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Latin -io(n) > Greek ιων/-εων

Posted: September 19th, 2021, 6:12 am
by Jean Putmans
I wondered why two latin words, legio and regio, became Greek loanwords λεγιων/λεγεων and ρεγιων/ρεγεων: why the two different forms of the words -ιων and -εων? They probably had a different pronunciation in Greek. One would expect Latin -ion > Greek -ιων, but the most common form seems to have been Greek -εων.

Some background, why this is important to me:
The Gothic bible transcribes λεγεων (RP2005)/λεγιων (NA28) with laigaion (-ai- in this case is not a Diphthongue but an open short vowel -e- like in English "end"). A similar Gothic transcription of the Greek name συμεων > swmaion, shows, that the Gothic -aion ist the rendering of a Greek -εων. Greek -ιων would have become a Gothic -ion (like in Σιων > Sion).

The Gothic people had contact with Roman Forces before the translation of the Bible-Texts, so probably they already knew the Latin words legion/region. But in that case I would have expected the transcription with -ion instead of -aion, unless the Latin-speaking Roman soldiers pronounced the -ion as -eon (with a short open vowel -e-).

Some statistics:
TLG gives 21 Instances of λεγιων and 54 of λεγεων; ρεγιων/ρεγεων: 0 ;
my Migne-PG-Corpus has λεγεων: 104, λεγιων: 7; ρεγεων: 11, ρεγιων: 0.

Pape, Passow and Bailly just have λεγεων, no λεγιων and neither ρεγεων, nor ρεγιων.
LSJ has λεγεων/λεγιων and ρεγεων/ρεγιων
Probably -εων was the most common form in Greek.

Re: Latin -io(n) > Greek ιων/-εων

Posted: September 19th, 2021, 8:39 am
by Stephen Carlson
There is a sound change in late Latin that merged short i and long e. That’s why scribes varied in how that transliterated Latin short i into Greek.

Re: Latin -io(n) > Greek ιων/-εων

Posted: September 19th, 2021, 9:25 am
by Jean Putmans
thanks, the "late Latin" would be the period (roughly) 3th cent. CE till 8th cent. CE?

That would fit to the period in which the Gothic bible "developed" (starting at the end of the 4th cent. and ending with the writing of the Codex Argenteus (ca. 500 CE.).

Re: Latin -io(n) > Greek ιων/-εων

Posted: September 19th, 2021, 11:14 pm
by Stephen Carlson
Yes, roughly.

Re: Latin -io(n) > Greek ιων/-εων

Posted: September 23rd, 2021, 1:52 am
by Jason Hare
Also, remember that there is no phonemic difference between ε and αι (both are IPA /ε/), so the use of the diphthong doesn't signal any difference in pronunciation.