Nonetheless, there are Greek purists who prefer the English spellings Sokrates and Perikles, however pedantic that may seem. An exact transliteration of Σωκρατης and Περικλης ought to produce Sō kratē s and Periklē s but because the Latin language knew these two men as Socrates and Pericles, their names have been spelled with a c for over 2,000 years. The problem can be neatly illustrated by taking a few Greek proper names, either historical or mythological.
It is the Latinized spelling of Greek words that will often determine the form of our English derivatives. In pondering what to do with these four Greek letters, we must come to terms with the whole question of LATINIZATION, a broader issue which complicates the process of exact transliteration. Historically, the Latin language rendered Greek kappa (κ) by the consonant c, chi (χ) by the two Roman letters ch, and aspirated rho (ῥ) by rh as we saw in §100, Latin represented Greek upsilon (υ) by the Roman letter y. But wouldn’t our English derivatives from these three words suggest the transliterations cardia, charactē r, and rhythmos? In fact, these three alternative versions are perfectly acceptable transliterations, preferred by many authorities. If we are to be as exact as possible, we ought to transliterate καρδια as kardia, καρακτηρ as kharaktē r, and ῥυθμος as ruthmos. However, when we have to deal with the Greek letters κ, χ, ῥ, and υ, we may start to wonder. For most letters of the Greek alphabet, the suggested equivalents create no problems: transliterations such as δραμα = drama, βαθος = bathos, and γραφη = graphē are perfectly straightforward, given the principles of pronunciation that we have now examined. The most precise method of doing so was shown earlier in this chapter, by means of the equivalencies in §98.
The transfer of a Greek word, letter for letter, from the Greek alphabet to the Roman alphabet, is called TRANSLITERATION.
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