At 1:59 pm -0600 24/9/99, Ed Heil wrote:
>Danny Wier wrote:
>
>> Ed Heil writes:
>>
=2E......
>>
>> Correct. But E ~ E: and O ~ O: occurs in many languages. And as a matte=
r
>> of fact, modern Indo-Aryan languages, including Hindi-Urdu, have e ~ E: (=
<
>> Sanskrit ai) and o ~ O: (< Skt au).
>>
>> But I wonder if epsilon and eta had the same vocal quality except length,
>> omicron and omega likewise. It does seem more 'natural'. Especially in
>> light of the existence of the 'spurious diphthongs' you mention:
>
>Actually, if eta and epsilon had the same quality, there would have
>been no need to use the "spurious diphthongs" ou =3D o: and ei =3D e:.
And there wasn't!
In the pre-Eucleidean alphabet _long_ closed /e:/ and /o:/ are simply
written epsilon & omicron respectively; it is for this reason we assume the
short sounds were high also. The original use of EI and OY was, it seems,
to denote _diphthongs_ (this is shown by comparison with cognate ablaut
forms in Greek & with comparative forms in other IE languages).
The whole drift of Greek pronounciation from ancient times has seen
diphthongs give way to simple vowels; EI and OY just happen to have been
the first to do so. When, and only when, /ei/ and /e:/ fell together, did
the Greeks begin using EI for /e:/; similarly OY for /o:/ began only after
/ou/ --> /o:/.
Actually having short sounds tense & high as opposed to longer, drawled lax
sounds which are lower is not all that uncommon in natlangs. I know Latin
& German did/do things differently; but we shouldn't set them as the norms.
>These would have been identical to omega and eta respectively.
Sorry - I don't follow this.
That the Greeks found it necessary to add the vowels eta & omega is
obviously because, as in Middle English, there were _two_ long vowels
corresponding to _one_ short vowel in the mid position for both front
vowels and back vowels. That separate symbols were created for the long
low varieties whereas the same symbols were used for the short vowels as
for the long high varieties must surely mean that the short vowels were
high (and probably tense).
>A
>quality difference is necessary to account for the complexity of the
>orthography (and phonological changes).
Or the Greek fondness for symmetry.
Once /ei/ and /e:/ had fallen together, they then had a method of showing
both long 'e' sounds. Of course, it may well have been also that short /e/
and /o/ were begining to move lower towards the pronunciatons they have now
acquired in Modern Greek.
>> Confusing. I actually have a couple Greek fonts that use the characters
>> epsilon-circumflex and omicron-circumflex (circumflex normally is only be
>> used on long vowels); I wonder if that what they're for...
Transcribing ancient inscriptions which used epsilon & omicron as both
_long_ & short vowels, I guess.
=2E.....
>> >Oh, to top it all off, eta represented two different values too. In
>> >addition to [E:] it represented a long version of the "a" sound in
>> >English "hat" [&:] --
Oh? What proof have you of that?
>>this sound arose from a lowering of [a:] in
>> >certain positions, most famously at the ends of words such as in the
>> >first declension ending.
>>
>> That makes sense; since the feminine ending -e is obviously a shift of PI=
E
>> -a: (< -ah, possibly Nostratic link with Semitic -at > -ah?). Umlaut?
Nah - nothing to do with umlaut.
In fact in the Ionic dialects original /a:/ has become /E:/ in practically
all positions. That the sound went through something like /&:/ is very
likely, but I know of now evidence that Ionic eta represented two sounds in
their pronunciation.
The change of /a:/ to /E:/ is not uncommon. This is found in many varieties
of Arabic. It is found also in the English of the coastal plain of
S.E.Wales. The local pronunciation of Cardiff is /'kE:dIf/.
>I would not know. :) The interesting thing is that in some dialects
>the eta from -a (&:) changed back to a but the eta from long e (E:)
>did not.
Eh?
=2E....
>
>> By the way, German converts Greek ai/Latin ae to a-umlaut, and oi/Latin o=
e
>> to o-umlaut. Examples: Ge <=C4gypt> 'Egypt' from Gk <Aigyptos>, and
>> <=F6kumenisch> 'ecumenical' from <oikumene:> 'household'. How did these
>> fronted vowels (especially the latter, the front mid round) come about?
>
>I do not know, but I would guess that this is a spelling
>pronunciation --
=2E..and you guess correctly :)
Ray.