In the question, "What happened to Theseus after Heracles found him" that I answered, someone edited my answer and replaced Heracles with Herakles. I was confused because when I searched up Heracles on the internet, it showed that he was spelled 'Heracles'. After that, I also searched up Herakles and it showed him being spelled 'Heracles'.
So, can someone please explain to me why @Rodia edited my answer so that Herakles replaced Heracles?
Thank you.
Both are correct: if you're not going to call him Ἡρακλῆς, then you need some way of representing his name in the Roman alphabet. Systems for doing this have changes over time.
The letter "k" fell out of use in Latin so, classically the letter kappa (κ) has been transliterated as "c", and this carried through to English. However, in the modern standard, designed by the Hellenic Organization for Standardization and adopted internationally by ISO, the UN and other organizations, kappa becomes "k".
In English, many people use a hybrid of the two systems. Because names such as Heracles, Cronos, Electra, Hecate and Socrates and places such as Crete, Cos, Corfu, Corinth, Macedonia and Attica are so well known under those spellings, they're always written that way in English. Similarly, words such as cycle, ecclesiastical and draconian also come from Greek words where kappas have been romanized as "c".
However, modern names and places that weren't well-known in English before the modern transliteration scheme are usually spelled with "k"s. If you look at a map of Greece labelled in English, you'll see lots of these: Heraklion, Kythira, Mykonos, Lefkada, etc. Always Constantine the Great, but usually Konstantinos Karamanlis (though sometimes Constantine Caramanlis).
It's both. From my limited greek knowledge, κ is kappa, which translates to c or k. As a result, there's a Herakles and Heracles.
(Though to be fair, Herakles looks a lot "older" and traditional than Heracles.) As @DavidRicherby states, c is the traditional translation of kappa instead of k.
Ἡρ α|κ|λῆς
Hera|c|les
Stuff like this happens to Asklepios, I mean Asclepius
Ασ|κ|ληπιος
As|k|lepios
even Nike.
Νικη
Nicé
Note that it will always have the /k/ pronunciation.
Great question! Bleh is correct on the rendering in English (or other languages using the Latin alphabet) being dual, either a "c" or "k"
This is the Latin form of the hero's name.
Something you should know about english (i am born Crotian) languge its pronouncing bs many languges pronouncing c like letter should use Herakles like greek pronouncing try pronounce c - orn not c like k try c like c .....
