User talk:Tolistefl65

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Rough breathing
Hey, the examples you give of rough breathing representing d, s, and v are incorrect. They are all non-Greek words that never had a rough breathing. Vesta and semi are native Latin words (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=vesta, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=semi-), cognates (cousins) of the Greek words, but not derived from Greek. Demi is French, from Latin dimedius (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=demi-). Neither of these every had rough breathing, because they're not Greek. Rough breathing only represents h. — Eru·tuon 13:48, 4 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I disagree with your editing, dear friend, but I will not contest the point!  True, these words are not Greek (I am Greek and I do know ... some ancient Greek), true, they are only cognates, but these cognates do show the "value" of the rough breathing.  There are many-many such cognates that I could cite for this reason but, since you seem so determined to delete them, there is no point ... Apostolos Vranas (talk) 09:15, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, the article is explaining the rough breathing's value in Greek, not in cognate languages, therefore it is only h that is mentioned. If it mentioned which sounds the h corresponds to in other languages, it would mention s (Latin septem, Greek hepta), y (Sanskrit yaḥ, Greek hos), and w (Latin videre, Greek histor). These are the sounds from which the h of the rough breathing descended (although in some cases it was simply added). But the article does not mention these, since it is only the value of the diacritic as it was used in Ancient Greek that the article is concerned with. — Eru·tuon 13:56, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Then, you would also reject the s- 'value' of the rough breathing in trhe Greek words σέλας (selas: light and aurora in astronomy) and σελήνη (selini: moon, possibly loosely translated as "luminous") and the d- "value" in the placename Δελφοὶ (Delphi) and the verb δηλόω-δηλῶ (dilo: appear, signify) resulting in the Greek ἥλιος giving out helio- words and cognates such as sole (Italian) and dels (Albanian) respectively? Apostolos Vranas (talk) 14:19, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * "Value" means the pronunciation of a letter or diacritic. A diacritic only has pronunciation if it is in a word. The words σελας and Δελφοι do not have rough breathing (instead they have sigma and delta), therefore the rough breathing has no "value" in them. Rough breathing would only have a value in these words if they had the rough breathing, if they were spelled as ἕλας Ἑλφοί. — Eru·tuon 22:10, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * What I meant by "value" (obviously different to your definition) was that the δασεῖα (as we knew it in modern Greek) represented the pronunciation of various long-lost consonants (δ-/d-, σ- and χ-, which in Greek are called δασέα (rough) consonants). I gave the example about the sun/light words to indicate that while our language at the time of its writing standardisation was in the χ- stage, it retained forms of the previous stages, too (equally, we could look at Herodotus' Σελλοὶ (and the derivative village name Σελλασία in Laconia) developing into Ἕλληνες (and transcribed in Latin as Hellenes).  I guess that you would accept this for an article about the development of the Greek language.  Thank you for your willingness to discuss this with me. Apostolos Vranas (talk) 09:03, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you too. I'm glad we could come to an understanding of where our difference lay. — Eru·tuon 14:40, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Our understanding comes with the acceptance of ur complete disagreement on the structure of the article. I still say that these foreign cognates and th Greek words that indicate parallel forms should be included to demonstrate the uncertainty of the pronunciation of this diacritic (which you would define as "value").  Incidentally, think of the pair Gr: ἑσπερινὸς - Lat: vesperus.  Isn't it the same as GR: Ἑσπερῖδες - Lat: Hesperidae?  Why should we guess that the rough aspiration was always pronounced "h" and not also "v" (or "s" or "d")? Apostolos Vranas (talk) 08:19, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, Ancient Greek phonology answers the question of how the pronunciation of Ancient Greek is reconstructed. But for rough breathing, here are two reasons that I remember.

Ancient Greek words with rough breathing were transcribed into Latin with h, not with v or s or d. Greek Ἑσπερῖδαι was transliterated as Latin Hesperidae, not Vesperidae or Desperidae or Sesperidae. There are other examples in which rough breathing is transliterated as h, but none where it's translated as v, d, or s that I can remember.

Aspirated consonants θ, φ, χ were written as ῾π, ῾τ, ῾κ (unaspirated stops with rough breathing) in early Greek (if I remember correctly from Vox Graeca by W. Sidney Allen). And when an unaspirated consonant comes before the rough breathing, it changes to aspirated: ἐπ(ί), οὐκ, κατ(ά) → ἐφ' ἵππῳ, οὐχ ὡς, καθ' ἡμᾶς. The same happens with a prefix added to a verb beginning in a rough breathing: καθίστημι from κατ- + ἵστημι. So, the rough breathing indicates the difference between the unaspirated consonant and the aspirated. If the commonly accepted reconstruction is right, the difference is that aspirated has a breath of air and unaspirated doesn't have it. So the rough breathing must represent this breath of air, meaning the h sound.

I think there may be other reasons, but this is all I can think of now. — Eru·tuon 22:46, 20 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Dear, Erutuon, first of all, sorry fr not answering sooner! Something came up and I was "absent" from Wikipedia for days.
 * I would disagree with your second argument on the basis that it deals only with compound words (correctly so) but that does not explain anything about the "solitary" words. But, please, give me some time (our discussion is too interesting to waste in monsense exchanges), as my "problem" is prolonging ... :-) :-) Apostolos Vranas (talk) 14:21, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Before you respond, just to clarify, my second statement applies both between two words in a phrase (ἐφ' ἵππῳ, on a horse) and inside a compound word (καθίστημι). — Eru·tuon 17:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)