3 ms·

lovely article! another one of those letters that weirdly fascinates me is Beta, in modern Greek it's pronounced as a V whereas when we read Ancient Greek we us

lovely article! another one of those letters that weirdly fascinates me is Beta, in modern Greek it's pronounced as a V whereas when we read Ancient Greek we usually pronounce it as B. There was an excerpt somewhere where one Ancient Greek author (unfortunately I have forgotten who exactly) described the sound sheep were making, and he did so writing the following: Sheep make the following sound: βαί, βαί which could either be Bae, Bae, or Vae, Vae... (whereas nowadays we would probably use an 'm' to describe the sound, as in Mae mae) - so while the sound is described, it doesn't really provide a definite answer since both seem somewhat possible. But maybe the author of this article could help us out here!

keiferski 5y ago
Serious question: is it possible that the sounds made by sheep would have changed over time?
- minitoar 5y ago
  Different sheep make different sounds today. Mostly it’s just yelling. I think our perception of it insists on a leading consonant that just isn’t there.
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    The sheep/goats sometimes start yelling before opening their mouths, which seems to usually sound like maaaaaa, but can sometimes sound more like baaaaa, gaaaaa, waaaa, yaaaa. When they open their mouths before starting the yell there is no leading consonant sound. Don’t think I have ever heard an initial 'v' sound though.
    - naniwaduni 5y ago
      I mean, honestly, when we're talking about sheep vocalizations, the difference between ma/ba/va/wa is something more of a matter of perception than sensation...
kleton 5y ago
You can't really generalize Ancient Greek, since in Attic, beta kept the /b/ sound the longest, whereas in many non-Attic languages it had already been /v/ for a long time.
Al-Khwarizmi 5y ago
In current Spanish the standard onomatopaeia for a sheep's sound is "beee". The b is pronounced like the English b, and the e is like the e in "test".
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  In English it is "baa", with the "aa" pronounced as the vowel in "trap". This is interesting in a couple of ways; the most immediately obvious is that it does not conform to ordinary English spelling. But if you look a little closer, it turns out that it can't conform to ordinary English spelling. There is no conventional way to spell a syllable-final /æ/, because the phonology of English doesn't permit such a syllable to exist at all. /æ/ is a checked vowel in English -- except for this one onomatopoetic word.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    (In the interest of completeness, it's probably worth noting that while the spelling is often simply "baa", it can be lengthened, and the pronunciation is nearly always several syllables long, ba-a-a-a, with the syllables separated by glottal stops.)
aiilns 5y ago
I'd love to see a source for this, never heard this before. In modern Greek it'd be "μπε μπε". With the μ + π giving the b sound. However your example is interesting because sheep make an "eee" sound like in "men" and not an "i" sound like in "flight", which I think is kind of how the erasmian pronunciation says it should be. In modern Greek "αί" is one vowel sound "e" like in "men". I really don't like the erasmian pronunciation of ancient Greek - it seems strange that vowels should change so drastically across time when for example Spanish and modern Greek have exactly the same vowels.
- samus 5y ago
  The fact is, languages change like this all the time. And sometimes not all the speakers go along with changes, for various reasons, and then the development splits. However, not always does this result in a new language (science uses cross-understandability as a criterion, outside of science it's... more complicated) Just look at English: the current ortography is so weird because it got frozen before the language underwent a drastic change (the Great Vowel shift). German changed radically too: during the High German consonant shift, many of the differences that set it apart from English and Dutch happened: t got changed to s, p got changed to pf and so on. Vowel shifts happened too: the Early New German diphtongization changed many long vowel sounds. For example: * "latin" to "latein" (the "i" in Latin is like "ee" in English "see", the "ei" like English "eye"), * "niuw" (almost like English "new") to "neu" ("eu" like "oy" in English "boy"), or * "mus" to "maus" ("u" as "oo" in English "good", "maus" exactl% like the English word "mouse"). The last example is especially interesting because the Great Vowel shift and the Early New High German diphtongization started almost a continent apart and 800 years after the languages split, but had the same result.
MatteoFrigo 5y ago
I think you are remembering a fragment by Cratinus, as quoted here: https://resgerendae.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/weird-and-wonderful-classics-sheep/ https://resgerendae.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/weird-and-wonde... My recollection is that Erasmus was the one who argued, based on that verse, that the letter eta should be pronounced as a long "e" rather than "i" as in "police". I can't seem to find a reference, however.

keiferski 5y ago

Serious question: is it possible that the sounds made by sheep would have changed over time?

minitoar 5y ago
Different sheep make different sounds today. Mostly it’s just yelling. I think our perception of it insists on a leading consonant that just isn’t there.
- jacobolus 5y ago
  The sheep/goats sometimes start yelling before opening their mouths, which seems to usually sound like maaaaaa, but can sometimes sound more like baaaaa, gaaaaa, waaaa, yaaaa. When they open their mouths before starting the yell there is no leading consonant sound. Don’t think I have ever heard an initial 'v' sound though.
  - naniwaduni 5y ago
    I mean, honestly, when we're talking about sheep vocalizations, the difference between ma/ba/va/wa is something more of a matter of perception than sensation...

kleton 5y ago

You can't really generalize Ancient Greek, since in Attic, beta kept the /b/ sound the longest, whereas in many non-Attic languages it had already been /v/ for a long time.

Al-Khwarizmi 5y ago

In current Spanish the standard onomatopaeia for a sheep's sound is "beee". The b is pronounced like the English b, and the e is like the e in "test".

thaumasiotes 5y ago
In English it is "baa", with the "aa" pronounced as the vowel in "trap". This is interesting in a couple of ways; the most immediately obvious is that it does not conform to ordinary English spelling. But if you look a little closer, it turns out that it can't conform to ordinary English spelling. There is no conventional way to spell a syllable-final /æ/, because the phonology of English doesn't permit such a syllable to exist at all. /æ/ is a checked vowel in English -- except for this one onomatopoetic word.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  (In the interest of completeness, it's probably worth noting that while the spelling is often simply "baa", it can be lengthened, and the pronunciation is nearly always several syllables long, ba-a-a-a, with the syllables separated by glottal stops.)

aiilns 5y ago

I'd love to see a source for this, never heard this before. In modern Greek it'd be "μπε μπε". With the μ + π giving the b sound. However your example is interesting because sheep make an "eee" sound like in "men" and not an "i" sound like in "flight", which I think is kind of how the erasmian pronunciation says it should be. In modern Greek "αί" is one vowel sound "e" like in "men". I really don't like the erasmian pronunciation of ancient Greek - it seems strange that vowels should change so drastically across time when for example Spanish and modern Greek have exactly the same vowels.

samus 5y ago
The fact is, languages change like this all the time. And sometimes not all the speakers go along with changes, for various reasons, and then the development splits. However, not always does this result in a new language (science uses cross-understandability as a criterion, outside of science it's... more complicated) Just look at English: the current ortography is so weird because it got frozen before the language underwent a drastic change (the Great Vowel shift). German changed radically too: during the High German consonant shift, many of the differences that set it apart from English and Dutch happened: t got changed to s, p got changed to pf and so on. Vowel shifts happened too: the Early New German diphtongization changed many long vowel sounds. For example: * "latin" to "latein" (the "i" in Latin is like "ee" in English "see", the "ei" like English "eye"), * "niuw" (almost like English "new") to "neu" ("eu" like "oy" in English "boy"), or * "mus" to "maus" ("u" as "oo" in English "good", "maus" exactl% like the English word "mouse"). The last example is especially interesting because the Great Vowel shift and the Early New High German diphtongization started almost a continent apart and 800 years after the languages split, but had the same result.

MatteoFrigo 5y ago

I think you are remembering a fragment by Cratinus, as quoted here: https://resgerendae.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/weird-and-wonderful-classics-sheep/ https://resgerendae.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/weird-and-wonde... My recollection is that Erasmus was the one who argued, based on that verse, that the letter eta should be pronounced as a long "e" rather than "i" as in "police". I can't seem to find a reference, however.