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Sampi (modern: ϡ; ancient shapes: , ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It was used as an addition to the classical 24-letter alphabet in some eastern Ionic dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably or , and was abandoned when the sound disappeared from Greek. It later remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeric symbol in minuscule handwriting of the Byzantine era. Its current name, ''sampi'', originally probably meant "''san pi''", i.e. "like a pi", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a continuation of the archaic letter ''san'', which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound in some other dialects. Besides ''san'', names that have been proposed for sampi include ''parakyisma'' and ''angma'', while other historically attested terms for it are ''enacosis'', ''sincope'', and ''o charaktir''. ==Alphabetic sampi== As an alphabetic letter denoting a sibilant sound, sampi (shaped ) was mostly used between the middle of the 6th and the middle of the 5th centuries BC,〔 although some attestations have been dated as early as the 7th century BC. It has been attested in the cities of Miletus,〔 Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae, Teos (all situated in the region of Ionia in Asia Minor), in the island of Samos, in the Ionian colony of Massilia,〔 and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".〔 Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic, normally have double sigma (), i.e. a long sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek, have (long ) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters or . It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later sound, possibly an affricate , forming a triplet with the Greek letters for and .〔〔C. Brixhe, "History of the Alpbabet", in Christidēs, Arapopoulou, & Chritē, eds., 2007, ''A History of Ancient Greek''〕 Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium from Samos dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega (i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.〔〔 The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC.〔 An inscription from Halicarnassus〔British Museum No. 886, 〕 has the names "(unicode:Ἁλικαρναͳέ()ν)" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "(unicode:Ὀαͳαͳιος)" and "(unicode:Π()νυάͳιος)". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian.〔 On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena at Assesos, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified.〔〔 This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi. It has been suggested that there may be an isolated example of the use of alphabetic sampi in Athens. In a famous painted black figure amphora from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the eponymous centaur Nessus is rendered in the irregular spelling . The expected regular form of the name would have been either Attic "" – with a double "τ" – or Ionic "". Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.〔〔 A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe〔 it probably stood for the sounds , , or . It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads: (=''"Vanassāi Preiiāi Klemutas Lwaramu Vasirwōtas anethēke"'', "Klemutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaramus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge").〔. Other editions read "Klevutas" and "Lwaravu". "V" here stands for a second nonstandard letter, "Pamphylian digamma".〕 The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. ''(w)anax'' ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */ktj/. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sampi」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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