Re: [tied] Thracian Sounds

31-08-03 10:53, Richard Wordingham wrote:

> What did Greek <pH>, <tH> and <kH> represent in Greek at the time?
> If they represented aspirates, then I think the Classical Athenian
> perception of Doric (or at least, Spartan) /tH/ as /s/ rather
> than /tH/ may be relevant. This is taken as evidence that [tH] >
> [þ] earlier in Sparta than in Athens. Or is this another myth?

We are essentially talking of a period during which <tH> still stood for
a stop, though it's hard to tell when a fricative pronunciation began to
creep in (probably about the first century AD, at least in the case of
<pH>). The Laconian pronunciation of <tH> may in fact have been strident
/s/; at any rate we find <s> for <tH> not only in the Aristophanic
parody of Laconian but, according to what I've read, also in the local
inscriptions as early as the 6th century BC.

Piotr