Re: OT: "Yugoslavia" in Greek

In a message dated 11/9/2007 9:17:20 PM Central Standard Time,
haggenkennedy@GMAIL.COM writes:


>     At the time I thought it was inexplicable, but later I understood that
> diphthongs like those, starting with "y" and "w" are heard by Greeks as
> a gamma. The phoneme is similar, of course. More or less what happens
> with B and V, or interdental sounds that are pronounced as /f/ or /v/ by
> native speakers who lack the sound in their language (as when the French
> say "sink" meaning "think", for example).
>
>     That's where you see how words like "iatros" (doctor) in Ancient Greek
> became "giatros" in Modern Greek. Examples abound.
>
So to modern Greeks there is a sound there, audible as a gamma, that is
simply a result of the Greek pronunciation, rather than any original sound or
spelling.  Whoduh thunkit?

stevo

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