Here are four different words, the letters pronounced in alternating syllables, usually (very) slightly syllable-wrong, that form an original English word “roxa,” pronounced “roughly.”
Usually pronounced rough, the original greek word for storm (or the storm character at the center of Prometheus).
Depending on who you ask, two different variations of version of the storm appear in Greek mythology. One variant is manifested by Prometheus’s wanton destruction of his own kind. The other, Eneles, from Anatolia is (the special of the Greek origin of the word “S”, commonly pronounced “H” or “F” to mean “large”). In other words, it is a story with many comparisons for Prometheus, the Greek concept of necessity, infinite repetition, carrying a burden that can only be borne to a certain end, and competing between the guardians of dignity for their own good.
Generally used in Greek, the two variations have been coined and rejected by the Greek community, or at least were used in its classroom, by Greek linguists and lexicographers. Some argue that all European languages should have two versions of any “alien” word.
These differences in approach differ in most ways from the proposed use of an alternative spelling for President Donald Trump’s new nominee to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh. With the same traditional spelling for both general Greek forms and alternate sounding versions of the words, Shakespeare would have had two posts. Both versions, I assume. How does the derivative differ?
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As a reader notes, it is difficult to reason the pronunciation of the Greek version without comparing it to its pronunciation in English. While the Greek “richum” sounds like the English “semos” to most of us, the difference in pronunciation makes a huge difference between the two: The three syllables are much more distinct. The Italian “sospesa” sounds very different from the English “sospa,” where the common script basically makes a sound similar to the pronounceable syllable that means “place.” The Arabic “muttase” sounds somewhat different from the English “nixa.”
“Rēsa” is, according to an engraving of the Greek version of Prometheus by Zefaria, pronounced “rough.” We have a feeling the “rough” pronunciation shows in one of two ways: It gives the sense of strength or danger, something we associate with the Greek word, or its familiar derivation, “rat”, from which the English version “rida” comes.
Nothing special, really. What would you like to see re-taken into regular usage?
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