Greek
In the Attic and Ionic dialects of Greek, ēo and ēa often exchange length, becoming eō and eā.
This quantitative metathesis is more accurately described as one form of long-vowel shortening. Usually if quantitative metathesis affects a word, other kinds of shortening do as well, in the forms where quantitative metathesis cannot occur:
- ēwo → eō (quantitative metathesis)
- ēws → ews (shortening of long diphthong before consonant)
- ēi → ei (analogical shortening)
In general, the vowels affected by this shortening were separated by the Proto-Indo-European semivocalic versions of u or i, usually deleted in later Greek: w (written ϝ or υ̯ ) or y (written ι̯ ).
Read more about this topic: Quantitative Metathesis
Famous quotes containing the word greek:
“It is an elegant refinement that God learned Greek when he wanted to become a writer—and that he did not learn it better.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“In the Greek cities, it was reckoned profane, that any person should pretend a property in a work of art, which belonged to all who could behold it.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The ordinary man looking at a mountain is like an illiterate person confronted with a Greek manuscript.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)