Koiné Greek Pronunciation

To Vincent Setterholm or anyone else at Logos that may know,

I was hoping that today’s release of the Hebrew Pronunciation add-on would have provided an opportunity to upgrade the Greek Pronunciation add-on. John Schwandt has had the Koiné audio done for quite some time now.

Is this even a possibility? Or are my hopes totally misplaced?

I know this is a minority way of pronunciation, but it really makes sense to pronounce Greek the way it was at the time of the NT. The following web page from Dr. Buth’s web site explains why he favors it: http://www.biblicallanguagecenter.com/koine-greek-pronunciation/

Here is what it sounds like: http://www.biblicallanguagecenter.com/greek-mp3-samples/

Finally, if there is anyone else that would like to see Koiné Greek added to the Greek add-on please share your thoughts or at least give it a thumbs up.

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Comments

Adam Olean

[Y]

I would also love it if Logos could get Randall Buth to record the entire GNT or the entire Hebrew Bible for that matter. He is very careful with pronunciation and prosody. It would be a tremendous boon for students and teachers of biblical Greek and Hebrew!

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/609478#Comment_609478

I would also love it if Logos could get Randall Buth to record the entire GNT or the entire Hebrew Bible for that matter. He is very careful with pronunciation and prosody. It would be a tremendous boon for students and teachers of biblical Greek and Hebrew!

While I generally agree with Randall, I'm not so interested in the pronunciation. The only time the pronunciation really interests me is when it would appear to have an impact on the text itself—whatever floats your boat.

Keith Larson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/609481#Comment_609481

The following paragraph illustrates the usefulness of pronouncing the Greek as the writers of scripture did.

"Consider an analogy: good English courses train English learners to hear the phonemic distinctions of English, but they do not train English learners to artificially differentiate homonyms. Therefore, a good Koiné Greek course will train learners to hear distinctly the words that Josephus, Paul, Luke, and Epictetus heard as distinct. Likewise, those words that Josephus, Paul, Luke, and Epictetus heard as identical in sound, the student will learn to hear as identical. This will allow students to approach the kinds of language associations that the Koiné speakers had in the Roman period and to feel which words might rhyme or clash or to recognize which words might be avoided in order to avoid ambiguity with other words."

DAL

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/609488#Comment_609488

I thought nobody really knew how Koiné Greek is pronounced since there's really no way of knowing. I supposedly learned Koiné Greek pronunciation but even my instructor said that was just to have an idea, but that we didn't necessarily knew how it was pronounced.

DAL

Gabe Martini (Faithlife)

Here is what it sounds like: http://www.biblicallanguagecenter.com/greek-mp3-samples/

Thanks for sharing. That's more or less the same Greek pronunciation we use in worship. His historical research was interesting, as well.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/609488#Comment_609488

The following paragraph illustrates the usefulness of pronouncing the Greek as the writers of scripture did.

"Consider an analogy: good English courses train English learners to hear the phonemic distinctions of English, but they do not train English learners to artificially differentiate homonyms. Therefore, a good Koiné Greek course will train learners to hear distinctly the words that Josephus, Paul, Luke, and Epictetus heard as distinct. Likewise, those words that Josephus, Paul, Luke, and Epictetus heard as identical in sound, the student will learn to hear as identical. This will allow students to approach the kinds of language associations that the Koiné speakers had in the Roman period and to feel which words might rhyme or clash or to recognize which words might be avoided in order to avoid ambiguity with other words."

One of Randall's arguments for his reconstructed koine is that modern Greek speakers recognize it as Greek whereas they don't have that response with an Erasmian pronunciation. That's all well and good, but I don't anticipate visiting Greece anytime soon.

Vincent Setterholm

John Schwandt has had the Koiné audio done for quite some time now.

We have John's Koine audio. I believe we've even made a beta/test build of it. I have no details on how this will be marketed/released, however.

Keith Larson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/609500#Comment_609500

John Schwandt has had the Koiné audio done for quite some time now.

We have John's Koine audio. I believe we've even made a beta/test build of it. I have no details on how this will be marketed/released, however.

Thanks for the update. I knew John had done it, but was not aware Logos had it. Love to see it someday.

Keith Larson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/609499#Comment_609499

One of Randall's arguments for his reconstructed koine is that modern Greek speakers recognize it as Greek whereas they don't have that response with an Erasmian pronunciation. That's all well and good, but I don't anticipate visiting Greece anytime soon.

I agree. I think he just threw this one in on the outside chance someone might want to learn modern Greek. I do have to admit that it is fun to go to Greek restaurants and order. They quickly find out however that all you can do is read the menu correctly! However, even this little effort seems to please them.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/609492#Comment_609492

I thought nobody really knew how Koiné Greek is pronounced since there's really no way of knowing. I supposedly learned Koiné Greek pronunciation but even my instructor said that was just to have an idea, but that we didn't necessarily knew how it was pronounced.

DAL

In one sense, you are correct. No one alive today was present to hear Paul speak to the churches, but the pronunciation can be reconstructed by observing the errors which are made in the text. Frequently there was one who read the text aloud while others copied what they heard. We may have known good texts which disagree with one particular text which can be explained by a similarity in the pronunciation of particular vowels. The diorthotes (editor) would then review the copy and compare it to a standard text, but sometimes errors slip through (just as with Logos books).

Keith Larson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/609478#Comment_609478

I would also love it if Logos could get Randall Buth to record the entire GNT or the entire Hebrew Bible for that matter. He is very careful with pronunciation and prosody. It would be a tremendous boon for students and teachers of biblical Greek and Hebrew!

With all the talent Logos has, it would also be awesome if Randall's "Living Language" courses could be reworked. Better artwork, perhaps even some animation.

What would also be cool is whole set of reading primers with stories such as you find in Athenaze, Speaking Greek, Let's Learn Greek, etc. But rather than progressing so quickly you actually have short books with basically the same level of Greek. I am a firm believer that reading is the best way to learn a language. It is just hard to find enough to read at the beginner levels.

Schumitinu

[Y]

Keith, do we know what pronunciation scheme is used for the Greek Pronunciation add-on? I'd suspect that the Erasmian Greek Pronunciation Scheme is used like it says John Schwandt uses in the Greek Audio NT (https://www.logos.com/product/4207/greek-audio-new-testament). This is the scheme used widely in seminars etc. teaching NT Greek.

The issue is not an easy one. I read a little about it on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greek

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_Ancient_Greek_in_teaching

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_phonology

Listening to the pronunciation tool in Logos I thought too that it is off, meaning not reflecting Koine Greek. Having a German speaking background I especially listened to words with the Greek letter "θ". Because in the little bit of Greek I learned in seminary this consonant did not get pronounced like the English "th" but as an aspirated "t" (t^h). Now I got curios whether this was just our German phonological skewing or not. And according to the Wikipedia page above regarding Koine Greek the letter Theta was in fact pronounced with aspiration (t^h) not as a fricative "th". The page on modern Greek language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language) also points out that the fricatives are a later development for this category of letters. However, the Erasmian Greek pronunciation scheme pronounces it as a fricative "th". Quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_phonology: "Erasmus assigned to the Greek consonant letters β, γ, δ the sounds of voiced plosives /b/, /ɡ/, /d/, while for the consonant letters φ, θ, and χ he advocated the use of fricatives /f/, /θ/, /x/ as in Modern Greek"

Now, one had to check other letters and the vowels mentioned in Dr. Buth's Koine Greek Pronunciation guide. But maybe Logos could help us out here and tell us what pronunciation scheme they followed for the Greek Pronunciation add-on/tool. If it doesn't reflect Koine Greek then I'm all for changing that. You are right, it should reflect the pronunciation of the Greek spoken at that time as much as we are able to reconstruct that nowadays. However, Logos is likely going to use the widely used Erasmian Greek pronunciation scheme which might not totally line up with Dr. Buth's pronunciation guide.

As we already have a Greek Audio NT, it would be desirable to also produce a Hebrew Audio OT "to help you hear the rhetorical devices and literary conventions as you read them" (Quote from the Greek Audio NT page).

Anthony H

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/609508#Comment_609508

I would also love it if Logos could get Randall Buth to record the entire GNT or the entire Hebrew Bible for that matter. He is very careful with pronunciation and prosody. It would be a tremendous boon for students and teachers of biblical Greek and Hebrew!

With all the talent Logos has, it would also be awesome if Randall's "Living Language" courses could be reworked. Better artwork, perhaps even some animation.

What would also be cool is whole set of reading primers with stories such as you find in Athenaze, Speaking Greek, Let's Learn Greek, etc. But rather than progressing so quickly you actually have short books with basically the same level of Greek. I am a firm believer that reading is the best way to learn a language. It is just hard to find enough to read at the beginner levels.

[Y]

Veli Voipio

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/617135#Comment_617135

[Y]

TCBlack

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/609481#Comment_609481

I would also love it if Logos could get Randall Buth to record the entire GNT or the entire Hebrew Bible for that matter. He is very careful with pronunciation and prosody. It would be a tremendous boon for students and teachers of biblical Greek and Hebrew!

While I generally agree with Randall, I'm not so interested in the pronunciation. The only time the pronunciation really interests me is when it would appear to have an impact on the text itself—whatever floats your boat.

I would tend to agree with both of you on this. But because pronunciation produces rhythm and flow, I would think it would open up new vistas that I may be missing, just by suddenly hearing something (e.g. assonance) which I had missed before.

Keith Larson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/617146#Comment_617146

I would tend to agree with both of you on this. But because pronunciation produces rhythm and flow, I would think it would open up new vistas that I may be missing, just by suddenly hearing something (e.g. assonance) which I had missed before.

That is Buth's point. The NT was composed with the intended audience hearing the text, not just reading it silently.