I just started book III of the Anabasis. I have the Huitink & Rood edition. I really like the notes. I really dislike the inline iota subscripts. I realize that they were still pronounced in classical times, and I do pronounce them in my mind when I read, but I find the inline iotas to be a disservice to the reader. They make familiar words unfamiliar, they obliterate the obvious difference between feminine plurals and datives, and they interfere with the process whereby reading becomes intuitive since other texts don’t use this convention.
I grabbed the Huitnik & Rood too, and like you I got a lot out of it. This was my first time reading a “real” commentary as I worked my way through a Greek text (I am into book four of the Anabasis now).
I too found the looks of iota adscript disturbing; you have enumerated the reasons better than I could. But I am reading the actual text from Perseus, using philologic. In fact, I copy and paste, then retype each sentence. That really makes me pay attention to all the forms, even when I can get the meaning from the context. I also have good old Mather and Hewitt, and Joel was kind enough to put the parallel references to Goodwin and Gulick here.
Iota adscript is just a matter of getting used to.
In his memories of W.S. Barrett, Adrian Hollis talks about encountering the iota adscript first in 1959, as he sat in on Barrett’s Hippolytus course in 1959, in Oxford. Barrett also used to write the end sigma “like a half moon”. “It seemed that we had not been taught Greek correctly at school,” Hollis writes - the quintessential undergraduate feeling.
In other words, these innovations are sixty years old now. They aren’t really innovations.
Most post 1980 editions I have, Oxford, Cambridge and Teubner, use iota adscript and lunar sigma.
That’s interesting. I wasn’t aware that many editions continued to use the lunar sigma and the iota subscript. Based on my own collection, I would have said that the lunar sigma failed to catch on, and use of the iota adscript is not pervasive. Looking at Hellenistic Epigrams: A Selection by Alexander Sens which is about to come out, it looks like I am going to have to get used to the iota adscript.
I looked up Barrett’s justification in Hippolytos for using the iota adscript. He writes in his preface, pages vii-viii:
if we make subscript the iota of αι, ηι ωι (the compromise of a late Byzantine who pronounced them α, η ω), we conceal the fact that in Euripides’ day they were diphthongs.
I assume that Barrett would then approve of continuing to use the subscripts for post-Classical literature. That makes sense to me.
Contra-Barrett, I am not sure that subscript iota conceals the diphthong from anyone who actually pronounces it by practice. In fact, I am sure that it does not. While I don’t find it a big deal to have it or not, I think removal of subscript iota actually comes, originally, from misplaced German feelings of contempt and smugness in regards to Byzantine editorial practices.
But, if you have a text that uses inline iota, it’s not a big deal, and it is a great opportunity to get used to paying more attention to accent location and to be on the lookout for preceding ρ- or ι- in nouns, both good things that are easy for learners to otherwise mentally gloss over.
As a reader, though, before worrying about things like the subscript iota, I would be in favor of removing punctuation and paragraphing (and word-spacing!) from classical texts as an intrusion. Punctuation affects reading flow and profoundly changes our experience of reading in a way that pronunciation guidance does not. (As far as that goes, replace all of the Greek characters with IPA for all I care.)
But, if you have a text that uses inline iota, it’s not a big deal, and it is a great opportunity to get used to paying more attention to accent location and to be on the lookout for preceding ρ- or ι- in nouns, both good things that are easy for learners to otherwise mentally gloss over.
Yup, I see now that. My initial complaint was due to seeing the adscript for the first time in a text I was reading. Now I see that there are indeed other signs that distinguish a short alpha diphthong from a long.
BTW, I don’t want my complaint to deter anyone from looking into the Huitink & Rood edition. The notes are really informative and enjoyable to read, as Zembel suggests.
Regarding Oxford politics, I think I’d rather remain in my cocoon.