Smooth breathing

Smooth breathing
"᾿" redirects here. For the similar character ʼ, see Ejective consonant.
̓
Smooth breathing
Diacritics
accent
acute( ´ )
double acute( ˝ )
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macron( ¯ )
ogonek / nosinė( ˛ )
ring / kroužek( ˚, ˳ )
rough breathing / dasia( ῾ )
smooth breathing / psili( ᾿ )
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Ἀ ἀ
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ῤ

The smooth breathing (Ancient Greek: ψιλὸν πνεῦμα psilòn pneûma; Modern Greek: ψιλή psilí ; Latin: spīritus lēnis) is a diacritical mark used in polytonic orthography. In ancient Greek, it marks the absence of the voiceless glottal fricative /h/ from the beginning of a word.

Some authorities have interpreted it as representing a glottal stop, but a final vowel at the end of a word is regularly elided (removed) where the following word starts with a vowel — and elision would not happen if the second word began with a glottal stop (or any form of stop consonant). In his Vox Graeca, W. Sidney Allen accordingly regards the glottal stop interpretation as "highly improbable".[1]

The smooth breathing ( ᾿ ) is written as on top of one initial vowel, on top of the second vowel of a diphthong, or to the left of a capital, and also in certain editions on the first of a pair of rhos. It did not occur on an initial upsilon, which always has rough breathing (thus the early name ὕ hy, rather than ὔ y).

The smooth breathing was kept in the traditional polytonic orthography even after the /h/ sound had disappeared from the language in Hellenistic times. It has been dropped in the modern monotonic orthography.

Contents

History

The origin of the sign is thought to be the right-hand half ( ┤ ) of the letter H, which was used in some Greek dialects as [h] while in others it was used for the vowel eta. In medieval and modern script, it takes the form of a closing half moon (reverse C) or a closing single quotation mark:

  • ἀ
  • Ἀ

Smooth breathings were also used in the early Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets when writing the Old Church Slavonic language. Today it is used in Church Slavonic according to a simple rule: if a word starts with a vowel, the vowel has a psili over it. From the Russian writing system, it was eliminated by Peter the Great during his alphabet and font-style reform (1707). All other Cyrillic-based modern writing systems are based on the Petrine script, so they have never had the smooth breathing.

Coronis

Coronis, the symbol written over a vowel contracted by crasis, was originally an apostrophe after the letter, but today is usually written as a smooth breathing.

Unicode

In Unicode, the code points assigned to the smooth breathing are U+0313 ◌̓ combining comma above for Greek and U+0486 ◌҆ combining cyrillic psili pneumata for Cyrillic. The pair of space + spiritus lenis is U+1FBF ◌᾿ greek psili.

See also

References

  1. ^ W. Sidney Allen (1968-74). Vox Graeca: A Guide to the Pronunciation of Classical Greek. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-20626-X. 

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Look at other dictionaries:

  • Smooth breathing — Breathing Breath ing, n. 1. Respiration; the act of inhaling and exhaling air. [1913 Webster] Subject to a difficulty of breathing. Melmoth. [1913 Webster] 2. Air in gentle motion. [1913 Webster] 3. Any gentle influence or operation; inspiration; …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • smooth breathing — n. [transl. of L spiritus lenis] 1. in written Greek, the mark ( ) placed over an initial vowel to show that in ancient Greek it was pronounced without a preceding (h) sound, or aspirate 2. the lack of aspiration thus indicated …   English World dictionary

  • smooth breathing — smooth′ breath′ing n. 1) phn ling. a symbol ( ) used in the writing of Greek to indicate that the initial vowel over which it is placed is unaspirated 2) phn ling. the lack of aspiration indicated by this symbol Compare rough breathing …   From formal English to slang

  • smooth breathing — /smuð ˈbriðɪŋ/ (say smoohdh breedhing) noun 1. the pronunciation in Ancient Greek of an initial vowel without a preceding aspirate. 2. a diacritic ( ) placed over some initial vowels in written Ancient Greek to show that they are begun in this… …  

  • smooth breathing — noun Etymology: translation of Late Latin spiritus lenis 1. : a mark placed over some initial vowels in Greek to show that they are not aspirated (as in ά̕γειν pronounced ˈägān) 2. : the absence of aspiration as indicated by the mark called also… …   Useful english dictionary

  • smooth breathing — a symbol ( ) used in the writing of Greek to indicate that the initial vowel over which it is placed is unaspirated. Cf. rough breathing. [1740 50] * * * …   Universalium

  • smooth breathing — noun Date: circa 1888 1. a mark placed over some initial vowels in Greek to show that they are not aspirated (as in ἐκεî pronounced e ˈkā) 2. the absence of aspiration indicated by a mark …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • Breathing — Breath ing, n. 1. Respiration; the act of inhaling and exhaling air. [1913 Webster] Subject to a difficulty of breathing. Melmoth. [1913 Webster] 2. Air in gentle motion. [1913 Webster] 3. Any gentle influence or operation; inspiration; as, the… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Breathing place — Breathing Breath ing, n. 1. Respiration; the act of inhaling and exhaling air. [1913 Webster] Subject to a difficulty of breathing. Melmoth. [1913 Webster] 2. Air in gentle motion. [1913 Webster] 3. Any gentle influence or operation; inspiration; …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Breathing time — Breathing Breath ing, n. 1. Respiration; the act of inhaling and exhaling air. [1913 Webster] Subject to a difficulty of breathing. Melmoth. [1913 Webster] 2. Air in gentle motion. [1913 Webster] 3. Any gentle influence or operation; inspiration; …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

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