[Glorantha] Re: A before O

[Andrew Solovay]

Jane Williams:
> 
> Quite possibly - I don't read Egyptian, it isn't a
> term I use every day, I was knackered when I was
> typing. Don't bother checking, if you checked then I'm
> sure you got it right. And personally I have no idea
> where the silent "a" goes (other than you having just
> told me, I know...), or why it's in there at all.

It's the Hellenized form of the Hebrew "Par'oh", with the glottal 
(represented there by an apostrophe) being the Hebrew letter 'ayin', 
which is often turned into an A when Hebrew is transliterated. (And it's 
also turned into all kinds of other things. The Hebrew name for the city 
'Amora -- you know, the next town over from Sodom -- also begins with an 
ayin, but our conventional transliteration represents *that* glottal 
with a 'g', 'Gomorrah'. I suppose the god-king of the Nile valley could 
have ended up called 'Phargoh'. Yah sure, you betcha...)