At 4:11 PM -0600 2/13/98, Justin wrote: I have started to study classical greek and have noticed some differences in the vocabulary words being slightly different (i.e. the word for sea has two tt instead of the two ss). Did the spelling of all the words that have the double consants tt change to ss? If yes, why did this change? Thanks, Justin Attic Greek spells words like QALATTA and those verbs based on guttural stems (e.g. PRATTW, KHRUTTW, etc.) with -TT-, while Ionic Greek pronounced them as -SS- and represented them thus--and as it is Ionic forms that prevailed in the wake of Alexander's victories and his successors' colonization of the east, the Ionic forms are more common in the Koine. That's not the whole story, but it is the story, I think, so far as those particular forms are concerned. Ionic elements did not prevail so generally in other areas or pronunciation and spelling, however. Carl W. Conrad Department of Classics/Washington University One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018 Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649 cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/