sound; Is Old English responsible for this swap?

4 events

when toggle format	what		by	license	comment
Mar 30, 2011 at 13:09	comment	added	JSBձոգչ		Latin pedis did not become English foot. Rather, both pedis and foot are descendants of a common PIE root. The change from p to f in the Germanic languages is due to Grimm's Law, which is very different from what happened in Greek/Latin.
Mar 30, 2011 at 11:06	comment	added	Colin Fine		More accurately, the Greek letter φ was pronounced in Classical times as an aspirated /pͪ/ (a bit like /ph/ in "uphill"), and when the Romans borrowed Greek words with that letter they transcribed it as 'ph'. Subsequently the sound changed in Greek to /f/, and Latin (and other languages which had further borrowed the words from Latin) changed them accordingly. "ph" for /f/ is not just in English - it is found at least in French and German as well, though Spanish (for example) has preferred to respell the words with "f". (It's also independently in Welsh and Irish)
Mar 30, 2011 at 6:22	comment	added	user6697		Ok, yes, Romans...Greeks phi..this does make sense....many thanks.
Mar 30, 2011 at 6:10	history	answered	Michael Lorton	CC BY-SA 2.5