Page:The Aryan Origin of the Alphabet.djvu/44

32 From the crescentic form of G was coined by the Romans the extra alphabetic letter C with its hard sound, identical with that of K, which latter letter in consequence dropped out of use in Latin for a time. This new letter C was also given the soft value of S, and in Italian has the sound of Ch. When the rectangular G was represented with its stem upright as Γ in some Cadmean and Greek alphabets and in Old Persian (see Table I), it then became identical with the early Cadmean letter for L which apparently led to the Γ being turned on its left side, as L, in order to avoid confusion with Γ for G (see L).

In the Runes of the Golden Horn, the corresponding hard guttural X is used for G, while the later Runes used the K sign for Q, which see; but the Runic sign 〈 hitherto read as K is clearly G.

This letter sign in its characteristically barred &#x229F; 目 early form, and sometimes containing two bars, occurs in Pre-dynastic Egypt and downwards through the Cadmean and "Semitic" Phœnician and Greek alphabets, side by side in most cases with its modern form H, which is also found in Pre-dynastic and Early-Dynastic Egypt and in the Old Persian cuneiform and in Hindi, its offspring (see Plate I).

The Sumerian parent of this letter, now discloses and explains for the first time the remarkable and well-known fact that the aspirates and gutturals are so blended in all the languages that they can only be treated as one class: h, kh, k, q, g and x, as each passes readily from one into the other in certain circumstances. The reason for this interchange largely is now seen to be because the same Sumerian pictogram originated more than one of these letters.

The parent of the letter H is now seen to be the Sumerian