Re: [tied] classical Greek (and Latin) vowels

Note that Latin <ae>, <oe> were used as substitutes for Greek <ai>, <oi>, and that <ae> in turn was substituted by Germanic /ai/ in the earliest loanwords such as Goth. kaisar <-- Lat. Caesar. The spellings <ai>, <oi> were used in Archaic Latin.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: Miguel Carrasquer
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 11:09 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] classical Greek (and Latin) vowels

>- Was the "ae" diphthong in Latin pronounced as the "ai" diphthong,
>i.e. [ai]? Like "oi" and "oe" [oi](?), I had assumed the first for
>each simply came to be written as the second by convention. If this
>was not the case, and "ae" was qualitatively different from "ai", was
>the former [ae] and the latter [ai]? Also, did this differ from Pre-
>L to Classical-L?

The spelling <ae>, <oe> indicates that the second element was more
open than /i/ and closer to /e/. Most likely it was /I/, and Latin
<ae> sounded exactly like English <eye> or <I> = [aI] (and not like
Spanish <hay> or <¡ay!> = [ai]).