Re: Dionysus El Elyon and Zeus Baal Shamen

Agamemnon wrote:

"Martin Edwards" <big_mart_98@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:fRQWj.27742$66.22505@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Agamemnon wrote:

"Martin Edwards" <big_mart_98@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:2jxWj.3405$uh2.2371@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Agamemnon wrote:

"Martin Edwards" <big_mart_98@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:YSgWj.11$_K5.10@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Agamemnon wrote:

"Martin Edwards" <big_mart_98@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:QvcWj.8$WO3.6@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Agamemnon wrote:

"Martin Edwards" <big_mart_98@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:NwSVj.14008$66.8690@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Agamemnon wrote:

This is a rerun, but you have never answered it. Why were there six vowels and apparent diphthongs pronounced "ee", when "i" would have done the job on its own?

Because the alphabet was brought to Greece by Cadmus in 1430 BC. By Homer's time in 900 BC the modern pronunciation was on the verge of becoming dominant but Homer had already written his work using spelling that dated back to 1430 BC and that spelling remains to this day. By the start of the Classical era 75% of the population were using modern pronunciation for the diphthongs and for the i sounds.

Put this way, your point is worth considering, but I always understood you to say that the ancient pronunciation was simply made up.

You means the Erasmian pronunciation was simply made up. It has no basis whatsoever in reality. Greek pronunciation was totally ignored when it was concocted. From Linear B when know that the sounds of K, G, and H (Hi/Xi) where not distinguished, same goes for V, B, P, F and T and Th, and D and Dh. We also know this from Greek historical accounts since the Cadmian symbols for Th F, and X (Hi) were not invented until 1200 BC by Palamedes. H (Ita) and Z (Zita) were not invented untill 664 BC by Simonides Melicus. Also the Hittites did not distinguish different sound between K, G, and H / V, B, P, F and T / Th, D and Dh.


Why are "au" and "eu" called diphthongs even today when they are not diphthongs? What was the sound of the rough

Yes they are dipthongs. You clearly don't undersatnad the historical meaning of the Greek word difthonggoi.

It means two vowels. They are a vowel and a consonant.

Twaddle. The Greek word for Vowels was Fonienta. Difthonggoi means two toungs.


What was the sound of the rough breathing?

Read Dionysios Thraikos.

Bare was k, p, t, (kappa, pi, taf), Rough breating was th, f, h (theta, fi, hi). Middle brathing was v, gh, dh (vita, gamma, delta) since v was between p and f, g is between k and h, and d is between th and t.

The above only makes sense using modern Greek pronunciation. k, p, t, are short sharp percussive sounds and cannot be sustained, th, f, h are breaths though constrictions which are sustainable, hence the name rough which describes the rough sound they make, when the two sounds are combined in the ways described above modulations occurs and hence the middle sounds of v, g, d.

You are referring to stops, plosives and fricatives. I was referring to the apostrophe before a vowel.

It's a breathing mark.


Which is no longer pronounced, or even printed in the most up to date

Twaddle. It's even printed on CDs.

SMG. Perhaps this was the only way in which the modern pronunciation differs from the ancient but, being a historian (history main, Russian minor, ok?) I go by plausibility.


If it had none, why was it there? Why do neither Homer or Classical poetry scan in the modern pronunciation? There is no point

Homer and Classical poetry only scan properly in modern pronunciation. In the Erasmian pronunciation they are completely unintelligable and sound hideous.

bleating "they do" like a megaphone bellowing the same lie over and over again. They don't.

They do. Listen to a Greek perform them not an Englishman.



Stáni theí! Mi állo.
Skilí na skilí skílepsa.

The next line gives four unstressed syllables between two stressed ones. Sure thing, man.

You are talking crap. In modern Greek pronunciation and stress it reads perfectly. You clearly don't know how to pronounce Greek.

Sorry, I was looking the modern translation. The first line of the original is as follows:

Theoús men aitó tónd apallagín pónon

Note the two examples of adjacent stressed syllables. I was talking

More of this crap about stress. Dactylic Hexameter has nothing to do with stress. It's about length. Stress meter is something completely different and inappropriately used by people unfamiliar with Dactylic Hexameter and taught the English mispronunciation of ancient Greek because the English mispronunciation is incapable of getting the meter of Dactylic Hexameter right.

crap, but for a reason you did not detect. Later, if I've got time, I'll type out the whole period in the modern pronunciation. A pity you won't be able to hear me reading aloud.

That will save me vomiting on my keyboard.



Not only do I know how to pronounce it, they often do not realize I am a foreigner. Now read the line I refer to. Are there four consecutive unstressed syllables or not?

See the correction above.

You're talking bull***. They even know my mum and dad are from England and they were born in Cyprus and speak Greek fluently.

Not necessarily. They know that they have an accent, and do not speak

You mean dialect.

SMG. I am not being rude here. This is true of many older people in Greece itself. People who were educated a long time ago often use hokey katharevousa forms, and the papers use a mixed dialect. The ultraconservative Estia is still printed in katharevousa, while some extreme left wing papers actually alter the spelling to conform with Demotic pronunciation.

The
same goes for any other native Greek who has lived in the UK so don't go claiming that they do not realise you are a foreigner.

Like I said, only sometimes, but it has happened.

If it has then they were only humouring you.


Dactylic Hexameter as used by Homer is based on length not stress you idiot.

More correctly on heavy and light syllables. As the modern pronunciation does not have any distinction between long and short vowels, it will only work where the heaviness is caused by a double

POPPY***! You don't know what you are talking about and your statement makes no sense as well as being wrong, since if no distinction is made between long and short vowels, then they can be either long or short and the speaker can then add whatever one is appropriate to the meter just like in any song.

The long vowels are hta and wmega, the short vowels are epsilon and omicron, and alfa, iota and upsilon are either long or short.



There is no way to have a short wmega because it would be omicron and vice versa.

Just so. Eta and Omega are redundant, and are retained for historical reasons. There is no difference between ling and short.

Twaddle.

If no distinction is made between long and short vowels, then they can be either long or short and the speaker can then add whatever one is appropriate to the meter just like in
any song.


consonant and, as any fule kno, the modern pronunciation is stressed, something of which Homer would not even have heard.

BULL***!


Are you saying that the modern pronunciation is not stressed? If so you

You don't understand stress. Stress varies with context, like if you are asking a question. Dactylic Hexameter is a length meter. And actor would add the stress in the appropriate place and the length of each measure would still be correct irrespective of stress since length is based on syllables. The English missporonunoucation can never get the length right of the syllables right, or even the right number of syllables in each measure since is breaks the consonants zita, theta, ksi, hi, fi, psi into two s-d, t-h, k-s, k-h, f-h, p-s and does the same with the diphthongs. Only modern pronunciation gives you the correct meter with Homer. In fact it will even give you the missing digammas as a natural consequence whereas the English mispronunciation which is completely artificial will not.

know even less about Greek than I thought. This would not be inconsistent with being able to speak Greek of some kind.

Modern pronunciation is exactly the same as ancient pronunciation. Dactylic Hexameter is not a stress meter.

True, but in contradiction to the previous sentence.

Poppy***.



Modern Greek gives you the correct length. Your phoney English
pronunciation does not and replaces everything with a phoney contrived stress meter which is not what Homer intended.


Absolutely the reverse. The metre is /according to quantity/. It

POPPY***!

You do not know what you are talking about.

You are talking out of your arse. You don't understand meter.


preserves vowel length which in turn preserves quantity. If you want to make the whole thing sound like "Fevgo, ya sou, ya sou", carry on. There is no law about it. Though I usually steer clear of this kind of rhetoric, you are just making a fool of yourself.

IDIOT!

Çok gũzelsin.

Yarak.


It is impossible for Dactylic Hexameter to preserve the correct consonant or vowel length using your idiotic English pronunciation which separates the diphthongs and makes single consonants such as zita, theta, ksi, hi, fi, psi into doubles pronounced separately, s-d, t-h, k-s, k-h, f-h, p-s.

mhnin a | eide, the | a, Ph | lh.i.a | dew Axi | lhos

The English mispronunciation of ancient Greek would add extra syllables to the above and ruin the meter entirly.

mhnin a | e-i-de, t-He | a, Ph | lh.i.a | dew Ak-Hi | lhos

The mutilated text is out of meter and enough to make a Greek speaker want to vomit.


Gobbledegook.

Yes, that is exactly what the English pronunciation sounds like.


There is no English pronunciation. The sounds of Eta, Upsilon and Omega do not even exist in English.

FOOL!

You have still not addressed the issue.

Hexameter is supposed to read - U | - U | - U | - U | - u u | - -

Where - is a long syllable, u is a short syllable and U is either one long or two short syllables.

In the above example the verse is dactyl, dactyl, spondee, dactyl, dactyl, spondee.

"e-i-de, t-He" is out of meter. 5 syllables when there should only be three "ei-de, the" to produce a dactyl. This means the diphthong "ei" can only be pronounced as it is in modern Greek as one long "i" sound. "e-i" will not work. Theta can only be pronounced as a "th" and must be short in combination with epsilon. The English/Erasmian reconstructed pronouncation of thera as seperate letters t-H is completly out of meter.

"de-w A-k-Hi" is not long short short to give a spondee. It's 5 syllables in the English/Erasmian reconstructed pronouncation. Only modern Greek pronunciation of delta as "the" will make dew into one long syllable which is what is required to give the correct meter and only modern Greek pronunciation of Xi will give you the two short syllables required for A-xi to give the correct measure of - u u.

Now concede defeat!


A diphthong counts as a long vowel, as any fule kno. It is one thing to regurgitate a load of jargon, another to understand it.

--
Corporate society looks after everything. All it asks of anyone, all it has ever asked of anyone, is that they do not interfere with management decisions. -From “Rollerball”
.

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