P>I>E> S to GREEK H

 

S TO H

You may have noticed some words that start with S or K or other sounds in other IndoEuropean languages start with an aspirate vowel in Classical Greek.

ἁ ἑ ἱ ἡ ὁ ὑ

Here's a list of words scholars believe started with an initial sibilant in PIE with cognates as proof:

ἅλς Salt or sea PIE seh2ls Sanskrit sara salila Latvian sals Latin sal Old English sealt

ἑλίκη Willow PIE sVlVh Welsh helyg Latin salix Irish saileog Old Englsih sealh > sallow Gaelic seileach

ἕλος marsh PIE selos Sanskrit saras

ἑνος when it means last or former may be a cognate of Latin senex old Irish sen Welsh hen Sanskrit sanas PIE senos

ἡ the Sanskrit sa Gothic sa or so

ἡδυ ἡδονη PIE sweh2dus ProtoHellenic hwadus Sanskrit svadu Latin suavis Old Englsih swete

ἥλιος from *hawelios from PIE *soh2wl sun Baltic Saule Gaelic suil Latin sol Welsh Haul

ὓπνος Gaelic suain Welsh hun Latoin Somnos Sopr Old English swefan Sanskrit svapnas

ὗς pig swine sow PIE suh Latin sus Sanskrit sukara Hindi suar Irish soc

ῶν is a contraction of – οντος *hnt honts Note Hittite asha-a-an-za ashanza if PIE is * sont

Sanskrit has sat reality being.

This does not mean All words with an initial aspirate were originally Initial – S. Some of them originally started with a “W” or or other sound.

A pdf of this will be posted to my metousia patreon. 

Ancestral S

 ANCESTRAL S -  YES S

This form from the #Egyptian #hieratic cursive #script is the ancestor or one of a small group of letter forms that were borrowed into ProtoSinatic and then Phoenician and Greek.

YES THIS IS AN S well part of  a word with an initial sibilant sound.

The first sibilant symbols keep shifting from representing s to sh and became /S/ in Greek which had no "SH" sibilant whereas Afro-Asiaitic languages like Middle Egyptian Punic and Hebrew had at least 2 and sometimes more. Then someone changed this is a zigzag shape which got rotated probably so its could not be confused with some forms of m or n and we have S our simple elegant modern S which by the way probably has nothing to do with Snakes or Serpents. 

More on this and how it became sigma  next time!