Page:The Aryan Origin of the Alphabet.djvu/56

44 the Sigma of the Greeks, is now clearly disclosed in, this sign with the value of Sig or Sik, picturing the setting Sun as an inverted winged disc or lozenge, and defined as "sink, weak or sick," and thus discovering the Sumerian source of our English words "Sick" and "Sink," as well as presumably the Sumerian source of the Greek name for that letter as "Sigma." And dropping its final consonant it becomes Si or S for alphabetic purposes. In the early alphabets this sign for greater simplicity was written the former disregarding the left-hand angle of the solar disc, which was turned on its left side as in the later Sumerian style. And these linear S forms are found on the Early Egyptian pottery as owner's marks. The occasional W and M forms given to these letters in some Cadmean, "Semitic" Phœnician and Greek inscriptions are merely inverted forms of the same sign, and they explain why the double zigzag form dropped out of use through confusion with the M and W alphabetic signs, and thus leaving the second simpler form which in its looped or cursive shape forms our modern letter S, and the late Gothic or Old English.

The other early alphabetic forms of S, which are found in some Cadmean and Early Asia Minor and "Semitic" Phoœician inscriptions are (a) "the tree-twig" shape (see Plate II), and (b) the plume or feathered crown. And both of these are also found on Early Egyptian pottery as owner's marks (see Plate II).

The first of these forms, the so-called "tree-twig" shape is obviously derived from this Sumerian  with the phonetic value of Sil, picturing what is supposed to be a

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