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Iotacism
Iotacism (, ''iotakismos'') or itacism is the process of vowel shift by which a number of vowels and diphthongs converged towards the pronunciation in post-classical Greek and Modern Greek. The term "iotacism" refers to the letter iota, 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 as after the change. Vowels and diphthongs involved Ancient Greek had a broader range of vowels (see Ancient Greek phonology) than Modern Greek has. Eta () was a long open-mid front unrounded vowel , and upsilon () was a close front rounded vowel . Over the course of time, both vowels came to be pronounced like the close front unrounded vowel iota () . In addition, certain diphthongs merged to the same pronunciation. Specifically, Epsilon-iota () initially became in Classical Greek before it later raised to () while, later, omicron-iota () and upsilon-iota () merged with upsilon (). As ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eta (letter)
Eta ( ; uppercase , lowercase ; ''ē̂ta'' or ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel, . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative, , in most dialects of Ancient Greek, its sound value in the classical Attic dialect was a long open-mid front unrounded vowel, , which was raised to in Hellenistic Greek, a process known as iotacism or itacism. In the ancient Attic number system (Herodianic or acrophonic numbers), the number 100 was represented by "", because it was the initial of , the ancient spelling of = "one hundred". In the later system of (Classical) Greek numerals eta represents 8. Eta was derived from the Phoenician letter heth . Letters that arose from eta include the Latin H and the Cyrillic letters И and Й. History Consonant h The letter shape 'H' was originally used in most Greek dialects to represent the voiceless glottal fricative, . In this function, it was borrowed in the 8t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Greek Phonology
Ancient Greek phonology is the reconstructed phonology or pronunciation of Ancient Greek. This article mostly deals with the pronunciation of the standard Attic dialect of the fifth century BC, used by Plato and other Classical Greek writers, and touches on other dialects spoken at the same time or earlier. The pronunciation of Ancient Greek is not known from direct observation, but determined from other types of evidence. Some details regarding the pronunciation of Attic Greek and other Ancient Greek dialects are unknown, but it is generally agreed that Attic Greek had certain features not present in English or Modern Greek, such as a three-way distinction between voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops (such as , as in English "bot, spot, pot"); a distinction between single and double consonants and short and long vowels in most positions in a word; and a word accent that involved pitch. Koine Greek, the variety of Greek used after the conquests of Alexander the G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 vowel shift near the beginning of the Common Era, which included iotacism. Among the Semitic languages, the Canaanite languages underwent a shift in which Proto-Semitic *ā became ō in Proto-Canaanite (a language likely very similar to Biblical Hebrew). A vowel shift can involve a merger of two previously different sounds, or it can be a chain shift. US examples One of the several major vowel shifts that is currently underway in the US is the Northern Cities Vowel Shift. This change pattern is characterized by the longer and lower vowels moving forward and upward, while the shorter vowels move downward and backward. This vowel rotation, for example, is noticeable as the vowel sound in "coffee" is moving toward the vowel in "father". ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, or , ), 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 language sometimes referred to as Varieties of Modern Greek#Standard Modern Greek, Standard Modern Greek. The end of the Medieval Greek period and the beginning of Modern Greek is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic features of the modern language arose centuries earlier, having begun around the fourth century AD. During most of the Modern Greek period, the language existed in a situation of diglossia, with regional spoken dialects existing side by side with learned, more archaic written forms, as with the vernacular and learned varieties (''Dimotiki'' and ''Katharevousa'') that co-existed in Greece throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries. Variet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Codex Sinaiticus
The Codex Sinaiticus (; Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), also called the Sinai Bible, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, including the deuterocanonical books, and the Greek New Testament, with both the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas included. It is designated by the siglum [Aleph] or 01 in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts, and δ 2 in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts. It is written in uncial letters on parchment. It is one of the four great uncial codices (these being manuscripts which originally contained the whole of both the Old and New Testaments). Along with Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible, and contains the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. It is a historical treasure, and using the study of comparative writing styles (palae ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 also serve purposes indicating other relationships. For example, some verbs may feature arguments in the genitive case; and the genitive case may also have adverbial uses (see adverbial genitive). The genitive construction includes the genitive case, but is a broader category. Placing a modifying noun in the genitive case is one way of indicating that it is related to a head noun, in a genitive construction. However, there are other ways to indicate a genitive construction. For example, many Afroasiatic languages place the head noun (rather than the modifying noun) in the construct state. Possessive grammatical constructions, including the possessive case, may be regarded as subsets of the genitive construction. For example, the geni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copyist
A copyist is a person who makes duplications of the same thing. The modern use of the term is mainly confined to music copyists, who are employed by the music industry to produce neat copies from a composer or arranger's manuscript. However, the term is sometimes used for artists who make copies of other artists' paintings. Music copyists Until the 1990s, most copyists worked by hand to write out scores and individual instrumental parts neatly, using a calligraphy pen, staff paper, and often a ruler. Producing parts for an entire orchestra from a full score was a huge task. In the 1990s, copyists began using scorewriters – computer programs which are the music notation equivalent of a word processor. (Such programs include Sibelius (scorewriter), Sibelius, Finale (scorewriter), Finale, MuseScore, LilyPond, and Comparison of scorewriters, many others). Scorewriters allow the composer or songwriter to enter the melodies, rhythms and lyrics to their compositions into the computer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scriptorium
A scriptorium () was a writing room in medieval European monasteries for the copying and illuminating of manuscripts by scribes. The term has perhaps been over-used—only some monasteries had special rooms set aside for scribes. Often they worked in the monastery library or in their own rooms. Most medieval images of scribing show single figures in well-appointed studies, although these are generally author portraits of well-known authors or translators. Increasingly, lay scribes and illuminators from outside the monastery also assisted the clerical scribes. By the later Middle Ages secular manuscript workshops were common, and many monasteries bought more books than they produced themselves. The functional outset When monastic institutions arose in the early sixth century (the first European monastic writing dates from 517), they defined European literary culture and selectively preserved the literary history of the West. Monks copied Jerome's Latin Vulgate Bible and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has come to be understood to further include ''any'' written, typed, or word-processed copy of an author's work, as distinguished from the rendition as a printed version of the same. Before the arrival of prints, all documents and books were manuscripts. Manuscripts are not defined by their contents, which may combine writing with mathematical calculations, maps, music notation, explanatory figures, or illustrations. Terminology The word "manuscript" derives from the (from , hand and from , to write), and is first recorded in English in 1597. An earlier term in English that shares the meaning of a handwritten document is "hand-writ" (or "handwrit"), which is first attested around 1175 and is now rarely used. The study of the writing ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palatalization (phonetics)
In phonetics, palatalization (, ) or palatization is a way of pronouncing a consonant in which part of the tongue is moved close to the hard palate. Consonants pronounced this way are said to be palatalized and are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by affixing a superscript ''j'' ⟨ʲ⟩ to the base consonant. Palatalization is not Phonemic contrast, phonemic in English, but it is in Slavic languages such as Russian language, Russian and Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, Finnic languages such as Estonian language, Estonian, Karelian language, Karelian, and Võro language, Võro, and other languages such as Irish language, Irish, Marshallese language, Marshallese, Kashmiri language, Kashmiri, and Japanese language, Japanese. Types In technical terms, palatalization refers to the secondary articulation of consonants by which the body of the tongue is raised toward the hard palate and the alveolar ridge during the articulation of the consonant. Such consonants are phon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist, Menippean satire, satirist, and philosopher. Through his Works of Erasmus, works, he is considered one of the most influential thinkers of the Northern Renaissance and one of the major figures of Dutch and Western culture. Erasmus was an important figure in classical scholarship who wrote in a spontaneous, copious and natural Latin style. As a Catholic priest developing Philology, humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared pioneering new Vulgate, Latin and Biblical Greek, Greek scholarly editions of the Novum Instrumentum omne, New Testament and of the Church Fathers, with annotations and commentary that were immediately and vitally influential in both the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Reformation. He also wrote ''De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plural Number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a feature of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and many other languages present number categories of singular or plural. Some languages also have a dual, trial and paucal number or other arrangements. The word "number" is also used in linguistics to describe the distinction between certain grammatical aspects that indicate the number of times an event occurs, such as the semelfactive aspect, the iterative aspect, etc. For that use of the term, see "Grammatical aspect". Overview Most languages of the world have formal means to express differences of number. One widespread distinction, found in English and many other languages, involves a simple two-way contrast between singular and plural number (''car''/''cars'', ''child''/''children'', etc.). Discussion of other more elaborate systems of number appears below. Grammatical number is a morph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
