Re: [tied] Re: hades

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 20800
Date: 2003-04-05

----- Original Message -----
From: "alex_lycos" <altamix@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2003 9:12 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: hades

> I read that the "h" in Greek is read as "e". In this case without trying to search for more words to verify it, I can see the the form "hades"= eades. The "e", if accentued should give an "ie" in Romanian like we seen in so many eyample. If so, then eades > ieades >iad very regulated.

Nonsense. You got it completely wrong by confusing two alphabets. The letter eta <H> in Classical Greek was pronounced [E:] (> [i] in post-Classical times), but there was no initial eta in the Greek spelling of Hades! The word was spelt thus:

alpha iota delta eta sigma

When the initial "rough breathing" ([h]) came to be regularly marked in Greek orthography, it looked like an opening quote <`> over the initial vowel. The ancient pronunciation was [a-idE:s], [a:idE:s] or [ha:dE:s] depending on the dialect (in this transcription, [h] is a glottal glide, as in <house>, not a vowel!); in later Greek it became [adis].

Piotr