[B-Greek] /sh/ sound?

Steve Puluka spuluka at hotmail.com
Wed Jan 7 06:35:04 EST 2004


----- Original Message -----
> In a message dated 1/4/2004 8:20:49 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> tedsmath at yahoo.com writes:
> How best would you express the English /sh/ sound
> in ancient Greek?
> _________
> gfsomsel

> My guess is that it simply did not exist in Greek.  I don't recall ever
> having heard of this sound in Greek though I'm not big on pronunciation.
In Coptic
> they borrowed many of the letters from the Greek alphabet and added ones
for
> sounds which had no equivalent in Greek.  One of these added letters was
the
> "shai".
>
>_________

The process is similar in Church Slavonic, another alphabet derived from
Greek letters.  Here two letters were added to accommodate the sound "sh"
and another that is various pronounced "shch", "sht" or "shsh" depending on
the nationality of the slav.  The first looks like an E on its back with all
three prongs pointing up, the second is the same with a tail out of the
bottom middle or right bottom side.

Steve Puluka
Masters Student SS Cyril & Methodius Seminary, Pittsburgh
Cantor in the Carpatho-Rusyn tradition
http://www.geocities.com/spuluka




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