Let's Talk About Ptolitics

A challenge often faced by linguistic neophytes is the mastery of clusters not found in their native tongue. In the case of English-speakers learning Ancient Greek, one such cluster is πτ at the beginning of the word. The Greeks themselves were not thrilled with this combination, if the development of πτόλις to πόλις is any indication. Internally, this cluster did not present a problem. Exempla even developed from the juncture of π and the first-person suffix yo in verbs such as πίπτω and κλέπτω. The average Greek was not a linguist, even a poor one, for comparative linguistic had not yet been invented, so the root was reanalysed as πίπτ- and produced both future πεσοῦμαι and infinitive πίτνειν through another round of affixation and cluster reduction. One of the words which kept the πτ was πτῶσις, falling, from which the word for case, the best grammatical invention of man, derives its name.

Despite the potential difficulty of pronouncing πτ, the original pronunciation was even more challenging: τπ. If this looks improbable, let us remember that the Proto-Indo-European root for earth was *dhghom-, so someone at some point deemed such clusters pronounceable. In the later evolution of the language, it is a bit surprising that the t did not become an s: PIE loves its s almost as much as Greek likes to drop it intervocalically. The rule which developed in Greek was this: in a cluster of two different plosives the first could not be a dental; or in layman's terms, τ, d, and θ could not be first. Greek, therefore, has πτ and κτ and lacks τπ and τκ. The earth is χθών not θχών.