medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Mata,
On Thursday, April 12, 2007, at 12:28 pm, you wrote, quoting Diana Wright:
> >> the -oi- is frequently replaced by H <<
>
> Maybe a pull based upon koimêstêrion < kOImaô < kEImai ?
Actually, no. Eta for omicron+iota is a widespread late antique and early medieval pronunciation spelling, reflecting one stage in the process that's called the simplification of the Greek vowel system. The end result, the five-vowel system of modern Greek, is certainly a simplification of what had preceded it. But the process itself was rather complicated, perhaps more so (because we are dealing with a multiplicity of sounds over time) even than the vicissitudes of final nu.
For a general introduction to the changes involved, see Robert Browning, _Medieval and Modern Greek_, 2d ed. (Cambridge U. P., 1983), pp. 25-26 and 56-57. Essentially (and with all sorts of exceptions by locale and probably by social class), [oi] became [ü] in the Hellenistic period and [ü] became [i] in late antiquity. [e] and [i] also came together in the Hellenistic period, leading to spellings in which eta (now pronounced [i]) substituted for other graphemes of the same pronunciation. When omicron+iota came to be pronounced [i], it too could be -- and, as Diana has observed, often was -- replaced by eta.
Because Latin _coemeterium_ is a loan word, attested from the late second century onward, it gets a variety of medieval pronunciation spellings. By far the most common is _cimi- (or _cime-) terium_, with such modern progeny as French _cimitière_ and the Italian toponym _Cimitile_. But one also finds _cymi- (or _cyme-) terium_, reflecting (at least sometimes) the period when the vowel in question was [ü], and _ceme- (_cemi-) terium_ reflecting the transition in Latin from [oe] to [e].
Best,
John Dillon
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