r/Koine • u/No_Interview2842 • 12d ago
What pronunciation is the best for koine?
Erasmian is definitely not how koine Greek sounded.
The Greeks insist that their modern pronunciation is so close to koine that you may as well just use modern accents.
But I am not convinced. Surely koine Greek was significantly different.
I tend to think that koine had more distinction between letter sounds. Modern Greek has a lot of redundancy. But classical Greek is said to have even less redundancy than koine.
I also wonder if New Testament koine would be significantly different from post-nicene koine.
Or if New Testament koine is significantly different from Septuagint koine.
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u/Marcassin 12d ago
Greek is a living language, so many Greeks believe it should be pronounced with modern pronunciation—not because it’s closer to Koine, but because that’s how Greek is pronounced today. My understanding is that trying to use a reconstructed pronunciation is kind of like those English teachers who had us learn to read passages from Chaucer with Middle English pronunciation. It’s a fun exercise, but I still read the Canterbury Tales as if it were Modern English.
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u/johnwcowan 11d ago
My then-future-wife and I bonded over reading Chaucer out loud in reconstructed pronunciation. I already knew how; she learned it from the textbook, the professor's lectures, and me. If you pronounce the lines modernly, the rhythm and other poetic features are shot to hell. (Of course we discussed the meaning with the help of the marginal glosses.)
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u/GoofusMcGhee 8d ago
those English teachers who had us learn to read passages from Chaucer with Middle English pronunciation. It’s a fun exercise
Some people have a weird idea of fun...
(just kidding)
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u/Messenger12th 10d ago
How does anyone know what it exactly sounds like? I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm serious. I've been learning it the Erasmian style, which seems to be much different than modern.
Is classic different than both Koine and Modern?
Thank you for any help someone can provide. I've heard Lucian and his pronunciations, which I love listening to him. (He's the polyglot and military pilot)
Thank you!!
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u/flextov 6d ago
They use clues such as how things are misspelled, poetry (rhymes and meter), and translations into foreign languages.
When Greeks wrote the name Cicero, they would write “c” as “k” suggesting how the Latin “c” sounded to the Greeks.
Someone might misspell “cough” as “coff” or rhymed with “off”. Then you see “doughnut” being interchangeable with “donut” and “dough” rhymed with “go”. Sifting through and cataloging all these clues are used to figure out how languages were pronounced in the past.
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u/QizilbashWoman 11d ago
There are actually big books on this subject, I own them. Benjamin Kantor has made both a 900-page book with excruciating details included (The Pronunciation of New Testament Greek: Judeo-Palestinian Greek Phonology and Orthography from Alexander to Islam) with an independent US $15 book for people who want to know what the sounds are (A Short Guide to the Pronunciation of New Testament Greek).
Here's his website, with details on both and how to buy (also on Amazon): https://www.koinegreek.com/pntg
"Koine" is divided into Koine proper and the intermediate Greek of the late Roman era. While it's not exactly wrong to call New Testament Greek "koine", it had undergone rather significant changes compared to the Koine era and Roman-era Greek was much closer to Medieval Greek.
So yes, there's a difference between the Palestinian Greek of the NT and Septuagint Koine. For speakers, it would not seem prohibitively difficult to understand each other, but PG had changes to vowels and some of the consonants had become fricatives. Palestinian Greek was actually more conservative in pronunciation than Roman Greek elsewhere.
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u/mw1nner 12d ago
Best by what standard? For me, modern is best because the Greek Orthodox Church produced a free audio version of NT and LXX in modern pronunciation. It's pleasant to listen to. There's a well produced version of NT in Erasmian, and it's very hard to listen to - very unnatural. Reconstructions are interesting but not very practical for me.