From: Exu Yangi
Message: 28939
Date: 2003-12-30
>From: Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski@...>_________________________________________________________________
>
>30-12-03 04:55, Daniel J. Milton wrote:
>
> > For starters, switching fonts gets rid of any Iove - Love
> > confusion. But anyway, let's spell it 'Jovis' (in the nominative
> > case). I and J were a single letter in the Latin alphabet, and only
> > split to distinguish the vowel and the consonant a few hundred years
> > ago. I'm far from an expert on Roman phonology, but I suspect it
> > was always pronounced closer to "Jo-wis" than "Yo-wis".
>
>In Classical times the phonetic value of non-syllabic <i> was still IPA
>[j] = English <y>. The "hardening" into an affricate, i.e. [dZ] =
>English <j> is a later phenomenon.
>
> > It derives
> > (as does Zeus) from the Indo-European root *deiw- "shine, sky, sky-
> > god" and was still spelled Diovis in Old Latin. Nothing whatsover
> > to do with Hebrew.
>
>Just to complete the info: the original declension was
>
>nom.sg. *dij�:us ~ *dje:us 'daytime, bright sky, the Sky God'
>acc.sg. *dij�:m ~ *dje:m (< *djeu-m)
>gen.sg. *diw�s
>...
>voc.sg. *djeu
>
>Latin regularised the pattern, creating a new fifth-declension common
>noun <die:s> 'day' on the basis of the irregular acc.sg. die:m <
>*dije:m, while the name of the Sky God came to be based on the constant
>root form *djew- > OLat. diov- > Class.Lat. iov- [jow-], hence <iovem>,
><iovis>, etc. The old nom.sg. was replaced by the fossilised vocative
>_phrase_ *djeu p&2ter 'O Father Sky!' > *dju:-pater > iu:piter ~
>iuppiter. No connection with YHWH.
>
>Piotr