"το γράμμα φ"
Translation:The letter f
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Could someone tell me why φ is transliterated as "ph". When I ask why a word like "photograph" has "ph" instead of "f", I get told that it is because it derived from Greek. Yet I see no logical reason for transliterating φ into "ph" when a single letter would do. "ph" doesn't even sound like "f", even in "catastrophe".
In Ancient Classic Greek pronounciation φ was pronounced as ph (ie an aspirated p,π) something like πφ. In latin, that was written as "ph" when they took words derived from Greek. Those words were taken by English from Latin, and not directly from Greek (were the pronouncation had already changed by 100 AD or something to the modern pronounciation). That's why they have the "ph". Nowadays, they don't sound as an aspirated p in Greek, or English. Both pronounce it as "f".
Quite a few greek letters can be transliterated into two latin letters: ή=ee/i θ=th φ=f/ph χ=ch/h/x ψ=ps
For the last part, ph does sound like f... it's pronounced "kuh-tahs-troh-fee"...
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I'm struck by the similarities between the greek and cyrillic alphabets: ф φ п π д Δ г Γ
Also several of the "english" looking letters with different pronunciations are the same: e.g. x = h, p=r etc.
It's actually making it a little easier to learn the letters, but harder to locate them on the keyboard as I'm pressing the russian location for the greek letters....
Latin and Cyrillic scripts both came from Greek. Latin is quite an old script, it is based on a very old version of Greek, whren eeta made an "h" sound. Cyrillic isbased on both ancient and modern Greek.
Can someone tell me why when I did "the letter h" question the answer was "ψ", and now when I do this question the answer is the same? I've tried looking through my notebook that I've been writing things down in and looked online but can't really find a clear explanation.
I think you might be mistaken. Did you encounter this exercise again after submitting your comment?
É impossível fazer as lições de grego sem teclado virtual grego; as demandas pedem letras gregas e as conversões convencionais não se aplicam na prática. É lamentável porque terei de deixar de praticar as lições a menos que coloquem on line um teclado virtual grego.
Neste fórum já há muitos comentários e posts sobre como instalar o teclado grego. Também é justo escrever em inglês para que a gente possa perceber o que é que se está a discutir.
