The age-herald., 1898-08-27

which was formed from the Phenician. And | back of that is @ good deal of guess work. | Very likely the Egyptian hieroglyphic and | hieratic characters formed the base of the l Phenician letter-making is the first | letter in all the alphabets that came from | the Phenician, and in that language it sig nified "ox;'N the Greek alpha means the same thing, though it's Egyptian hierogly- | phic equivalent was a bird somewhat like the vulture in outline
 "B was also the second letter in the | Phenician, as in the Greek. The name of | the character was "beth." meaning house. | It has less variety of use than any other | being more frequently silent, as in "dumb' or debt" In the original Indio European or Aryan languages "b was rarely found. "C'' in the Phenician and Greek had the value of a hard ''g.'' as in "go,' and was similar in the enunciation to K" as 'g' is now. For long time the Latins made
 ''c'' do service for both "k' and E." No word containing "c' pronounced as ''s'' is Of Anglo-Saxon origin. except a few mis- | spelled words, as "cnder," which was orig | inally "sinder."
 In the English "D'' has the same place 1 fourth letter and third consonant-as in the Roman, Greek and Phenician, and is singu- | lariy uninteresting as study. "E" is an unchanging and aristocratc | conservative. Its form was always pretty nearly the same at present. Its name 1 in Phenician was he" which most schol- ars say signi1ed a window. In it's two | quantities, as In "met" and in they It | constitutes about 5 per cent of English ut | terance.
 "F"' in the Phenician meant peg or hook. | and it's va!ue was that of the English 'w.' This "w''. sound gradually went out of use in Greek and the sign with it. In the adaptation of the alphabet to Latin use the sign was resurrected. and first received the value we give it.
 
 "G' is sign of Italic origin, having been fabricated by the Romans by adding a tail or drop to the "c'-a transition very easily detected. It never occurs at the begin ming of words of Angio-Saxon origin. In medieval Roman it stood for 400 ,and with line over it for 100000
 "H" came from the Phenfcian, and has had a curious history, in which the cock ney inability to manage it may be traced. Fl" meant 200 in medieval Roman. q" may be traced to the Egyptian. The Phenicians represented it rather as a consonant. but it was converted to vowel value by the Creeks and the Romans gave it both consonant and vowel duty.
  "J" Is but another form of the same let ter. They were used indifferently until about l63O As numeral it had the same value as "i," but was used only at conclu- sion. as viii" for eight
 .ix' is Phenician, and still earlier Egyp- .tian. 1t was little used in classical Latin, and is of rare occurrence in languages de- rived from the Latin. As a numeral it represented 250.
 "L" was a lion in the Egyptian hiero- g1yphic, a. figure in the Phenician. and about it's present form in the Greek and the Latin. It is the most sonorous and contin- uous-the most purely consonant-in sound of all our letters. As there are three R's' in land colloquilsfn. so there are three "L's" in nautical phrase-'iead. latitude and lookout" It is a conservative, chang ing little.
 '.M" is an 'ancient and honorable. Its hierogiyphic equivalent, away back In Egypt. was almost a fieur de lis in oval outline of birds head-a ieur de lis minus the central branch. As a. Roman numeral it denotes 1000. Formerly the brand of 'M' was impressed on the person of one con- vcted of manslaughter In fragrant cases the brand was applied to the forehead In printing it is the square, the quadrate, the unit of computation in any body of type.
 
 IN" is as old. and the value of it's char acter has been the same through the whole history of its use The sign has no variety of sounds, and there is no possible subSti- ute. As numeral. its value is 90, which becomes O000 when a line is drawn above the letter.
 70" in the Pi1encian alphabet represented a peculiarly and-to us-unpronourceabie gutteral. but the Greeks made a vowet Of it. though they changed it's foCm to square instead of an oval It stood for Il in the Roman numerals of medieval times.
 
 "P'' was evolved from the hieroe1yphic age, and in all alphabets it has stood for the one urrvarYing sound. It mas no Varaetles save that it is silent at the beginning of few Greek words as psalm and pneumatic It is 400 in medieval numerals and an ab- breviation for many things.
 
 70" is an ancient also. As sign 1t was abandoned in Greek. The Latin preserved 1t. though it's value was the same as that of 'k" In English, as in Latin. it Is always followed by 'u" It meant 800 in medieval Roman numerals.
 r. **"
 "R" looked like a capital "A" in the Phe- nician In some languages it is used as vowetl. In Angio-Sakon times "R, if the | initial letter, was given such force as to need an "h'' in expressing it, and was rolled t oa double, so that the form survives III such spelling ats hemorrhage. catarrh; but now "n many localities even among teh most cultivated speakers, no 'R Is ever really pronounced at all" It was 80 as numeral. Sir William Curtis. an eminent Gaid