On 28/12/2003 16:38, Doug Ewell wrote:
John Delacour <JD at BD8 dot COM> wrote:
English practice was generally, I think, to write the long s first
but _printed_ double s is always two tall longs, certainly in the
18th century:
I thought English practice was to write all s's long except at the end
of a word, as opposed to the German practice of writing all s's long
except at the end of a syllable (and composing Å + s = Ã as necessary).
Compare these to the Greek distinction between Ï and "word-final" Ï. I
would have assumed that current Greek usage of Ï and Ï is parallel to
18th-century English usage of Å and s, but TUS says (p. 176) that "use
of the final sigma is a matter of spelling convention," so that
assumption is probably overly simplistic.
Greek New Testaments and corresponding grammars printed in the 20th
century use the final form Ï only word finally, but I have a 19th
century grammar which uses this final form at the end of prefixes ending
in sigma like pros- and eis- - but a 19th century dictionary which
doesn't do this.
--
Peter Kirk
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (work)
http://www.qaya.org/
