# Philosoph, Telefon (PH vs F)



## bearded

Guten Tag allerseits

Die Wörter, die aus Alt-Griechisch stammen und einen Buchstaben 'phi' enthielten, werden im Deutschen manchmal mit PH und manchmal mit F geschrieben.  Warum schreibt man ,,Philosoph'', aber ,,Telefon''?. Ich vermute, F sei hier eine moderne Innovation, aber gibt es dazu eine Regel, woran man sich orientieren kann, d.h. wann ein PH und wann ein F richtig ist? Telegrafenamt oder Telegraphenamt...?

Im Voraus besten Dank für Eure Antworten.


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## Demiurg

Die Schreibweise mit "f" ist in der Tat die modernere, die manchmal allerdings durch bereits existierende Wörter blockiert ist. Ein "Graph" ist eben kein "Graf".

Die traditionelle Schreibweise von "Philosoph" hat wohl mit dem Widerstand der Vertreter dieser Disziplin zu tun, die ihre altehrwürdige Wissenschaft nicht mit einem banalen "f" geschrieben wissen wollen ("Filosof" und "Filosofie" - igitt).


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## Schimmelreiter

Gottseidank haben wir keine strafbefugte Orthogra*ph*iebehörde, die Menschen dafür einsperren könnte, dass sie schon mal _Telephon_ oder _Geographie_ schreiben. Ich sehe darin eher eine liebenswerte Idiosynkrasie denn einen _Fehler_. Ein _Fehler_ ist es, zu wenig Sprachbewusstsein zu haben, nicht, zu viel.


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## Perseas

bearded man said:


> Die Wörter, die aus Alt-Griechisch stammen und einen Buchstaben 'phi' enthielten, werden im Deutschen manchmal mit PH und manchmal mit F geschrieben.  Warum schreibt man ,,Philosoph'', aber ,,Telefon''?.


 "Φιλόσοφος" (= Philosoph) gab es zwar im alt-Griechischen , aber "τηλέφωνο" (= "Telefon") stammt vom Englischen "telephone". Vielleicht spielt das eine Rolle.


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## kgildner

Wie Demiurg bereits gesagt hat, ist es vor allem die Wissenschaft, die sich weigert, die modernere Schreibweise mit „f” zu übernehmen. 

Somit haben wir viele „geographische” -- und so gut wie keine „geografischen” -- Fakultäten, die sich gleichermaßen mit „topographischen” (und nicht „topografischen”) Karten befassen.


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## wandle

Whew! What a relief to see that English is not the only language with inconsistent spelling. I think ours is more interesting, though.


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## berndf

Perseas said:


> "Φιλόσοφος" (= Philosoph) gab es zwar im alt-Griechischen , aber "τηλέφωνο" (= "Telefon") stammt vom Englischen "telephone". Vielleicht spielt das eine Rolle.


Ich glaube nicht, dass dies eine Rolle spielt. _Telefon _wird nicht als ein englisches Fremdwort verstanden, auch wenn es vor daher kommt, sondern als einen _Neogräzismus _(=ein aus griechischen Wurzeln neu geschaffenes Wort).


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## bearded

Schimmelreiter said:


> Gottseidank haben wir keine strafbefugte Orthogra*ph*iebehörde, die Menschen dafür einsperren könnte, dass sie schon mal _Telephon_ oder _Geographie_ schreiben. Ich sehe darin eher eine liebenswerte Idiosynkrasie denn einen _Fehler_. Ein _Fehler_ ist es, zu wenig Sprachbewusstsein zu haben, nicht, zu viel.


Entspricht also Dein Kommentar einer Antwort wie ,,Es gibt in der Tat keine Regel''?


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## Demiurg

Bis auf wenige Ausnahmen (z.B. "Philosophie") sind beide Schreibweisen (mit "ph" und "f") möglich und zulässig.

Mir persönlich kommt die Schreibweise mit "ph" in alltäglichen Wörtern veraltet vor ("Photographie", "Telephon"), während ich sie bei wissenschaftlichen Begriffen ("Orthographie", "Geographie") bevorzuge.


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## kgildner

Demiurg said:


> Bis auf wenige Ausnahmen (z.B. "Philosophie") sind beide Schreibweisen (mit "ph" und "f") möglich und zulässig.
> 
> Mir persönlich kommt die Schreibweise mit "ph" in alltäglichen Wörtern veraltet vor ("Photographie", "Telephon"), während ich sie bei wissenschaftlichen Begriffen ("Orthographie", "Geographie") bevorzuge.



Eine sehr gute Beschreibung!


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## Schimmelreiter

Demiurg said:


> Bis auf wenige Ausnahmen (z.B. "Philosophie") sind beide Schreibweisen (mit "ph" und "f") möglich und zulässig.
> 
> Mir persönlich kommt die Schreibweise mit "ph" in alltäglichen Wörtern veraltet vor ("Photographie", "Telephon"), während ich sie bei wissenschaftlichen Begriffen ("Orthographie", "Geographie") bevorzuge.


Ich schließe mich Dir an. 

_Photographien _sind für mich Analogabzüge in dicken alten Alben, und _Telephon _passt herrlich zum Wählscheibenapparat, der bei meinen Eltern im Vorzimmer an der Wand hing, aber nicht zu einem Smartphone.


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## bearded

Demiurg said:


> Bis auf wenige Ausnahmen (z.B. "Philosophie") sind beide Schreibweisen (mit "ph" und "f") möglich und zulässig.
> 
> Mir persönlich kommt die Schreibweise mit "ph" in alltäglichen Wörtern veraltet vor ("Photographie", "Telephon"), während ich sie bei wissenschaftlichen Begriffen ("Orthographie", "Geographie") bevorzuge.


Danke vielmals:  ganz klar!


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## Frank78

berndf said:


> Ich glaube nicht, dass dies eine Rolle spielt. _Telefon _wird nicht als ein englisches Fremdwort verstanden, auch wenn es vor daher kommt, sondern als einen _Neogräzismus _(=ein aus griechischen Wurzeln neu geschaffenes Wort).



In der Wikipedia steht, dass J.P. Reis den Namen geprägt haben soll. Demzufolge müsste ja eher Herr Bell, Reis' Namen für das Gerät übernommen haben.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfindung_des_Telefons#1861_.E2.80.93_Johann_Philipp_Reis


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## fdb

Frank78 said:


> In der Wikipedia steht, dass J.P. Reis den Namen geprägt haben soll.



Reis invented his device, and called it “Telephon” (with –ph-), in 1861. However, the French form “téléphone" is attested already in 1809, and the English “telephone” in 1844, for more primitive forms of telecommunication. You can look up the relevant articles in CNRTL and OED respectively.


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## Schimmelreiter

Irrespective of whether the French, the English or the Scots used the term first, the fact they spelt it with a _ph_ was irrelevant to our German forebears' spelling it with _ph_. Spelling it with _f_ wouldn't have crossed their etymology-minded minds. 

Departure from etymological spelling is a much more recent development in German, and an infelicitous one, I may add, making it unnecessarily difficult for German speakers to learn languages that continue to adhere to the etymological principle in spelling.


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## bearded

> Schimmelreiter
> ...making it unnecessarily difficult for German speakers to learn languages that continue to adhere to the etymological principle in spelling


On the other hand, though, it would make it easier for them to learn the languages of Italy and Spain, where we write _telefono/teléfono, geografia, filosofia etc._


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## Schimmelreiter

bearded man said:


> On the other hand, though, it would make it easier for them to learn the languages of Italy and Spain, where we write _telefono/teléfono, geografia, filosofia etc._


No disadvantage without an advantage. 

Needless to say, though, that Italian teachers, too, would have an easier time teaching their students English and French hadn't Italian given up etymological spelling, wouldn't they?


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## bearded

As a German *ph*ilologist, SR, you are right - and I have to admit that.


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## Schimmelreiter

bearded man said:


> As a German *ph*ilologist, SR, you are right - and I have to admit that.


No, I meant to say, don't some *Italian* philologists/teachers regret to some extent the exit of their language from the etymological community of, say, English and French, not least when it comes to foreign-language didactics?


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## bearded

I am afraid they don't.  The replacement of ph by f took place already long ago in our written language, so that to write 'geographia' or similar would appear ridiculous nowadays. On the other hand please consider that, within the Italian language, usually one letter corresponds to one sound - principle of ''uniformity'' - and since the ancient pronunciation p-h never existed after archaic Latin, we pronounce f anyway, and in our writing system such uncertainties/oscillations as are admittedly found in the German orthography, do not exist. May I proudly affirm that our system is more consistent?


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## berndf

bearded man said:


> I am afraid they don't.  The replacement of ph by f took place already long ago in our written language, so that to write 'geographia' or similar would appear ridiculous nowadays. On the other hand please consider that, within the Italian language, usually one letter corresponds to one sound - principle of ''uniformity'' - and since the ancient pronunciation p-h never existed after archaic Latin, we pronounce f anyway, and in our writing system such uncertainties/oscillations as are admittedly found in the German orthography, do not exist. May I proudly affirm that our system is more consistent?


I see what you mean: like <gn> in _agnello_ is pronounced G-N and <sci> in _scienza_ is pronounced S-K-I.

You should hear my wife's family talk about Italy. They often go on vacation to _Lignano_ (pronounced _Lik-nano_) and eat _Gnocchi _(pronounced _g-nots-ki_).


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## Schimmelreiter

bearded man said:


> May I proudly affirm that our system is more consistent?


Let's talk about phonemic rather than consistent spelling. I daresay, on a phonemic spelling comparison chart, German is _not behind_ Italian. But I'm not an expert.


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## bearded

When I wrote my statement abt. consistency, I did it jokingly (there was even a smiley). I am no expert either, and frankly I would not know what writing  system is more consistent.  Anyhow, I appreciated berndf's humour, and I am sure _gnocchi_ have a good taste both pronounced in the correct way or the other way...


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## Schimmelreiter

bearded man said:


> When I wrote my statement abt. consistency, I did it jokingly (there was even a smiley). I am no expert either, and frankly I would not know what writing  system is more consistent.  Anyhow, I appreciated berndf's humour, and I am sure _gnocchi_ have a good taste both pronounced in the correct way or the other way...


I stand embarrassed, having missed the irony.

By the way, standard Viennese pronunciation: ['knotʃi]


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## Hutschi

In connected words we have no problem writing "Graf" (Fotografie, Fotograf.)
Even mixed forms occure: Fotographie and Photografie. (Some consider this as wrong, but after considering all about it I do not understand why it should be wrong. Example: Foto + Graph.)


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## berndf

bearded man said:


> I appreciated berndf's humour...


I am glad you did. I simply couldn't resist.

But now serious again: You are of course right that Italian spelling is phonemically more consistent than German. There are digraphs and even trigraphs but taking all spelling rules into consideration the pronunciation is almost always precisely predictable from the spelling and even inversely, there usually is only one canonic way to spell a word given its phonemic structure. Cases like _Röhren_ and _stören_, where one has an <h> and one hasn't although the two rhyme perfectly would hardly be possible in Italian. And, hence, representing the same phoneme by two different graphemes based solely on etymology and for no phonological reason would indeed fundamentally contradict the logic of Italian spelling rules. And I guess that was your point, right?


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## bearded

Yes, that was my point, thank you.   Since my (OP) question only concerned German, though, I feel that by introducing and discussing elements of Italian and other languages, we have come slightly  off topic - my fault, no doubt.
It seems to me that I have received satisfactory replies from all of you, as concerns the German usage.  Many thanks once again.


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## wandle

wandle said:


> Whew! What a relief to see that English is not the only language with inconsistent spelling. I think ours is more interesting, though.


In light of the various claims made, I would like to clarify that the above comment meant that it is our inconsistent spelling which is the most interesting, its rich variety making it so unpredictable (except to the most learned philologists).


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## bearded

> berndf
> ...there usually is only one canonic way to spell  a word....


I would like to add that your *usually* is really important, because there are indeed exceptions (making our system less ''consistent''): I will only mention words starting with prefix ''glico'' (from Greek _glykys/glykòs_ = sweet), like _glicogeno, glicocolla, glicine..._, where  gl  is pronounced g-l like a German would do.
Sorry, I am now fully off topic, but considering that my Gesprächspartner is now a moderator...


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## iezik

Schimmelreiter said:


> Departure from etymological spelling is [...] making it unnecessarily difficult for German speakers to learn languages that continue to adhere to the etymological principle in spelling.



Do you have at hand some didactic research available that confirms this finding? I'm often thinking about educational costs of differing orthographies and related research would be welcome. A study result of the type "we estimate that changing spelling system in this and that way would change the time necessary for learning that language by x %" would be helpful.

I can imagine that etymological spelling sometimes helps (English geography and German Geographie have similar spelling) and sometimes it doesn't (English yacht and German Jacht have pronunciations where English one is not easily derived from German).


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## berndf

iezik said:


> ...and sometimes it doesn't (English yacht and German Jacht have pronunciations where English one is not easily derived from German).


Why do you think it doesn't help? Etymological spelling helps to see _yacht _and _Jacht _as cognate which you wouldn't have guessed easily from phonemically re-spelled versions, e.g., if English had changed the spelling to _yawt_.



bearded man said:


> I would like to add that your *usually* is really important, because there are indeed exceptions (making our system less ''consistent''): I will only mention words starting with prefix ''glico'' (from Greek _glykys/glykòs_ = sweet), like _glicogeno, glicocolla, glicine..._, where gl is pronounced g-l like a German would do.
> Sorry, I am now fully off topic, but considering that my Gesprächspartner is now a moderator...


I don't consider it off-topic. The comparison to a language with a logic whereby phonemic re-spelling is all but mandatory (with only a very limited number of exceptions) is quite relevant to the discussion. I think the main difference between Italian and German is that etymological spelling is also partially retained in native words. As a consequence of this, it is quite natural to have more than one way to represent the same phoneme; e.g., /i:/ can be represented as <_ie_>, <_ih_> or <_ieh_> in native words. It is therefore a bit easier for us to accept two spellings for /f/ (<_f_> and <_ph_>) than it would be, if we had regularised spellings of native words to the same extend as Italian has.


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## iezik

berndf said:


> Why do you think it doesn't help? Etymological spelling helps to see _yacht _and _Jacht _as cognate which you wouldn't have guessed easily from phonemically re-spelled versions, e.g., if English had changed the spelling to _yawt_.


I don't have any statistics on the time necessary to learn different aspects of a language. So, my observations are based on my learning experiences. In my mother's language, the word is _jahta_. When learning the English equivalent, I learned both spelling and pronunciation. Spelling was rather easy, but correct pronunciation was delayed for several years. I incorrectly assumed the pronunciation /jaxt/ where |ch| corresponds to /x/ like in word _loch_ /lox/. So, it can happen that learning of pronunciation sometimes requires more effort with etymological spelling. 

On the other hand, if the English spelling were |yawt|, when first reading such a word, I wouldn't recognize it and I had to use a dictionary to recognize it. The pronunciation would be correct from the start on. So, the phonetic spelling can require more time for written form and less time for spoken form. In other words, there is no advantage for either spelling.

Maybe somebody already measured the lexicon learning time and reported which side has advantage, averaged over the population and the commonly used words.


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