Re: ?: Greek vowel systems (was Re: Tolkien & front rounded vowels

>From: Muke Tever <alrivera@...>
>Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
>To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
>Subject: Re: ?: Greek vowel systems (was Re: Tolkien & front rounded vowels
>Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 07:08:43 -0500
>
> >===== Original Message From Constructed Languages List
> >>I was thinking OI could've been [ø:] (o-slash), or another diphthong
>[øy],
>at
> >>some time, then went to [y]. And could AI have been [E:] or [æ:] (ash)
>as
> >>well?
> >
> >All possible - we just don't know the details. Indeed, Ionian eta could
> >well have been [æ:] rather than [E:] if one recalls that early [a:]
>become
> >eta in Ionoan and, generally, Attic Greek.  On the coastal belt of
> >south-east Wales (where I spent 22 years of my like) RP [A:] is [æ:], so
> >the Anglophone native of Cardiff call their city ["k_h æ:dIf]   :)
>
>Hehe.. this is exactly why the character hellenized as <H> and romanized as
><ee> in Henaudute is pronounced /{:/.    (And there's a similar reason for
><z>
>being /dZ/...)
>
>      *Muke!
>--
>http://www.frath.net/
A book that might be of service to this discussion is _The Greek Dialects_,
by Carl Darling Buck. It's a standard work on the subject. Here's what Buck
has to say about the Boeotian vowel system (p. 153):
"The most strking snd obvious characteristic of Boeotian lies in its
vowel-system. One peculiarity consists merely in the retention of /u/ as u.
But even this led to a change in spelling to /ou/, while on the other had
the /u/ with its Attic value of [y] as a basis was used to indicate
approximately the sound, probably [2], which the diphthong /oi/ had come to
have."
theophilus/deoamatus/lauindlagya'lpha'lkhe/ziwaaha~mas


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