Re: [tied] Greek laryngeals

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 5873
Date: 2001-01-31

Just show us those archaic Greek inscriptions in which A, E, O stand for laryngeals while vowels are not marked.
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: tgpedersen@...
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 1:33 PM
Subject: [tied] Greek laryngeals


I had an idea some time ago. It goes like this:

First the standard version:

1. (Pre..Pre)Greeks had laryngeals

2. Laryngeals do their stuff to vowels and disappear.

3. Greeks meet Phoenicians. Phoenicians have alphabet. Greeks
   take alphabet, but since Phoenician, being AA, has laryngeals,
   alphabet has three letters too many. Greeks, being Greek and
   inventive, use these three for something entirely new: vowels!

Enter TP, slashing dementedly with Occam's razor:

1. (Pre..Pre)Greeks had laryngeals

2. Greeks meet Phoenicians. Phoenicians have alphabet. Greeks take
   alphabet. It fits perfectly.

3. Laryngeals do their stuff to vowels and disappear.

4. Now suddenly three of the borrowed letters stand for vowels. The
   Greeks have invented vowels (and they didn't even know it)!

What do you think?

Torsten