Marco Cimarosti:
> The sign was in a word looking like "8ρων" ("8rôn") and which, according to
> the text, corresponds to Latin "urina". If I understand correctly, the text
> also says that this sign is a diphthong which in Doric was substituted by a
> plain "ω" (omega): "Nam olem a Graecis per <8> diphthongum scribebatur, quae
> Dorice in ω solet commutari".Well, "ούρων" is the genitive of "ούρα", meaning "urine", so this is probably the word. I don't know anything about Doric Greek, though, so I can't say anything about the relation of "ου" and "ω"... John Hudson: > This ligature is one of the few that survived the extended period of > ligature-rich cursive Greek typography that began in the late 15th century > and withered in the mid-18th century. It and the so called 'stigma' > ligature (sigma tau) continued into modern usage and may still be > encountered in Greek handwriting and some polytonic typography, although > generally not in monotonic setting. Some people use the omicron-upsilon ligature in handwriting even for monotonic text. It's also used sometimes for shop signs, titles, etc. The sigma-tau ligature isn't used by anybody today in "normal" writing, I think, although it's used sometimes as a numeral, and *maybe* in Byzantine music books (I haven't seen any modern Byzantine music books, but my father has some from the 1950's where I think I've seen it). Alexandros
