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SPELL IT LIKE IT SOUNDS!
Remember that the ancient Greeks spelled words the way they sounded, and not according to a fixed spelling system.
In formal written English, we tend to write only uncontracted forms (e.g., stop and go instead of stop n’ go), regardless of how we pronounce them. When Greeks ELIDED, or contracted, words as they spoke, they wrote the contracted form.
Take, for example, the phrase μετὰ ἐμοῦ "with me." As noted above, in spoken – and therefore written – Greek, there is an effort to avoid speaking two vowels back-to-back. Much of the time, then, this phrase is written as μετ’ ἐμοῦ.
In such situations, an apostrophe marks the place where the vowel was dropped, or elided.
A word ending in –σι that precedes a word beginning with a vowel or diphthong often DOES NOT ELIDE. Instead, spoken – and therefore written – ancient Greek adds a final –ν, called a MOVABLE NU, to make pronunciation easier. Movable nu is sometimes also added to –σι if the word is at the end of a clause.
For example:
- εἴκοσι εἶσι. → εἴκοσιν εἶσιν.
- δείκνυσι ἄνθρωπος → δείκνυσιν ἄνθρωπος
This phenomenon has a parallel in English: the indefinite article a becomes an before a word that begins with a vowel sound.
