Why is the Greek letter phi translated into English as “ph” and not “f”?

Because when Latin started transliterating Greek, φ was still pronounced as /pʰ/: a p followed by an h. The shift of /pʰ/ to /ɸ/ to /f/ occurred later (the first evidence for it, Koine Greek phonology notes, is from Pompeii.)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *