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hola_melanippe) wrote2014-08-30 04:16 pm
hola_melanippe) wrote2014-08-30 04:16 pm
A discussion of Themiscyran language
Themiscyran split from Greek fairly early on, retaining some of the obsolete characters and accenting later Hellenic Greek/Attic Greek discarded, and which modern Greek doesn't even remember. One of these is the 'rough-breathing' sound of H, which has been represented during some transcription periods as 'hēta' (see depiction in link) and was eventually reduced to a diacritic mark. (Hēta always precedes an upsilon (Υ/υ).) Ionian Greek reduced this to ēta (Η/η) and changed the symbolised sound.
One interjection which is shared between most Indo-European languages is the vocative 'O', which has been defined as an 'expression of earnestness or reverence, used before the name of a deity or revered person in impassioned speech.' The later Ionian/Athenian speech spelled this with an omega (Ω/ω). Among the Amazons, with their culture of general mutual respect, this became an all-purpose greeting, spoken with a 'rough breathing' vowel, and spelled:
Ⱶ ο (heta-omicron), ὅ, or ὁ
...depending on the transliterator.
λα, or 'la', is an intensifier. ολα (omicron-lambda-alpha) also can translate as 'all' (or 'whole' - a subtle distinction and one which usage may have caused to drift), as a plural neutral vocative - therefore, greeting multiples or collectively. After some use, Ⱶολα became a colloquial greeting in the Themiscyran dialect, the approximate equivalent of the modern Southern American casual 'Hi, y'all!'
The Roman-alphabet transliteration is 'hola', a slightly unfortunate homonym to the Spanish greeting in spelling and nearly in pronunciation. Curiously, it may have somewhat similar origins and date back to proto-Indo-Europan at the very tips of its roots.
See also: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/370/index.htm
Aside from the 'tack form',
, hēta may also be written as 
, 
, 
, 
— or the confusing 
or 
which look too much like Norse runes for convenience. It's bad enough everyone assumes this is Spanish.
One interjection which is shared between most Indo-European languages is the vocative 'O', which has been defined as an 'expression of earnestness or reverence, used before the name of a deity or revered person in impassioned speech.' The later Ionian/Athenian speech spelled this with an omega (Ω/ω). Among the Amazons, with their culture of general mutual respect, this became an all-purpose greeting, spoken with a 'rough breathing' vowel, and spelled:
Ⱶ ο (heta-omicron), ὅ, or ὁ
...depending on the transliterator.
λα, or 'la', is an intensifier. ολα (omicron-lambda-alpha) also can translate as 'all' (or 'whole' - a subtle distinction and one which usage may have caused to drift), as a plural neutral vocative - therefore, greeting multiples or collectively. After some use, Ⱶολα became a colloquial greeting in the Themiscyran dialect, the approximate equivalent of the modern Southern American casual 'Hi, y'all!'
The Roman-alphabet transliteration is 'hola', a slightly unfortunate homonym to the Spanish greeting in spelling and nearly in pronunciation. Curiously, it may have somewhat similar origins and date back to proto-Indo-Europan at the very tips of its roots.
See also: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/370/index.htm
Aside from the 'tack form',
, hēta may also be written as , , , — or the confusing or which look too much like Norse runes for convenience. It's bad enough everyone assumes this is Spanish.