x. There appears to be still another letter identical with the three above, F, V, and Phi; and that is the letter Beta. Its name, in the Egyptian alphabet, is Vida; its power, in the Hebrew, that of both B and V. In the Ethiopic alphabet, the form of Bet is П, and in the Estrangolo, or Old Syriac, I find A as a form of Vau, and feel disposed to believe that they passed into the Greek alphabet as different forms of Upsilon, and into the Roman as forms of u and v. Plutarch frequently uses B to express the Latin V, and we are informed by Varro that the Ionians wrote Ber instead of Ver, spring. (Marsh, p. 117-119.)

XI. The various forms of this sixth letter of the Shemitic languages have been productive of much obscurity and confusion in everything connected with the subject of the Digamma; and the perplexity has been not a little augmented by the indefinite nature of the letter itself, which is not merely both a vowel and consonant, but, according to circumstances, different vowels and different consonants. Of Ouau, Masclef remarks, that it is always a vowel; but all the grammarians who adhere to the vowel points give it also the power of V and W in all the Shemitic languages, in Arabic, in Hebrew, in Chaldee, in Syriac, and in Samaritan. According to the generally received system,

Wav, in Hebrew, without any point, is a consonant, V or W.

with Cholom above the letter, it is O.

with Shooraik by the side of the letter it is O0, or U.

All these characters of doubt and ambiguity accompanied this letter in every stage of its progress in the Greek and Latin Alphabets, as may be rendered obvious by a few examples.

XII. The Greeks did not borrow their Omicron either from the Phoenician, or the Hebrew alphabet, but from the sixth letter of the Syriac, Vau o, and until the introduction of Upsilon, which was probably borrowed from another form of the Estrangolo or Old Syriac, Vau A, reversed V, it answered the purpose both of O and U. Marsh remarks,

that Upsilon was introduced at a comparatively late period of the Greek alphabet (page 105.); and certain it is that in one existing Greek inscription, the Amyclean, which has many strong claims to be regarded as much older than any other, not only the long vowels are not written, but the same character supplies the place both of Omicron and Upsilon, (Lanzi, tomo i. page 100.). According to Plutarch, the Egyptian priests pronounced the name of Osiris, Usiris; and Ovid informs us, that the name of Orion was sometimes written Urion, but that the former was the more ancient sound of the letter (Vau?).

"Hunc Hyrieus, quia sic genitus vocat Uriona,
Perdidit antiquum littera prima sonum."

Fast. lib. v.

As we cannot do with Digamma it would be well if we could do without it; and we might do without it, if we could in every instance account as clearly for the conversion of Greek into Roman words as in the following cases: Syriac Vau, primarily in the Greek language both Omi cron and Upsilon, and possessing the powers of O and U, V and W.

Oinos, Acc. Oinon, wine.

Vinum (Latin), by reading the initial O as V, and the final as U.
Wine (English), by reading the initial O as W.

Oikos (Greek), a house.*

Vicus (Latin), a street, by reading the initial O as V, and the final as U.

The reader will observe, that in these instances there is no necessity for supposing that any letter, line, or dot has either been added or omitted. I only suppose that the Greek Omicron was derived from the Syriac Vau, that its powers in the language into which it was adopted were the same as in that from which it was borrowed, neither more nor less, and that the Greeks used it in its vowel, and the Romans in its consonant, character.

XIII. If we now select a few words in the middle of which Omicron or Omega in Greek (which is merely two Omicrons) becomes V in Latin, the change is equally obvious, and easily accounted for.

Aion is written with Omega; Omega is merely two Omicrons, and Omicron was the Syriac Vau; by reading the first O as V, I have Evum, Latin; the same in Ao, Aveo. In Bioo the initial letter in Hebrew is B or V; and the Omicron in Syriac is V; hence Vivo, Latin. In Laios, Leios, and Maoros, we have only to suppose a slight transposition in forming the Latin word from the Greek, and to recollect the consonant character of the Syriac Vau, the prototype of the Greek Omicron.

.XIV. Again, the Digamma has been supposed to account most easily and naturally for the formation of such words as the Latin Ver, spring, from the Greek Er, or Ear. The latter appears to be the Hebrew Aor, the sun, used, by a slight metonymy, for the season in which the sun begins to exert his power; and by reading the second letter of Aor as the consonant V, with a transposition, we have the Latin Var or Ver; the Romans (as in the instances before noticed of Vinum from Oinos, and Vicus from Oikos,) reading the Oriental letter Vau or Wav as a consonant, while the Greeks read it as a vowel. It is not necessary, however, to have recourse either to the Hebrew Aor, or the Greek Ear; for the Latin Ver, as a much more obvious etymology, presents itself in the Persic* Bahar, by contraction Ver, which the Ionians or Asiatic Greeks wrote Ber, approximating still more nearly to the Persic. Again, the Greek word Aion appears to have been derived by transposition from the Arabic Anu, or Ano, time; and the Latin, in the same way, reading the Wav as a consonant Avn, Ævum.

* In Anquetil du Perron's List of Pehlvi, or Ancient Persic words, it is written Vahar, tom. iii. p. 457.

xv. In reading Lanzi's Saggio di Lingua Etrusca, and, indeed, the whole body of ancient Greek inscriptions, various characters occur of so equivocal a nature as to render it a matter of considerable difficulty to assign them their true power or sound. For instance, at page 106 of the first volume, I read, in Greek letters,

Αξιων, ΓΑΞιωΝ, ΓΑΞΙΩΝ, ΟΑΞΙΩΝ,

with a remark, that the characters F and C placed before A, appear to denote the spiritus lenis written in a different mode.

And again, at page 141. of the same volume, Lanzi says, Gori remarks, that in the Latin tables of Gubbio the word Erunt is written in three ways-ERIHONT, ERAFONT, and ERIRONT. I only notice the very different orthography at present, for the purpose of remarking, that I believe the characters F, C, and H to be essentially the same letter, and that, therefore, the preceding words do not differ so much as at first sight they appear to do.

Hebrew Hay,, and Roman Ƒ (Digamma).

XVI. I have no hesitation in expressing my entire conviction, that the character which has been denominated Digamma by Bentley and his followers, is, in a great majority of instances, merely the Hebrew letter Hay (H) malformed, or, in other words, placed in a perpendicular instead of a horizontal position. The Greeks denominated a columnar inscription Kionedon, and one such I find in Lanzi, tomo ii. page 546., which he reads Mercurfei; but which, I believe, ought to be read Mercurhei, and from which any one, who knows the Hebrew letters, will perceive at a glance that, by placing Hay, in a perpendicular position, we have at once the far-famed Digamma F, or Roman F. In the words in the preceding page, the character in Faxion and Erafont is the Hebrew Hay (H), and simply an aspirate, the C, Hay or Heth, in a perpendicular instead of a horizontal position, and the H, in Erihont, a Phoenician Heth (H). The Romans, in the following words, appear to have changed

Hay into Digamma, or F; while the Spaniards have retained the true reading of the Oriental letter.

XVII. There are two or three other Hebrew letters, which I find in Lanzi's Essay, obviously very liable to be mistaken for each other, and which I believe have actually been misread by him and others. In vol. iii. p. 602, is the inscription VITI written from right to left, with a head of Italy; and regarding the initial letter as one of the forms of Digamma he reads Vitelia. The letter may be a Hebrew Bayth; in which case his is the true reading; but it is more probably Hay or Heth in a perpendicular position, and merely a sign of aspiration, which will make the true reading Hitelia. In another part of his work he quotes a remark of Apollodorus, to prove that Italus, in the language of Etruria, signified a bull; but there can be little doubt that it was preceded by one of the dubious characters which signified H, V, or F; and was either Hitalus or the common Latin word Vitulus, a calf.

क Sanskrit, Hv.

Sanskrit H in Wilkins.

Digamma, Tacitus cura Brotier, v. tom. Londini, 1812,

(Valpy).

XVIII. I find, in Lanzi's Work on Etruria, two forms of S, which I believe to have been borrowed from the Sanskrit ; one of them so peculiar that I do not think it could have come from any other quarter, and which was certainly read by the ancient Greeks and Italians in some instances as R,