Why is the word "chaos" spelled the way it is?

Question

I've always wonder why the word "chaos" is spelled that way. It's spelled chaos, yet it sounds like "kayoss" when you say it.

Answer 1

It is written ΧΑΟΣ in Greek .My son just told me that in the ancient Greek mythology CHAOS gave birth to earth and heaven

Answer 2

Because it comes from the Greek word "Chaos," which means "space."

As in "the disorder of formless matter and infinite space, supposed to have existed before the ordered universe," which is Webster's first definition for chaos.


Why did the Greeks spell it that way? Well, they just had different phoenetics than we do.

Answer 3

Tonight I'm Loving You- Enrique Iglesias Give Me Everything Tonight- Pitbull FT. NeYo Hollywood Tonight- Michael Jackson

Answer 4

Kayoss Definition

Answer 5

It comes from the Greek, and the word in Greek begins with the letter chi, not the letter kappa.

Answer 6

Wow, Thankss! I was wondering the same thing today

Answer 7

I assume you're interested why we pronounce "ch" like a k, but I'll like at the whole thing.

Easy part (?) first -- the "AY"
Vowels often change sound over time and when a word is borrowed from another language. This particular pronunciation of the letter "a" in Modern English was part of the "Great Vowel Shift". This change came about in the 14th-15th century, when English was in upheaval --a lot of changes in how the language was spoken, alongside/related to many shifts in population and different English dialects interacting. (This dislocation was partly due to the vast numbers lost in the Black Death.) Now when you are pronouncing our modern "long a" (as the 'diphthong' "ay" with two vowel sound combined - "eh" + "ee"), then follow it immediately with a different sort of vowel (the short o) , the i/y sound in the middle will end up sounding/feeling like a consonant-y leading into the o-vowel.

As for the "CH" -- the roots of this spelling actually go WAY back, to the earliest forms of the Greek alphabet.

I'll explain the history is some detail here, but the specifics for this word can be seen in the special dictionary entries for "H" and "chaos" I've copied at the end.
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The reason this is particularly odd looking to us is that we now have ANOTHER sound that we spell with "ch", but that is actually a much more recent practice.

Observe that the combining of H with another consonant, to indicate ONE sound (called a "digraph") is also found in "th", "sh" and "ph".

The Greeks first came up with this idea. They borrowed the Semitic alphabet from the Phoenicians, but needed to adapt it to their own needs, including cases where the Phoenician and Greek languages had different sounds. One of the problems was how to indicate sounds found in Greek but NOT in Phoenician. What the Greeks first ended up doing for several of these was to COMBINE the Phoenician "H" with another letter, because the two sounds, spoken together sounded SORT OF like the sound the Greeks needed. The sound that "ch" was used for was not exactly a K-sound, but a relative. It is, in fact, much like the sound indicated by "ch" in the Scottish word "loch" or German "ach".

It was at this early stage that the Greek form of the alphabet was passed on to OTHER groups, esp. to the Etruscans, from whom the ROMANS derived their form of the alphabet. Hence the Latin alphabet -- used through much of Europe, including in English-- began with an early form of the Greek.

Because of this origin, when Latin borrowed Greek words it adopted their spelling -- including "ch", etc., even in cases where Latin ended up pronouncing them differently (e.g., Latin pronounced these words with a k-sound; it did not have the "ch" sound of Greek). And they passed these words on to other languages, including English.

MEANWHILE, the Greeks had updated their own alphabet, and that included inventing or adapting NEW/other letters to deal with these sounds, including "theta" (our "th" sound), "phi" (which we pronounce like an F), and "chi". The last of these, which looks much like our "X" was used for the old "ch" sound. But Latin (which again, did not even really HAVE this sound!) did NOT add the new letters.

Thus, when a Greek word was spelled with this letter, the Latin version continued to be written with "CH". Even the name of the Greek letter is written "chi" (sounding something like "key"). This is why the first letter of the Greek word "Christos" (our "Christ") looks like it starts with an "X" (which, incidentally, is the origin of the abbreviation "Xmas").

(Occasionally, in dictionaries, this particular Greek sound is written "kh", to avoid confusion with the much later pronunciation of "ch" found. in "chart")

In fact, this practice was later extended to a similar sound found in HEBREW-- a sort of 'harsh h' approaching a K (again, compare Scottish "loch"). That practice is less common today, which is why we usually now see "Hanukkah", whereas older writings spell it "Chanukkah".

So, when the Greek word "CHAOS" is a word that comes from a Greek word that uses their letter "chi", into Latin, and then into English.

The one thing all this can do for us it help us recognize the roots and relationships of these words that come to us from Greek. That doesn't work as much for "th" and "sh", but it DOES help with "ch" (when pronounced as /k/) and with "ph".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_words_of_Greek_origin#The_written_form_of_Greek_words_in_English

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See the end of this article:

"H"
"The use in digraphs (e.g. -sh-, -th-) goes back to the ancient Gk. alphabet, which used it in -ph-, -th-, -kh- until -H- took on the value of a long "e" and the digraphs acquired their own characters. The letter passed into Roman use before this evolution, and thus retained there more of its original Sem. value."
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=h

chaos
c.1440, "gaping void," from L. chaos, from Gk. khaos "abyss, that which gapes wide open, is vast and empty"
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=chaos&sourceid=Mozilla-search

see the related word "chasm"
1. a yawning fissure or deep cleft in the earth's surface; gorge.
[Origin: 1590–1600; apocopated var. of chasma < Latin < Greek, equiv. to cha- (root of chaínein to gape; see yawn) + -(a)sma resultative suffix]
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=chasm

Answer 8

Beecaws inglush iz a crazee langwidge.

Answer 9

It was borrowed from Greek.

Answer 10

Why doesnt Buick rhyme w/ quick? and why does rhyme have an H and a Y? the English language is the hardest language to speak b/c of this. idk y. im sry. i believe it deals w/ Latin roots.