Re: CHAT: C in Greek Alphabet

I agree that the change for sigma for most readers would seem mostly
cosmetic and even disruptive (particularly since they assert that
"it's becoming more common" without saying why), but the spaces
provide convenient and useful word breaks for the modern reader
accustomed to spaces, and ease the strain on your eyes. Nothing bad
about that.

Eugene

2007/4/7, Ph.D. <phil@...>:
> R A Brown wrote:
> >
> > Ph.D. wrote:
> > > I was in a bookstore last Saturday just looking
> > > through their languages section. I picked the
> > > book "Teach Yourself Ancient Greek" off the
> > > shelf and looked through it. I noticed that the
> > > book used the Latin capital C and lowercase
> > > c in the Greek texts in place of the usual sigma
> > > (with no distinction between initial and final
> > > sigma).
> >
> > The lower case forms of the Greek alphabet are,
> > like the lower case forms of the Roman alphabet,
> > medieval developments. Certainly the ancients knew
> > nothing about differing forms for final and non-final
> > sigma.
> >
> > > A note in the front of the book said
> > > they were doing this because the use of C
> > > rather than the traditional form "was becoming
> > > the norm in works of Ancient Greek."
> >
> > The sigma familiar in the Roman period (and, there-
> > fore, Hellenistic period) was C. In Latin the word
> > _sigma_ [neut., genitive: sigmatis), as well as being
> > the name of the Greek letter, also denoted a semi-
> > circular couch.
> >
> > There was in fact quite a variety of forms for sigma
> > in the ancient Greek alphabets. From what I can tell,
> > the form Σ with serifs became the normal one in
> > lapidary inscriptions by the 2nd cent BC, but clearly
> > C was the normal hand-written form in the Hellenistic
> > period and continued in use in the Byzantine period,
> > hence the Cyrillic C, and the very common abbreviations
> > IC XC (Jesus Christ). The forms σ and ς are, as I said
> > above, medieval cursive developments.
>
> Sorry to resurrect an old thread. I meant to reply to
> this, but got sidetracked.
>
> I'm aware that C was the norm in ancient Greek hand-
> writing, but my question was really, Why make such a
> change at this point? I mean the traditional forms of
> sigma are very well established. What gain is there in
> making such a change today? The ancients didn't use
> punctuation or (normally) spaces between words, yet
> we add those when printing ancient Greek or Latin
> texts.
>
> --Ph. D.
>

Reply