Re: Transcription exercise
| From: | Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, September 26, 2006, 7:28 |
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On 9/25/06, Carsten Becker <carbeck@...> wrote:
> From: "Remi Villatel" <maxilys@...>
> Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 8:32 PM
>
> > Amsterdam JatsērhdaV [ja.tsEx.dav]
> > Athinai JatiyaI [jatiHa"i]
>
> It would be interesting to know the etymologies of these city names.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam says: "The damming of the river
Amstel gave it its name (in Dutch: Amstelredam "Dam in the Amstel",
turned into Amsterdam in the course of time)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens says that the city was "[n]amed
after goddess Athena," without going into details. (I note that the
accent is different, though -- the goddess is Athiná in modern Greek,
while the city is Athína. And the older name is plural: Athínai /
Athê~nai -- but also has the accent on the penult, not the ultimate.)
...ah, the article goes on to claim: "In ancient Greek, the name of
Athens was Ἀθῆναι-Athenai, plural of Ἀθηνά-Athene, the Attic name of
the Goddess Athena. The city's name may have been plural, like those
of Θῆβαι-Thebai (Thebes) and Μυκῆναι-Mykenai (Mycenae), because it
consisted of several parts." -- but doesn't explain the shifted
accent.
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
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