000 at 11:48:37AM -0400, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
[snip]
> According to my Greek classmate, his pronunciation was *obviously*
> superior.  OTOH, he did have a very pro-Greek view of the world.  :-)
Hmm, interesting... modern Greek pronunciation has changed quite a lot
since Classical times. Classical Greek definitely did NOT sound like
modern Greek, especially with the "etacisms" in modern Greek, the loss of
the pitch accent, etc.. I'm not sure if vowel lengths are still
differentiated in modern Greek - in classical Greek, that was a big deal.
Not that anybody today really knows what classical Greek actually sounded
like, of course, because all we know today is that each of the vowels
*must* have sounded different, and that the different accent marks *must*
have stood for something that modern Greek no longer has. On top of that,
there are several divergent pronunciation schemes for classical Greek,
which don't exactly sound alike. :-)

So I wonder how valid is the claim that one's pronunciation is "obviously
superior". Of course, some Greeks today claim that the pitch accent and
vowel sounds we think existed in classical Greek are merely a figment of
the imagination of some eccentric linguistic scholars, and that their
current pronunciation has "always been" since ancient times. So go figure
:-)


T