Βόσπορος

Ancient Greek

Etymology

Unknown. Reinterpreted (by the ancient Greeks) as βοός (boós, “cow”) + πόρος (póros, “passage”) and given a folk etymology to place it within Greek mythology.^[1]

The folk etymology refers to the myth of Io (told, for example, by Aeschylus in his Prometheus Bound), in which she travelled there after being turned into a heifer by Hera (or in other versions by Zeus). (See Io (mythology) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia )

Pronunciation

(5^th BCE Attic) IPA^(key): /bós.po.ros/
(1^st CE Egyptian) IPA^(key): /ˈbos.po.ros/
(4^th CE Koine) IPA^(key): /ˈβos.po.ros/
(10^th CE Byzantine) IPA^(key): /ˈvos.po.ros/
(15^th CE Constantinopolitan) IPA^(key): /ˈvos.po.ros/

Proper noun

Βόσπορος • (Bósporos) m (genitive Βοσπόρου); second declension

Bosporus

Inflection

Second declension of ὁ Βόσπορος; τοῦ Βοσπόρου (Attic)

Case / #	Singular
Nominative	ὁ Βόσπορος ho Bósporos
Genitive	τοῦ Βοσπόρου toû Bospórou
Dative	τῷ Βοσπόρῳ tōî Bospórōi
Accusative	τὸν Βόσπορον tòn Bósporon
Vocative	Βόσπορε Bóspore
Notes:	This table gives Attic inflectional endings. For declension in other dialects, see Appendix:Ancient Greek dialectal declension.

Derived terms

Βοσπόρειος (Bospóreios)
Βοσπορίτης (Bosporítēs)

Descendants

Greek: Βόσπορος (Vósporos)
→ Latin: Bosporus (see there for further descendants)

References

^ "Βόσπορος", entry in 1940, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones (reviser, 1940 edition), A Greek–English Lexicon, Clarendon Press, accessed via Perseus Digital Library.