[B-Greek] Orthography of consonantal iota
Kevin Riley
klriley at alphalink.com.au
Wed Oct 24 19:36:38 EDT 2007
Sydney Allen in his book Vox Graeca also has a somewhat fuller answer that
those who like details may enjoy. The consonantal /j/ was represented in
Mycenaean Greek, and in virtually all the places it was surmised to have
existed before the translation of Linear B texts. It has always puzzled me
why the Greeks did not represent /j/ consistently by I, and the only
explanation that makes sense is that it had been lost at the beginning of
words before the adoption of the alphabet, and elsewhere its existence was
obvious and did not need to be represented. I am now curious as to whether,
like /w/, it was used in some of the dialects.
Kevin Riley
-------Original Message-------
From: George F Somsel
Date: 25/10/2007 6:48:16 AM
Our illustrious leader answered this some years ago.
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/archives/96-12/0819.html
George
Gfsomsel
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