Re: If you call me crazy again...

John Cowan wrote:

> Dan Jones scripsit:
>
> > The original Latin name was /ha:/, IIRC. When initial /h/ became silent,
>
> What I would like to know is how the people who first wrote Germanic languages
> *more romanico* (as opposed to the Greek-based Gothic script) learned to
> apply the letter H to their /h/, since Latin had long since lost that equation.
Well, did the ancients have any knowledge about the original phonetic
values of their letters?  Presumably comparison to other alphabets
then extant that did have a way to transcribe /h/ -- such as that of the Greeks --
would have allowed them to improvise.  (This does of course assume that
the rough breathing marks were understood as /h/ by the Greeks themselves;
I am not an expert on the minutiae of phonological changes in Greek of Late
Antiquity.)

===================================
Thomas Wier | AIM: trwier

"Aspidi men Saiôn tis agalletai, hên para thamnôi
  entos amômêton kallipon ouk ethelôn;
autos d' exephugon thanatou telos: aspis ekeinê
  erretô; exautês ktêsomai ou kakiô" - Arkhilokhos