Re: Y not? (was: Of Haa/hhet & other matters)

On 24 Jan 2005, at 9.07 pm, Andreas Johansson wrote:

> Quoting "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>:
>
>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2005 at 03:37:29PM +0100, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>>> How am I being inconsistent? By the original use of |y|, I mean the
>>> use |y| had when it was introduced in the Latin alphabet. By the
>>> original use of |v|, I mean the use |v| had when it was introduced as
>>> a separate letter in the Latin alphabet (16th C, IIRC).
>>
>> But |v|, with value [w], was the original letter of the Latin
>> alphabet.
>> The letter |U| was was the later variant.
>
>  Unless I'm misinformed, it was |u| that kept the name of the original
> letter,
>  suggesting that |v| was felt to be the new one. I gather that both
> V-like and
>  U-like allographs are found in ancient texts, with the former more
> common in
>  inscriptions, the later in papyri.
IIUC, <u> was the original lowercase form, but <V> was its uppercase...
sort of like the way <R> and <r> have different forms in upper- and
lowercase, but we consider them the same latter ... till the IPA
usurped <R> (but made lowercase) to mean [R\] (except that the
lowercase form of <u> as <v> already existed by the time the letters
split, so it was a bit less radical). So if we backform a capital <r>
and thus promote them to full letterhood, then it seems reasonable to
say the 'original value' of <R\> (i.e. s.c. R) was [R\], but the
original value of <R> (i.e. the capital glyph you can see there, and
its predecessors) was [r].

So in talking of caps, I'd say <V> was the oldest (out of any form,
obviously), but with lowercase letters I'd say <u> is the older (out of
it and <v>), unless someone explains why I'm wrong.

>  (Incidentally, the Germans refer to |v| as /fau/. Does this have
> anything to do
>  with Semitic waw?)
>
>  Incidentally, I seem to recall that the oldest Latin used |FH| or
> /f/. Did they
>  use F/digamma on it's own for anything? Using it for /w/ would have
> seemed the
>  obvious solution, but if that were done there would have been no
> reason to have
>  |V| do double duty for /u/ (and /u:/) and /w/.
Using <h> to mark digraphs goes back that far? I thought it was just a
generalisation of <ch> and <th> and <ph> to represent what to the
Latins was I think /kh/, /th/ and /ph/ (though to the Ancient Greeks
/k_h/ etc.).

--
Tristan.

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