And it is in the changes which the Phœnician alphabet underwent in being accommodated to the Latin language that we must investigate the chief peculiarities of the present alphabet and orthography of Great Britain and America.
Now respecting the Roman alphabet, we must remember that it was not taken directly from the Phœnician; in this important point differing from the Greek.
Nor yet was it taken, in the first instance, from the Greek.
It had a double origin.
The operation of the principles indicated in § [161] was a work of the time; and hence the older and more unmodified Greek alphabet approached in character its Phœnician prototype much more than the later, or modified. As may be seen, by comparing the previous alphabets with the common alphabets of the Greek Grammar, the letters 6 and 19 occur in the earlier, whilst they are missing in the later, modes of writing. On the other hand, the old alphabet has no such signs as φ, χ, υ, ω, ψ, and ξ.
Such being the case, it is easy to imagine what would be the respective conditions of two Italian languages which borrowed those alphabets, the one from the earlier, the other from the later Greek. The former would contain the equivalents to vaw (6), and kof (19); but be destitute of φ, χ, &c.; whereas the latter would have φ, χ, &c., but be without either vaw or kof.
Much the same would be the case with any single
Italian language which took as its basis the earlier, but adopted, during the course of time, modifications from the later Greek. It would exhibit within itself characters common to the two stages.
This, or something very like it, was the case with Roman. For the first two or three centuries the alphabet was Etruscan; Etruscan derived directly from the Greek, and from the old Greek.
Afterwards, however, the later Greek alphabet had its influence, and the additional letters which it contained were more or less incorporated; and that without effecting the ejection of any earlier ones.