# Variants and descendants of th/θ



## Villeggiatura

There is a Greek variant of _θ_: σ (_s_, usually Doric and Laconic), e.g.
Άθηνη / Ἀσάνα (Athena/Asana)
παρθένος /παρσένος (parthenos/parsenos)
θάλασσα /σάλασσα (thalassa/salassa)

The digraph becomes _t_ more often than not in many Romance languages. 

In Russian, _th/θ_ becomes  _ф(f)_ as well as _т(t)_.
Curiously, I've seen a couple of instances where _th_ becomes _f_ in Italian:
Matthaeus->Maffeo
Mathilda-> Mafalda
are there more such instances?

And what else has _th/θ_ evolved into?


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## berndf

[θ] and [f] are quite similar sounds. It is not surprising that languages lacking [θ] assimilate it as [f]. In fact, all three assimilations, [θ] > [f] , [θ] > [t] and [θ] > s are phonetically plausible and do occur.

In the Cockney dialect of English, /θ/ is systematically realized as [f]. A famous example for [θ] becoming either s or [t] is English _O*tt*oman Empire_ and German _O*s*manisches Reich_. The origin is the Arabic name _U*th*man_.


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## Christo Tamarin

All loanwords (incl. personal names and place names) from Greek into Bulgarian (and Turkish as far as I know) has *T* as the replacement of *θ*_. _This is true for other modern Greek fricatives as well: modern Greek Delta and Gamma have the corresponding stop consonants as replacements.

Russian did not take loanwords directly from Greek. When we see Ф(F) in Russian as the replacement of Greek *θ, *the word has come through Church Slavonic and was spelled with *θ *in Russian until 1918. When we see T in Russian as the replacement of Greek *θ, *then the word entered Russian through French, German, Latin, or it was just a part of the international lexical fund.

Why Greek *θ *through Church Slavonic became *Ф* in Russian?

Both Greek *θ *and *Ф* were strange for Slavophones before the lost of yers. Both letters were preserved in written text. After the lost of yers, Slavophones were already able to produce *Ф*
and the implementation of *Ф *has moved to the *θ *as well.


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## Villeggiatura

Oh I forgot _th_ could and did become _d_ (probably via _t_):
spatha -> spada, espada
Marathon -> Maratona -> Maradona (hypothesized)


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## berndf

Villeggiatura said:


> Oh I forgot _th_ could and did become _d_ (probably via _t_):
> spatha -> spada espada
> Marathon -> Maratona -> Maradona (hypothesized)


Also direct (i.e not via /t/):

English _bro*th*er_ - German _Bru*d*er_
English _*th*rough - _German _*d*urch_
English _*th*at - _German _*d*as_
And many more.

But in West-Germanic languages this is a bit of a peculiarity because the phoneme /θ/ could be realized voiced, i.e. [ð], or unvoiced, i.e. [θ]. That's why there /θ/>/t/ and /θ/>/d/ are equally plausible.


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## Ben Jamin

Christo Tamarin said:


> Both Greek *θ *and *Ф* were strange for Slavophones before the lost of yers. Both letters were preserved in written text. After the lost of yers, Slavophones were already able to produce *Ф *and the implementation of *Ф *has moved to the *θ *as well.


In West Slavic the sound f came late into use. In loanwords "p" was substituted for "f" in Polish until the late middle ages.


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## bearded

> Villeggiatura:
Matthaeus-> Maffeo
Mathilda _> Mafalda <

Actually, in Italian the normal version of those names is _Matteo _and _Matilde _respectively.
Since at the moment I do not have my books available, I am not in a position to confirm whether  Maffeo and Mafalda really are (secondary forms) derived from Matthaeus and Mathilda.  The latter does not sound so plausible, owing to the different vowel...
In our language we usually have t from original th (tesi from thesis, matematica from mathematiké, and innumerable other examples).

PS. It seems that you are right, and those are indeed secondary versions of Matteo and Matilde (I did not know so far). Anyhow, the name Mafalda is of Portuguese origin, so the transformation th->f has taken place in Portuguese really...


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## Nino83

I agree with bearded man. 
Some other example for Italian th > t is: Agatha > Agata, atheist > ateo, Athens > Atene, athlete > atleta, cathedral > cattedrale, Catherine > Caterina, enthusiasm > entusiasmo, ether > etere, ethics > etica, ethnic > etnico, method > metodo, mythical > mitico, panther > pantera, sympathy > simpatia, author > autore, Gothic > gotico, rhythm > ritmo, theater > teatro, and so on. 

These words have a /t/ in Portuguese too.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> author > autore


The _h_ in English _author _is unetymological. The origin is Latin _auctor _and the 16th century spelling _author _rather than the earlier_ autor _is the result of the mistaken assumption of a Greek origin of the word.


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## Villeggiatura

Nino83 said:


> I agree with bearded man.
> Some other example for Italian th > t is: Agatha > Agata, atheist > ateo, Athens > Atene, athlete > atleta, cathedral > cattedrale, Catherine > Caterina, enthusiasm > entusiasmo, ether > etere, ethics > etica, ethnic > etnico, method > metodo, mythical > mitico, panther > pantera, sympathy > simpatia, author > autore, Gothic > gotico, rhythm > ritmo, theater > teatro, and so on.
> 
> These words have a /t/ in Portuguese too.



That's why Maffeo and Mafalda look curious and serendipitous to me.


_θοῦρος/θουραῖος/θουρήεις_ th(o)ur-, meaning furious, became furia in Latin

_(προ)θύελλα _(pro)thyella, meaning storm, became procella in Latin.


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## berndf

Villeggiatura said:


> _θοῦρος/θουραῖος/θουρήεις_ th(o)ur-, meaning furious, became furia in Latin


The etymology of Latin _furia _is unknown but relating it to Greek _θοῦρος_ doesn't make too much sense.


Villeggiatura said:


> _(προ)θύελλα _(pro)thyella, meaning storm, became procella in Latin.


Nor does this. How do you think /tʰ/ should become /k/? _Procella _is rather related to Greek _κέλης_.


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## bearded

@Villeggiatura
Actually, other dictionaries say that 'procella' is connected with ancient Greek pro-kello (to push forward). Anyhow, it is true that often ancient Greek th corresponds to Latin f in many cases. Examples: thymos/fumus, tìthemi(theto)/facio etc.   I am sure that, when you say 'became', you do not mean that the Latin words came from Greek. I think these are just parallel derivations from Indo-European. Divergent derivations were normal between Greek and Latin (take for instance d/l :  dacrya/lacrimae, Odyseus/Ulisses...).


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## Villeggiatura

berndf said:


> Also direct (i.e not via /t/):
> 
> English _bro*th*er_ - German _Bru*d*er_
> English _*th*rough - _German _*d*urch_
> English _*th*at - _German _*d*as_
> And many more.
> 
> But in West-Germanic languages this is a bit of a peculiarity because the phoneme /θ/ could be realized voiced, i.e. [ð], or unvoiced, i.e. [θ]. That's why there /θ/>/t/ and /θ/>/d/ are equally plausible.


The chronology confuses me.
Are they in reverse order sometimes?
(like Briton - Brython)


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## berndf

Villeggiatura said:


> The chronology confuses me.
> Are they in reverse order sometimes?
> (like Briton - Brython)


_Brython _is a modern loan from Welsh.


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## berndf

bearded man said:


> I think these are just parallel derivations from Indo-European


Yes, both Greek /tʰ/ and Latin /f/ are possible outcomes of PIE /dʰ/. But if /θ/ was involved an intermediary step in Latin, I don't know. Neither classical Greek not classical Latin knew the sound /θ/.


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## Villeggiatura

berndf said:


> How do you think /tʰ/ should become /k/? _Procella _is rather related to Greek _κέλης_.


via t
planities/planicies
lateritius/latericius


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## ahvalj

Actually, the Russian substitution of _θ_ with _ѳ_ [f] is not the first such shift in IE languages: Italic has PIE _*dʰ>*þ>f_ word-initially (_fūmus, facere, fīlia, fēmina_) and, in the Sabellic branch, word-medially (Latin loanword _rūfus_). Cross-post with berndf.

Update. The Greek loanwords from Sicel (a language of Latino-Faliscan branch) suggest the presence of a voiceless sound, probably _þ:_ _λίτρα_ (Latin _lībra_), _Αἴτνη_ (Latin _aedēs_). The Greek _θ_ was _tʰ_ at the time of borrowing, so *_þ _in any case could only have been borrowed as _τ_.


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## ahvalj

Villeggiatura said:


> There is a Greek variant of _θ_: σ (_s_, usually Doric and Laconic), e.g.
> Άθηνη / Ἀσάνα (Athena/Asana)
> παρθένος /παρσένος (parthenos/parsenos)
> θάλασσα /σάλασσα (thalassa/salassa)





> In some of the Greek dialects other than Attic the development of the aspirated plosives to fricatives seems to have occurred in quite early times. In the case of φ and χ we can hardly expect literary evidence for this, since an Attic transcription of [f] or [x] could hardly use other than the symbols φ and χ (cf. p. 22). But in the case of θ, the change to a dental fricative [θ] as in modern Greek might be approximately represented in Attic by the alveolar fricative σ; and we do in fact find Laconian speech so represented in Attic writers—e.g. ναὶ τὼ σιώ, παρσένε in Aristophanes, σύματος in Thucydides. In the 4 c. B.C. spellings of this kind appear inscriptionally at Sparta (but the early σιῶν = θεῶν in the text of Alcman may be due to later grammarians). σ for θ is also reported as a Laconian feature by Apollonius Dyscolus (_De Constr., _p. 54 U). It remains open to question whether the σ in these cases represents a dental [θ] or whether in fact this had already changed in Laconian to the alveolar which seems to be attested in its modern descendant Tsaconian.


_Allen SW · 1987 · Vox graeca. A guide to the pronunciation of Classical Greek:_ 26 (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_7IkEzr9hyJbFBHVG52ZVM3QVU)


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## Gavril

- In Irish, older [θ] became  in many (perhaps all) environments. For example, the word _labraithir_ "s/he speaks" would have originally been pronounced ['laβ.ra.*θ*jir], but later became ['laβ.ra.*h*ir] or similar.

- In Icelandic, which usually retains [θ] and [ð] as such, there are sporadic examples of [θ]_ > _[t]_. _For ex., the name _Þorlákur_ (where _þ_ = [θ]) can be shortened in familiar/colloquial contexts to _Tolli. _(This may be due to the influence of neighboring languages like Norwegian, where older [θ] has regularly become [t], and which therefore has _*T*orlak_ as the equivalent of _Þorlákur_.)


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## rushalaim

If you'd listen the _Old English_, you'd hear the sound speech. The modern _English_ is mixture of many. 
A linguist said, in the Middle Ages there were many deseases in Europe, thus teeth were fallen. Those, who was alive spoke _"th"_.
By the way, _"t"_ in _Hebrew_ in the end of words became _"th", "d"_ became _"dh", "g"_ became _"gh"_. But in ancient times the speech was clear and sound with full-sounds _"t", "d", "g"_.


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## Nino83

Villeggiatura said:


> Curiously, I've seen a couple of instances where _th_ becomes _f_ in Italian:
> Matthaeus->Maffeo
> Mathilda-> Mafalda
> are there more such instances?



The letter θ or ϑ was pronounced [tʰ] until 2nd century BC but shifted to [θ] completely during the 5th century AD.  



> La ϑ greca è stata sostituita in via normale dalla t già in Latino e ad essa corrisponde in italiano _Mattèo, Tommaso_ e _càttedra_; *influssi greci posteriori* hanno fatto passare ϑ a f: così si spiegano i nomi _*Maffèo*_ e _*Fumaso*_ ( = Tommaso) nonché _cafera_ (C. Davanzati), documentato in testi antichi italiani. Nei territori del Mezzogiorno romanizzati in epoca tarda ϑ è stata resa talvolta con s, talvolta con f: _cfr._ il calabrese meridionale _vròfasu_ e _agròfacu_ "ranocchio" (βάτραχος).



Rohlfs, _Grammatica storica dell'italiano e dei suoi dialetti_, Vol. I page 318  

So, _Maffeo_ and _Mafalda_ are due to later Greek influences. Southern Calabria was latinized only during Middle Ages, so this sound, there, was often pronounced /s, f/, following the relatively "new" Greek pronunciation.  

But the rule, in Italian languages, is /t/, because Greek loanwords were borrowed very early.


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## Ben Jamin

Villeggiatura said:


> Mathilda-> Mafalda
> are there more such instances?
> 
> And what else has _th/θ_ evolved into?


Mathilda is not Greek but Germanic (maht-hilda), and was not pronounced with a [θ] . The "t+h" sequence is a result of a contact cluster.
As far as I know, the "t+h" never produced a [θ] in Germanic, the "h" was simply elided.


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## berndf

Ben Jamin said:


> the "h" was simply elided.


Later. The OHG pronunciation was /'maxt.xild.ja/


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## origumi

If the topic is not solely for European languages:

In Hebrew "th" became "sh" (from Proto-Semitic to modern time).

The historical development is probably something like th > s > sh. This depends on shifts in the realization of "s", "sh" and a 3rd similar sound (aka s1/s2/s3) in Hebrew and its relatives, which are not fully clear as far as I know.


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## apmoy70

Nino83 said:


> I agree with bearded man.
> ...*Catherine* > Caterina, and so on


Isn't the _h_ in the English _Catherine_, unetymological too? The Greek is either «Αἰκατερίνα» or «Αἰκατερίνη».
In the Tsakonian dialect of MoGr _θ_ > _s_ e.g. Classical Gr «θυλάκιον» tʰŭlákiŏn (seed-capsule) > MoGr «θυλάκιο» [θiˈlaci.o] > Tsakonian «σουλάτσι» [suˈlaʦ͡i]


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## berndf

Yes, it is folk etymological. Possible confusion with _katharos=pure_


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## mataripis

Only few Tagalog words have th , like Bathala ( diety) but its origin is Sanskrit Battara.The word Pamahalaan ( government) has an older form Pamathalaan but not in use anymore. Th become H. The word Katha ( mind creation or part of creativeness) does change. It existed in word imagination ( Kathang Isip)


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## Ben Jamin

berndf said:


> Yes, it is folk etymological. Possible confusion with _katharos=pure_


In Scandinavia it has been a fashion to add an "h" to a "t" in a name to make it more noble, for example Margaret became Margareth.


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## Hulalessar

Nino83 said:


> The letter θ or ϑ was pronounced [tʰ] until 2nd century BC but shifted to [θ] completely during the 5th century AD.



Are there any other instances of [tʰ] becoming [θ]?

[θ] and its voiced counterpart  [ð] are apparently quite rare in the world's languages. Anyone care to suggest why?


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## ahvalj

Hulalessar said:


> Are there any other instances of [tʰ] becoming [θ]?


Proto-Italic had _*þ_ (_>f-, -f-, -b-, -d-_) in the place of the PIE _*dʰ,_ which implies an intermediate stage _*tʰ._

Venetic had a sound written as _z_, also in the place of the PIE _*dʰ:_ judging from that Venetic had _f_ in the place of the PIE _*bʰ,_ this _z_ was probably used for [þ].

Interestingly, Macedonian, a supposedly close relative of Greek, had _β, δ, γ_ instead of the Greek _φ, θ, χ_ (nice examples exist for_ β_: _Βίλιππος, Βερενίκη_), which suggests that the proto-Greek development to _pʰ, tʰ, kʰ_ was not very ancient.

Iranic had _th>þ_ (e. g. PIE _*pn̥thₐ->paþ-_ "path", hence probably comes also the West Germanic word).

*Update. *There are problems with Venetic: this _z_ actually stands in the place of the PIE _*d:_ _zonasto_ "dedit", _zoto _"δότο", so my example is probably wrong.


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## Nino83

Hulalessar said:


> Are there any other instances of [tʰ] becoming [θ]?



Not in Italian Romance languages.



Hulalessar said:


> [θ] and its voiced counterpart  [ð] are apparently quite rare in the world's languages. Anyone care to suggest why?



I think they are rare because in many languages they are/were lenited forms (allophones) of other consonants and, like all lenited sounds, they tend to disappear.
For example, in Old French, the past participle was _aimè*t* > aimè*θ* > aimé_ and _meitjè*t* > meitjè*θ* > moitié_.
The same thing is happening in spoken Spanish, where _aðo_ (everywhere in Spanish) and _iðo, aða_ and _iða_ (in Central and Southern Spanish) are elided, so we have _cantáo (< cantaðo), comío (< comiðo), tó (< toðo), ná (< naða), cá (< caða)_.

In English and Icelandic it is a different history, because they are _phonemic_, i.e distinctive.

Some example about ð:

French: _vita > vidə > viðə > viə > viː > vi_
Andalusian Spanish: _vita > vida > viða > vía_

So, also /ð/ was dropped in these languages.  

Here, there is some map about elision of -d- in _-ado_ and in other cases. 
http://www.jotamartin.byethost33.com/alpi_ado_e.php 
http://www.jotamartin.byethost33.com/alpi_dinter_e.php


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