h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There's a basic assumption that since the Greek alphabet was invented to write down Classical Greek, there was more or less a one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds. So although Omega and Omicron both have the same sound in Modern Greek, they must have had different sounds in Classical Greek. Unfortunately, nobody really knows what those sounds were.

Similarly, the modern two-letter combination ei is pronounced 'ee' in Modern Greek but it would originally have had two separate vowel sounds, because that's the way they wrote it. So it would have been an e sound followed by an i sound. This is something similar to the 'ay' in the English word 'Day'.

Consonants don't appear to have changed much since Classical Greek, since the Romans got our alphabet from the Greek alphabet, and the Roman letters are still pronounced the same as the Greek letters in many cases. One exception is B which is pronounced V in Modern Greek but B in most other languages. We can assume that B was the original pronunciation and that the V sound came later, because so many different languages use a B sound - they can't all have changed from V to B independently, so the Greeks must have changed from a B to a V. And of course the Greeks taught the Russians how to write, so B is a V sound in Russian too.

I can't work out how the Greek eu is pronounced eff. Learning to read Greek makes sense of a lot of words. For example...'efkharisto' is obviously the same word as 'eucharist'.

Having been used to the Italian pronunciation usual in the English speaking world (plenny sunt Chaylee) and then living with a Central European Latin purist (plenny sunt kurly) and singing for the last 30 years in a various German choirs (Plenny sunt Tserli) - I don't know.

A German would say: Fobiscum. My husband (a European Catholic, as well as a teacher of Latin) ... er, is not available at the moment, but I'll ask him tonight.

And "V" is pronounced "B" in Spanish. "B" is pronounced "V". In some dialects more so than others.

And my husband just phoned me to check out an order for the freezer man who's due later and I asked him how he pronounces "Vobiscum" and he says "vobiscum" - (the English "V" not the German "V")

Hope we could be of service. (with an English "V")

I remember in Latin tests we all marked each others papers. The aim was to get the number between 5 and 7 as the teacher would ask us to shout out in latin our marks for him to write it in his mark book. We were only 12 at the time. Anyone walking by would have heard children shouting at the top of their voices, "SEX! SEX! SEX! QUINQUE! SEX!"

How about lieutenant?

This is a genuine question to which I don't know the answer.

One theory is that it was a misreading of the script LIEVTENANT. u and v having the same script at the time (c14th)

I've noticed recently, in a few conversations, agreement expressed as "here here".

Shouldn't it be "hear hear" as in "hear him, hear him" (or her)? I understand it originated in Parliament (the British version).

Don't they say it as Heah, heah! or is that in the Lords?

Ed: >I can't work out how the Greek eu is pronounced eff. Learning to read Greek makes sense of a lot of words. For example...'efkharisto' is obviously the same word as 'eucharist'.<

As a guess, I'd say that the diphthong [eu] became [ew] which then evolved to [ev] before voiced sounds and [ef] before unvoiced ones.



I'm not really here, by the way...

I can't stop myself. I know I should have more self control and be more liberal in my attitudes... but...

Someone else has said "literally" when it wasn't! Do we really have to stand back and watch such a wonderful, specific word be mangled?

I'll be alright in a minute, honestly.

Overheard in Dublin:

"Himself does be literally glued to the television."

I mean it, I'll jump!

Might've mentioned this before, but Ally McCoist, 'analyst' on ITV's football programmes, once described a striker in particularly good form as being 'literally on fire'.

After you
*Pushes Pedro.
Jumps.
Lands on Pedro*
That wasn't so bad actually!

I'm literally at death's door now.

the problem you're having is confusing two homonyms, 'literally' and 'lidrally'. The latter is the one which is used to mean 'figuratively speaking, of course'. Hence the confusion.

*Climbs back up and teeters over Ictoan Shadow*
Say that again!

but I didn't say that in the first place?!