[B-Greek] The Zachariah and Simeon inscriptions

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Nov 24 10:35:26 EST 2003


Nice note, interesting questions, Richard; my thoughts:

At 10:23 AM -0500 11/24/03, Richard Ghilardi wrote:
>Hi Everybody,
>
>I note that in the Simeon inscription TAFOS is spelled with an initial Q.
>Does this mean that in the 4th century Q was pronounced like T or vice
>versa, T was pronounced like Q?

One possibility, seeing that the very root is QAF (Theta-Alpha-Phi), that
it is present tense QAPTW, aorist ETAFON (the differences falling under the
rule of dissimilation of aspirates at both ends of a syllable), is that the
writer of this inscription was confused about the Q and the F; another
possibility is that in the local area both (or neither) of these aspirated
stops was pronounced aspirated. My guess is that neither was pronounced as
aspirate.

>I also note that in the Zachariah inscription PRESBUTEROU is spelled
>PRESBHT[EROU] with a H instead of a U. Does this mean that H and U were
>pronounced alike in the 4th century, presumably like 'ee' in 'meet'?

I think that is very probable indeed; as noted yesterday with regard to OI
and U, OI, I, H, EI, and U were all pronounced pretty much alike and that
we find in the papyri (presumably in other inscriptions also) that any one
of these is commonly substituted for what we know from earlier spellings
was one of the others of these vowels or diphthongs.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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