Greek questions, on- and off-topic

From: Curtis Clark (jcclark@csupomona.edu)
Date: Mon Jan 22 2001 - 23:34:35 EST


First the off-topic; private responses, please.

My wife has a ring of modern manufacture that has the lower-case Greek
delta-iota-alpha, with circumflex on the iota. The catalog blurb represents
the word as meaning "goddess". My textbook (Chase and Phillips, _A new
introduction to Greek_) says that "goddess" is theta-eta-alpha, acute on
the alpha. When I first saw the word on the ring, I thought of a declined
form of Zeus, but of course that is masculine and accented on the ultimate.
I tend to believe that it is not merely bogus, because (1) the designer got
a Linear B inscription right on another ring, and (2) the circumflex (it's
obviously not the preposition of the same spelling). Is it a word? What
does it mean? Is it perhaps not Attic?

Now the on-topic:

My Greek textbook has acute, grave, and circumflex (called by those names),
but I'm not sure what these correspond to in the Greek and Greek Extended
blocks (there seem to be many more diacriticals than those). Is there an
on-line guide somewhere?

Thanks in advance.

-- 
Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
Biological Sciences Department             Voice: (909) 869-4062
California State Polytechnic University      FAX: (909) 869-4078
Pomona CA 91768-4032  USA                  jcclark@csupomona.edu



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