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2023-03-24 17:31 dustin  
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^ has learned about each latin letter's history, but he isn't done with his journey yet! in this cave, he learns about a few phoenician and/or greek letters that haven't made it into the latin alphabet!  
  
the lost letters:  
  
phoenician letters are in the top row, greek letters in the bottom row. related letters are in the same column.  
  
1. phoenician "thet" and greek "theta"  
  
| the root of these letters is an egyptian hieroglyph for a wheel.  
  
| the phoenicians adopted the letter in 9th position of their alphabet (between the "h" and "i" equivalents), and they spoke the letter like english [th] as in "thing".  
  
| the ancient greeks, who used and still use the [th] sound as well, adopted the letter and called it "theta". it can still be found in their modern alphabet between "eta" (h) and "iota" (i).  
  
| the etruscians or romans, who didn't use the [th] sound in old italic / latin, dropped the letter.  
  
| later, in old and middle english, a letter "thorn" existed for the [th] sound, taken from old runes. however, that letter also didn't make it into modern english, so that no specific [th] letter exists today, and the english helped themselves with the "th" digraph for that sound.  
  
2. phoenician "samekh" and greek "xi"  
  
| i did already write about these letters in the "x for unknown" cave - see there for futher information. the conclusion was that it's uncertain if these letters have a direct connection to our latin "x", so they might or might not be lost letters as well!  
  
| in any case, the letter "xi" can still be found in the modern greek alphabet, between "n" and "o". it makes the [ks] double sound, and it's the only unconnected letter in their alphabet!  
  
3. phoenician "sade" and greek "san"  
  
| i already wrote about these letters in the "s for tooth" cave, where i said that the greek dropped the phoenician "sade". well, that was a bit simplified because the greeks did adopt the phoenician "sade" at first. the greeks called it "san", and that letter competed with "sigma" for the [s] sound. eventually, "sigma" won the battle and "san" was dropped. one reason was likely the fact that "san" looked very similar to an "m". both "sade" and "san" were located between the "p" and "q" equivalents. So if "san" had become the greek letter for the [s] sound, then our latin "s" would today be placed between "p" and "q"! also, it wouldn't look kile an "s" but very "m"-ish instead, and we would probably have trouble to distinguish both letters. For example, we might misread „mister“ for „sister“ or „meat“ for „seat“... :d  
  
4. greek "phi"  
  
| the ancient greeks created this letter on their own, inspired by the shape of "qoppa" (the predecessor of "q"). they used it for an anspirated [p] sound. the etruscians and romans, who used no aspirated sounds, dropped the letter.   
  
| today in modern greek, the letter "phi" is spoken [f], while the letter "f" has been deleted from their alphabet. the story behind that is also quite funny imo:  
\ the ancient greeks did have the letter "f" (called "digamma") which was spoken [w] as in "water".  
\ later, the greeks lost the [w] sound and deleted the "digamma" / "f" from their alphabet.  
\ later, "phi" was created for the aspirated [p] sound.  
\ more phonetic changes turned the aspirated [p] sound into a [f] sound as in "fire". the letter "phi" was still used for that new sound.  
\ and that's how it came that modern greeks use "phi" instead of "f" to speak the [f] sound! :d  
  
5. greek "psi"  
  
| that's another greek letter which was created without a phoenician root. it also represented an aspirated sound, namely an aspirated [k], which the romans didn't use. later, when greek language also lost aspirated sounds, the letter represented a [ps] double sound, similar to latin "x" for the [ks] double sound. "psi" is still the second-last greek letter today, and it's still spoken [ps]. it can also be found in many greek-based english words such as "ps-ychology"!  
  
6. greek "omega"  
  
| the famous last greek letter was also invented by the greeks (no direct phoenician root). they created it from the "o" (hence the similar shape) to distinguish between a short and a long [o] sound. Today, that distinguation does no longer exist, so „omega“ has become a kind of redundant letter in modern greek language.  
  
| strictly speaking, "omega" isn't really a lost letter because it wasn't yet in the greek alphabet when the etruscians / romans adopted it. so the romans didn't have a chance to drop the letter because it didn't yet exist! when the greeks did invent "omega", the latin alphabet was already long in development. However, i thought i couldn't leave such a famous letter unmentioned! :d  
  
cave difficulty: 6/10