Greek zeta

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ABC
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Greek zeta

Post by ABC »

There is a scholarly debate. How do you think it was pronounced?

I think it was /dz/, later simplified to /z/:
-deriving /zd/ from /dj/ or /gj/ is improbable; besides if this were the case, /tj/ and /kj/ should have become /st/
-early Latin borrowed ζ as s. /zd/ would be probably borrowed as /sd/ or /st/
-there is no reason for the Greeks to borrow Hebrew/Phoenician zayin for a cluster. On the other hand, affricates are perceived as units by native speakers.

Fans of /zd/ cite the fact that Greeks borrowed Persian Ahura Mazda as Oromazes. However, Slavic town "Pozdewolk" was borrowed into German as Pasewalk, even if German had /z/.
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Re: Greek zeta

Post by mbrsart »

The textbook I'm using ("Athenaze", by Balme Lawall), which teaches Attic Greek, says, "ζ = σ + δ as in wisdom". This, along with all aspiration distinctions ( [:'(] still bummed about those ) was thrown out the window because the class is about Koine Greek, particularly New Testament Greek. I personally think that /dz/ makes more sense and is easier to pronounce than /zd/. I mean, seriously, /zdεta/? Sounds out of place to me.

But at least we don't have to cope with pitch accent or accent marks in my class, except for marking the conjugations of ἐιμί.
:con: Hra'anh | :eng: [:D] | :esp: [:)] | :grc: [:|] | :heb: [:|] | :epo: [:S] | :deu: [:S] | :ita: [:S] | :bra: [:'(] | :fra: [:'(]
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Lambuzhao
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Re: Greek zeta

Post by Lambuzhao »

Oh, Zeta! Oft-overlooked stepchild among voiced Greek consonants...

Arguments In favor of /sd, zd/:

[tick] Transcriptions of Persian/Asian names (Indeed!):
Artavazda = Ἀρτάβαζος / Ἀρτάοζος
Ashdod was transcribed as Αζωτος.

[tick] Attic Inscriptions –
θεοζοτος for θεος δοτος

[tick] Lacedaimonian dialect wrote -ισδω
For verbs in -ιζω

*NB: Be careful of zeta from /dj/

A big, overlooked subset is from Tragic/Doric dialect
ζα- for δια- in compounds

...
/tj/ and /kj/ should have become /st/
Yeah. Should have, but didn’t. /tj, kj/ →/ts/

*glōkja < *glōtsa < γλωττα (Attic/Ion); γλωσσα (Dor)

Cf. γλωχις “arrowpoint” (Ringe, Lectures 1993)

Personally, I pronounce /z/, and have to force myself to actually
Articulate it /zd/ or /dz/. One of my old profs kind of urged us to pronounce it /zd/.
I don't think I ever got used to that completely.

My intuition is that it might have been originally pronounced as /dz/,
But assimilated to /zd/ as compared to the (not too common) but
Still attestable clusters /σβ, σγ/ [zb, zg] E.g. Λεσβος, ολισβος, σβεννυμι; φάσγανον, ‘οσγε, μίσγω.
Of course, those clusters are represented by two letters, not one.
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ABC
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Re: Greek zeta

Post by ABC »

My intuition is that it might have been originally pronounced as /dz/, but assimilated to /zd/
Perhaps to /zz/ ? This would be analogous to /ts/ -> /ss/ you've mentioned. Then, /sd/ could have also assimilated to /zz/, making it possible to write -ισδω instead of -ιζω in an act of hyper-correction.
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Re: Greek zeta

Post by Lambuzhao »

Y'know

there are late (Hellenistic, Byzantine...erm Byzantine, pretty sure) inscriptions which actually have double zeta where one would've made the point (?!).
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Re: Greek zeta

Post by cntrational »

The theory I know is that /dz/ metathesized to [zd] after /ts/ was lost, because a singular voiced affricate is typologically unusual among languages (note the opposite, a singular voiceless affricate, is perfectly stable, like in Spanish).
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ABC
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Re: Greek zeta

Post by ABC »

cntrational wrote:The theory I know is that /dz/ metathesized to [zd] after /ts/ was lost, because a singular voiced affricate is typologically unusual among languages (note the opposite, a singular voiceless affricate, is perfectly stable, like in Spanish).
Arabic has /ʤ/ but no /ʧ/ since 1500 years or so.
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Re: Greek zeta

Post by cntrational »

ABC wrote:
cntrational wrote:The theory I know is that /dz/ metathesized to [zd] after /ts/ was lost, because a singular voiced affricate is typologically unusual among languages (note the opposite, a singular voiceless affricate, is perfectly stable, like in Spanish).
Arabic has /ʤ/ but no /ʧ/ since 1500 years or so.
Fair point, but I'd note that it's often changed to [ʒ] in many dialects and some dialects/regional languages have added /tʃ/ as a phoneme.
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Re: Greek zeta

Post by Zontas »

ABC wrote:
cntrational wrote:The theory I know is that /dz/ metathesized to [zd] after /ts/ was lost, because a singular voiced affricate is typologically unusual among languages (note the opposite, a singular voiceless affricate, is perfectly stable, like in Spanish).
Arabic has /ʤ/ but no /ʧ/ since 1500 years or so.
Yemeni Arabic does.
Hey there.
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Re: Greek zeta

Post by Zontas »

cntrational wrote:
ABC wrote:
cntrational wrote:The theory I know is that /dz/ metathesized to [zd] after /ts/ was lost, because a singular voiced affricate is typologically unusual among languages (note the opposite, a singular voiceless affricate, is perfectly stable, like in Spanish).
Arabic has /ʤ/ but no /ʧ/ since 1500 years or so.
Fair point, but I'd note that it's often changed to [ʒ] in many dialects and some dialects/regional languages have added /tʃ/ as a phoneme.
It's /g/ in Egyptian Arabic.
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Re: Greek zeta

Post by cntrational »

Helios wrote:
cntrational wrote:
ABC wrote:
cntrational wrote:The theory I know is that /dz/ metathesized to [zd] after /ts/ was lost, because a singular voiced affricate is typologically unusual among languages (note the opposite, a singular voiceless affricate, is perfectly stable, like in Spanish).
Arabic has /ʤ/ but no /ʧ/ since 1500 years or so.
Fair point, but I'd note that it's often changed to [ʒ] in many dialects and some dialects/regional languages have added /tʃ/ as a phoneme.
It's /g/ in Egyptian Arabic.
Yes, and it doesn't have tʃ, or dʒ.
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Re: Greek zeta

Post by Prinsessa »

My PIE book consistently uses zd for the Greek reflexes, at least.
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