Languages

Alphabet

Seemingly independent letters:

Slavic: ж ш щ

Georgian: ღ ყ ჭ ჴ ჯ

v – Originally the capital form of u, distinguished & used for when u is a consonant.

w – Double u, invented before v was distinguished, used for when u is a vowel.

ð – Striked through d, invented for the sound of th, but properly used for the sound of délta. The Rune þ is used for the common sound of th & thē̂ta.

ſ – Stylized s used in the middle of words in old English. It was combined with s—ſs into ß—to create the German sharp s.

ø – Striked through o, used in some languages where oe would otherwise be.

◌̈ – Originally e written above the vowel to mark a change in pronunciation. Replaced putting e after the letter, e.g. ue into ü.

◌̊ – Originally a or o written above the vowel to make when it is long. Replaced duplicating the letter, e.g. aa into å.

Codices are written in uncial (now called lowercase), with capitals (now called uppercase) used for chapter initial decoration. The terms upper- & lowercase are from printing presses.

According to Christians, Abraham, from Chaldæa, was the first to invent letters, which survives today as Arabian, & so also taught hieroglyphs to the Ægyptians. Cadmus, from Phœnecia, part where Abraham sojourned, then brought letters to the Greeks in the year 3769 AM. Palamedes & Simonides the Lyricist then added some letters. Carmentis taught these letters to the Italians in the year 3977 AM.

But according to the gentiles, Hermes was the first to invent letters, who then taught it to the Ægyptians, & so on. They also credit Phœbus with some letters.

Aristophanes of Byzantium invented accent & punctuation marks.

Isaac the Parthian & Mesrop Mastots—together with the Armenian king Vararanes-sapor, Bishop Daniel of Mesopotmia, & Rufinus of Samosata—taught a form of Greek letters to the Armenians. According to some, the Georgian king Pharnabazus then taught a form of these to the Georgians, but according to others, he taught a form of Greek or Syrian letters.

SS. Cyril & Methodius taught a form of Greek letters to the Slavs, further developed by SS. Gorazd, Clement, Naum, Angelar, & Sabbas of Ohrid, which survives as Slavic, also called Cyrillic.

The Indian, now called Devanagari, letters were formed from Syrian.

The Assyrian cuneifrom would seem to have been formed from the Ægyptian hieroglyphs. Chinese han-tzu, in turn, would seem to have been formed from Assyrian cuneiform. This is my opinion.

Pronunciation

• Most vowels here have been simplified to just e.
• In some places, a or e is pronounced as eí, & ch as tsh.
• As a final letter, e turns the preceding vowel long.

Numerals

Greek:

For continued counting, place a numeral over M (for myriás) to multiply 10,000 by it: e.g. δΜʹ=10,000*4.

Latin:

For fractional counting, append · for 1/12, : for 2/12, &c., s for 6/12, s· for 7/12, &c.

Slavic:

For continued counting, prefix ҂ to multiply the following number by 1,000, but also overlay ⃝ for 10,000, ҈ for 100,000, ҉ for 1,000,000, ꙰ for 10,000,000, ꙱ for 100,000,000, & ꙲ for 1,000,000,000.

References

• Isidore of Seville, St. Etymologies.
• The Suda.