Re: the letter H
| From: | BP Jonsson <bpj@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Thursday, August 28, 2003, 20:15 |
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At 22:34 27.8.2003 -0700, Barry Garcia wrote:
>Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...> writes:
> >
> >The answer is that ancient Greek had the /h/ sound,
> >which was, as Padraig said, marked with a diacritic,
> >but modern Greek has lost the sound. In modern loan-
> >words it is indicated with X.
> >
> >/BP 8^)
>
>Well, the ancient greek dialect(s) that modern greek descends did lose H
>early, but because H had lost its "h" sound, it was then used for an /e/
>sound. This is why the rough breathing marks were invented, so vowels
>could be either psilos (smooth/bare) or dasys (rough). It is said the
>rough and smooth breathing marks were taken from H divided in half.
That's right.
/BP 8^)
--
B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~__
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\ \/___ \\__ \ /___ _____/\ \\__ \\ \ \ \\ \ / /
/ / / / / \ / /Melroch\ \_/ // / / // / / /
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