The Grammar of English Grammars. Goold Brown
which is best calculated to gratify this rational curiosity. This is my apology for dwelling so long upon the present topic.
OBS. 7.—The names originally given to the letters were not mere notations of sound, intended solely to express or make known the powers of the several characters then in use; nor ought even the modern names of our present letters, though formed with special reference to their sounds, to be considered such. Expressions of mere sound, such as the notations in a pronouncing dictionary, having no reference to what is meant by the sound, do not constitute words at all; because they are not those acknowledged signs to which a meaning has been attached, and are consequently without that significance which is an essential property of words. But, in every language, there must be a series of sounds by which the alphabetical characters are commonly known in speech; and which, as they are the acknowledged names of these particular objects, must be entitled to a place among the words of the language. It is a great error to judge otherwise; and a greater to make it a "trifling question" in grammar, whether a given letter shall be called by one name or by an other. Who shall say that Daleth, Delta, and Dee, are not three real words, each equally important in the language to which it properly belongs? Such names have always been in use wherever literature has been cultivated; and as the forms and powers of the letters have been changed by the nations, and have become different in different languages, there has necessarily followed a change of the names. For, whatever inconvenience scholars may find in the diversity which has thence arisen, to name these elements in a set of foreign terms, inconsistent with the genius of the language to be learned, would surely be attended with a tenfold greater. We derived our letters, and their names too, from the Romans; but this is no good reason why the latter should be spelled and pronounced as we suppose they were spelled and pronounced in Rome.
OBS. 8.—The names of the twenty-two letters in Hebrew, are, without dispute, proper words; for they are not only significant of the letters thus named, but have in general, if not in every instance, some other meaning in that language. Thus the mysterious ciphers which the English reader meets with, and wonders over, as he reads the 119th Psalm, may be resolved, according to some of the Hebrew grammars, as follows:—
[Hebrew: Aleph] Aleph, A, an ox, or a leader; [Hebrew: Beth] Beth, Bee, house; [Hebrew: Gimel] Gimel, Gee, a camel; [Hebrew: Dalet] Daleth, Dee, a door; [Hebrew: he] He, E, she, or behold; [Hebrew: vav] Vau, U, a hook, or a nail; [Hebrew: zajin] Zain, Zee, armour; [Hebrew: het] Cheth, or Heth, Aitch, a hedge; [Hebrew: tet] Teth, Tee, a serpent, or a scroll; [Hebrew: jod] Jod, or Yod, I, or Wy, a hand shut; [Hebrew: kaf] Caph, Cee, a hollow hand, or a cup; [Hebrew: lamed] Lamed, Ell, an ox-goad; [Hebrew: mem] Mem, Em, a stain, or spot; [Hebrew: nun] Nun, En, a fish, or a snake; [Hebrew: samekh] Samech, Ess, a basis, or support; [Hebrew: ayin] Ain, or Oin, O, an eye, or a well; [Hebrew: pe] Pe, Pee, a lip, or mouth; [Hebrew: tsadi] Tzaddi, or Tsadhe, Tee-zee, (i.e. tz, or ts,) a hunter's pole; [Hebrew: qof] Koph, Kue, or Kay, an ape; [Hebrew: resh] Resch, or Resh, Ar, a head; [Hebrew: shin] Schin, or Sin, Ess-aitch, or Ess, a tooth; [Hebrew: tav] Tau, or Thau, Tee, or Tee-aitch, a cross, or mark.
These English names of the Hebrew letters are written with much less uniformity than those of the Greek, because there has been more dispute respecting their powers. This is directly contrary to what one would have expected; since the Hebrew names are words originally significant of other things than the letters, and the Greek are not. The original pronunciation of both languages is admitted to be lost, or involved in so much obscurity that little can be positively affirmed about it; and yet, where least was known, grammarians have produced the most diversity; aiming at disputed sounds in the one case, but generally preferring a correspondence of letters in the other.
OBS. 9.—The word alphabet is derived from the first two names in the following series. The Greek letters are twenty-four; which are formed, named, and sounded, thus:—
[Greek: A a], Alpha, a; [Greek: B, b], Beta, b; [Greek: G g], Gamma, g hard; [Greek: D d], Delta, d; [Greek: E e], Epsilon, e short; [Greek: Z z], Zeta, z; [Greek: Æ æ], Eta, e long; [Greek: TH Th th], Theta, th; [Greek: I i], Iota, i; [Greek K k], Kappa, k; [Greek: L l], Lambda, l; [Greek: M m], Mu, m; [Greek: N n], Nu, n; [Greek: X x], Xi, x; [Greek: O o], Omicron, o short; [Greek: P p], Pi, p; [Greek: R r] Rho, r; [Greek: S s s], Sigma, s; [Greek: T t], Tau, t; [Greek: Y y], Upsilon, u; [Greek: PH ph], Phi, ph; [Greek: CH ch], Chi, ch; [Greek: PS ps], Psi, ps; [Greek: O o], Omega, o long.
Of these names, our English dictionaries explain the first and the last; and Webster has defined Iota, and Zeta, but without reference to the meaning of the former in Greek. Beta, Delta, Lambda, and perhaps some others, are also found in the etymologies or definitions of Johnson and Webster, both of whom spell the word Lambda and its derivative lambdoidal without the silent b, which is commonly, if not always, inserted by the authors of our Greek grammars, and which Worcester, more properly, retains.
OBS. 10.—The reader will observe that the foregoing names, whether Greek or Hebrew, are in general much less simple than those which our letters now bear; and if he has ever attempted to spell aloud in either of those languages, he cannot but be sensible of the great advantage which was gained when to each letter there was given a short name, expressive, as ours mostly are, of its ordinary power. This improvement appears to have been introduced by the Romans, whose names for the letters were even more simple than our own. But so negligent in respect to them have been the Latin grammarians, both ancient and modern, that few even of the learned can tell what they really were in that language; or how they differed, either in orthography or sound, from those of the English or the French, the Hebrew or the Greek. Most of them, however, may yet be ascertained from Priscian, and some others of note among the ancient philologists; so that by taking from later authors the names of those letters which were not used in old times, we can still furnish an entire list, concerning the accuracy of which there is not much room to dispute. It is probable that in the ancient pronunciation of Latin, a was commonly sounded as in father; e like the English a; i mostly like e long; y like i short; c generally and g always hard, as in come and go. But, as the original, native, or just pronunciation of a language is not necessary to an understanding of it when written, the existing nations have severally, in a great measure, accommodated themselves, in their manner of reading this and other ancient tongues.
OBS. 11.—As the Latin language is now printed, its letters are twenty-five. Like the French, it has all that belong to the English alphabet, except the Double-u. But, till the first Punic war, the Romans wrote C for G, and doubtless gave it the power as well as the place of the Gamma or Gimel. It then seems to have slid into K; but they used it also for S, as we do now. The ancient Saxons, generally pronounced C as K, but sometimes as Ch. Their G was either guttural, or like our Y. In some of the early English grammars the name of the latter is written Ghee. The letter F, when first invented, was called, from its shape, Digamma, and afterwards Ef. J, when it was first distinguished from I, was called by the Hebrew name Jod, and afterwards Je. V, when first distinguished from U, was called Vau, then Va, then Ve. Y, when the Romans first borrowed it from the Greeks, was called Ypsilon; and Z, from the same source, was called Zeta; and, as these two letters were used only in words of Greek origin, I know not whether they ever received from the Romans any shorter names. In Schneider's Latin Grammar, the letters are named in the following manner; except Je and Ve, which are omitted by this author: "A, Be, Ce, De, E, Ef, Ge, Ha, I, [Je,] Ka, El, Em, En, O, Pe, Cu, Er, Es, Te, U, [Ve,] Ix, Ypsilon, Zeta." And this I suppose to be the most proper way of writing their names in Latin, unless we have sufficient authority for shortening Ypsilon into Y, sounded as short i, and for changing Zeta into Ez.
OBS. 12.—In many, if not in all languages, the five vowels, A, E, I, O, U, name themselves; but they name themselves differently to the ear, according to the different ways of uttering them in different languages. And as the name of a consonant necessarily requires one or more vowels, that also may be affected in the same manner. But in every language there should be a known way both of writing and of speaking every name in the series; and that, if there is nothing to hinder, should be made conformable to the genius of the language. I do not say that the names above can be regularly declined in Latin; but in English it is as easy to speak of two Dees as of two trees, of two Kays as of two days, of two Exes as of two foxes, of