Page:The Hittites - the Story of a Forgotten Empire.djvu/135

Rh alphabet they gave them names beginning in their own language with the sound represented by each letter. A was called aleph because the Phœnician word aleph 'an ox' began with that sound, k was kaph 'the hand' because kaph in Phœnician began with k. It was but an early application of the same principle which made our forefathers believe that the child would learn his alphabet more quickly if he was taught that 'A was an archer who shot at a frog.'

But the names must have been assigned to the letters not only because they commenced with corresponding sounds, but also because of their fancied resemblance to the objects denoted by the names. Now in some instances the resemblance is by no means clear. The earliest forms of the letters called kaph and yod, for example, both of which words signify a 'hand,' have little likeness to the human hand. If we turn to the Hittite hieroglyphs, however, we find among them two representations of the hand, encased in the long Hittite glove, which are almost identical with the Phœnician letters in shape. It is difficult, therefore, to resist the conviction that the letters kaph and yod received their names from Syrians who were familiar with the appearance of the Hittite characters. It is the same in the case of aleph. Here too the old Phœnician letter does not in any way resemble an ox, but it bears a very close likeness to the head of a bull, which occupies a prominent place in the Hittite texts. Aleph became the Greek alpha when the Phœnician alphabet was handed on to the Greeks, and in the word alphabet has become part of our own heritage. Like yod, which has passed through the Greek iota into the English jot, it is thus possible that there are still words in daily use among ourselves which