Re: CHAT: C in Greek Alphabet

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, therefore, 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 semicircular
couch.

Also _antisigma_ was the name given to Ɔ (reverse C) which Claudius
introduced into the Roman alphabet with the value [ps]. It, as well as
the other Claudian letters, fell out of use after his reign.

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.

--
Ray
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ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
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Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB}

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