Show yale vale linguist traces history of alphabet Alph abst new evidence on the history of the alphabet has been obtained through a study of three etruscan inscriptions preserved Pie served in this country according to dr eva ev fiesel of the yale linguistics department she declares that the evidence supports the theory that the latin alphabet came directly from the greeks for many years there have been wo two rival theories as to the immediate sources of the latin alphabet some have thought that it was borrowed from froin greek cobol colo nies in southern italy others that it came from romes near neighbors the etruscans Etrus cans inscriptions in this country two in the metropolitan oi museum of new york and one in the university museum in philadelphia according to dr fiesel have established a hitherto unrecognized value of a letter in the etruscan alphabet and thereby have afforded some new evidence in the history of the alphabet the early etruscans Etrus cans frequently inscribed the alphabet in the order of the letters upon vases or other objects and in these the letter x regularly occurs in its expected place near the end dr fiesel said but until now this letter has not been recognized in the spelling of any word to be sure a letter of similar form occurs in words often enough but it is generally a modified form of t and so all instances of x ba haw bave ve been read as t the three american inscriptions however clearly suggest for x some value as s or sh and the suggestion is confirmed by comparison with three inscriptions from which were published in 1930 by giglioli and nogara these six inscriptions all belong to the earliest etruscan period before B C the four whose place of discovery is definitely known come from southern etruria earu and the other two probably belong to the same region this is important because it is not written x in early south etruscan |