The English Language

by R. G. Latham

בּ

‎,

ב

‎, &c. in Hebrew), but new, distinct, and independent letters.

In all this there was an improvement. The faults of the newer Greek alphabet consisted in the admission of the compendium ψ=ps, and the retention of the fifteenth letter (samech, xi), with the power of ks, it being also a compendium.

[§ 260]. The Italian or old Latin period.—That it was either from the original Phœnician, or from the old Greek, that the Italian alphabets were imported, we learn from the existence in them of the letters f and q, corresponding respectively to the sixth and nineteenth letters; these having, in the second stage of the Greek alphabet, been ejected.

[§ 261]. The first alphabet imported into Italy was the Etruscan. In this the β, δ, and ο were ejected, their sounds (as it is stated) not being found in the Etruscan language. Be it observed, that the sounds both of β and δ are flat. Just as in the Devonshire dialect the flat sounds (z, v, &c.) have the preponderance, so, in the Etruscan, does there seem to have been a preponderating quantity of the sharp sounds. This prepares us for a change, the effects whereof exist in almost all the alphabets of Europe. In Greek and Hebrew the third letter (gimel, gamma) had the power of the flat mute g, as in gun. In the Etruscan it had the power of k. In this use of the third letter the Romans followed the Etruscans: but, as they had also in their language the sound of g (as in gun), they used, up to the Second Punic War, the third letter (viz. c), to denote both sounds. In the Duillian column we have Macestratos, Carthacinienses.[^[36]] Afterwards, however, the separate sign (or letter) g was invented, being originally a mere modification of c. The place of g in the alphabet is involved in the history of z.

[§ 262]. The Roman alphabet had a double origin. For the first two centuries after the foundation of the city the alphabet used was the Etruscan, derived directly from the Greek, and from the old Greek. This accounts for the presence of f and q.

Afterwards, however, the Romans modified their alphabet by the alphabet of the Italian Greeks; these Italian Greeks using the late Greek alphabet. This accounts for the presence of v, originating in the Greek ypsilon.