κÏ￾έας κÏ￾έως/κÏ￾έατος

[IreneY]

Hi,

in another forum, someone asked what's the future of "pancreas". It seems that it is either "pancreases" or "pancreata". One would expect the "Greek" plural to be "pancrea". Now I know that in the Byzantine times (don't ask me exactly when), the declension of "κÏ￾έας" changed. What I am not sure is however if there was a non-Attic declension of the word that I am unaware of the followed perhaps the alternative declension of i.e. κέÏ￾ας. Well, to be exact, a friend asked and I just couldn't answer So I thought I'd better ask here.

[timeodanaos]

Sihler says in §293 of his comparative grammar of G and L that kreas was in classical times declined on the original stem of *krewas, but in later times, by analogy of other neuters, by the stem *kreat-.

Thus, classic Greek: *krewas > kreas, gen. *krewaos > *kreaos > kreÅ￾s

Later Greek: "kreas, o but that must be declined like poema, for it so looks like that word, and Homer says 'krea', so that must be the more correct form, just like poema, lemma, rhema and other words that I know!", and thus: *kreat-s > kreas, gen. *kreat-os > kreatos.


This is how far my scientific vocabulary reaches at this late hour, lulz.

[IreneY]

Thanks!!