Translation - Μετάφραση
Translation Assistance => Greek monolingual forum => Αρχαία Ελληνικά => Topic started by: ka3dakis on 23 Jan, 2021, 05:59:11
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Καλησπέρα σάς. Γιατί όταν στα Αρχαία Ελληνικά ήθελαν να δηλώσουν την έλλειψη δασείας έβαζαν ψιλή ενώ μπορούσαν(;) απλά να μην τήν βάλουν;
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Good question. Greeks didn't write anything over initial vowels until late in the history of the language, when diacritical marks were invented in order to show what was dying out (daseia, circumflex, etc.) or what had already died out, or as an aid to foreigners learning Greek in the Hellenistic kingdoms. Since it could make a difference semantically (cf. e.g. αὐτόν vs. αὑτόν), the ψιλή was probably devised to eliminate any uncertainty. Moreover, once they had started to show what sort of vowel each word began (or had begun) with, it became habit — at least until 1978.
To understand why they developed this habit, you could, for example, imagine a traffic signal — red, yellow, green. You could decide that you really don't need green, because it's the signal that's not red or yellow. So you eliminate green, and have red, yellow, and blank. But is that really fun? Wouldn't you miss green?