F This is the sixth letter of the English alphabet as it was of the Latin. In the ordinary Greek alphabet the symbol has disappeared, although it survived far into historical times in many Greek dialects as
, the digamma, the use of which in early times was inductively proved by Bentley, when comparatively little was known of the local alphabets and dialects of Greece. The so-called stigma ς, which serves for the numeral 6, is all that remains to represent it. This symbol derives its name from its resemblance in medieval MSS. to the abbreviation for στ. The symbol occupying the same position in the Phoenician alphabet was Vau (
), which seems to be represented by the Greek Υ, the Latin
, at the end of the early alphabet. Many authorities therefore contend that
is only a modification of the preceding symbol E and has nothing to do with the symbol Vau. In some early Latin inscriptions