this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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Linguistics Humor

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I was just being cheeky with the cha-cha-cha thing, but if I were to be a bit ~~less useless~~ more informative [sorry, I'll sperg out about etymology]:

[kʰ]→[x] likely started around 400 BCE. By then Aristophanes was representing Laconian/Spartan speech using ⟨σ⟩ instead of ⟨θ⟩, indicating that Laconian Greek underwent [tʰ]→[θ]; and since this change goes side-to-side with [pʰ kʰ]→[ɸ x], they're likely from the same times.

However odds are that the "old" sound [kʰ] survived for a few centuries in Attic and/or Ionic, as Latin still borrows a fair chunk of Greek words with ⟨φ θ χ⟩ being transliterated with ⟨ph th ch⟩, instead of ⟨f t~s h⟩ - even words related to Christianity like ⟨eucharistia⟩ or ⟨blasphemo⟩. The borrowing ⟨Charon⟩ is probably a bit older, so it's safe to say that you were "expected" to pronounce it with [kʰ] in Latin (...and in practice everyone adapted to [k] as it was the closest in the local phonology).

Modern Greek keeps that [x] for that word - [ç] only appears before [e i].

Then there's [ʃ] reading from the name Charlene, mentioned in the link. The name is surprisingly recent, Wiktionary claims that it's from the XIX century. By then French already underwent [tʃ]→[ʃ], although the digraph ⟨ch⟩ was likely repurposed by Old French to be used with [tʃ].

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Modern Greek keeps that [x] for that word - [ç] only appears before [e i].

I was about to edit that when I saw your comment. Guess I wasn't completely awake. Thanks for the elaboration!

[–] otp 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oh, wow. This comment just made me wonder if Shirley is a female bastardization of Charles through Charlie...

It's probably not, but I could see it being the case

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

This comment just made me wonder if Shirley is a female bastardization of Charles through Charlie…

I gave it a check (Wiktionary is surprisingly good for this sort of stuff), and reality is even weirder:

"Shirley" is etymologically equivalent to shire + ley. It was initially a habitational surname. Then based on the 1849 quote it was used for some time as a masculine first name. Then as a feminine one.