It's all Greek to them

As everyone knows, Greek is written with the Greek alphabet. For the historical linguist geeks among you, since the time of Ancient Greek, the voiced stops β [b], γ [g] and δ [d] have become fricatives (so [v], [γ] and [ð] respectively). But sometimes they need to write the sounds [b], [d] and [g] still. Fortunately [p], [t] and [k] have voiced allophones in certain positions, so they just pretend that these phonological contexts are there in spelling.



My first encounter with this insane system was at 4am in a bookshop at Athens Airport, where we saw a book by one Γκρέγκορι Ντέιβιντ Ρόμπερτς (Gregory David Roberts). But you get used to it, and after a while it gets less of a challenge, but still quite good fun, to decipher what the bar price lists mean by Ρεντ Μπουλ, Γλενφίντιχ or Τζόνι Γουόκερ (interestingly, with l-vocalization, but incorrectly with [ʍ]).

Ils sont fous, ces Grecs.