Another interesting article (from an excellent site on language!) is
http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-sul1.htm
From: Kevin Vang <>
To: <>
Subject: [BIRDING-AUS] Sulphur vs Sulfur-Beware of Pseudo-Greeks bearing
"phe's"
Date: Fri, 09 Jul 2004 15:31:18 +1000
Dear Group
A most intriguing discussion. When I am not running around manically
birdwatching or working with AFAP, one of Australia¹s main overseas aid and
development agencies (www.afap.org), I am slaving away on yet another MA in
ancient languages this time Babylonian Cuneiform. In pursuit of the
wisdom
of the ancients, I have worked for many years in Latin, Greek, Hittite,
Sumerian and Hieroglyphics etc. So I can shed a bit of light on this
sul(f)(ph)uric issue which involves Greek-Latin origins.
The Spelling Society (yes there is one) sums it up nicely as the follows:
The principle on which English spelling is often said to be based, and
which
is often claimed as its justification, is that of etymology: English
spellings are as they are, it is asserted, because they show the derivation
of words from Old English, or French, or Latin, or Greek, or wherever else.
Yet when one examines in detail the history of many spellings through the
centuries, one finds that the pure principle of etymology has been widely
corrupted. Examples arising in comparisons between British and American
spellings include anomalous British defence, etc (cited in §4 above) and
two
British preferences based on errors introduced in Latin: foetus was a Latin
respelling of fetus (perhaps by analogy with foedus, but in fact related to
fecundity, felicity, feminine, as well as effete); and sulphur was a Latin
respelling with pseudo-Greek PH of original Latin sulfur. Thus American
defense, fetus, sulfur are etymologically more correct, as well as simpler,
than British defence, foetus, sulphur.
The full text of this article can be found at
http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j21/usforuk.html
Therefore, while I applaud your fortitude Robert in raising the issue and
hope your health withstood the onslaught, I am afraid that the above
article
is correct and etymologically ³sulfur² is indeed the more correct and less
pretentious. The Romans went through a classical phase during the time of
Augustus when everything Greek became in vogue and the aesthetes of the day
began affecting the normal Latin spelling with ³Greekisms² or as the
article
above notes ³pseudo-Greek². Greek has a Cyrillic ³f² letter which when
transliterated by the Romans turned into a ³ph² or letter ³phe² instead of
the regular ³f². Why this occurred is not well understood, although it may
have been related to either nuances in pronunciation or just over zealous
academics who like making hairline distinctions. So Carl (whose SWQ/NWNSW
desert reports are excellent by the way) can now rest easier at night
knowing that all the time, he was defending the common man of Rome against
the pretence of those fluffy-headed, pretentious Greek-o-phyles (the Euro
Cup 2004 not withstanding).
Anyway, if we are going to be purists, we probably need to return to the
original ?sulfur¹ or even its supposed Sanskrit origin before that with is
commonly transliterated as ³sulver².
Another thing that birders may be interested in noting is that there are no
less than 260 bird hieroglyphs in Classic Middle and New Kingdom Egyptian
covering over 50 key wild bird species. Birds have played a major role in
language since its inception. Furthermore, ancient cuneiform resembles
small bird tracks and with the difficulty of most of the clay tablets that
I
am currently trying to translate, they may have well have been written by
birds with their feet, playing in the wet clay ;-)
I soon will be posting some of these ancient translations in the ³history
links² section of my birdwatching database (www.birdquest.net). So you can
see the bird hieroglyphs in action.
Kevin Vang
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