The evening times., 1898-10-08
ORIGIN OF The A B C'S.

The question has often been asked where
Cadmus got the alphabet which he
brought to Greece. He was a Phoenician
but his people did not invent 1t. The
latest knowledge of the philologists as
given in the Chicago News, may be sum-
married. as follows:
The Greeks gave names to the letters
which, meaningless in the Greek language,
could only have been taken from some
tongue in which they were significant.
The resemblance between the Greek and
the Hebrew names for the signs of the
alphabet have many correspondence and
divergences not a few, but these latter
did not give the necessary warning until
recently. "a in. the Greek is called
Alpha and in Hebrew Aleph, being the
first letter of them all in both cases In
Hebrew 1t means "buir' and even now
the capital letter in English portrays the
head and horns of that familiar beast
when laid upon it's side But with still
older nation it is possible to carry the step
one more toward the beginning of things,
for with the Akkadeans, Hittites and Su-
merians, who preceded the Semitic Baby
lonians on the Mesopotamia plains the
word for bull is simply the sound of the
letter, pronounced "au" "B" Beta,
Greek, and Beth, Hebrew, signifying
house In Hittite house is 'ab' or "ba -
simply c. is Gamma or GemeI and
some have contended for its meaning of
camel. The sign formerly was mere
angle, like an F. with the short cross
stroke omitted, and from that Ii was
named Geemel. crooked. In the Hittite a
crook is ga" ID" Delta or Daleth. is
said to mean door.
But. though it may be possible to see
coor In the triangular sign OF the letter.
1t has the significance of pot, which is
du in the older speech. For short ..Es''
the Greeks had no name and the sound
does not make Its appearance in the
Semitic tongues at all. The Greek call
ed 1t Il psilon-the latter word mean
ing nothing more or less than short In
Sumerian and Carian ''E" means house.
f. is the Greek Digamma. so called be-
cause 1t has the appearance of one Gam
ma superimposed on another The He
brews called ii 'vav," meaning hook
This is more likely the Hittite '.yu" ~"
comes next in Greek, In which it is called
Leta. In Hebrew the same sign is named
Aalh, ana Is said to stand for weapon. But
the ancient symbol looks more like a
number of weapons bound together than
a single one. 1t is really the Hittite IA"
culver. Th, Theta in Greek and
Teth in the Semitic languages. is said to
mean bah or globe In Akkadian to-
means the sun. ''I' Yod or Iota. is hand,
and so hand means simply 'i'' in Akka-
dian. Il" is Lambda in Greek and
Lamed in Hebrew, its sign being an in
Yerted W The Hittite word for yoke
is ''lu'' and the Hebrew ox-goad does not
explain it at all M with its wayy
form is Mu or Min and is TO be referred
TO an Old word mi or the sea 1t has
been explained as water IN which is
M or Nun, has been given the signif
cance or fish. rather wild guess
The euneiform symbol shows a hand
with scepter, and stands for "nu'' or
nun, lord or master. 90" Ain or o
micron-Iitt!e ''o''-means eye, but goes
back further to the Cypriote va" or
bright. ''P, the Greek Pi does not mean
mouth, far-fetched Interpretation of the
sign when placed sideways. 1t is prob
al an older word of much the same
meaning as ga bal or pal" a bend
or turn. "R" Resh or Rho. is the an
cient ra, and means head in a number of
tongues. 80 Sigma or Shin is the Hit
tite 'shi'' or tooth. The letter means BIZ
ing in the Hebrew explanation
There are some English letters not ac-
counted for here, but these, which are in
Greek and not in Hebrew at all fill out
the measure of the former alphabet: Our
''Y' is the Greek short of L or Epsilon
In Hittite ''u'' means plant. Phi in
Greek IS probably ''pu," or bud Chi,
which is a cultural sound like the Ger
man "ch. is made like the English 'x"
1t means sacred in the oldest-known lam
guages, and serves to call attention to
the exceedingly great age of the cross as
religious symbol Psi, which is the
English ''ps." is the Cypriote "se' to
give. it seems; and o mego, or great o,
is the sign ''u' In Hittite.