NYMPHS  , in

Greek mythology, the generic name of a large number of female divinities of inferior rank, personifications of the creative and fostering activities of nature . The word is possibly connected with the root of i44 os, nubes (" cloud "), and originally meant " veiled," referring to the custom of a bride being led veiled from her home to that of the husband: hence, a married woman, and, in general, one of marriageable age . Others refer the word (and also Lat. nubere and the Ger . Knospe) to a root expressing the idea of " swelling " (according to Hesychius, one of the meanings of vbµebr/ is " rose-bud ") . The home of the nymphs is on mountains and in groves, by springs and rivers, in valleys and cool grottoes . They are frequently associated with the superior divinities, the huntress Artemis, the prophetic Apollo, the reveller and god of trees Dionysus, and with rustic gods such as Pan and Hermes (as the god of shepherds) . The nymphs were distinguished according to the different spheres of nature with which they were connected . Sea nymphs were Oceanids or Nereids, daughters of Oceanus or Nereus . Naiades (from Gr. vaecv, flow, cf. vaµa, " stream ") presided over springs, rivers and lakes . Oreades (opos, mountain) were nymphs of mountains and grottoes, one of the most famous of whom was Echo . Napaeae (vanrf), dell) and Alseides (awos, grove) were nymphs of glens and groves . Dryades (q.v.) or Hamadryades were nymphs of forests and trees .

The Greek nymphs, after the introduction of their cult into

Latium, gradually absorbed into their ranks the indigenous Italian divinities of springs and streams (Juturna, Egeria, Carmentis, Fons), while the Lymphae (originally Lumpae), Italian water-goddesses, owing to the accidental similarity of name, were identified with the Greek Nymphae . Among the Romans their sphere of influence was restricted, and they appear almost exclusively as divinities of the watery element . F . G . Ballentine, " Some Phases of the Cult of the Nymphs " in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, xv . (1904) . O The sixteenth letter of the Phoenician and early Greek alphabets, the fifteenth in English and the fourteenth in Latin . Between N and 0 the Phoenician and the Ionic Greek alphabet have a sibilant—in Greek =x . The Western Greek alphabet had a different symbol, X, for the sound of x and placed it at the end, as did its descendant the Latin alphabet . The original form of o was a more or less roughly formed circle . The Aramaic . and Hebrew Y, which seem so different, arise from a circle left open at the top, 0, a form which can be traced in Aramaic from the 5th or 6th century B.c . In the Greek alphabets the circle appears sometimes with a dot in the centre, but in many cases it is doubtful whether this mark is, intentional, or is only the result of fixing a sharp point there while describing the circle .

Sometimes 0 is

lozenge-shaped Q and rarely (in Arcadia and Elis) rectangular ^ . In many varieties of the Greek alphabet this symbol was used, as it always was in Latin, for the long as well as the short o-sound and also for the long vowel (in the Ionic alphabet written on) which arose from contraction of two vowels or the loss of a consonant (S?laoiire=S Xbe-re, ofKovs = oiKOVs) . As early as the 8th century Ionic Greek had invented a separate symbol for the long o-sound, viz . S2 . This when borrowed by other dialects showed at first some variety of usage, though practically none in form . As this was placed at the end of the ordinary (not the numeral) Greek alphabet, " alpha and omega " has become a proverbial phrase for first and last . The Greeks themselves, however, did not call S2 omega (great o) nor did they call 0 omicron (little o), though these names are given even in modern Greek grammars . The former was called simply o and the latter u (ov, pronounced as oo in moon) . The Hebrew and probably the Phoenician name for 0 was Ain (Ayin), and in the Semitic alphabet, which does not indicate vowels, the symbol stood for a " voiced glottal stop " and also for a " voiced velar spirant " (Zimmern) . The most important feature of this vowel is the rounding of the lips in its production, which, according to its degree, modifies the nature of the vowel considerably, as can be observed in the pronunciation of the increasingly rounded series saw, no, who . In Attic Greek 0 and S2 were not really a pair, for o + o became not co but ov, o being a close and co an open sound . In Latin the converse was more nearly true .

Though short o changed in the Latin of the last age of the

Roman republic to a in unaccented syllables always (except after u whether vowel or consonant), and sometimes also in accented syllables, this was not equally true of vulgar Latin, as is shown by the Romance languages . In English also the short and the long o are of different qualities, the short in words like not, got being in Sweet's phonetic terminology a low-back-wide-round, the long in words like no a mid-back-wide-round . The long vowel becomes more rounded as it is being pronounced, so that it ends in a u-sound, though this is not so noticeable in weak syllables like the final syllable of follow . The so-called modified o is a rounded e-sound found in several varieties . The sound heard in words like the German Glitter is, according to Sweet, a low-front-wide-round, while Jespersen regards it as not low but middle . A mid-front-narrow-round vowel is found short in French words like peu, long in jenne and in endings like that of honteuse . The Norse sound written cis. is of the same nature . (P .