Re: OT: Lord's Prayer [Re: Opinions wanted: person of vocatives]

Mark J. Reed scripsit:

> Okay, my ignorance is showing, but could you point me at a reference
> that explains that?  I know who the Italiot Greeks were, but I don't
> know anything about how the alphabetic adoption and morphing took place.
THe Greek alphabet as we know it is essentially Ionic/Attic.  Other
dialects used other versions.  Specifically, in the West "eta" represented
the rough breathing, and "pi" mutated to a form closely resembling "rho",
so that a distinguishing stroke was added to "rho".  (The Attic breathing
marks represent the left and right halves of capital "eta", reduced to
apostrophe-like marks).

--
John Cowan                              jcowan@reutershealth.com
http://www.reutershealth.com            http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Humpty Dump Dublin squeaks through his norse
                Humpty Dump Dublin hath a horrible vorse
But for all his kinks English / And his irismanx brogues
                Humpty Dump Dublin's grandada of all rogues.  --Cousin James

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