As someone with a specialty in the historical phonology of Koine Greek and Hebrew in the Late Second Temple Period, I often have to answer the following question: ' how do we know how Koine Greek was pronounced?'
While scholars and experts in the field have known the answer to this question for a long time, those of us just beginning to study Greek, or those of us who are asking questions about which pronunciation is the best for reading/speaking in ancient Greek (Erasmian, Restored Attic, Academic, Living Koine, etc.), it is a rather new question of interest.
Accordingly, in this short video, I attempt to explain methodologically just how exactly we determine how Koine Greek was pronounced based on the evidence from manuscripts, papyri, and inscriptions.
Feel free to show this to your students if it would be helpful!
Great video, thank you for making it.It helped to bring clarity and a visualization to a statement that I read somewhat recently. It was basically talking about how different areas may spell things differently. But that it is not necessarily a textual variant, nor a mistake...as long as that is how they pronounce it/spell it in their area. (Something like that, it's been a while).
Thanx again!
Ok man, I'll give it some thought as I'm preparing for the next course and I'll get in touch if I think of something. εἰς τὸ τέλος κράτει τὴν πίστιν!
Thanks for the feedback Ἰάσων! Please do show it to your students. It was designed to be accessible for beginners, so I would love to get their feedback. Also, if there are any other two-minute shorts on Greek subjects for which it would be helpful to have something like this, let me know!
This video is fantastic! All hats off! The content, visualization, and clarity make it amazing! I can't wait to show it to my next Greek class. Keep it up buddy!