Re: CHAT: Names of Latin alphabet letters

John Cowan wrote:
>
> It turns out that it was the Etruscans who gave the alphabet
> letters their modern European names, breaking with the
> Greek < Phoenician names alpha < alef, beta < bet, etc.
>
> Their convention was:
>
> 1)
> Vowels were named after the vowel sound.
>
> 2)
> Stop consonants were named by *suffixing* the stop with /e/.
>
> 3)
> Sonorant consonants were named by *prefixing* the stop with /e/.
So, did the Romans say:
A /a/
B /be/
C /ke/
D /de/
E /e/
F /ef/
G /ge/
H ? (/he/?)
I /i/
K /ka/ (< kappa?)
L /el/
M /em/
N /en/
O /o/
P /pe/
Q /ku/?
R /er/
S /es/
T /te/
U /u/
X /eks/
Y ?
Z /zeta/

> k
> /kei/ (perhaps influenced by name of "j"?)
Well, in Spanish, it's /ka/.  Presumably the Romans said /ka/ derived
from "kappa" (since the letter was borrowed from Greek) to distinguish
from /ke/ (C)

> q
> /kju/
Again, /ke/ would be ambiguous with {c}, and {qu} was /kw/, so perhaps
/ku/ would be a sensible name.

> j
> /dZei/
Well, /dZi/ would've conflict with {g}.

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