Re: the letter H

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.

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