@ThaddeusB Oh yeah, I guess Spanish (my only association for “late Latin”) does something like that too before i and e, but it become the sound we transliterate as h - gente, Argentina, etc.
@Dan Amusing, I'd never seen that. Of course, there are some pretty basic+obvious rules that preclude that pronunciation even in the absurdity that is English, but it's still pretty funny.
Does anybody know when spaces between words first showed up in Greek mss? (I assume biblical because I assume it was associated with the abundant space afforded by the codex which I assume was associated with Christian texts, but I have no basis for any of those assumptions and non-biblical would be interesting too.)
@Susan the best answer that I think can be given is "by the sixth century"
Codex Sinaiticus (4th century) and Codex Alexandrinus (5th century) do not have word breaks, but by the 6th century (possibly because of cursive writing), we start seeing work breaks
In my understanding, Ancient Greek was usually written with a vertical line or three vertical dots separating words. This was phased out in favor of scriptio continua (continuous script) and eventually replaced with the modern practice of white space between words.
I am looking for more detai...
@Dan Thanks! Final form sigmas of some sort were around earlier? (Not sure what the uncial version looks like exactly but I'm guessing it exists.) And while we're on it....Hebrew final forms also ever since it was Aramaic (or whatever the proper terminology is) script? This should be wikipedia-level knowledge but I'm not doing very well trying to find it there.
@ThaddeusB Thanks, will learn something interesting I'm sure. I didn't realize that sort of thing was on topic there, but looks like it is.
While I'm at it ... if anyone's interested in some wonderful Hebrew Bible associated music to enjoy this weekend, head over to Noisetrade and grab this freebie. I'm enjoying it, anyway!