Ευημε?ος

[Chris Weimer]

The standard pronunciation, if I understand correctly, would make this word sound roughly "ew-ë-mer-os" or "ew-ë-me-ros", right? But transliterated into Latin it was written "Euhemerus". Is it possible that either the Greek eta did have an aspirant connection, or that Greek lost medial aspirants, or is this merely an anomoly?

[Skylax]

As ε?ήμε?ος is a compound from εὖ and ἡμέ?α, so "spending happy days, happy" I think the "h" in euhemerus corresponds to the rough breathing from ἡμέ?α.

[ThomasGR]

My opinion is that we have here some sound transformation. Due to some sandhi rules, medial aspiration is not only lost, but "u" (υ) has to sound more like an /f/. In modern Greek it's clearly an /f/ sound (though according to some rules it should be a voiced /v/ sound). Well the Romans were forced by grammarians to follow grammatical rules and the transliteration shows it.