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Re: Ancient Greek Phonology

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Tuesday, September 19, 2000, 2:18
Oskar Gudlaugsson wrote:
> Obviously, this is not a symmetrical vowel system. What's up with that? > Why's there no /u/ or /o/?
According to the article on Greek in The World's Major Languages, Ancient (Attic) Greek had the following monophthongs (some of these were indicated by digraphs): i i: y y: e e: o o: E: O: a a: However, in another section, it gives the pronunciations of the letters, and there is no short /e/, but is a short /E/. At any rate, it does seem asymmetrical And diphthongs: eu yi e:i e:u ai au a:i a:u oi o:i The long diphthongs being rare, and, early on, e:i, a:i, and o:i lost their off-glides to become e:, a:, and o:
> Also, how come /y/ 'y > psilon' has been rendered as either 'y' or 'u' in English (and probably > Latin)?
Well, the Romans borrowed the letter ypsilon to render the sound /y/ of Greek words (of course, even earlier, they'd gotten <v> from ypsilon, via a dialect that hadn't fronted /u/). I'm not sure why <u> is often used. -- Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos God gave teeth; God will give bread - Lithuanian proverb ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor