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CHAT Achilles & the tortoise

From:Tristan Mc Leay <kesuari@...>
Date:Friday, July 16, 2004, 13:10
Peter Bleackley wrote:
> Staving Andreas Johansson: > >> Ah. For some reason it didn't occur to me that "Calends" could be an >> anglicization of _Calendae_ (or _Kalendae_, as my Latin dictionary >> spells it). > > Indeed, I am more familiar with it with the K spelling, which raises an > interesting question, as in Latin, K is most often found in words of Greek > origin.
In Archaic Latin, the rules for C, Q and K were basically: - If the sound is /g/, C is used. (I think.) - If the sound is /k/, then: - If the next sound is /o/, /u/ or /w/, Q is used. - If the next sound is /a/, K is used - Otherwise, C is used. These rules were adopted from the Etruscan, which inherited gamma, kappa and qoppa(?) from Greek, all to write one sound: /k/. By Classical Latin, they'd almost lost them, to be replaced with: - If the sound is /g/, G is used. - If the sound is /k/, then: - If the next sound is /w/, Q is used. (- If the word derives from Greek, K may be used.) - Otherwise, C is used. A handful of words, most notably Kalendae, slipt through and were often written with /k/. -- | Tristan. | To be nobody-but-yourself in a world | kesuari@yahoo! | which is doing its best to, night and day, | | to make you everybody else--- | | means to fight the hardest battle | | which any human being can fight; | | and never stop fighting. | | --- E. E. Cummings, "A Miscellany" | | | | In the fight between you and the world, | | back the world. | | --- Franz Kafka, | | "RS's 1974 Expectation of Days"


Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>Roman K and C (was: CHAT Achilles & the tortoise)