La evolucion del diptongo οι en beocio

Abstract

While the usual inscriptional spelling for the outcome of the diphthong οι is Y in most towns of Boeotia, it frequently appears as EI in some late inscriptions in Chaeronea, Lebadea and Coronea. According to current opinion, these facts suggest an iotacistic development /oi̯/ > /ọ̈̄/ > /ụ̈̄/ > /ī/, supposedly in anticipation of the evolution of the diphthong οι in Late κοινή and Early Byzantine Greek. In our paper we will argue that this interpretation is based on insufficient grounds, and we will present an alternative hypothesis, viz., that Boeotian EI spellings for Common Greek οι do not correspond to an [ī] pronunciation, but rather —as would be expected— to an [ẹ̄] sound. Consequently, we maintain that the Boeotian diphthong οι had developed into an /ọ̈̄/ vowel (Y in the inscriptions) by the end of the fourth century B.C., which subsequently became /ẹ̄/ (EI) in the aforementioned towns. Thus the evolution of Boeotian οι is not comparable with that of Late Greek οι.