Some enquiries concerning the first inhabitants, language, religion, learning and letters of Europe / By a member of the Society of Antiquaries in London [i.e. F. Wise].

  • Francis Wise
Date:
1758
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some enquiries concerning the first inhabitants, language, religion, learning and letters of Europe / By a member of the Society of Antiquaries in London [i.e. F. Wise]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    fixt feat in the alphabet. For tho’ the ancients found that they could*not well do without its power; yet that was always made to give way to fome more fafhionable letter. The firft place that it occupied after its removal, feems to have been that of Yau, or Whaw, but here it loft its found, when Yau began to be pronounced like F, or v confonant. Its next place was that of (1) Heth or Cheth, by which means it became the u of the Ionic alphabet: tho’ it was foon banifhed from thence, to make room for the long £, or Ezz. But with the Romans, who acknow- ledged no fuch power as Eza, it ftill kept its ground; and in- the modern alphabets retains its place to this day. From Cherh it might defcend to Koph or Quof; for fome (2) authors are of opinion, that it formerly ftood in the place of a. The Greeks feem to have thought this a place of too much dignity for it; by difcarding Quof, and pla- cing the afpirate lower in the feries, making it the double (3) letter x, or C4. This feems to have been its laft ftage, as a letter, with the Greeks; it being now reduced to the mean condition of an accent, (‘). The W the porontiy ee the Tee alphabet alone the hy aes Jigamma pre erved its ancient fta- ites omne tion, and power, and for the moft part its form, tho’ a little diftorted; but by degrees : loft its firft found, being pronounced as F ; the letter x, or u, (1) Olum 3% ale FH sonnets waweeR, wes rerwss P Aasdiay, dlorep Paxsotkor afd orev F duouvoudvey byomarwy mH BEIMAP EA. Athen. Deipn. Lib. IX. (2) Goropius Becanus. Hermathene. Lib. IX. p.213. (3) Septuaginta Interpretes non valentes Tleth hiteram, que duplicem afpira- tionem fonat, in Grecum fermonem vertere, Chi Grecam literam addiderunt, ut nos docerent ejufmodi vocabula afpirari debere, unde S in prefenti loco Cham tran/- tulerunt, pro eo quod ef Ham. S. Hieron. Hebr. Tradit. fupplying
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