Talk:Exapostilarion

"Exapostilarion" is how it is spelled in Bishop Kallistos' texts. It is also spelled this way in the Boston texts, Fr. Ephrem Lash's translations, and in the Menaion and Octoechos by St. John of Kronstadt Press.

Exapostilaria beats Exaposteilaria by 535:340

Wikipedia also has it's article spelled this way:

w:Exapostilarion

Both transliterations are defensible, but I think the "exapostilarion" transliteration is the one found in the best examples of Orthodox English translations.

Frjohnwhiteford 15:45, April 15, 2007 (PDT)

It's of no major importance to me either way, but I am convinced that the ei rendering is preferable here and of course more faithful to the Greek, which uses ει. FWIW, the plural Google ratio comes to 1.57:1 (i to ei), while the singular is 1:3.66 (i to ei), which indicates that the singular is used on the web far more than the plural, and when it's used, it is much more overwhelmingly toward the ei.

Exaposteilarion is the spelling used by the Nassar "Five Pounder" (and thus pretty much almost everything in the N.A. Antiochian Archdiocese), along with most of the books issued by the GOA. So, in terms of popular use, I would say that exaposteilarion wins out.

Now, the argument of which is the "best" translation is an interesting debate that is of course subjective in a lot of ways. (I'm of the opinion that "mode" is a better translation than "tone" for the Greek ichos, but "tone" clearly wins in terms of popular use in English.) I am certainly of the opinion that most of the translations you name above are of the highest quality available, though our policy here is most often to use whatever is the most commonly recognized name for something. That's why the Google test helps.

So, I won't insist on the ei if you are hostile to its use, but I do believe that, based on the evidence and how it matches up with our conventions, the ei is the best choice. —Fr. Andrew ^talk contribs 16:38, April 15, 2007 (PDT)

I would say "hostile" is a bit too strong a term for my opinion on the matter. However, when it come to having a good feel for English, I trust Bishop Kallistos over Fr. Seraphim Nassar -- with no disrespect to him. There are traditions regarding how Greek words get transliterated into English. For example, we have the word "idol", not "eidol", though "eidol" is literally closer to the spelling in Greek.

It would probably be best to have both spellings point to the same article. The transliteration into Slavonic, by the way, is "Exapostilari". In modern Greek, there is no distinction between the pronounciation of the dipthong "ei" and "i". Which is probably the origin of the Slavonic and Bishop Kallistos transliterations. Frjohnwhiteford 17:43, April 15, 2007 (PDT)