| 释义 |
digamma|daɪˈgæmə|
[a. L. digamma, Gr. δίγαµµα the digamma, f. δι- twice + γάµµα the letter gamma: so called by the grammarians of the first century, from its shape ϝ or F, resembling two gammas (Γ) set one above the other.]
The sixth letter of the original Greek alphabet, corresponding to the Semitic waw or vau, which was afterwards disused, the sound expressed by it having been gradually lost from the literary language.
It was a consonant, probably equivalent to English w; in the Italian alphabets derived from Greek, it appears to have passed through the power of consonantal v, to that of f, its value in the Roman alphabet: see F. It was lost in Ionic and Attic before the date of the earliest known monuments, but it occurs in inscriptions in all the other dialects down to late times, and it was also retained in the literary remains of æolic, whence the appellation æolic digamma or letter. Though not written in classical Greek, it can be restored on linguistic and metrical grounds in the Homeric and other ancient forms of Greek words, as ϝέργον work, Διϝί dative of Ζεύς, etc.
[1552Huloet, F letter among the latines is called Digamma. 1565–73Cooper Thesaurus, Digamma, the letter F. Cicero useth it for his maner of Formium beginning with F.] 1698M. Lister Journ. Paris (1699) 50 (Stanford) His new invented Letter the Digamma, which he instituted or borrowed from the Eolique to express V Consonant. 1727–51Chambers Cycl. s.v., This letter F is derived to us from the Romans, who borrowed it from the æolians; among whom it is called digamma, or double gamma, as resembling two Γ's, one over the other. 1742Pope Dunc. iv. 218 Tow'ring o'er your Alphabet, like Saul, Stands our Digamma, and o'ertops them all. 1814Jamieson Hermes Scyth. i. iv. 41 It has been thought that the Aeolic digamma approached nearly to the sound of W. 1845Stoddard in Encycl. Metrop. (1847) I. 94/1 The æolic digamma is described by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in the 1st book of his Antiquities. 1857Birch Anc. Pottery (1858) II. 17 The use of the digamma..is continued on Doric vases both of this [the second year of the 94th Olympiad] and even of a later age. |