10
votes
Accepted
What evidence is there for the classical pronunciation of zeta?
W. Sidney Allen's famous Vox Graeca, which is well worth the time of anyone with a more-than-casual interest in Greek pronunciation, has three-and-a-half pages' worth of things to say about the ...
- 10.8k
9
votes
Accepted
Do we know how Greek dialects sounded?
The nice thing about Greek dialect inscriptions is that there was little in the way of standardized orthography: spellings seem to closely track the local pronunciation (or sometimes apparently the ...
- 31.5k
8
votes
Accepted
What does "περσκέθοισᾱ" mean?
It is, believe it or not, a form of ἔχω. Specifically, it's a feminine nominative singular of the aorist active participle of the compound περι-έχω "have beyond, have in a greater measure than others"....
- 31.5k
7
votes
Accepted
Is it φιλημι or φιλημμι?
Scherer and Thumb 1959 (v.2) call this use of the geminate μμ instead of a single μ Hyperaiolismen (cf. 'hyper-Lesbian' in Miller 2014: 243 ὄρημμι).
They write that
"Nicht selten sind ...
- 11.7k
7
votes
Accepted
Where is φιλημι attested?
A fragment quoted by Athenaeus preserves an elided form of φίλημι:
ἔγω δὲ φίλημ᾽ ἀβροσύναν, καὶ μοι τὸ λάμπρον
ἔρος ἀελίω καὶ τὸ κάλον λέλογχεν.
These lines also appear, in a slightly different ...
- 31.5k
7
votes
Accepted
What dialect are the Antikythera Mechanism inscriptions in?
While Freeth's 2006 paper (with the good transcriptions) isn't freely available, his 2012 paper (analyzing the text in more detail) is!
From here:
The inscriptions are engraved in skilfully ...
- 68.9k
6
votes
Accepted
μονάδαι as plural form of μονάς
The classical word for "monad" is μονάς, plural μονάδες. μονάδα, plural -ες, is Modern Greek. μονάδαι looks like a pseudo-classical plural of the MG word.
Where did you find it?
- 18k
6
votes
Accepted
What was Sappho's name?
This is an interesting question, and one I was surprised hadn't been answered here before!
First and foremost, Ψαπφω is wrong, insofar as ψ indicates the sound /ps/ in Attic Greek. Hephaestion's ...
- 68.9k
5
votes
Sources for Roman graffiti of Pompeii and Herculaneum
You are looking at two versions of the same distich -- one in Classical, the other in Vulgar Latin -- that were both found in Pompeii. This allows for a fascinating comparison (this book, for example, ...
- 35.3k
5
votes
What does "περσκέθοισᾱ" mean?
I'm not absolutely sure about this, but this looks a dialectal form corresponding to Attic περιέχουσα from περιέχειν, meaning "encompassing" or similar. (The σκε in the Aeolic from would correspond ...
- 4,718
4
votes
Accepted
How did the "injunctive" work?
Both articles are correct: Homeric Greek had injunctive forms that looked different from the "normal" past tenses, but they didn't mean anything different.
In late Proto-Indo-European, or at least ...
- 68.9k
3
votes
Accepted
Do any Greek words have stems ending in labiovelars?
Sure. Some examples:
ὄψ 'voice', cf. Skt. vacati 'say'
ὤψ 'eye', cf. Lat. oculus
χέρνιψ 'basin for washing hands', from root of νίζω 'wash', cf. Skt. nenekti 'id.'
λείπω 'leave', cf. Lat. linquō
...
- 31.5k
3
votes
Was there a standard accent in Latin in the Roman era?
Considering the number of times that Roman senators made fun of people with provincial accents (Hadrian is a good example), you could probably argue that whatever was spoken in Rome was what was ...
- 8,732
3
votes
Aeolic and Ionic personal pronouns: paradigms for recitation?
As this article suggests, Aeolian forms have sometimes been maintained where the metric would have admitted the substitution of an ionism.
I advise you to read it because you will find a list of ...
- 2,906
2
votes
Do non-Attic-Ionic dialects distinguish the accusatives of the ἀσπίς and χάρις types?
I am not sure that this has to do with the place of the accent. χάρις, acc. sg. χάριν is an i-stem; ἀσπίς, acc. sg. ἀσπίδα is a d-stem.
- 18k
1
vote
Do non-Attic-Ionic dialects distinguish the accusatives of the ἀσπίς and χάρις types?
(answer in progress - notes so far)
Aeolic
“Die Verteilung von -ιν und -ιδα scheint der üblichen zu entsprechen, d.h. sie richtet sich nach dem im Lesb. nicht wirksamen Akzentunterschied” (Hamm 1957,...
- 11.7k
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