[B-Greek] Dating beta fricativization

Vadim Cherny VadimCherny at mail.ru
Mon Sep 12 09:46:23 EDT 2005


It is established than beta was non-aspirated in antiquity untilthe first century BCE. It is also clear than beta was fully fricativized in the eleventh century.

It is unclear to me, why beta is thought to be aspirated by the fifth century?

I work with Theodoret's Iabe, and the dating of beta-vita shift is essential. If beta was still non-aspirated, then Thedoret's reflects transliteration of YHWH, not actual pronunciation.

Randall Buth in http://biblicalulpan.org/PDF%20Files/PRONSYS1_US.pdf, cites first and second century Latin loans into Greek, where v became beta, as evidence of fricativized beta. This, I believe, show wrong methodology. It is no wonder that Greeks transliterated Latin v with b, their basic choice; ou would be a better choice only if Latin v was very aspirated, almost a vowel, which seems unlikely by the time. The correct argument would be Greek loans in Latin written with v. I am not aware of any.

Would anyone suggest a firmer evidence for dating the fricativization of beta?

Vadim Cherny


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