Latin Orthography

[vir litterarum]

Does anyone know why Greek initial rho with the rough breathing in Latin is written with the "h" postponed instead of prefixed, i.e. rh- instead of hr-?

[Alatius]

If the pronunciation was a voiceless consonant, both "hr" and "rh" could be said to equally well (or badly) reflect the pronunciation. I'd guess the main reason would be to bring it in line with the transcriptions of the aspirated consonants, theta, phi and chi, but it's only a guess.

[modus.irrealis]

[vir litterarum]

William Sidney Allen seems to believe that in Classical Latin pronunciation r=rh.

http://books.google.com/books?id=aexkj_ ... 7_obCkbjfA.