Page:The Aryan Origin of the Alphabet.djvu/52

40 in Sumerian was also latterly written by an upright crescent (, which we shall find was the source of the U letter-sign. Both the circle and its crescent form possess in Sumerian the phonetic values of both A or Ā and U. and also as now appears the value of O, which latter became the sole sound for the circle.

In the Runes the letter is called Ōdal or Ōthal, "Œthal," "noble" and is represented with two tails below, approaching the form of the later Greek Ō or "Omega" of lozenge or diamond shape (see Plate II, col. 18)—circles being written square or diamond shaped by the Sumerian as we have seen, for greater ease in cutting the signs on wood or stone, etc. And in the Runes, as above noted, the Ā which frequently changed dialectically into O tended to be replaced latterly by the letter O; hence, for example, the change in name of the great Gothic King Dar into Dor, and latterly by the aspiration of the D as Th in "Thor." In the Indian Asokan the intimate relation of the O and U is indicated by both signs being represented by the upright crescent or angular crescent of the cuneiform style, the former letter differing from the latter by the addition of another curve or bend (see col. 11); whilst the Hindi O is written by a dot-headed crescent extending above the line, as contrasted with the U crescent written below the line. The reason why the circle was not used in Asokan for the letter was possibly because the circle had already been appropriated at that late date for the new letter Th, the θ of the Greeks.

This labial sound is differentiated from its fellow labial B in Sumerian from the earliest period, although freely interchanging with the latter dialectically as in all Aryan languages. Thus, for example, in the early name of