Diacritics Of The Greek Alphabet
The Greek alphabet had no original diacritic : language for centuries was written only in capitals. Diacritics, however, emerged in the Hellenistic period and became routine in the Middle Ages , from the ninth century , the Greek ( ancient and modern ) as being typeset is the result of centuries of evolution, the diacritics are now mandatory.
Summary |
The Greek alphabet is attested from the eighth century BC. BC until 403 BC. BC , Greek letters - which exist only in capitals - are traced differently in different cities , regions. From 403, the Athenians decided to employ a version of the Ionic alphabet, which was enriched in As and, especially, was imposed on the rest of the Greek world, sweeping away sooner or later other alphabets, called "pichoriques. Ionic model, however, is also composed entirely of capitals.
It is to the Hellenistic period that Aristophanes of Byzantium (end of the third century BC. ) would have 'invented' minds - brands suction (aspiration, however, already being noted on some entries, not by means of diacritics, but full of letters or letters changed) - and accents, whose use began to spread, to be perfected in the Middle Ages. It was not until the second century for the accents and spirits appear sporadically in the papyrus.
In the ninth century AD, punctuation, lower case (forming a composite set of shapes and cuts cursive capital letters) and diacritics are systematic use and even older manuscripts are corrected. Printing speed up the standardization process.
In 1982 , however, the old system, known as polytonic, consisting of signs long since become useless, is simple: the system is "monotonic", which is official in Greece.
System polytonic
Diacritics used in ancient Greek are much more numerous than those of modern Greek. Called "system polytonic ( / polytonikn system) all the rules for the use of diacritics of the ancient language: indeed, the language is distinguished by the existence of three emphases , in fact modulations of polytonic where the term "multi-tones." We oppose this complex system that says monotonic, currently used for Modern Greek (see below).
Spirits
Les esprits ou spiritus ne s'crivent que sur une voyelle ou une diphtongue initiale ainsi que sur la consonne rh ( ). Spiritus minds or not written as a vowel or a diphthong , as well as the initial consonant rho ( ). Their name means literally "breath" (from the Latin spiritus) and not "soul." They indicate the presence (spiritus asper or rough breathing:) or not (spiritus lenis or smooth breathing:) a consonant Esprit rude
Originally, the alphabet used by the Athenians, the phoneme and not Sweet Spirit
While the rough breathing indicates the presence of a phoneme Coronis
If crushes ( contraction of two vowels in hiatus between two words related by meaning), the vowel following the merger of the two vowels is a sign of shape as a gentle spirit (the first time, this was an apostrophe ), the / Koronis (literally "little hook"). Since mind can be in a word than its original, it is not possible to confuse the Corona with the spirit: / kai ego ("me too") gives / kago after crushes.
Clotting is limited to a small number of expressions, including the famous name of "good man" in Greek / kalos kagaths , crushes for / kalos kai agathos (properly, "beautiful and good ").
When the first of two vowels contractor is an aspiration, the corona is replaced by a rough breathing: / ho emos> / hummus ("mine"). If the second vowel is aspirated and if this aspiration may be indicated by an aspirated consonant, the corona remains soft: / tei hmri> / themes ("the day", dative singular).
The use of the corona is not very old, dating from the Middle Ages.
Diphthongs and vowel signs of change
Umlaut or diaeresis
Appeared during the Middle Ages, the umlaut, or / diaresis (which is in French diaeresis ) gets in one jot or u Psilon to indicate that these two letters do not form the second element of a diphthong but beginning of a new syllable, almost exactly as in French (ouch or Acute; French, the umlaut does not turn on u, except if one applies the corrections of spelling 1990). It is found in a few words: / igh Iota "mute"
The language of classical Greek knew diphthongs in the first element along - Signs philological
Some signs are used for purely grammatical or philological and they therefore only in academic literature, philological or scientific ( Epigraphy , Papyrology , Palaeography , etc..).
This is the case macron and brief (two diacritics from the Middle Ages), which can indicate the quantity of vowels has , i, u. Indeed, the writing is ambiguous since the same sign notes two phonemes. Alpha, for example, may be worth Accents tonic
The Greek language of antiquity was to pitch accent , as well as the Lithuanian classical or the Sanskrit Vedic. She knew two or three (it is not easy to decide) accents, including a modulation (see Enhancement ancient Greek ):
- an elevation of voice;
- a rise then a fall (modulation);
- Perhaps a fall.
One of the major inventions of the Alexandrian philologists, perhaps Aristophanes of Byzantium, with the spirits, was to indicate the place of accents, what the classical inscriptions had never done before. The system chosen is simple: these are the accents, the line represents the voice modulation. Thus, the elevation of the voice () is represented by a line ascending suscrit, acute accent ', and then ascending descending modulation ( ) by the caret ^, may be plotted as a tilde. Finally, the lack of elevation or descent () is symbolized by a line down, the grave accent: `. Originally designed to facilitate the reading of the texts of Homer, the Alexandrian signs for didactic were placed on each vowel in a word: , the accent clearly indicating an absence of elevation of the voice. Soon, only the acute accent has been preserved: .
The placement of the accents of the following spirits:
- over a lowercase letter: , , ;
- left of a capital city , in which case the sign is necessarily preceded by a spirit: , , ;
- on the second vowel of a diphthong, if it is original, emphasis is placed after the spirit: , , , , , , , , .
All words carry no accent (there are enclitic and proclitics ). In a text in capitals throughout, accents, nor minds, they are written.
Greek accentual system and its rules are described in detail in the article " Ancient Greek Accentuation. Refer to a more accurate analysis.
Acute Accent, high tone
Appointed / tonos okss "acute intonation," raising the voice is represented by the acute accent. According to testimonies of ancient philologists, this increase reached a fifth.
The acute accent can be on a vowel or a diphthong of any stamp, but its position in the word is subject to statutes of limitation (in practice, it can not rise beyond the syllable if the penultimate last vowel is short, beyond the penultimate vowel if it is long).
Grave accent, tone down
Intonation serious or / tonos Bary is marked by the grave accent. It is not possible to determine exactly how this tone was achieved. At first, any vowel could be sluggish (), suggesting that this is not a special intonation (like a drop height of the voice) but the lack of intonation. The use, however, has limited its use to acute final words followed by another word tonic, not as we know what it actually says.
Thus, the grave accent is used in place of the acute accent end of a word not found before a pause: for example, / tonos becomes / tonos before / barys. It can not be found in the final.
Apostrophe and modification of diacritics in the case of elision and crushes
In case of elision - single or apheresis by elision reverse - the letter could be elided an accent (but not the spirit: the vowels are n'lide not alone, as the article / ho, "the", or the pronoun on / ho "who (neutral)"):
- elision simple: the elided vowel is replaced by an apostrophe. We must then consider the nature of the word to elide:
- prepositions and conjunctions disyllabic, monosyllabic tonics: the focus simply disappears, so + / + meta Hemon> ' / Meta Hemon ("with us"), + / + alla ego> ' / all ego ("but me")
- polysyllabic word with an accent acute end: the acute accent is dropped on the penultimate syllable: + / + poll Eidon> ' ("I saw many things")
- apheresis elision opposite: the most common use is to replace the elided vowel with an apostrophe while the focus is not postponed: / o Anak> ' / O' naks ("O king!" ). In some editions, more rarely, the focus is kept and it has no value: / o''naks.
For a more detailed analysis of the processes involved, see the article " Ancient Greek Accentuation.
When two words have melted due to crushes , only the second word is important:
- if it is a proclitic, the result of clotting is sluggish: / Kai or> / kou ("and not");
- if it bears an acute accent on the penultimate vowel, clotting is most often a circumflex: / ta alla> / Tall ("the other (neutral)");
- in other cases, the focus of the second word is left unchanged:
/ O anthropi> / nthrpe ("O man!").
Do not forget that the result of crushes must wear a coroner or rough breathing.
Conjunction diacritics
A tiny initial vowel can carry up to three different diacritics. We must therefore place: The accent falls on the right of the mind / La Corona () or above if it is a circumflex (), the iota is silent and does not interfere subscribed no superscript diacritics (). The caret is placed above the umlaut (), other accents between the two points ().
With capital letters capitals, the diacritics are placed to the left of the letter and iota is silent adscrit: , , , , .
Note: the complexity above form a single word, which reads Hei and means "to whom" ( dative of the feminine relative pronoun ).
System monotonic
During its long history, the Greek language has continued to evolve in this process, from the Koine , the pitch accent has become a focus of intensity , the consonant See also
Related articles
- Greek alphabet
- : Special characters / Greek Characters
- Character Map Unicode/U1F00
- Diacritical
- Writing
Bibliography
- Michel Lejeune, Phonetics history of Mycenaean and ancient Greek, Klincksieck, 1967
- E. Ragon, Greek Grammar, 1951 fully revised in 1961 by A. Dain, JA Eddy and P. Colt
- J. Gow, Minerva, introduction to the study of classical Greek and Latin School, Hachette, 1890
- (In) Peter T. Daniels (ed.) and William Bright (ed.), The World's Writing Systems, Oxford University Press, 1996
- Graeca a Windows keyboard for writing Unicode Greek polytonic (by A. Schmidhauser, site in English)
- Texts Greek origins to the present (fifth century BC. - XXI century). Coding, tools and working methods , by Patricia Guilpin.
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