Philological Notes on the Letter alpha in a New Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with Particular Attention to Material from Hesychius

Until recently, the two standard Greek etymological dictionaries were Frisk 1960 and Chantraine 1968 (second edition: 1999, third edition: 2009), although Frisk was not in a position to consider the evidence of Linear B, and neither author took account of laryngeal theory. By contrast, laryn-geals are central to many entries in Beekes 2010, which has accordingly become a fundamental research tool in the field of classical studies. The detailed philological notes offered here focus in-stead on Beekes’ handling of the Greek language itself, with special attention to material drawn from Hesychius. The implicit argument is that the handling of Greek in the new dictionary is often unreliable, and that readers should treat its handling of ancient texts, in particular the lexicog-raphers, and thus many of its individual conclu-sions, with caution.