The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-11-08
TIE GREEK ALPHABET.
Subject With Forbidding Title May
BE Full of Interest. ~.

30 Full of Interest. ,t;
Most boys and girls know that our word
"alphabet" comes from Alpha, Beta, the
srst two Greek letters. They know also
that the words, II am Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the end, the first and
the last, refer to letters of this alphabet.
Their real origin Is Phuenician, and in He
brew they mean respectively an OK and n
house.
When l began TO learn the Greek alpha
bet, my elder brother tried to console mo
with the story of the boy. that used to
walk to school saying, "Alpha, Beta,
Gamma, Delta. Z" But he passed by the
cottage where some old people named Delta
lived They understood him to say 81
will beat gammer Delta. Now, the old
lady objected to being called "gammer, !"
and had no mind to be beaten by so young
boy, so the end was that, & iaffer' Delta
beat him. But never beSyed that tale
knowing no one named Delta. This. let
ter in Greek capitals is like an equilateral
triangle, and thus the islands formed at
the mouth of great rivers, as the Nile,
Rhone and Amazon, are called deltas
Beginners in Greek sometimes wonder
that the letter ii stands for capital 4,
Qong). Once it had the same use as our
III, but then the Greeks had only one let
ter for E, whether long or short How
ever, they borrowed the long Il from the
Samian alphabet, and used the sign II to
represent that sound.
Theta, the next letter, is the first in the
Greek word thanatos DEATH and il was
so used on the ballots of judges at Athens.
In the same way, the Laced@monians
bore the Greek l. on their shields, and the
Messenians NJ, from which we infer that
monographs have long pedigree.
We use the word "jot' (Which is the
same as the Greek letter iota, the English
II in our own language for very small
thing We do so from the expression
lone jot or one tittle'' in the sermon on
the mount. In Greek, iota has no dot,
and is the smallest letter; SO il was taken
to represent any very small thing. After
awhile iota was no longer pronounced at
the end of certain words, and it was then
written underneath the preceding vowel
or subscript. 1t thus became smaller than
ever, but it is still restored to its former
rank in capital type Our master had a
good plan for saying Greek declensions.
We had to raise hand for iota subscript,
whenever it occurred.
There was letter, the Digamma Oike
rude FL, which interested me because it
was extinct. Scholars trace it in lines of
Homer as biologists seek fossils In rocks.
The Eigamma was like our V, and sur.
wives in the sign for the mineral 8. Greek
letters are used to represent numbers.
Alpha is one, Beta two, Gamma three,
Delta four, and so on. In Latin the let
tiers are SO arranged that seven of them
can indicate all numbers.
The stars that make up consultations
are named in order from the Greek alpha
bet. and the brightest in each receives
Alpha as it's due title. Thus, Sirius is the
| Alpha of the constellation CAMS Major,
the great nebula of Orion appears near the
star called Theta, and Alpha Centauri Ii
| the star nearest to the earth.
Such are some of the thoughts that the
| Greek alphabet now suggests to me and
which l hope may interest some young
reader who does not at present see why he
| learns Greek or what good it can possibly
] do to him.--Golden Hours.