From: Raymond Mercier (RaymondM@compuserve.com)
Date: Wed Jul 07 2004 - 01:08:32 CDT
Peter Kirk writes
> This is more complicated than it looks. The Greek form Istimboli is
> impossible for the period as Greek had no [b] sound, for β was
> pronounced [v] except that later and perhaps already at that period μπ
> was pronounced [b] at least in foreign words. So is the Greek consonant
> cluster μβ, or μπ, or μμπ, or what? Also is the previous consonant
> cluster στ as transliterated, or σθ corresponding to "isthmus"? And then
> what are the Greek vowels?
I was only trying to grasp the sense of Gerd's throw-away remark (which I
hope he will explain), but I appreciate the difficulties you raise,
especially the point about the Greek beta as the phoneme /v/ . That
particular difficulty at least doesn't apply to the Ottoman b, if we look
for a Turkish -bul < πολις.
Raymond Mercier
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/RaymondM
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