Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

'A LIVING SPEECH'? THE PRONUNCIATION OF GREEK IN EARLY MEDIEVAL IRELAND

2011; Royal Irish Academy; Volume: 61; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/eri.2011.0001

2009-0056

PÁDRAIC MORAN,

Linguistics and language evolution

While the Irish knowledge of Greek in the early Middle Ages has been much debated, the evidence of Irish language texts has been largely ignored. Early Irish glossaries (O'Mulconry's Glossary, Sanas Cormaic, Dull Dromma Cetta) cite at least 190 Greek words, and this presents an opportunity to study some sources for Greek available in Ireland. This article looks at the evidence of the glossaries for the pronunciation of Greek in particular. In doing so, it aims to clarify the extent to which Greek in Ireland was, in Zimmer's words, 'a living speech'.