Re: Omega + upsilon ligature?

From: Alexandros Diamantidis (adia@noc.uoa.gr)
Date: Wed Oct 02 2002 - 10:42:48 EDT

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    Marco Cimarosti:
    > The sign was in a word looking like "8ρων" ("8rôn") and which, according to
    > the text, corresponds to Latin "urina". If I understand correctly, the text
    > also says that this sign is a diphthong which in Doric was substituted by a
    > plain "ω" (omega): "Nam olem a Graecis per <8> diphthongum scribebatur, quae
    > Dorice in ω solet commutari".

    Well, "ούρων" is the genitive of "ούρα", meaning "urine", so this is
    probably the word. I don't know anything about Doric Greek, though, so I
    can't say anything about the relation of "ου" and "ω"...

    John Hudson:
    > This ligature is one of the few that survived the extended period of
    > ligature-rich cursive Greek typography that began in the late 15th century
    > and withered in the mid-18th century. It and the so called 'stigma'
    > ligature (sigma tau) continued into modern usage and may still be
    > encountered in Greek handwriting and some polytonic typography, although
    > generally not in monotonic setting.

    Some people use the omicron-upsilon ligature in handwriting even for
    monotonic text. It's also used sometimes for shop signs, titles, etc.

    The sigma-tau ligature isn't used by anybody today in "normal" writing,
    I think, although it's used sometimes as a numeral, and *maybe* in
    Byzantine music books (I haven't seen any modern Byzantine music books,
    but my father has some from the 1950's where I think I've seen it).

    Alexandros



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