Talk:σάββατον

Surely this word enters Greek in the Hellenistic period and would not therefore have actually *had* a fifth century Attic pronounciation? 09:42, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. --Barytonesis (talk) 10:41, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Length of the alpha

@Angr: the LSJ says the second alpha is short. What do you think? --Barytonesis (talk) 10:41, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

And it's an uppercase entry, incidentally. --Barytonesis (talk) 10:43, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

@Barytonesis: The word isn't attested until Koine, by which time contrastive vowel length had been lost; and if the cites in LSJ are representative it only occurs in prose, which means we have no way of determining the vowel length anyway. I'm sure LSJ is basing its long mark on the fact that the second vowel of שַׁבָּת is long. As for capitalization, LSJ's entry is capitalized, but all the cites have a lower case sigma, so I think we're okay. We could create Σάββατον (Sábbaton) as an {{alternative case form of}} just to be on the safe side, if you like. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:20, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Incidentally, Both Lewis & Short and Gaffiot say that the second a of Latin sabbatum is short, which obviously suggests that they perceived the equivalent Greek vowel as short. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:25, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

@Angr: "I'm sure LSJ is basing its long mark": I'm reading "Σάββα^τ-ον", ^ being their notation for short vowels.

About the disappearance of contrastive vowel length: when do we consider this process to be over? Surely not straight after the death of Alexander the Great?

Sorry to be pestering you so often with these questions :3 --Barytonesis (talk) 17:53, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Oh, you're right. We were the ones marking the second alpha as long. Either way, I doubt it was attested at a time when vowel length was contrastive, though I don't know either when the contrast is believed to have been lost. (It is appealing, though, to image people saying, "Oh good, Alex is dead, we can finally stop bothering with contrastive vowel length.") —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:58, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Koine Greek phonology suggests to me that the loss of vowel quantity was a more protracted process that may also well have differed by dialect. (Keep in mind that at least the ancestor of Tsakonian was definitely still spoken throughout the period, and according to Nick Nicholas other ancient dialects persisted until the 1st century BC. So by, say, 150 BC, you'd likely have a number of dialects, Koine or non-Koine, that lagged behind or never lost the distinction in the first place before going extinct.) If this word is attested in the 3rd century BC already (I wouldn't know), the quantity loss might not be relevant, given that it's conceivable that even mainstream Koine still had the distinction at the time. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:29, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Oh, and in the learned pronunciation, quantity was apparently still carefully distinguished until the 2nd century AD. So for some speakers at least, the distinction, despite being lost in popular speech at some point, was definitely still present in the period in question. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:36, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: Cool, thanks, I didn't realize that. But all that said, is there actually any way to discover whether the second alpha of this word was long or short? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:24, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't know. The only evidence I'm aware of is the Latin word, which, as you have noticed, points to a short alpha. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:46, 9 October 2017 (UTC)