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Archivesinformation regarding the spelling variant of Rhea
My name is Rea. My mother chose to spell it without the 'H' in either the second position or last position of my name. Does anyone have any information regarding the origin or meaning of this particular spelling?
This message was edited 12/14/2005, 10:03 PM
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Like a rhino!
In Greek, all vowels as well as the consonant r had punctuation marks called "breathings" in front of them: a "rough breathing" known as *daseia* "(" , or a "smooth breathing" known as *psili* ")".
These were dome away with by the late and unlamented Andreas Papandreou in the name of "simplifying" spelling. IMHO, greek spelling is now much poorer. But I digress.
All Greek words starting with a letter that had a "rough breathing" got an "h", "s" or "v" when transliterated into Latin and eventually English. For example, the Greek (YPER became hyper or super, (OLOGRAMMA becomes hologram and so forth.
In a similar vein, (REA becomes Rhea, just as (Rinokeros became Rhinoceros when transliterated :)
In Greek, all vowels as well as the consonant r had punctuation marks called "breathings" in front of them: a "rough breathing" known as *daseia* "(" , or a "smooth breathing" known as *psili* ")".
These were dome away with by the late and unlamented Andreas Papandreou in the name of "simplifying" spelling. IMHO, greek spelling is now much poorer. But I digress.
All Greek words starting with a letter that had a "rough breathing" got an "h", "s" or "v" when transliterated into Latin and eventually English. For example, the Greek (YPER became hyper or super, (OLOGRAMMA becomes hologram and so forth.
In a similar vein, (REA becomes Rhea, just as (Rinokeros became Rhinoceros when transliterated :)
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With "this particular spelling" you mean Rhea but without h? Such minor variants in spelling normally do not have a separate identifiable history, so that you could say e.g. "Rea in constrast to Rhea only became popular because of ..." or "became popular in the 17th century, first in ... and then in ...".
As the post of Miss Claire already indicates, certainly a spelling variant does not give a different meaning.
Articles like this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhea_Silvia
show that Rea as a form must be pretty old.
Rene www.AboutNames.ch
As the post of Miss Claire already indicates, certainly a spelling variant does not give a different meaning.
Articles like this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhea_Silvia
show that Rea as a form must be pretty old.
Rene www.AboutNames.ch
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