Talk:Sampi

A fact from Sampi appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 4 October 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that the archaic Greek letter Sampi (pictured) has also been called san, enacosin, angma, sincope, charaktir, or even parakyisma, which literally means "spurious pregnancy"? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2010/October.

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Can someone please translate the French article on this subject into English? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Usenetpostsdotcom (talk • contribs) 16:45, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The French version does appear vastly superior. I have read, as it implies in the article by saying the Greek numeric value is 900, that this letter was actually the end of the Greek alphabet, coming after Omega before becoming obsolete. Nagelfar 22:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Because T-shaped alphabetic Sampi was introduced recently to Wikipedia, I think that it is in T-shape not corrupted, but fully fledged letter. For proof look into Sampi article to compare alphabetic T-Sampi and numeric C-Sampi. As you see, T-Sampi is more like russian П and too Greek PI, with addition of |, while C-Sampi is more like russian Э and too Greek LUNATE EPSILON, with addition of -. In this way T-Sampi should be primary, and C-Sampi secondary. 91.94.153.30 (talk) 16:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ϡ

The upper case variant, and I am uncertain as to how it appears on the readers monitor being a unicode pasted character from my Windows Vista OS character-map and subject to variation from computer to computer according to fonts used. Yet however I digress and my point is that the internal lines common out of the semi-circle (more of an oblong shape, not an open-intersected oval according to the version I am looking at) has two different lines, the second one with a bend and change in direction downward, whereas the lower case has two diagonal lines, the capital version has a line coming straight down from the top of the bend in the semi-oblong shape (not a crescent either, but the lower case is a widely flanged, more acute than obtuse crescent). My interest/concern for the article is that someone should make an image of this variant upper case version where of the two middle lines, the first comes down at a different angle and the second has a bend (in my explained example they both terminate at a straight down angle. In my opinion the current image doesn't given a good example of the unique morphology the Sampi can be depicted as specific to it and more unlike the other ancient Greek characters. Nagelfar (talk) 23:27, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could the name San be related to Sampi? A shortened "like-" removed from like-pi; I do notice how one could see the M shape as like Pi, in-fact it's all wiki-OR speculation of mine as far as I know, but the relation between Lunate sigma and Stigma/final-sigma seems that Sampi is almost a merger of San & Stigma in form. Nagelfar (talk) 22:05, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For further use, some informal ref links:

• Threatte on earliest appearances of sampi, and possible attestation in Athens: ^[1] (good source)
• Description of an attestation of square-shaped numeric sampi on a papyrus fragment, 3rd cent BC ^[2] (good source)
• Something about an instance of (rounded, uncial-shaped?) sampi in an early manuscript, context indiscernible in snippet view ^[3]
• More about intermediate glyph forms ^[4]
• 19th-century speculation about links with Gothic and Cyrillic ^[5]
• 19th-century hint about earliest attestation as a numeral in a Louvre papyrus ^[6]
• More 19th-century hints about the (then) earliest known papyrus (Louvre) and early proposals linking it with epigraphic Ionian ^[7]
• Early 19th-cent speculation about interpretation of a a medieval scholion to Aristophanes (re. "koppatias, samphora"), about possible link of "sampi" with san. (Confusing)
  • Even more confusion: ^[8]
  • And more: ^[9]

• Recent specialized papyrological article: ^[10]
• Liddell/Scott entry: ^[11]

• More fun: ^[12]Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).
• But in reality it was named quite differently, and it's all Scaliger's fault: ^[13]
• Mixed stuff from TLG:
  • "σαμφόρας (Ar. nub. 122)· ἵππος χαρακτῆρα ἔχων ἐγκεκαυμένον σῖγμα, ὅπερ οἱ Δωριεῖς ἔλεγον σάν· <οὕτ>ως κοππατίας καὶ βουκέφαλος ^[14]
  • "τὸν κοππατίαν R: κοππατίας ἵππους ἐκάλουν οἷς ἐγκεχάρακτο τὸ κ στοιχεῖον, ὡς σαμφόρας τοὺς ἐγκεχαραγμένους τὸ σ. RVEΘNMMatr τὸ γὰρ σ κατὰ τὸ ϻ χαρασσόμενον ϻὰν ἔλεγον. αἱ δὲ χαράξεις αὗται καὶ μέχρι τοῦ νῦν σῴζονται ἐπὶ τοῖς ἵπποις. VEΘNMatr συνεζευγμένου δὲ τοῦ κ καὶ σ τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ ἐνακόσιοι ἀριθμοῦ δύναται νοεῖσθαι, οὗ προηγεῖται τὸ κόππα· καὶ παρὰ VEΘMatr τοῖς VΘMatr γραμματικοῖς οὕτω διδάσκεται, καὶ καλεῖται κόππα ἐνενήκοντα." ^[15]
  • "ὦ σαμφόρα: ἰδίως σαμφόραι καλοῦνται ἵπποι ἐγκεχαραγμένοι τὸ ϛ σημεῖον· οἱ δὲ Δωριεῖς τὸ ϛ σὰν λέγουσιν." VEΓΘMLh ^[16]
  • τὸ δὲ σὰν ἀντὶ τοῦ σίγμα Δωρικῶς εἰρήκασιν. οἱ γὰρ μουσικοί, καθάπερ πολλάκις Ἀριστόξενός φησι, τὸ σίγμα λέγειν παρῃτοῦντο διὰ τὸ σκληρόστομον εἶναι καὶ ἀνεπιτήδειον αὐλῷ· τὸ δὲ ῥῶ διὰ τὸ εὔκολον πολλάκις παραλαμβάνουσι. καὶ τοὺς ἵππους τοὺς τὸ ϻ ἐγκεχαραγμένον ἔχοντας σαμφόρας καλοῦσιν. Ἀριστοφάνης Νεφέλαις (122)·

    οὔτ’ αὐτὸς οὔθ’ ὁ ζύγιος οὔθ’ ὁ σαμφόρας.

  • καὶ Πίνδαρος δέ φησι (fr. 79 B4).

    πρὶν μὲν ἧρπε σχοινοτένειά τ’ ἀοιδὰ
    καὶ τὸ σὰν κίβδηλον ἀπὸ στομάτων. ^[17]

  • Διὰ τί δὲ κδʹ ἔφη εἶναι τὰ γράμματα; εἰ γὰρ γράμματά εἰσιν οἱ χαρακτῆρες καὶ οἱ ξυσμοί, γράμματα δὲ καὶ τὰ παρὰ Χαλδαίοις καὶ Αἰγυπτίοις, καί τινα ἕτερα, τὸ δίγαμμα καὶ τὸ κόππα καὶ τὸ καλούμενον παρακύϊσμα, καὶ τὰ σημεῖα, καὶ τὰ παρεγγραφόμενα τοῖς στοιχείοις, καὶ ἡ κορωνίς, καὶ εἴ τι τοιοῦτον, ἀτόπως φησὶν ὅτι κδʹ ἐστίν. Φαμὲν οὖν ὅτι, ὡς σφαλεροῦ ὄντος, ὅτι περὶ τῶν ἐν χρήσει τοῖς Ἕλλησι διαλαμβάνει, περὶ τούτων λέγει μόνον· ἐκεῖνα δὲ γράμματα μέν, οὐ μὴν δὲ στοιχεῖα ^[18]

Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:24, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Where the article mentions that sampi has also been called disigma there's a sentence saying "This usage is currently not found in the literature.", while referring to this website. However, it seems that the website has been changed since the critisism was added, and they seem to have literature proof for their claim. This scan is claimed to be from "Hill, Ancient Greek and Roman Coins (1899), p. 215", as well as this scan from "Icard, Dictionary of Greek Coin Inscriptions, p. 441:". If somebody could verify these scans as authentic, the sentence about disigma being an uncertain name could be removed. Unless, of course, the uncertainty is in trusting the 1899 source in the first place, and with "not found in the literature" they mean actual greek literature from way back... -- Nillli (talk) 10:01, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thanks for these comments. As far as I can see, no, the Parthia.com page was not changed recently; it's still in the same state I saw it in a few months ago. The trouble is, none of the scanned sources quoted there is actually using the name "disigma" anywhere, is it? I, for one, cannot find it in the links you give above, nor indeed anywhere else. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe 'Sampi' means 'The Pi from Samos', seeing that it is anciently attested to as being from there. Is there any indication that this is anything more than OR on my part? 184.76.53.217 (talk) 11:43, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'Spurious pregnancy'? (from the 'did you know' at the bottom of the templates at the above-top part of this very discussion page). Is it is glyph of two phallus' in one fertile womb from that account then? 184.76.53.217 (talk) 11:46, 23 December 2010 (UTC).lp[reply]

"Spurious pregnancy" is noted in the Liddell-Scott Lexicon as a "dubious restoration." παρακῠέω, to be spuriously pregnant, dub. rest. in IG4(1).122.26 (Epid.).

Liddell, H. G., Scott, R., Jones, H. S., & McKenzie, R. (1996). A Greek-English lexicon (1315). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

"Spurious" has a very negative connotation: as in 1.not being what it purports to be; false or fake. synonyms: bogus, fake, false, counterfeit, forged, fraudulent, sham, artificial, imitation, simulated, feigned, deceptive, misleading, specious

Merriam-Webster defines "spurious" as:

not genuine, sincere, or authentic

based on false ideas or bad reasoning

of illegitimate birth : bastard

A more direct, simpler, less dubious, and less controversial translation of παρακύϊσμα would be :

from "παρα-" "by, near, alongside" and the verb "κυέω" "to be pregnant". GreekAlphabeta (talk) 14:04, 21 November 2013 (UTC)GreekAlphabetaGreekAlphabeta (talk) 14:04, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm asking you again, for the umpteenth time: can you please, please, please stop making up your own theories and hypotheses and explanations here, and simply stick to what reputable academic publications say? If you have a reliable source that casts doubt on the explanations we provide about that word, then by all means cite it. Otherwise, your contributions here are really not helpful. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:15, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is the sampi the origin of the modern letter T? If so, it probably should be mentioned in the article if anyone has a source that verifies that. --Aqwis (talk) 09:38, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No it isn't. The source of Latin "T" is Greek "Τ" (i.e. Tau), which always had the same shape, function and alphabetic position. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:59, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: Thanks for all these references in your talk post Notes, above. I've put ref templates around them all and added {{talkref}}, but I only have time to complete ref-formatting of the one ref I followed up. Anyone else, please? --Thnidu (talk) 17:34, 19 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If we still take the "san" in "sampi" to mean the letter "san" and the "pi" to mean the letter "pi", couldn't it just mean "a san shaped like a pi" in the sense that the original form looks like a pi with an extra leg (in modern terms, a square m) which is very close to an square san (which looks like a triangular m)?--139.47.11.118 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:21, 18 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the article describes three explanations of why it might have been called "san-pi" in reference to the two letters san and pi, but I'm not sure whether any of the three is quite identical with your suggestion. Not quite sure what you mean by "square" or "triangular" san's or m's either. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:41, 18 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I mentioned it here because the explanations I've seen here do indeed reference some kind of relationship with pi, but the only one that comes close to what I'm proposing is a bust since it's in reference to the byzantine sampi (ϡ, which came way after than the name "sampi") and it's in relation with a lunate antisigma, not with a san (ϻ). What I mean by "triangular" and "square" is basically that, if we take a modern m as the basis, it's made of two arches; if we make those two arches "square", we end up with something like a sideways "E", which resembles very closely the variant with all of the legs of the same size (). On the other hand, if we make those arches "triangular", we end up with something like M or the secong one in , which are not that dissimilar from Ϻ or ϻ (san), so the idea here would be that ϻ would have changed into due to what the used to write it, then further mutated to Ͳ when they started doing the π part first and dragging the central leg.--139.47.11.118 (talk) 17:04, 18 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this graphic development or something similar is probably implied by all the authors who hypothesize that sampi goes back to san. The question is just how you'd explain a continuity of naming that could reflect this. The problem is that the name "sampi" only appears in the written record a very long time after the letter "san" in its alphabetic function had ceased to exist. We are talking not just about a hiatus of a few years, but about one and a half millennia. In between, there's next to no evidence of any memory of the original letter san being preserved, and only a handful of obscure notes indicating that a few philologists were preserving a vague memory of the name "san" having once existed as some kind of synonym for "sigma". BTW, I'll have to correct you about your statement that the Byzantine shape of sampi "came way after the name "sampi". As the article points out, the name "sampi" is only attested from around 1200, whereas the more-or-less modern shape of sampi developed from around the 9th century. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:39, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I see no good reason that the infobox lists the 24 (modern) Greek letters. It seems to be a lazy cut-and-paste from the Greek Alphabet article. That's #1. Second, the "T-form" predates the "pi-form" and should be as prominent in the box as the other. Third the infobox confounds the symbol for 900 with the letter for the ss or ts or sibilant s sound which this article is about. Fourth, the actual name of this letter is unknown (during the epoch when the letter was part of the Greek alphabet). The name Sampi originates probably after 1000 BCE, 1500+ years after the letter was (apparently) abandoned. Fifth, the infobox contains no etymology. Surely both the Phoenician and the Ionian roots are relevant. Sixth, the epoch of use (as the letter) aren't included. Seventh, the letter was - if I understand it (and I'm ignorant on this subject!) - (possibly) superseded by Sigma (although I also read that the ss sound vanished from the Greek language, which would seem to be important).98.21.219.152 (talk) 13:20, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That thing in the top right corner of the page isn't actually an infobox. It's a navbox ("navigation box"), not so much for providing information about this letter but for providing links to the other articles in the same series. These navboxes have become a bit out of fashion, but we've had them on all Greek letter articles ever since their creation (they were definitely more common back in those days.)

As for genuine infoboxes, there's one "Template:Infobox grapheme" that we could use, but its design is so hideously ugly and dysfunctional that I've resisted adopting it, and so far it's only been forced upon the letter articles of the Latin alphabet, as far as I can tell. I wouldn't recommend using it here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:15, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Petros Petrakis (talk) 14:16, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please add this:

ΝΑΥ[ϡ]ΟΣ → ΝΑΥ[ΣΣ]ΟΣ: Confirmed in Cyzicus (inscription ναυϡος, Schwyzer 732, a copy of a 6th century BC original)

REFERENCE: You have to search this word to read it: ναυσσός [remplace ναῦσσον] #[online] Available at: https://www.cairn.info/revue-de-philologie-litterature-et-histoire-anciennes-2017-1-page-131.htm

Book: Chronique d’étymologie grecque n° 16 (CEG 2017) Notices rassemblées et relues par Alain Blanc, Charles de Lamberterie Dans Revue de philologie, de littérature et d'histoire anciennes 2017/1 (Tome XCI), pages 131 à 229

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. '''[[User:CanonNi]]''' (talk|contribs) 05:22, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]