Aoidai 3: Homeric Hymn XXIX, line 1, word 3: πάντων

[justben]

In the first installment of the Αοιδαί project we began a word-by-word examination of Homeric Hymn XXIX to Hestia. It begins:
ἑστίη, ἣ πάντων ἐν δώμασιν ὑψηλοῖσιν

Today we continue with the third word, πάντων. It is transliterated "panton" and pronounced "PAN - ton". We'll translate it roughly as "of everyone".

Comments

[kallistos]

Due to the presence of the Omega, it should be pronounced PAN-tone. PAN-ton would imply the presence of an omicron.

[justben]

Thank you sincerely for your reply! I'm grateful to know that I have readers paying attention, and especially ones eager to correct me when I make the inevitable error. I'm sure I'll need that check as this project continues.

In this case, though, I'm going to have to disagree with you. W Sidney Allen in his excellent text Vox Graeca goes into some depth on the pronunciation of ω in ancient Greek. While he admits the possibility that it was pronounced similar to English "tone" (though he suggests French côte as even closer), his final recommendation for this letter is in favor of a sound more like English (British, I presume) "saw".

If you have a copy of the book handy, the relevant section is on pages 75-79.

[kallistos]

I don't have the book handy unfortunately.
However, every single book on learning ancient Greek, as well as Koine that I have read and studied from are quite clear that the most common pronunciation of O-Mega is along the line of "Oh" though I suppose Cote would apply as well. I've never read a description as Saw before. That is very interesting.

However, I don't see -ton being close to saw. Since we can't be sure how it was pronounced, a disagreement is not necessarily fatal.

[justben]

They sure do. There are a handful of letters and constructions where classics texts teaching the language to new students will recommend one pronunciation, while scholars studying how the language was pronounced by its native speakers will come to very different conclusions

[treecat]

So would this pax in some way be related to the latin pax -- that peace would come from everyone? Or is the latin one from some much different root?

[justben]

I don't know enough Latin to say for sure personally. Merriam-Webster follows pax back to Greek pEgnynai. Liddell & Scott jave a huge entry for πήγνυμι, which they translate mostly as make fast or solid. So I'd say likely different roots.

[justben]

Certainly welcome. Honestly I never quite got why anyone might object to being friended.