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ALPHABET (see also WRITING)
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See also:ALPHABET (see also See also:WRITING) . By the word See also:alphabet, derived from the See also:Greek names for the first two letters—See also:alpha and beta—of the Greek alphabet, is meant a See also:series of conventional symbols each indicating a single See also:sound or See also:combination of sounds . The ideal alphabet would indicate one sound by one See also:symbol, and not more than one sound by the same symbol . Symbols for a combination of sounds are not necessary, though they may be convenient as abbreviations . In the See also:writing of some See also:languages, e.g . See also:Sanskrit, such abbreviations are carried to an extreme; in most Greek See also:MSS. also they are of very frequent occurrence . These contractions, however, may prove too See also:great a See also:strain upon the eyesight or the memory, and thus become a hindrance instead of a help . This was apparently the See also:case in Greek, for though the See also:early printers See also:cast types for all the contractions of the Greek MSS. these have now with one consent been given up . A consonant like x can only be regarded as an See also:abbreviation; it ex-presses nothing that cannot as well be expressed by ks or gz, both of which combinations in different situations it may represent (see X) . No alphabet corresponds exactly to the ideal which we have postulated, nor if it did, would it continue See also:long so to do, as the sounds of most languages are continually changing . Hence in the case of dead languages or past forms of living languages, it is often very difficult to define with precision what the sounds of the past See also:epoch were . The study of the See also:history of See also:English See also:pronunciation occupied the See also:late Dr A . J . See also:Ellis for a large See also:part of his See also:life, and the results fill five large volumes . The sounds which are most difficult to define exactly are the vowels; a great variety may be indicated by the same symbol . In the New English See also:Dictionary no fewer than thirteen different nuances of vowel sound are distinguished under the symbol A alone . In English, moreover, the vowel sounds tend to become diphthongs, so that the symbol for the See also:simple sound tends to become the symbol for that combination which we See also:call a diphthong . Thus the long i in ride, See also:wine, &c., has become the diphthong ai, and the name of the symbol I is itself so pronounced . In See also:familiar, if vulgar, dialects, A tends in the same direction . In the "See also:cockney'' See also:dialect, really the dialect of See also:Essex but now no less familiar in See also:Cambridge and See also:Middlesex, the ai sound of is represented by of as in toime, " See also:time," while a has become ai in Kate, See also:pane, &c . In all See also:southern English o becomes more rounded while it is being pronounced, so that it ends with a slight u sound . In the vulgar dialect already mentioned, the sound begins as a more open sound than in the cultivated pronunciation, so that no is really pronounced as naou . It is clear, therefore, that the best alphabet would not long indicate very precisely the sounds which it was intended to represent . See See also:PHONETICS . But the history of the alphabet shows that at no time has it represented any See also:European See also:language with much precision, because it was an importation adapted in a somewhat rough and ready See also:fashion to represent sounds different from those which it represented outside See also:Europe . Wherever the alphabet may have originated, there seems no doubt that its first importation in a See also:form closely resembFng that with which we are familiar in See also:modern times was from the Phoenicians to the Greeks . The Phoenicians were certainly using it with freedom in the 9th See also:century B.C.; with so much freedom, indeed, that they must have been in See also:possession of it for a considerable time before we can trace it . With the materials available up to See also:August 1910 it would be idle here to See also:attempt to trace its earlier history . Great discoveries in See also:Cappadocia, See also:Assyria and See also:Egypt were then only at their beginning, and any statement was liable to be quickly disproved by the See also:appearance of new See also:evidence . The prevalent theory, universally accepted till a few years ago, was that of Vicomte See also:Emmanuel de See also:Rouge, first propounded to the Academie See also:des See also:Inscriptions in 1859, but unnoticed by the See also:world at large till republished, after de Rouge's See also:death, by his son in 1874 . According to this view the alphabet was borrowed by the Phoenicians from the cursive (See also:hieratic) form of See also:Egyptian See also:hieroglyphics . The resemblances between some Egyptian symbols and some symbols of the Phoenician alphabet are striking; in other cases the See also:differences are no less remarkable . As a See also:matter of fact the Egyptians might have passed about See also:thirty-five centuries B.C. from the picture writing of hieroglyphs to genuine alphabetic signs.' They did not, however, profit by their See also:discovery, because, amongst the Egyptians, writing was clearly a See also:mystery in both senses--only possible at that See also:period for masters in the See also:craft, and also something, like the writing of medical prescriptions at the See also:present See also:day in Latin, which was not to be made too easily intelligible to the See also:common See also:people . At all periods, moreover, hieroglyphic writing was a See also:branch of decorative See also:art, and it may have been that the See also:ancient Egyptian, like the modern Turk, resented too much lucidity, and liked his See also:literary compositions to be veiled in a certain obscurity . The alphabet devised by the Egyptians consisted of twenty-four letters . Egyptologists are at variance on the question whether this alphabet was the See also:original, or had any See also:influence upon the development of the Phoenician alphabet . " With the See also:papyrus See also:paper," says See also:Professor Breasted,2 " the See also:hand customarily written upon it in Egypt now made its way into See also:Phoenicia, where before the loth century B.C. it See also:developed into an alphabet of consonants, which was quickly transmitted to the Ionian Greeks and thence to Europe." On the other hand, Professor Spiegelberg,3 writing soon after Professor Breasted, says that investigation has not as yet furnished See also:proof that the Phoenician alphabet is of Egyptian origin, though he admits that in some respects the development of the two alphabets, both without vowel signs, is curiously parallel . The most See also:recent view is that of Dr A . J . See also:Evans, who argues ingeniously that the alphabet was taken over from See also:Crete by the " Cherethites and Pelethites " or See also:Philistines, who established for themselves settlements on the See also:coast of See also:Palestine.' From them it passed to the Phoenicians, who were their near neighbours, if not their kinsfolk . Symbols like the letters of the alphabet have been found in European See also:soil painted upon pebbles belonging to a stratum between the See also:Palaeolithic and See also:Neolithic See also:age.6 This was in See also:France at Mas d'Azil on the See also:left See also:bank of the Arize . Else-where several series of such symbols resembling inscriptions have been found scratched on bones of the same period.6 For the history of writing these may be important, but for the history of the alphabet, as we know it, they are not in question . The alphabet may have originated as Dr Evans thinks, but at present the proof is not conclusive . The Greek names of the letters, their forms, and the See also:order of the symbols show that the Greek alphabet as we know it must have been imported by or from a Semitic people, and there is no evidence to contradict ancient tradition that this people was the Phoenicians . The view See also:pro- ' Breasted, History of Egypt (1906), p . 45 . 2 Op. cit. p . 484 . ' See also:Die Schrift and Sprache der See also:alien.gypter (1907), p . 24 . Scripta Minoa, i . (1909), § 10, pp . 77 if . s E . Piette, L'Anthropologie, vii . (1896) pp . 384 if . E . Piette, L'Anthropologie, xvi . (19o5) pp .
8-9
.
The apparent inscriptions of this period are conveniently collected and figured together in Dechelette's See also:Manuel d'archiologie prehistorique celtique et gallo-romaine, i
.
(19o8) p
.
235.pounded by Deecke7 in 1877, that the Phoenician alphabet had developed out of the late See also:Assyrian See also:cuneiform, never met with much See also:acceptance and has really no evidence in its favour
.
The earliest alphabetic document which can be dated with See also:comparative certainty is the famous Moabite See also: The symbols in the Greek alphabet from Y to Sl, or in the numerical alphabet to Z , are not found in the Phoenician alphabet . As already mentioned, the twenty-two symbols of the Phoenician alphabet indicate consonantal sounds only . Greek did not possess so many consonants . The Phoenician alphabet possessed many more aspirates than were required in Greek, which tended more and more to drop all its aspirates . Before history begins it had also lost, except sporadically in out-of-the-way dialects, the semi-vowel i (approximately English y) . It therefore made the aspirates A, E, Q and the semi-vowel I into vowels, and apparently converted the semi-vowel Y=w into the vowel,y=u, which it placed at the end of the alphabet and substituted for it as the See also:sixth symbol of the alphabet the See also:letter F with the old value of w . The superfluous sibilants were also adapted in various ways (see below) . The discovery of a large number of very archaic inscriptions in the See also:island of See also:Thera, which was made by Freiherr See also:Hiller von Gartringen in 1896, has shown that the earliest Greek Relation-alphabet was even more like the Phoenician than had See also:ship of been heretofore believed . The symbol for /3 in Thera See also:Creek to (a) is nearer than any previously known to the Phoe-Semitic letter (9) though, as not infrequently happens nklan . in the transference of a symbol from one people to another, its position is inverted—a See also:fate which in this alphabet has befallen also (Semitic L, Thera 1), and possibly v (Semitic Vs", Thera M) . The era of excavation initiated by Dr See also:Schliemann on,the See also:grand See also:scale has increased our knowledge of Greek inscriptions beyond anything that was earlier dreamt of . Besides the excavations of See also:Athens, See also:Delos, See also:Epidaurus and See also:Delphi, the results of which are most important for the 5th century B.C. and later, the exploration of the sites of See also:Olympia, of the Heraeum near See also:Argos, of See also:Naucratis in Egypt, and of various Cretan towns (above all the ancient Gortyn), has revolutionized our know-ledge of the archaic alphabets of See also:Greece .
We can now see how long and laborious was the See also:process by which the Greeks attained to uniformity in writing and in numeration
.
In no See also: Unfortunately, as yet no See also:record is preserved which can with any probability be dated earlier than the 7th century B.C., and the Phoenician influence had by then nearly ceased . How long this influence lasted we cannot tell . If in Crete a See also:system of writing of an entirely different nature had been developed seven or eight centuries before, there must have been some very important See also:reason for the entire See also:abandonment of the old method and the See also:adoption of a new . In Crete, at least, the excavations show that the old See also:civilization must have ended in a social and See also:political See also:cataclysm . The magnificent See also:palace of See also:Minos—there seems no reason to withhold from it the name of the great See also:prince whom See also:Thucydides recognized as the first to hold the See also:empire of the See also:sea—perished by the flames, and it evidently had been plundered beforehand of everything that a conqueror would regard as valuable . The only force in Greek history which we know that could have produced this See also:change was that of the Dorian See also:conquest . As everywhere in the Peloponnese, except at Argos, there seems to have been a sudden break with the earlier civilization, which can have been occasioned only by the semi-barbarous Dorian tribes, so the same result seems to have followed from the same cause in Thera . The See also:Dorians apparently were without an alphabet, and consequently when Phoenician traders and pirates occupied the See also:place left vacant by the downfall of Minos's empire, the people of the island, and of the sea coasts generally, adopted from them the Phoenician alphabet.' The Greeks who migrated to Cyprus, possibly as the result of the Dorian invasion, adopted a syllabary, not an alphabet (see See also:Plate; also WRITING) . That the alphabet was borrowed and adapted independently by different places not widely separated, and that the earliest Greek alphabets did not spread from one or a few centres in Greek lands, seem clear (a) from the different Greek sounds for which the Phoenician symbols were utilized; (b) from the different symbols which were employed to represent sounds which the Phoenicians did not possess, and for which, therefore, they had no symbols . The Phoenician alphabet was an alphabet of consonants only, but all Greek alphabets as yet known agree in employing A, E, I, 0, Y as vowels . On the other hand, a table of Greek alphabets2 will show how widely different the symbols for the same sound were . Except for a single See also:Attic inscription (see Plate), the alphabets of Thera and of See also:Corinth are the oldest Greek alphabets which we possess . Yet at Corinth alongside 3, which is found for the so-called See also:spurious diphthong et (i.e. the Attic et, which does not represent an Indo-European et, but arises by contraction, as in 4tXeirE, or through the lengthening of the vowel sound as the result of the loss of a consonant, as in eips vor for FeFpnuevos) the See also:short a sound is represented by B; t is found at Corinth in its oldest form , and also as , while in Thera it is s . In Thera the w sound of digamma (F) was entirely lost, and therefore is not represented . Both Thera and Corinth employ in the earliest inscriptions for , not E, though in both alphabets the See also:ordinary use as is adopted, no doubt through the influence of See also:trade with other ' In an excellent See also:summary of the different views held as to the origin of the alphabet (See also:Journal of the See also:American See also:Oriental Society, vol. xxii., first half, 1901), Dr J . P . See also:Peters agrees (pp . 191 ff.) that the best test is the See also:etymology of the names of the letters . He shows that " twelve of the letter-names are words with meanings [in the See also:northern dialects of Semitic], all of them indicating simple See also:objects, six of the twelve being parts of the See also:body . The objects denoted by the other six names—ox, See also:house, See also:valve of a See also:door, See also:water, See also:fish and See also:mark or See also:cross—clearly do not belong to any people in a nomadic See also:state, but to a settled, See also:town-abiding See also:population . . Six of the letter-names are not words in any known See also:tongue, and appear to be syllables only . Four letter-names are triliterals, and resemble in their form Semitic words." As ti of the 12 which have meanings are to be found in the Assyrian-Babylonian syllabaries, he suggests a possible Babylonian origin . Different views with regard to some of these symbols are expressed by Lidzbarski, See also:Ephemeris See also:fur semitische Epigraphik, ii. pp . 125 ff . (1906) . The earliest tradition of the names is discussed by See also:Noldeke in his Beitrage zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft (1904), pp . 124 if . 2 See, for example, the tables at the end of See also:Roberts's Introduction to Greek See also:Epigraphy (1887) ; or See also:Kirchhoff's Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen Alphabets (4th ed . 1887); or Larfeld's Handbuch der griechischen Epigraphik, vol. i . (1907).725 states . On the other hand, at Cleonae, which is distant not more than 8 or 9 m. from Corinth, an ancient inscription written I3ovcrpodsnSov has recently been discovered, which shows that though Cleonae for B wrote d, like the Corinthian f, and, as at Corinth, wrote B for a vowel sound, the vowel thus represented was not short and long e (e and rt) as at Corinth, but 17 only, as in XPgf A, (ypij is 0) . Here ?1 represents e, and the spurious diphthong is represented by et, as in M I (etµev, Doric See also:infinitive =dvat), a form which shows that t has at Cleonae the more modern form I as distinguished from the Corinthian <.3 Regarding three other questions controversy still rages . These are: (a) how Greek utilized the four sibilants (Shin, Samech, Zain and Zade), which it took over from the Phoenician; (b) what was the history of development in the symbols for ¢, x, 4), to (the history of t belongs to both heads) ; (c) the history of the symbol for the digamma F . In the Phoenician alphabet Zain was the seventh letter, occupying the same position and having the same form approximately (2 as the early Greek Z, while in pronunciation it was a voiced s-sound; Samech () followed the symbol for n Greek use of and was the ordinary s-sound, though, as we have seen, phoenician it is in different Greek states at the earliest period as sibilants. well as E; after the symbol for p came Zade (rv), which was a strong palatal s, though in name it corresponds to the Greek Nra; while lastly Shin (W) follows the symbol for r, and was an sh-sound . The Greek name for the sibilant (siy,sa) may simply mean the hissing letter and be a derivative from oij"w; many authorities, however, hold that it is a corruption of the Phoenician Samech . Unfortunately, it is not clear how many sibilants were distinguished in Greek pronunciation, nor over what areas a particular pronunciation extended . There is, however, considerable evidence in support of the view that Greek oo representing the sound arising from Ky, xy, ry, Oy was pronounced as sh CO, while i- representing gy, dy was pronounced in some districts zh (z).4 On an inscription of See also:Halicarnassus, a town which stood in ancient Carian territory, the sound of oo in 'AXucapvaov&mv is represented by T, as it is also in the Carian name Panyassis (lIavvhTws, geni- tive), though the ordinary * is also found in the same inscription . The same variation occurs at the neighbouring Teos and at See also:Ephesus, while the coins of Mesembria in See also:Thrace show regularly See also:META and M ET AM B P I A N 11N, where T represents the sound which resulted from the See also:fusion of See also:fly, and which appears in See also:Homer as See also:act in µ&Coos, while in later Greek it becomes µ&oos.b This symbol T is in all probability the early form of the letter which was known to the Greeks as See also:San (0as) and in modern times as Sampi, and which is utilized as the See also:numeral for 900 in the shape ?A . According to See also:Herodotus (i . 139), San was only the Dorian name for the letter which the See also:Ionians called Sigma . This would bring it into connexion with the Phoenician W (Shin), which, turned through a right See also:angle, is possibly the Greek E , though some forms of Zade on old See also:Hebrew coins and gems ( ) equally resemble the Greek letter . From other forms of See also:Sade, however, the other early form of o, viz . M, is probably derived . The confusion is thus extreme: the name Zade assimilated in Greek to the names ira and Ora. becomes Nra, though the form is that of Zain; the name of Samech is possibly the origin of Sigma, while the form of Samech is that of = which has not taken over a Phoenician name . It is probable that the form N.A is an abbreviation in writing from right to left of the earlier M, and 4S of the four stroke g . That the confusion of the sibilants was not confined to the Greeks only, but that pronunciation varied within a small See also:area even among the Semitic stock, is shown by the difficulty which the Ephraimites found in pronouncing " See also:shibboleth " (See also:Judges xii . 6) . For the history of the additional symbols which are not Phoenician, we must begin with y . There is no Greek alphabet in which the symbol is not represented . But the Phoenician form History corresponding to it is the consonant w, and occupies the position of the Greek digamma as sixth in the series. of the See also:gamma . Whence did the Greeks obtain the digamma ? The point is not clear, but probably the Greeks acted here as they did in the case of the vowel i and the consonant y, adopting the consonant symbol for the vowel sound . As, however, except in Cyprus, See also:Pamphylia and Argos, the only y sound which survived in Greek 3 Cp . See also:Frankel, Corpus inscriptionum Graecarum Peloponnesi, i., No . 1607 . 4 See Witton, in American Journal of See also:Philology, xix. pp . 420 if., and Lagercrantz, Zur griechischen Lautgeschichte (See also:Upsala, 1898) . See Foat, " Tsade and Sampi " (Journal of Hellenic Studies, See also:xxv. pp . 338 if., See also:xxvi. p . 286) . A number of ingenious points often uncertain are raised by A . Gercke, " Zur Geschichte des altesten griechischen Alphabets " (See also:Hermes, xli., 1906, pp . S40 ff.) . the glide between i and another vowel as in sub . =diva—is never ! represented, there was no occasion to use the Phoenician Jod in a See also:double See also:function . With Vau it was different; the u-sound existed in some form in all dialects, the w-sound survived in many far into See also:historical times . The Phoenician symbol having been adopted for the vowel sound, whence came the new symbol F or [ for the digamma ? Hitherto there have been two views . Most authorities have held that the new form was derived from E by dropping the lowermost crossbar; some have held that it developed out of the old Vau, a view which is not impossible in itself and has the similar development in Aramaic (Tema) in its favour . But as Dr Evans has found a form like the digamma among his most recent types of symbols, and as we have no intermediate forms which will prove the development of f from 'i' , though the form found at Oaxos in Crete, viz . AI, shows a form sufficiently unlike F, it is necessary to suspend See also:judgment . The Greek aspirates were not the sounds which we represent by ph, th, ch (Scotch), but corresponded rather to the sound of the final consonants in such words as See also:lip, See also:bit, lick, the breath being Greek audible after the formation of the consonant . It is not aspirates, clear that Greek took over c with this value, for in one &a Theran inscription e are found combined as See also:equivalent to T—l-1, while the See also:regular See also:representation of ' and x is n and K 8, or 9 (koppa) respectively . In the great Gortyn inscription from Crete and occasionally in Thera, Il (in Crete in the form C) and K are used alone for 4) and x, just as conversely even in the 5th century the name of See also:Themistocles has been found upon an ostrakon spelt 001Lo0oaa?)S . Such confusions show that even to Greek ears the distinction between the sounds was very small . To have re-corded it in writing at all shows considerable progress in the observation of sounds . Such progress is more easily indicated by changes in the symbols among a people whose acquaintance with the art is not of long See also:standing nor very familiar . English, though possessing sounds comparable to the Greek 0, ¢, x, has never made any attempt to represent them in writing . On the other hand, no doubt Athens in 403 B.C. officially adopted the Ionic alphabet and gave up the old Attic alphabet . The political situation in Athens, however, at this time was as exceptional as the See also:French Revolution, and offered an opportunity not likely to recur for the adoption of a system in widely extended use which private individuals had been employing for a long time . The history of the symbols ¢ and x is altogether unknown . The very numerous theories on the subject have generally been founded on a principle which itself is in need of proof, viz. that these symbols must have arisen by differentiation from others already existing in the alphabet . The explanation is possible, but it is not easy to see why, for example, the symbol 9 or = Koppa, the Latin . Q, should have been utilized for a sound so different as p-h; nor, again, why the symbol for 0 (e) by losing its cross stroke should become 4r, seeing that the sounds of B and ¢ outside Aeolic (a dialect which is not here in question) are never confused . On the other hand, if we remember the large number of symbols belonging to the pre-historic script, it will seers at least as easy to believe that the persons who, by adding new letters to the Phoenician alphabet, attempted to bring the symbols rnore into accordance with the sounds of the Greek language, may have borrowed from this older script . It is now generally admitted that the improvements of the alphabet were made by traders in the interests of See also:commerce, and that these improvements began from the great Greek See also:emporia of See also:Asia See also:Minor, above all from See also:Miletus . Symbols exactly like ¢, x, and,, (®, X, *) are found in the Carian alphabet, and transliterated by Professor See also:Sayce r as v (and ii), h and kh respectively . If the Carian alphabet goes back to the prehistoric script, why should not Miletus have borrowed them from it ? We have already seen that, in the earliest alphabets of Thera and Corinth, the ordinary symbol for E in the Ionic alphabet was used for This usage brought in its See also:train another—the use of 4,/, not for 4, as in Ionic, but for in the name AAEWA CORA ='AXs ayboa, and similarly in Melos, PA `Y 111(VA l ECM = IIpatiebbeos.1 This experiment, for it was no more, belongs apparently to the latter part of the 6th 1 See especially Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology for 1895, p . 40; cf. also Kalinka, Neue Jahrbiicher fiir Philologie, iii . (1899), p . 683 . Similar forms are also found in the Safa inscriptions (See also:South Semitic) with similar values, and Practorius argues (Z.D.M.G. lvi., 1902, pp . 677 if., and again, lviii., 1904, pp . 725 f.) that these were somehow borrowed by Greek in the 8th century rec., while in lxii. pp . 283 if. he argues that the reason why the Greeks borrowed 8 for the aspirated t was its form, the cross in ® being regarded as T and the surrounding circle as a variety of ^ an occasional form of a the aspirate . Here also (p . 287) as. in his Ursprung des kanaanaischen Alphabets, pp . 13 f., he argues that the two forms of the digamma F and [, and also the South Semitic m = co, could all have developed from the See also:Cyprian I =we . But proof is impossible without evidence of the intermediate steps . Inscriptiones Graecae, xii., fast. iii . Nos . 811 . 1149.century, and was soon given up . As the Ionians kept the form which the people of Thera used for in the same position in their alphabet as Samech occupied in the Phoenician alphabet, there can be no doubt as to its origin . The symbol • which the Chalcidian Greeks used in the 6th century B.C. for I may be derived, according to the most widely accepted theory, from a See also:primitive form of Samech which is recorded only in the abeccdaria of the Chalcidian colonies in See also:Italy . In this case the borrowing of the Greek alphabet must long precede any Phoenician record we possess . But it is not probable that the Ionic and Phoenician developed independently from the closed form . Kretschmer, however, in several publications' takes a different view . He thinks that the guttural See also:element in t was a spirant, and therefore different from x, which is an aspirate . He points out that in See also:Naxos, in a 6th-century inscription,' in NaIiou, E;oxos and .13phou is represented by 0 *, the first element in which he regards as a form of Q =h . As x is found in the same inscription (in the form x), the guttural element must have been different, else would have been spelt x* . See also:Attica and most of the See also:Cyclades kept x for the guttural element in E (written X5. or • 5) and for x as well . On the See also:west of the Aegean a new symbol y+ was invented for the aspirate value, and this spread over the See also:main-See also:land and was carried by emigrants to See also:Rhodes, See also:Sicily and Italy . The sign x was kept in the western See also:group for the guttural spirant in which was written X *; but, as this spirant occurred nowhere else, the combination was often abbreviated, and X was used for X precisely as in the See also:Italic alphabets we shall find that F =f develops out of a combination FH . The development of symbols for the long vowels ri and w was also the See also:work of the Ionians . The h-sound ceased at a very early period to exist in Ionic, and by 80o B.C. was ignored in writing . The symbol 8 or H was then employed for the long opene-sound, a use suggested by the name of the letter, which, by the loss of the aspirate, had passed from Heta to Eta . About the same period, and probably as a sequel to this change, the Greeks of Miletus developed Q for the long open 6-sound, a form which in all probability is differentiated out of O . Centuries passed, however, before this symbol was generally adopted, Athens using only 0 for o, w and ou, the spurious diphthong, until the adoption of the whole Ionic alphabet in 403 B.C.' The discoveries of the last See also:quarter of the 19th century carried back our knowledge of the Latin alphabet by at least two centuries, although the monuments of an early age which have been discovered are only three . (a) In 188o was discovered between the Quirinal and Viminal hills a little earthenware pot of a curious shape, being, as it were, three vessels radiating from a centre, each with a See also:separate mouth at the See also:top.6 See also:Round the sides of the triangle formed by the three vessels and under the mouths runs an inscription of considerable length . The use for which the pot was intended and the purport of the inscription have been much disputed, there being at least as many interpretations as there are words in the inscription . The date is probably the early part of the 4th century n.c . Though found in See also:Rome, the See also:vessel is small enough to be easily portable, and might therefore have been brought from elsewhere in Italy . It is equally possible that the See also:potter who The inscribed the words upon it was not a native of Rome . Dvenos In . One or two points in the inscription make it doubtful scription. whether the Latin upon it is really the Latin of Rome . It is generally known as the Dvenos inscription, from the name of the maker who wrote on the vessel from right to left the inscription, part of which is DVENOS MED FECED (=feat) . (b) The second of these early records is the inscription on a See also:gold fibula found at See also:Praeneste and published in 1887 . The inscription runs from right to left, and is in letters which show more clearly than ever that the See also:Roman alphabet is borrowed from the alphabets of the Chalcidian Greek colonies in Italy . Its date cannot be later than the 5th and is possibly as early as the 6th century B.C . The words are MANIOS MED FHEFHAKED NVMASIOI, " See also:Marius made me for Numasius." The symbol for M has still five strokes, s has the angular form S, s . The The Praeneste inscription is earlier than the Latin change of s between fibula, vowels into r, for Numasioi is the See also:dative of the older form which corresponds to the later Numerius . The verb form ' See especially Athenische Mitteilungen, xxi. p . 426 . ' Figured in Roberts's Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, p . 65 . Details of the history of the individual letters will be found in separate articles . B.It is figured most accessibly in Egbert's Introduction to the Study of Latin Inscrifitions, n . 16 . Latin alphabet, is remarkable . In the Dvenos inscription the perfect of facia is feted; here it is a reduplicated form with the same vowel as the present . The spelling also is interesting . The symbol K is still in ordinary use, and not merely used for abbreviations as in the classical age . But most remarkable is the representation of Latin F by FH . The reason for this is clear . The value of F in the Greek alphabet is w and not f as in Latin . Greek had no sound corresponding to Latin F, consequently an attempt is made by combining F and H to indicate the difference of sound . See also:Etruscan uses FH in the same way . As Latin, however, made the symbol V indicate not only the vowel sound u, but also the consonant sound v (i.e . English w), the sign for the digamma F was left unemployed, and as FH was a cumbrous method of representing a sound which did not exist in Greek, the second element came to be left out in writing . Thus F came to be the representative of the unvoiced labiodental spirant instead of that for the bilabial voiced spirant . Whether the form fefaked was ever See also:good Latin in Rome may be doubted, for the See also:Romans, in spite of the few See also:miles that separate Praeneste from Rome, were inclined to sneer at the pronunciation and See also:idiom of the Praenestines (cf . See also:Plautus, Triu . 609, Truc . 691 ; See also:Quintilian i . 5, 56) . (c) The last, and in some respects the most important, of these records was found in 1899 under an ancient See also:pavement in the Contitium at the See also:north-west corner of the Roman See also:Forum . It is engraved upon the four sides and one bevelled edge of a See also:pillar, the top of which has been broken off . As the Forum in- writing i s 0ovalPoO766v, beginning at the bottom of scriptlon . the pillar and See also:running upwards and down again, no single See also:line of the inscription is See also:complete . Probably more than half the pillar is lost, so that it is not possible to make out the sense with certainty . The inscription is probably not older than that on the fibula from Praeneste, but has the additional See also:interest of being undoubtedly couched in the Latin of Rome . The surviving portion of the inscription contains examples of all the letters of the early alphabet, though the forms of F and B are fragmentary and doubtful . As in the Praenestine inscription, the alphabet is still the western (Chalcidian) alphabet . K is still in use as an ordinary consonant, and not limited to a symbol for abbreviations as in the classical period . The rounded form of -y is found with the value of G in R ECE I, which is probably the dative of rex . H has still the closed form 9, M has the five-stroke form, S is the three-stroke.., tending tobecomerounded . 
R appears in the Greek form without a tail, and V and Y are both found for the same sound . The manner of writing up and down instead of backwards and forwards across the stone is obviously appropriate to a See also:surface which is of considerable length, but comparatively narrow, a connected sense being thus much easier to observe than in writing across a narrow surface where, as in the gravestones of Melos, three lines are required for a single word . The form of the monument corresponds to that which we are told was given to the revolving wooden pillars on which the See also:laws of See also:Solon were painted . That the writing of Solon's laws, which was 0ovorpodsh66v, was also See also:vertical is rendered probable by the phrase 6 KCLTwOev v6pos in See also: |