Tony Mechelynck wrote: > On 28/12/08 11:40, Ben Schmidt wrote: > [...] >> What is your source for this, Tony? I can find no reference to any >> earlier or alternative spelling in the Koine Greek lexicon > [...] > > It's the kind of stuff that percolated into my mind over a lifetime of > being interested in everything. I had two years of Classical Greek in > high school before I switched from Latin-Greek to Latin-Math, and > already in Lucian (a writer of the Hellenistic period IIRC) there were > words spelled with eta replaced by iota. Don't ask me which, but that's > where the Greek teacher paused to draw our attention on the iotacism of > the Koinê and of subsequent times. > > Rather than a Koine Greek lexicon (which might already refer to a state > of the language posterior to the vowel shift), take a Classical (Attic) > Greek dictionary, and look in the Greek part for "khrêstos" the way I > spelt it in my previous post, or maybe for a verb which would have that > as a passive perfect participle (khraô or something maybe?); or in the > English part for the adjective "anointed" or the verb "to anoint".
I already did, as I stated in my last post, consult Liddell and Scott, which is a standard Classical Greek lexicon and there is no mention of an alternative spelling for christos, nor an 'anointed' meaning for chrestos. Likewise chrima/chrema. Likewise verbs chrio (anoint)/chrao (use) (though the word in question doesn't have the form of a participle anyway). My Koine lexicon also tends to briefly list Attic uses and variants, and here they are conspicuous by their absence. And it is unlikely for a vowel shift to have happened before Classical Greek! All the Google results I can find that speak of chrestos in relation to anointing are doing so by drawing a distinction between christos and chrestos in the context of the early church, too, further suggesting that far from a shift occurring, those two words were quite different, though perhaps similar enough to be confused. Though obviously a quick Google search is far from proper research. (Of course, iotacism is more about sound than spelling, too, though obviously they are all affected and interrelated. In this case, that can easily explain the confusion between the two words, with no spelling change necessary.) So, it seems to me you've picked up a bit of folklore, unless we can find any actual evidence. I'm standing by χριστος meaning 'anointed' and χρηστος being a different word, with a couple of decent sources to back it up. I too have the problem of being interested in everything. Except, in terms of school subjects, Geography and Physical Education. I haven't been doing it as long as you, though. Grins, Ben. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message from the "vim_use" maillist. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
