Iotacism ( el, ιωτακισμός, ''iotakismos'') or itacism is the process of
vowel shift
A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language.
The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century. The Greek language also underwent a vowe ...
by which a number of
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s and
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
s converged towards the pronunciation in
post-classical
In world history, post-classical history refers to the period from about 500 AD to 1500, roughly corresponding to the European Middle Ages. The period is characterized by the expansion of civilizations geographically and development of trade n ...
Greek and
Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
. The term "iotacism" refers to the letter
iota
Iota (; uppercase: Ι, lowercase: ι; ) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh. Letters that arose from this letter include the Latin alphabet, Latin I and J, the Cyrillic І (І, і), Yi (Cy ...
, the original sign for , with which these vowels came to merge. The alternative term ''itacism'' refers to the new pronunciation of the name of the letter
eta
Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...
as after the change.
Vowels and diphthongs involved
Ancient Greek had a broader range of vowels (see
Ancient Greek phonology
Ancient Greek phonology is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed phonology or pronunciation of Ancient Greek. This article mostly deals with the pronunciation of the standard Attic Greek, Attic dialect of the fifth century BC, used by Pl ...
) than Modern Greek has. Eta () was a
long
Long may refer to:
Measurement
* Long, characteristic of something of great duration
* Long, characteristic of something of great length
* Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate
* Longa (music), note value in early music mens ...
open-mid front unrounded vowel
The open-mid front unrounded vowel, or low-mid front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is a Latinised variant of the Greek lower ...
, and
upsilon
Upsilon (, ; uppercase Υ, lowercase υ; el, ''ýpsilon'' ) or ypsilon is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, grc, Υʹ, label=none has a value of 400. It is derived from the Phoenician waw .
Etym ...
() was a
close front rounded vowel
The close front rounded vowel, or high front rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is /y/, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is y. Acr ...
. Over the course of time, both vowels came to be pronounced like the
close front unrounded vowel
The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound that occurs in most spoken languages, represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by the symbol i. It is similar to the vowel sound in the English wo ...
iota
Iota (; uppercase: Ι, lowercase: ι; ) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh. Letters that arose from this letter include the Latin alphabet, Latin I and J, the Cyrillic І (І, і), Yi (Cy ...
() . In addition, certain
diphthongs
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
merged to the same pronunciation. Specifically,
Epsilon
Epsilon (, ; uppercase , lowercase or lunate ; el, έψιλον) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a mid front unrounded vowel or . In the system of Greek numerals it also has the value five. It was der ...
-iota () initially became in Classical Greek before it later raised to () while, later,
omicron
Omicron (; uppercase Ο, lowercase ο, ell, όμικρον) is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. This letter is derived from the Phoenician letter ayin: . In classical Greek, omicron represented the close-mid back rounded vowel in contras ...
-iota () and upsilon-iota () merged with upsilon (). As a result of eta and upsilon being affected by iotacism, so were the respective diphthongs.
In
Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
, the letters and digraphs (rare) are all pronounced .
Issues in textual criticism
Iotacism caused some words with originally distinct pronunciations to be pronounced similarly, sometimes the cause of differences between manuscript readings in the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
. For example, the upsilon of ''hymeis, hymōn'' "ye, your" (
second person plural
The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
in respectively
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
,
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
) and the eta of {{lang, grc, ἡμεῖς, ἡμῶν ''hēmeis, hēmōn'' "we, our" (first person plural in respectively nominative, genitive) could be easily confused if a lector were reading to
copyist
A copyist is a person that makes duplications of the same thing. The term is sometimes used for artists who make copies of other artists' paintings. However, the modern use of the term is almost entirely confined to music copyists, who are emplo ...
s in a
scriptorium
Scriptorium (), literally "a place for writing", is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the writing, copying and illuminating of manuscripts commonly handled by monastic scribes.
However, lay scribes and ...
. (In fact, Modern Greek had to develop a new second-person plural, εσείς, while the first-person plural's eta was opened to epsilon, εμείς, as a result of apparent attempts to prevent it sounding like the old second-person plural.) As an example of a relatively minor (almost insignificant) source of variant readings, some ancient
manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...
s spelled words the way they sounded, such as the 4th-century
Codex Sinaiticus
The Codex Sinaiticus (Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), designated by siglum [Aleph] or 01 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 2 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts) ...
, which sometimes substitutes a plain iota for the epsilon-iota digraph and sometimes does the reverse.
English-speaking textual critics use the word "itacism" to refer to the phenomenon and extend it loosely for all inconsistencies of spelling involving vowels.
[Greenlee, J. Harold (1964). ''Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism'', Eerdmans, p. 64.]
See also
*
Greek language
Greek ( el, label=Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy (Calabria and Salento), southern Al ...
*
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as we ...
*
Ancient Greek phonology
Ancient Greek phonology is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed phonology or pronunciation of Ancient Greek. This article mostly deals with the pronunciation of the standard Attic Greek, Attic dialect of the fifth century BC, used by Pl ...
*
Koine Greek phonology
The Greek language underwent pronunciation changes during the Koine Greek period, from about 300 BC to 400 AD. At the beginning of the period, the pronunciation was close to Classical Greek, while at the end it was almost identical to Modern Gree ...
*
Medieval Greek
Medieval Greek (also known as Middle Greek, Byzantine Greek, or Romaic) is the stage of the Greek language between the end of classical antiquity in the 5th–6th centuries and the end of the Middle Ages, conventionally dated to the Ottoman co ...
*
Modern Greek phonology
This article deals with the phonology and phonetics of Standard Modern Greek. For phonological characteristics of other varieties, see varieties of Modern Greek, and for Cypriot, specifically, see .
Consonants
Greek linguists do not agree on ...
*
Vowel shift
A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language.
The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century. The Greek language also underwent a vowe ...
*
Minuscule 541 and
Minuscule 543
Minuscule 543 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), ε 257 (in von Soden's numbering of New Testament manuscripts) and labelled 556 by biblical scholar and textual critic F. H. A. Scrivener, is a Greek minuscule manusc ...
– manuscripts with an unusual number of itacistic errors
References
Greek language
Koine Greek
Vowel shifts