Re: Goblin phonology

Oh, speaking of lack of glides....

The Greek alphabet had no Y or W (no mark representing [j] or [w] I
mean)... and of course it had no H ([h]) (though H could be indicated
by means of diacritic marks).  So the Tetragrammaton was made up
entirely of letters which had no Greek equivalent!  Though I
understand that it was still (irreverently) used in some Greek magical
formulas, in the forms "IAOUE", "IABE", and (most commonly) "IAO".

When the Greek world became part of the Roman empire, they had to
accommodate writing Roman names (with frequent [j] and [w] in the form
of "I" and "V") in the Greek alphabet.  [j] was easy -- they just used
iota (which was the same as the Roman strategy)...  But [w] was more
difficult.  Upsilon wouldn't do.  It represented [y], not [u].  The
representation of [u] was omicron-upsilon (ou).  Not a true diphthong
at all; it was the only way to spell [u] because upsilon was a rounded
front high vowel.

So they used "ou" to represent Roman consonantal "v" ([w]), resulting
in wild spellings like "Oualerios" for "Valerius!"

Fun classical spelling trivia.
Ed Heil
.. edheil@postmark.net
.... http://edheil.iwarp.com