[B-Greek] Dating beta fricativization

Stephen C. Carlson scarlson at mindspring.com
Mon Sep 12 10:26:30 EDT 2005


At 04:46 PM 9/12/2005 +0300, Vadim Cherny wrote:
>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?

Is "aspirated" the correct term, here?  As far as I am aware, beta
was never aspirated (bh) in Greek.  At any rate, it is my understanding
that the fricativization occurred somewhere between the first and
ninth centuries, though probably in different contexts at different
times and locations (cf. Spanish today).  Horrocks, citing Gignac,
states that the fricativization of the voiced consonants happened in
by the fourth century all environments except after a nasal and that
the beta in particular in the first century (AD).

>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.

Since this beta is not after a nasal, according to Horrocks/Gignac,
it would have been pronounced in the fifth century as a [v].

>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.

I think you're right about the value of Latin loans into Greek.  They are
evidence for shift of Latin consonantal U from [w] to [v], but not for the
shift of the value of beta.  A Latin [v] would have been rendered by a beta
regardless of whether it represended a [b] or a [v].

Greek loans into later Latin written with /v/ instead of /b/ would be better
evidence except that orthographic conservatism may have ended up favoring
/b/ instead of /v/.  In other words, the absence of such evidence is not as
informative as its presence.

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

Horrock is dependent on Gignac, as is apparently Buth, so that's where you
need to look.  Here is the full cite:

F. T. Gignac.  1976.  A Grammar of the Greek Papyri of the Roman and Byzantine
    periods.  Vol. 1.  Milan.

Stephen Carlson 
-- 
Stephen C. Carlson                             mailto:scarlson at mindspring.com
Weblog:                                   http://www.hypotyposeis.org/weblog/
Author of: The Gospel Hoax, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1932792481




More information about the B-Greek mailing list