Editing Sampi (section)

==Names== <!-- Courtesy note per [[WP:RSECT]] [[Enneakosia]] links here -->
Despite all uncertainties, authors who subscribe to the hypothesis of a historical link between ancient san and sampi also often continue to use the name ''san'' for the latter. Benedict Einarson hypothesizes that it was in fact called *''ssan'', with the special quality of the sibilant sound it had as Ionian <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Sampi Ionian.svg|x16px|Ͳ]]</span>. This opinion has been rejected as phonologically impossible by Soldati,<ref name="soldati"/> who points out that the {{IPA|/ss/}} sound only ever occurred in the middle of words and therefore could not have been used in the beginning of its own name.

As for the name ''sampi'' itself, it is generally agreed today that it is of late origin and not the original name of the character in either its ancient alphabetic or its numeral function. Babiniotis describes it as "medieval",<ref name="babiniotis"/> while Jannaris places its emergence "after the thirteenth century".<ref name="jannaris"/> However, the precise time of its emergence in Greek is not documented.

The name is already attested in manuscript copies of an [[Old Church Slavonic]] text describing the development of the alphabet, the treatise ''On Letters'' ascribed to the 9th-century monk [[Chernorizets Hrabar|Hrabar]], which was written first in [[Glagolitic alphabet|Glagolitic]] and later transmitted in the [[Cyrillic script]]. In one medieval Cyrillic group of manuscripts of this text, probably going back to a marginal note in an earlier Glagolitic version,<ref name="veder177"/> the letter names "sampi" ("{{script|Cyrl|сѧпи}}") and "koppa" ("{{script|Cyrl|копа}}") are used for the Greek numerals.<ref name="veder133">Veder, ''Utrum in alterum'', p.133f.</ref> Witnesses of this textual variant exist from c.1200, but its archetype can be dated to before 1000 AD.<ref>Veder, ''Utrum in alterum'', p.184.</ref>

The first reference to the name ''sampi'' in the western literature occurs in a 17th-century work, [[Joseph Scaliger|Scaliger]]'s discussion of the Aristophanes scholion regarding the word ''samphoras'' (see above). Some modern authors, taking Scaliger's reference as the first known use and unaware of earlier attestations, have claimed that the name itself only originated in the 17th century<ref name="17cent">Thus Keil, ''Halikarnassische Inschrift'', p.265; also Foat, ''Tsade and Sampi'', p.344, and Willi, ''Cows, houses, hooks'', p.420.</ref> and/or that Scaliger himself invented it.<ref name="einarson"/> A related term was used shortly after Scaliger by the French author Montfaucon, who called the sign "{{lang|grc|ἀντίσιγμα πῖ}}" (''antisigma-pi''), "because the Greeks regarded it as being composed of an inverted ''sigma'', which is called {{lang|grc|ἀντίσιγμα}}, and from {{lang|grc|πῖ}}" ("Graeci putarunt ex inverso sigma, quod {{lang|grc|ἀντίσιγμα}} vocatur, et ex {{lang|grc|πῖ}} compositum esse").<ref name="montfaucon"/>

The etymology of ''sampi'' has given rise to much speculation. The only element all authors agree on is that the ''-pi'' refers to the letter π, but about the rest accounts differ depending on each author's stance on the question of the historical identity between sampi and san.

According to the original suggestion by Scaliger, ''san-pi'' means "written like a ''san'' and a ''pi'' together". Here, "san" refers not to the archaic letter san (i.e. Ϻ) itself, but to "san" as a mere synonym of "sigma", referring to the outer curve of the modern ϡ as resembling an inverted [[lunate sigma]].<ref name="scaliger"/> This reading is problematic because it fits the shape only of the modern (late Byzantine) sampi but presupposes active use of an archaic nomenclature that had long since lost currency by the time that shape emerged. According to a second hypothesis, ''san-pi'' would originally have meant "the ''san'' that stands next to ''pi'' in the alphabet". This proposal thus presupposes the historical identity between sampi and ancient san (Ϻ), which indeed stood behind Π. However, this account too is problematic as it implies a very early date of the emergence of the name, since after the archaic period the original position of san was apparently no longer remembered, and the whole point of the use of sampi in the numeral system is that it stands somewhere else. Yet a different hypothesis interprets ''san-pi'' in the sense of "the ''san'' that resembles ''pi''". This is usually taken as referring to the modern ϡ shape, presupposing that the name ''san'' alone had persisted from antiquity until the time the sign took that modern shape.<ref>Thompson, ''Handbook'', p. 104.</ref> None of these hypotheses has wide support today. The most commonly accepted explanation of the name today is that ''san pi'' ({{lang|grc|σὰν πῖ}}) simply means "like a ''pi''", where the word ''san'' is unrelated to any letter name but simply the modern Greek preposition {{lang|grc|σαν}} ("like", from ancient Greek {{lang|grc|ὡς ἂν}}).<ref name="jannaris"/><ref name="babiniotis"/>

In the absence of a proper name, there are indications that various generic terms were used in Byzantine times to refer to the sign. Thus, the 15th-century Greek mathematician [[Nikolaos Rabdas]] referred to the three numerals for 6, 90 and 900 as "τὸ ἐπίσημον", "τὸ ἀνώνυμον σημεῖον" ("the nameless sign", i.e. ''koppa''), and "ὁ καλούμενος χαρακτήρ" ("the so-called ''charaktir''", i.e. just "the character"), respectively.<ref name="einarson"/> The term "ἐπίσημον" (''episēmon'', literally "outstanding") is today used properly as a generic cover term for all three extra-alphabetic numeral signs, but was used specifically to refer to 6 (i.e. ''[[digamma]]/[[stigma (letter)|stigma]]'').

In some early medieval Latin documents from western Europe, there are descriptions of the contemporary Greek numeral system which imply that sampi was known simply by the Greek word for its numeric value, ἐννεακόσια (''enneakosia'', "nine hundred"). Thus, in ''De loquela per gestum digitorum'', a didactic text about arithmetics attributed to the [[Venerable Bede]], the three Greek numerals for 6, 90 and 900 are called "episimon", "cophe" and "enneacosis" respectively.<ref name="bede"/> the latter two being evidently corrupted versions of ''koppa'' and ''enneakosia''. An anonymous 9th-century manuscript from [[Rheinau Abbey]]<ref>Zürich, Central Library, Codex Rh.131. The same manuscript is referred to as "Alphabet von Sankt Gallen" by [[Victor Gardthausen]], ''Griechische Palaeographie'', p. 368.</ref> has ''epistmon'' {{sic}}, ''kophe,'' and ''ennakose''.<ref name="wyss"/> Similarly, the ''Psalterium Cusanum'', a 9th or 10th century bilingual Greek—Latin manuscript, has ''episimôn'', ''enacôse'' and ''cophê'' respectively (with the latter two names mistakenly interchanged for each other.)<ref>Gardthausen, ''Griechische Palaeographie'', p.260.</ref> Another medieval manuscript has the same words distorted somewhat more, as ''psima'', ''coppo'' and ''enacos'',<ref name="bodleyan">''The Bodleian quarterly record'' 3 (1923), p.96</ref> Other, similar versions of the name include ''enacosin'' and ''niacusin'',<ref name="lauth"/><ref name="atto"/> or the curious corruption ''sincope'',<ref name="hofman"/>

A curious name for sampi that occurs in one Greek source is "παρακύϊσμα" (''parakyisma''). It occurs in a ''scholion'' to [[Dionysius Thrax]],<ref name="thrax"/> where the three numerals are referred to as "τὸ δίγαμμα καὶ τὸ κόππα καὶ τό καλούμενον παρακύϊσμα". The obscure word ("… the so-called ''parakyisma''") literally means "a spurious pregnancy", from "παρα-" and the verb "κυέω" "to be pregnant". The term has been used and accepted as possibly authentic by Jannaris,<ref name="jannaris"/> Uhlhorn<ref name="uhlhorn"/> and again by Soldati.<ref name="soldati"/> While Jannaris hypothesizes that it was meant to evoke the oblique, reclining shape of the character, Soldati suggests it was meant to evoke its status as an irregular, out-of-place addition ("un'utile superfetazione"). Einarson, however, argues that the word is probably the product of textual corruption during transmission in the Byzantine period.<ref name="einarson"/> He suggests that the original reading was similar to that used by Rabdas, "ὁ καλούμενος χαρακτήρ" ("the so-called character"). Another contemporary cover term for the extra-alphabetic numerals would have been "παράσημον" (''parasēmon'', lit. "extra sign"). A redactor could have written the consonant letters "π-σ-μ" of "παράσημον" over the letters "χ-κτ-ρ" of "χαρακτήρ", as both words happen to share their remaining intermediate letters. The result, mixed together from letters of both words, could have been misread in the next step as "παρακυησμ", and hence, "παρακύϊσμα".

An entirely new proposal has been made by A. Willi, who suggests that the original name of the letter in ancient Greek was ''angma'' ({{lang|grc|ἄγμα}}).<ref name="willi"/> This proposal is based on a passage in a Latin grammarian, [[Varro]], who uses this name for what he calls a "25th letter" of the alphabet. Varro himself is clearly not referring to sampi, but is using ''angma'' to refer to the ''ng'' sound {{IPAblink|ŋ}} in words like ''angelus''. However, Varro ascribes the use of the name ''angma'' to an ancient Ionian Greek author, [[Ion of Chios]]. Willi conjectures that Varro misunderstood Ion, believing the name ''angma'' referred to the {{IPA|[ŋ]}} sound because that sound happened to occur in the name itself. However, Ion, in speaking of a "25th letter of the alphabet", meant not just a different pronunciation of some other letters but an actual written letter in its own right, namely sampi. According to Willi's hypothesis, the name ''angma'' would have been derived from the verbal root *''ank-'', "to bend, curve", and referred to a "crooked object", used because of the hook-like shape of the letter.