Posted by J.H. on March 24, 1999 at 10:56:03 {MWKQmDRkic4cM}:
In Reply to: *Real JW on IESOUS posted by Ginny Tosken on March 24, 1999 at 10:26:40:
Ginny,
: And, for what it's worth, the site referenced below does include iota-eta in its list of diphthongs.
Oops :-) That just blew Yakney out of the water again.
Yes, it lists iota-eta as a diphthong, and gives "'ye' as in 'Yale'" as a pronounciation guide for English readers.
YaKney, will you argue that "Yale" is a two-syllable word?
Actually, YaKney has probably looked up a Greek grammar and found it unlisted. It is not listed in mine. The reason is probably that in European languages, "j" is a consonant pronounced like "y" in English, so it's considered a consonant-vocal construction.
Moreover, YaKney obviously knows nothing about Greek pronounciation (not even how to write the word). In early classical Greek, eta (uncial like H) was pronouced like Norwegian "�" or German "�" (I don't think English has this sound). However, in later times the sound was made more and more like English "ee", and this was the way it was pronounced in the hellenistic period.
Since Greek speakers were just as lazy as everyone else, one can easily imagine what happened to a combination of a short iota pronounced like "y" and a longer eta pronounced "ee".
What had happened during the years was that iotas had a tendency to disappear from the spoken and therefor written language (in classical Greek, the written text followed the spoken language very carefully, making Greek quite hard to learn).
The English word "jot" meaning a small particle actually refers to the letter iota (iota subscriptum to be precise). In modern Greek there aren't even any real diphthongs left; they have been replaced by long "ee" sounds or
similar. Modern Greek doesn't even distinguish between long and short vocals.