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To: kosta50

a curcive i in russian looks like a lower case u... not sure about greek script though...


5,310 posted on 01/11/2007 9:19:00 PM PST by kawaii (Orthodox Christianity -- Proclaiming the Truth Since 33 A.D.)
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To: kawaii
The 'ypsilon' looks like u. It is transliterated into English as "y."
5,318 posted on 01/11/2007 9:41:16 PM PST by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: kawaii; Agrarian

The Greek letter Ypsilon, also known as Upsilon, meaning "simple Y/U" looks exactly like Y in uppercase, and like u without the snout in lowercase. Like with all Greek letters the pronounciation shifted; it sounded like a kind of "you" long time ago, and now sounds like ... well... several things.

From that four Latin letters emerged, Y, U, V, and W. Latin does not really distinguish between U and V, and in modernized spelling chooses V when used as a consonant or a numeral and U when used as a vowel. LVKAS would these days be spelled LUKAS, but EVANGELIUM retains the original "V". Latin V sounds like W when used a sa consonant, hence it really sounds AyWAhNGhELIOoM.

In modern Greek, the Ypsilon/Upsilon delivers two sounds, EE and V/F. SYNGENES ("relative") sounds like SEEnGhENEES, but EYCHARISTIA ("Eucharist") sounds like EFKhARISTIAh. Also, in a diphthong OY it produces the OO sound, as in OYSIA ("essence") sounding OOSEEAh.

When transliterating Greek I choose either Y or U to better suggest vowelized or consonantal use. So in quoting a Greek text I would spell "syngenes" but "ousia" even though it is the same letter each time.

I also use E for both Eta and Epsilon (disregarding modern phonetics), and I use O for both Omega and Omicron. I use "ch" for single letter Chi. I think this system best reflects the actual Greek sound (as long as OU is phonetically understood as OO and OI phonetically understood as EE).

It is not complicated.

I noticed that Agrarian sometimes posts hyper-phoneticized transliterations where the Delta is rendered as TH reflecting modern phonetics. When you see his name, and a Greek canticle under it, just mentally replace all the TH back to the original D and you will do just fine. EISODOS ADOU, not EISODOS ATHOU.

Like I said, it is not that hard.


5,398 posted on 01/12/2007 11:28:04 AM PST by annalex
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