y, claudius when tiberius claudius drusu was just a wee one, his mother informed him that he had just as much chance of becoming emperor of rome as he would of changing the roman alphabet. and so, when he was crowned cæsar in 10 b.c., one of his first acts was to introduce some trippy new letters into the roman alphabet » a reversed C (antisigma) to replace /BS/ and /PS/, much like X stood in for /CS/ and /GS/. a turned F (digamma inversum) to represent consonantal U (W/V), possibly inspired by the Greek digamma. a half H to represent the so called sonus medius, a short vowel sound between U and I before labial consonants in Latin words. after claudius was assasinated by poison (a toxin, not the metal band) the use of the state-mandated letters was abandoned entirely. many years later a Y (the letter, not the community gym) was used to represent the sound described by claudius’s half h.

y, claudius

when tiberius claudius drusu was just a wee one, his mother informed him that he had just as much chance of becoming emperor of rome as he would of changing the roman alphabet. and so, when he was crowned cæsar in 10 b.c., one of his first acts was to introduce some trippy new letters into the roman alphabet »

  • a reversed C (antisigma) to replace /BS/ and /PS/, much like X stood in for /CS/ and /GS/.
  • a turned F (digamma inversum) to represent consonantal U (W/V), possibly inspired by the Greek digamma.
  • a half H to represent the so called sonus medius, a short vowel sound between U and I before labial consonants in Latin words.

after claudius was assasinated by poison (a toxin, not the metal band) the use of the state-mandated letters was abandoned entirely. many years later a Y (the letter, not the community gym) was used to represent the sound described by claudius’s half h.

April 3, 2009
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history linguistics things to look at typography ancient
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