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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: The letter q
Message-ID: <1995Jan15.191010.8894@midway.uchicago.edu>
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Organization: University of Chicago
References: <3fbhka$n9@mother.usf.edu> <3fbkf8$5k3@ixnews2.ix.netcom.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Jan 1995 19:10:10 GMT
Lines: 17

In article <3fbkf8$5k3@ixnews2.ix.netcom.com> mloMark@ix.netcom.com (Mark Odegard) writes:

>The 
>Greeks dropped the Q from their stock of letters (along with digamma, 
>the F, adding a new letter only much later to represent the sound, phi).

This is misleading.  The Greeks added phi to represent an aspirated
bilabial stop (like the inital p in English as opposed to the inital p
in French).  Only much later (I think around the beginning of the 
Christian Era?) did this letter come to represent the sound of English
f.


-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
