Re: Attic months

On 1/2/06, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
>
> Yes - the Greek world generally seems to have used a lunisolar calendar
> in which each month began with the new moon, as in Jewish & Muslim
> calendars; and, like the Jewish calendar, a 13th lunar month was
> intercalated at regular intervals to keep the calendar in line with the
> solar year.
Or at irregular ones, at any rate.  Based on what I've read so far,
the Athenian calendar seems to have been administered in a somewhat ad
hoc fashion during the classical period, despite Meton's work.  While
never quite as badly out of sync as the Roman calendar became before
Julius's reform, there are several references with two dates, one
"according to the gods" (based on the season) and the other "according
to the archons" (based on the calendar).

> > Any help reconstructing the native spelling would be appreciated.
>
> Done - see below:
Wow!  Not only the spellings, but the pronunciation and etymology.
As the Athenians would no doubt say, you da andros!

> > Hekatombaion  (Cancer)
> As above, but the final 'o' is long: ἑκατομβαιών /hekatombaj.O:n/
Wait, wait, what?  In Greek, *short* O's are /o/ and *long* O's are
/O/?   My little Romance-centric brain tells me that's just . . .
wrong. :)

> In modern Greek such nouns become masculines ending -ώνας
And how is Zeta pronounced in modern Greek?

> > Mounichion      (Aries)
> μουνιχιών /mo:nikhiO:n/ --> /mu:nikhiO:n/
> But the Attic spelling with iota between the nu and khi, instead of the expected upsilon, is odd.
I did see it transliterated elsewhere with a |y| instead of an |i|
there.   Is there a hypothesis to explain the oddity?

Many thanks!

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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