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

Quoting Tristan McLeay <conlang@...>:

> 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...
[snip]
> 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.
Unfortunately, I simply do not know what letter-shapes were first used when the
upper-lower case distinction was introduced. It would not surprise me if _both_
u-like and v-like graphs were used interchangeably.

> >  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.).
It appears so. The earliest known Latin inscription* says;

Manios med fhefhaked Numasioi
"Manios made me for Numasios"

where _fhefhaked_ apparently is an augmented preterite of _facere_, that did not
survive into Classical Latin.

I would not think this means you're wrong regarding *our* use of 'h' in digraphs
decending from Classical renditions of Greek aspirates. Probably, the inscriber
thought [f] was a sound between [w] and [h] (those being the values of F and H
in Western Greek).

* cf http://users.tpg.com.au/etr/etrusk/po/arclat.html

                                                         Andreas