Page:The Aryan Origin of the Alphabet.djvu/61

Rh the Pre-dynastic and first Dynasty periods, in the former having one of its limbs sometimes curved. And it is the regular form for U in the Cadmean and Greek (see Plate II).

In the Runes the letter U, called Ūr, which also represents the late letter V when it is called Vend, is of semi-angular crescentic form with one of its limbs curved as in the Early Egyptian form, but it is inverted (see Plate II, col. 18).

This inverted position of writing the U was the original Sumerian position for this sign as picturing the setting Sun. And significantly it is written in this inverted form in the cursive archaic Sumerian writing in the Indus Valley seals—which I have called "Indo-Sumerian"—on Seal IV, where it occurs as a "ligature" or attached to the preceeding sign, a common method of writing the U and R in the alphabetic system, and this is the earliest instance of the ligature yet observed. This inverted form in squared shape is also found on Egyptian signaries from the pre-dynastic period onwards, and occasionally in Cadmean, as at Karia, etc., and it is found in cursive form in the Brito-Phœnician of Partolan. This original common Sumerian sign-source for the letters O and U and one of the forms of Ā, now seems to explain why the common diphthong, forming the last letter in the Runic alphabet of the Goths, comes to have the varying phonetic values of Æ and Œ or Ö and is exchangeable dialectically with Ā, Ō and U.

On the equivalency of U in Greek with Y see Y.

. This consonantal letter is a late letter with the labial value, and derives its form from the V shape of the old U, see F, P and U. D