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Re: Greek vowels; was Re: an announcement...

From:Danny Wier <dawier@...>
Date:Monday, September 27, 1999, 17:13
Ed Heil wrote in response to me:

> > By the way, German converts Greek ai/Latin ae to a-umlaut, and oi/Lat=
in=20
>oe > > to o-umlaut. Examples: Ge <=C4gypt> 'Egypt' from Gk <Aigyptos>, and > > <=F6kumenisch> 'ecumenical' from <oikumene:> 'household'. How did th=
ese
> > fronted vowels (especially the latter, the front mid round) come abou=
t?
> >I do not know, but I would guess that this is a spelling >pronunciation -- that Germans had used oe, ae to describe umlauts, and >that they then read those values in to Latin oe and ae diphthongs. >But I'm no Germanicist.
You're exactly right about the origin of umlauts! This I just remembered= --=20 the whole origin of the two dots above the vowel to represent fronting is= =20 that it was an abbreviation for <e> after the vowel. It was originally t= wo=20 wedges pointing downward, then it turned into two dots. Thus it has a=20 completely different history than the Greek diaeresis, which of course do= es=20 not indicate a vowel shift but a separation of syllables. And that could be an explanation of how Latin/Greek -e/-i dipthongs becam= e=20 umlaut vowels in German. I outta read up on that... Danny ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com