Re: Hebrew?

On Fri, 1 Oct 2004 10:24:35 +0200, Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...> wrote:
>
> On Oct 1, 2004, at 10:59 AM, Rodlox wrote:
> >> So the question is, what *sounds* do you mean by AE and OE?  I can
> >> think of a number of possibilities for each one, based on their use in
> >> Latin, Old English, Modern English, French, and other languages.
>
> >  the sounds of Latin/Classical Greek/Hebrew.
>
> Okay, i don't know about Greek
Greek, of course, did not use the Latin alphabet :) so there are no ae
or æ letters/combinations.

However, the combinations alpha-epsilon and omicron-epsilon aren't
common, either; perhaps you are referring to alpha-iota and
omicron-iota? AFAIK, these typically turn into "ae" and "oe" when such
words are borrowed into Latin.

> but from what i've read, in Latin, |ae|
> and |oe| (sometimes spelled ligature'd) represented /aj/ and /oj/, i.e.
> diphthongs beginning with /a/ (for AE) and /o/ (for OE) and ending at
> /i/.  Hebrew does have these sounds.
I believe those are the values in Ancient Greek as well, for |ai| and
|oi|. (I think |oi| later became something like [y]; it's now [i] in
Modern Greek, while |ai| is [E].)

Then there are also alpha with iota subscript and omega with iota
subscript (e.g. in Ha(i)dês or O(i)deion); I'm not sure how those
combinations are pronounced. (Modern Greek ignores the subscript [and
doesn't even write it any more] and simply pronounces them [a] and
[O].)

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
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